Very Computer

I'm a relative newbie to Linux having played with Slackware a few years
ago. Today I installed Mandrake 8.2 on an old dual Celeron machine and
thought I'd pass along my experiences and maybe  help dispel a lot of the
FUD put forth by the Microsoft brigade.
Installation was flawless and a LOT quicker than my experiences of
installing XP on the same machine. All my hardware was successfully
detected (heck it even had a monitor profile for my aging Sampo thing!) and
configured perfectly. To say setting up my cable modem AND sharing it with
my kids machines was a gift would be overstating it! Samba? Did I mention
Samba? Installed and configured in, oh I dunno, 2 minutes maximum.

Performance wise, simply, it rocks. No doubt about it - it flies! XP's
performance on the same machine was appalling, indeed it makes XP on my
1.6Ghz Athlon machine look like its running through treacle.

Am I a convert. Yup.
Am I pleased. Nope... delighted :) An OS and more applications than I can
shake a stick at for free!! Move over Microsoft - Linux is on MY desktop!

Welcome to COLA, pointyhead, and glad to hear about your experience!

There are many more here with similar experiences, here's hoping you stick
around and chat once in awhile.

--
Ken
Linux, the more you learn, the more you love

Quote:> I'm a relative newbie to Linux having played with Slackware a few
> years ago.

I dunno if that really makes you "new", unless you only played with it
for a bit then left it alone.

Quote:> Today I installed Mandrake 8.2 on an old dual Celeron machine

"...an old dual Celeron machine"?  I hate you. :-)

Quote:> and thought I'd pass along my experiences and maybe  help dispel a lot
> of the FUD put forth by the Microsoft brigade.

Both are quite welcome around these parts.

Quote:> Installation was flawless and a LOT quicker than my experiences of
> installing XP on the same machine. All my hardware was successfully
> detected (heck it even had a monitor profile for my aging Sampo
> thing!) and configured perfectly.

A familiar story for many of us.  I had the same eXPerience with
Mandrake on my system... :-)

Quote:> To say setting up my cable modem AND sharing it with my kids machines
> was a gift would be overstating it!

Overstating perhaps because it's all par for the course with Linux,
there's nothing special about that... :-)

Actually someone I know just last night declared that XP's internet
connection sharing is... err... unsatisfactory.  They'd spent ages
playing with it but couldn't get it to quite do everything properly,
so he finally decided to just set up a Mandrake box to do it.

This guy has no predisposition to either OS; he tried first with XP
because it was already there, but the GUI designers failed him, I
guess.

Quote:> Samba? Did I mention Samba? Installed and configured in, oh I dunno, 2
> minutes maximum.

And it's better at Windows' networking than Windows is, too!

Quote:> Performance wise, simply, it rocks. No doubt about it - it flies! XP's
> performance on the same machine was appalling, indeed it makes XP on
> my 1.6Ghz Athlon machine look like its running through treacle.
> Am I a convert. Yup.
> Am I pleased. Nope... delighted :) An OS and more applications than I
> can shake a stick at for free!! Move over Microsoft - Linux is on MY
> desktop!

Hey, mine too!  Welcome to the clique! (this is a private joke, if you
hang around here for a while you'll probably get it... ;-)

Good to hear linux is working out for you as well as it is for me; hope
it continues to do so.  Thanks for the post :-)
--
Mike.                                       (remove "-spam" to mail me)
GNU/Linux -- the OS that advocates itself.

glad to hear you've joined the ranks
of Linux fans! as you've already
discovered, Linux offers you immense
advantages over other OS's - namely
those various "-ilities", such as
dependability, maintainability,
stability, scaleability, and so on ...

--
+==================================
| M i c h a e l  J.  T o b l e r
| Authorship: "Inside Linux" ...
| "C++ Unleashed" ... "C++ How-To"
| Motocycling, Surfing, Skydiving
+==================================

Error Log for Mon, 29 Apr 2002 22:43:42 +0000: segfault in module
"pointyhead" - dump details are as follows...

Quote:> I'm a relative newbie to Linux having played with Slackware a few years
> ago. Today I installed Mandrake 8.2 on an old dual Celeron machine and
> thought I'd pass along my experiences and maybe  help dispel a lot of
> the FUD put forth by the Microsoft brigade. Installation was flawless
> and a LOT quicker than my experiences of installing XP on the same
> machine. All my hardware was successfully detected (heck it even had a
> monitor profile for my aging Sampo thing!) and configured perfectly. To
> say setting up my cable modem AND sharing it with my kids machines was a
> gift would be overstating it! Samba? Did I mention Samba? Installed and
> configured in, oh I dunno, 2 minutes maximum.

> Performance wise, simply, it rocks. No doubt about it - it flies! XP's
> performance on the same machine was appalling, indeed it makes XP on my
> 1.6Ghz Athlon machine look like its running through treacle.

> Am I a convert. Yup.
> Am I pleased. Nope... delighted :) An OS and more applications than I
> can shake a stick at for free!! Move over Microsoft - Linux is on MY
> desktop!

Beauty!  Welcome to COLA...may you find the stay as pleasant as you are
finding your Linux experience.

(Beware the trolls ;-)

--
rapskat  -  9:10pm  up 5 days,  6:54,  5 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.02, 0.04
drop the hot to mail me

The only dumb question is the one that wasn't asked. -- Anonymous

Hmmm. Did Mandrake recognise both your processors? That might be the big
difference in performance, as XP Home can't do SMP (Symmetric
Multi Processing).

Otherwise, thanks for a break in all the FUD, and have fun with Linux!

Mart

--
There'll be no prisoners taken when the day is done
No flag or uniform ever stopped a bullet from a gun
        -- Gary Moore - Out in the Fields

Gee thanks, but pleasant - with all the trolls and FUD around :)

Quote:

> (Beware the trolls ;-)

Hmmmm, I wonder who they could be? ;-)

ATB
Pointyhead

I think my kids are bigger fans than I am having finally got internet
sharing working, something I never got running properly under XP. I find it
just a *tad* ironic that "hard to set up Linux" did it in, literally,
seconds...

Quote:>as you've already
> discovered, Linux offers you immense
> advantages over other OS's - namely
> those various "-ilities", such as
> dependability, maintainability,
> stability, scaleability, and so on ...

The big one and the one the MS advocates tout so much - usability!

I played with it and then left it alone and its amazing the strides Linux
has made during my "wilderness years"...... :-)

Quote:>> Today I installed Mandrake 8.2 on an old dual Celeron machine

> "...an old dual Celeron machine"?  I hate you. :-)

Ach its quite old now, I bought the mobo and the cpu's as a "one day
special" a few years back and its been lying here doing nothing primarily
because I find the fan noise annoying but I got an old midi case given to
me that seems to be made of half inch armour plate and it deadens it a bit
:)

Quote:>> and thought I'd pass along my experiences and maybe  help dispel a lot
>> of the FUD put forth by the Microsoft brigade.

> Both are quite welcome around these parts.

>> Installation was flawless and a LOT quicker than my experiences of
>> installing XP on the same machine. All my hardware was successfully
>> detected (heck it even had a monitor profile for my aging Sampo
>> thing!) and configured perfectly.

> A familiar story for many of us.  I had the same eXPerience with
> Mandrake on my system... :-)

>> To say setting up my cable modem AND sharing it with my kids machines
>> was a gift would be overstating it!

> Overstating perhaps because it's all par for the course with Linux,
> there's nothing special about that... :-)

Oh there is! I NEVER got it working properly under XP! Can you imagine my
relief (joy even!) when I actually got it going?! :-)

Quote:> Actually someone I know just last night declared that XP's internet
> connection sharing is... err... unsatisfactory.  They'd spent ages
> playing with it but couldn't get it to quite do everything properly,
> so he finally decided to just set up a Mandrake box to do it.

Yep, I have a friend in the same predicament - he's recently had adsl
installed and cannot get the connection shared properly under XP, he's just
left with a copy of Mandrake. :-)

Quote:> This guy has no predisposition to either OS; he tried first with XP
> because it was already there, but the GUI designers failed him, I
> guess.

>> Samba? Did I mention Samba? Installed and configured in, oh I dunno, 2
>> minutes maximum.

> And it's better at Windows' networking than Windows is, too!

I noticed that, but I wasn't sure if my enthusiasm was clouding my
judgement!

Quote:>> Performance wise, simply, it rocks. No doubt about it - it flies! XP's
>> performance on the same machine was appalling, indeed it makes XP on
>> my 1.6Ghz Athlon machine look like its running through treacle.

>> Am I a convert. Yup.
>> Am I pleased. Nope... delighted :) An OS and more applications than I
>> can shake a stick at for free!! Move over Microsoft - Linux is on MY
>> desktop!

> Hey, mine too!  Welcome to the clique! (this is a private joke, if you
> hang around here for a while you'll probably get it... ;-)

> Good to hear linux is working out for you as well as it is for me; hope
> it continues to do so.  Thanks for the post :-)

I'll be blunt about this Mike and I know this will strike a cord with many
in the group, if it wasn't for the easy availability of warez a lot more
people would be using Linux as they would have no alternative! How many
ordinary hard working people with a family or a mortgage etc can really
afford or justify the expense of Photoshop? 3D Studio Max? Sound Forge?
Avid DV?

Nice to hear from you Mike, lets all try to make it clear to those sitting
on the fence that Linux really DOES install easily and out performs its
commercial rivals hands down.

<posted & mailed>

Oh I'll be around Kenneth and I'm looking forward to chatting :)
Do you know whats really nice about Linux? It hasn't tried to "phone home"
once, that makes me happy, very happy :-))

ATB
Pointyhead

Yes.

Quote:>That might be the big difference in performance, as XP Home can't do SMP
>(Symmetric Multi Processing).

I use the Pro edition which supports SMP although I must say XP's
performance is much slower than 2k Pro which I used previously.

Quote:> Otherwise, thanks for a break in all the FUD, and have fun with Linux!

Hey, thank you for the reply and I assure you I'm having lots of fun! :)

ATB
Pointyhead

<snip>
Hmmm. Yeah that's my experience as well. A friend of mine has XP Pro on a
comparably specced machine (only diff is he has an nVidia card and I a
Matrox), and it is *slow*.

I just thought it might be SMP causing the difference *shrug*. XP is *
any way you look at it anyway. We're getting a special tax deal at work for
new PCs, and colleagues come to me for advice. I point them towards Win2k
if they don't need the backwards compatibility with the DOS-based stuff.

OH, BTW, is it me or does everyone run XP Pro? It seems Home is not very
popular.

Mart (Linux only, Thank you very much)

--
There'll be no prisoners taken when the day is done
No flag or uniform ever stopped a bullet from a gun
        -- Gary Moore - Out in the Fields

(snip)

Quote:> XP home only supports one CPU, you need XP Pro.

I run XP pro.

Quote:> I find it hard to believe XP runs poorly on a 1.6Ghz Athlon, I'm
> running it on a 1Ghz PIII and it's the fastest thing I have ever had.
> Faster then Win98 and (appears faster then) 2000 on the same machine.
> Everything pops up instantly, software decodes DVDs at 25% CPU, never
> crashes.

You've misunderstood me, I have linux installed on a dual Celeron machine
(2 x 466 Mhz but overclocked to 525Mhz). On that machine XP's performance
was woeful but Linux screams on it. Moreover Linux on this dual machine
makes XP on my 1.6 Athlon machine look like its going backwards. FYI I have
XP installed on my daughters 233 PII machine and its performance is a
joke.....sorry buts thats the only way to describe it. Now, XP on my Athlon
machine is an original install ie I installed it the day it became
available and it is now what I'd term "a well lived in install" it gets
slower by the day (despite regular defragging of the hard drives in a vain
attempt to improve performance), the new style start menu takes an age to
appear and does so in fits and starts, Internet Explorer crashes regularly
and wants to "phone home" and is way slower than Konqueror or Galeon at
rendering webpages, it takes the best part of 5 minutes to shutdown and
sometimes doesn't even do that! Bah! I could go on but you get my
point........?

Quote:>>Am I a convert. Yup.
>>Am I pleased. Nope... delighted :) An OS and more applications than I can
>>shake a stick at for free!! Move over Microsoft - Linux is on MY desktop!

> As long as you are happy it's cool, but some of your observations seem
> very strange.

Not strange at all when understood. :)

ATB
Pointyhead

(munch!)

Quote:

> Yes

> You are totally incompetent.

Well there's me trying to be nice and explain something in simple terms so
that even an inbred like you would understand. If you're doing nothing this
afternoon count your fingers and toes, if you have the required amount
check for webbing.

Quote:> I cannot even imagine what you did to XP to make it run that slow on a
> 1.6Ghz machine.

I don't expect imagination from a dullard. The point is this is a common
problem on all MS OS'es. The machine you install it on is a different beast
from the slow dog of a thing it will be in a few weeks time.

Quote:> If half of what you are saying is true, it is most likely due to the
> *AMD/VIA combination and the fact you cannot get it sorted.

So let me see...... Windows misbehaves, its the hardwares fault? Jeez...

In a maze of twisty little passages all alike,  pointyhead wrote on Mon,
29 Apr 2002 17:43:42 -0500:

Quote:

> Performance wise, simply, it rocks. No doubt about it - it flies! XP's
> performance on the same machine was appalling, indeed it makes XP on my
> 1.6Ghz Athlon machine look like its running through treacle.

> Am I a convert. Yup.
> Am I pleased. Nope... delighted :) An OS and more applications than I
> can shake a stick at for free!! Move over Microsoft - Linux is on MY
> desktop!

Welcome to the club, pointyhead.  I hope your experience will be as
rewarding as mine has been.  I can say I'm extremely pleased with my Linux
Systems...even if they are Red Hat 7.x!