by Comments and questions from a 3-day-old first-time i386 Linux user ...
1) InfoMagic's 6-CD $30 package has got to be the easiest base install
I've ever seen short of PCDOS6.3 (if you can even call that an install).
RedHat, Slackware, Debian, SunGNU(2), MetroX ... I'm in looooove.
2) Is there a better looking CL-542x driver? My 5420 is a vesa (24-bit dac)
and even the most basic DOS app -- that supports 24-bit -- will push
16.2M colors, and 640x480 looks fairly fine-grained. With Linux, I'd
absolutely swear the basic MetroX pane is a badly dithered and inter-
polated 320x200. I chose my card in the MetroX install, but is that
install limited by/aware of the existing device support? I noticed it
didn't have card-specific access methods for pallette; does that mean
the MetroX supplied drivers (or linux video drivers in general) don't
shadow the vid mem segment? Should I just stop *ing and re-build
the kernel?
3) What are the /dev/ files for sound that come in the basic RedHat install?
I'm fairly sure the basic kernel doesn't include support for a specific
soundcard, but the audiox, midix, and so on are there ... and don't work.
Is there a way to verify what they were created for? The docs say I can
cat /dev/sndstat, but that results in cat: sndstat: no such device or ...
and /dev/sndstat is quite definitely there, and non-zero in size.
4) Ah, support for the parallel ZIP already! An OS that runs cleanly in
less than 32M! For *weeks* at a time! So _this_ is what a 486DX4/100
and 16M can _really_ do. Intel Pentium, "Designed for Microsoft Windows
95" -- monkeys fly out of my butt, too.
5) Is the dosemu good enough yet to run a dos extender? Hmm... a flat(ish)
memory model on DOS on a flat memory model. Threads on single-task on
threads. I've been told there's a windows emulator that does a fair
job with 16bit apps. Truth or Bullshit?
6) Kudos to the help maintainers, particularly the HOWTO series in the (CD)
RedHat and Slackware /doc and /docs. This is easily the quality of a
commercial product, if not more so. Especially sweet since documentation
is where so many products fall short.
--
"... Oh, what a Tangled Web ..."
Owen LaGarde