I decided to try it out in one box that's kind of "extra" as a dual boot
with WinXP Pro - on a separate hard drive of course . Ran into a formatting
(?) problem early on in the install though , and decided to come back to it
later .
The times they are a changing . And that was fershure Dylan .
--
Snag



---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

On 04/07/2017 07:24 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
I decided to try it out in one box that's kind of "extra" as a dual boot
with WinXP Pro - on a separate hard drive of course . Ran into a formatting
(?) problem early on in the install though , and decided to come back to it
later .

What file system were you using? OpenSuSE defaulted to btrfs and I had
nothing but trouble trying to get it to boot. I went back to ext3. My
former preference was reiserfs but i doubt Reiser is going to be doing
much further development from Salinas Valley State Prison.

rbowman wrote:
On 04/07/2017 07:24 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
I decided to try it out in one box that's kind of "extra" as a dual
boot with WinXP Pro - on a separate hard drive of course . Ran into
a formatting (?) problem early on in the install though , and
decided to come back to it later .

What file system were you using? OpenSuSE defaulted to btrfs and I had
nothing but trouble trying to get it to boot. I went back to ext3. My
former preference was reiserfs but i doubt Reiser is going to be doing
much further development from Salinas Valley State Prison.


I misspoke , it was a partitioning issue . I've been looking at the
instructions and it's not clear to me just what the problem is . I'll study
it some more later , no great big hurry .
--
Snag



---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

On 4/7/2017 7:43 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
rbowman wrote:
On 04/07/2017 07:24 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
I decided to try it out in one box that's kind of "extra" as a dual
boot with WinXP Pro - on a separate hard drive of course . Ran into
a formatting (?) problem early on in the install though , and
decided to come back to it later .

What file system were you using? OpenSuSE defaulted to btrfs and I had
nothing but trouble trying to get it to boot. I went back to ext3. My
former preference was reiserfs but i doubt Reiser is going to be doing
much further development from Salinas Valley State Prison.


I misspoke , it was a partitioning issue . I've been looking at the
instructions and it's not clear to me just what the problem is . I'll study
it some more later , no great big hurry .

If you have a separate hard drive, disconnect the XP drive and let desktop
linux have its way with the installation.
Every time I've tried to dual boot one drive, or two installed
simultaneously,
Grub Update borked my system eventually.
Keep 'em separate and they'll both just keep working.

On 04/07/2017 08:43 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
I misspoke , it was a partitioning issue . I've been looking at the
instructions and it's not clear to me just what the problem is . I'll study
it some more later , no great big hurry .

New disk, right? I've had trouble with disks that have been in use.
Defrag, defrag, and defrag again to get all the crap stuffed into one
area so you can create a partition.

On 04/07/2017 06:24 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
I decided to try it out in one box that's kind of "extra" as a dual boot
with WinXP Pro - on a separate hard drive of course . Ran into a formatting
(?) problem early on in the install though , and decided to come back to it
later .
The times they are a changing . And that was fershure Dylan .


These things always have Live CD's you can Fly before you Buy.

On 4/7/2017 9:58 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 04/07/2017 08:43 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
I misspoke , it was a partitioning issue . I've been looking at the
instructions and it's not clear to me just what the problem is . I'll
study
it some more later , no great big hurry .

New disk, right? I've had trouble with disks that have been in use.
Defrag, defrag, and defrag again to get all the crap stuffed into one
area so you can create a partition.

defrag doesn't necessarily push all the stuff to one end.
There are programs to do that so you can change partition sizes.
Windows will let you shrink/expand a partition and takes care of
all that.
I think you can do the same thing with linux gparted. If not,
surely there are programs that can.

"Terry Coombs" news Sat, 08 Apr 2017 01:24:05 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

I decided to try it out in one box that's kind of "extra" as a
dual boot with WinXP Pro - on a separate hard drive of course .
Ran into a formatting (?) problem early on in the install though ,
and decided to come back to it later .
The times they are a changing . And that was fershure Dylan .

Just so you know, I'm using Linux Mint 17.3. 18x series hasn't matured
enough yet, imho. So, I'm waiting that one out. Your box specs are
decent, so I'd go with the KDE version with codecs. 18x series doesn't
include them. I *hope* they reconsider that in a later release. You can
install them once it's up and running though, if you decide to roll
with 18...




--
I would like to apologize for not having offended you yet.
Please be patient. I will get to you shortly.

mike wrote:
On 4/7/2017 7:43 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
rbowman wrote:
On 04/07/2017 07:24 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
I decided to try it out in one box that's kind of "extra" as a dual
boot with WinXP Pro - on a separate hard drive of course . Ran into
a formatting (?) problem early on in the install though , and
decided to come back to it later .

What file system were you using? OpenSuSE defaulted to btrfs and I
had nothing but trouble trying to get it to boot. I went back to
ext3. My former preference was reiserfs but i doubt Reiser is going
to be doing much further development from Salinas Valley State
Prison.
I misspoke , it was a partitioning issue . I've been looking at
the instructions and it's not clear to me just what the problem is .
I'll study it some more later , no great big hurry .

If you have a separate hard drive, disconnect the XP drive and let
desktop linux have its way with the installation.
Every time I've tried to dual boot one drive, or two installed
simultaneously,
Grub Update borked my system eventually.
Keep 'em separate and they'll both just keep working.


I considered that ... instead I think I'll do this with the comp that's
currently hooked to the TV , it has only one drive and a pretty new XP
install so I don't have a lot of stuff on it . This comp is an old HP and
was a gift ("Just get it out of my attic.") and I really won't be upset if
I bork it up .
--
Snag



---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

T wrote:
On 04/07/2017 06:24 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
I decided to try it out in one box that's kind of "extra" as a dual
boot with WinXP Pro - on a separate hard drive of course . Ran into
a formatting (?) problem early on in the install though , and
decided to come back to it later .
The times they are a changing . And that was fershure Dylan .


These things always have Live CD's you can Fly before you Buy.


It was a short flight ... but it looks a lot like Ubuntu which I have
played with before . I can tell a lot more by doing a full install , and I
have a spare comp to play with .
--
Snag



---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

Tekkie® wrote:
On 7-Apr-2017, "Terry Coombs" wrote:

Snag



---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

Could you stop the ad?

The problem is that avg appends that at MY end when I receive the
email/post , and what you're seeing is what someone that quoted me didn't
snip . I'd love to turn it off , haven't figured out how yet ... it's not
annoying enough to go back to (shudder) Avast . I'm not going to worry about
it right now , this comp is due for a serious (for me) OS update to
(probably) 7 Pro/64 bit as soon as my RAM arrives ...
--
Snag

"Terry Coombs" news Sat, 08 Apr 2017 12:13:34 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

T wrote:
On 04/07/2017 06:24 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
I decided to try it out in one box that's kind of "extra" as a
dual boot with WinXP Pro - on a separate hard drive of course .
Ran into a formatting (?) problem early on in the install though
, and decided to come back to it later .
The times they are a changing . And that was fershure Dylan .


These things always have Live CD's you can Fly before you Buy.


It was a short flight ... but it looks a lot like Ubuntu which I
have
played with before . I can tell a lot more by doing a full install
, and I have a spare comp to play with .

It's a fork (in laymens terms) of Ubuntu, so yes.. it has some
visuals in common along with other things. [g]


-- I would like to apologize for not having offended you yet. Please
be patient. I will get to you shortly.

Diesel wrote:
"Terry Coombs" news Sat, 08 Apr 2017 12:13:34 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

T wrote:
On 04/07/2017 06:24 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
I decided to try it out in one box that's kind of "extra" as a
dual boot with WinXP Pro - on a separate hard drive of course .
Ran into a formatting (?) problem early on in the install though
, and decided to come back to it later .
The times they are a changing . And that was fershure Dylan .


These things always have Live CD's you can Fly before you Buy.


It was a short flight ... but it looks a lot like Ubuntu which I
have
played with before . I can tell a lot more by doing a full install
, and I have a spare comp to play with .

It's a fork (in laymens terms) of Ubuntu, so yes.. it has some
visuals in common along with other things. [g]


-- I would like to apologize for not having offended you yet. Please
be patient. I will get to you shortly.


Oh , please please offend me ...

Did you hear the one about the sadist and the masochist ?
Masochist says , please please please hurt me !
Sadist says "no" .

This and the thread above about OS upgrades has been most enlightening .
Bottom line is that the HP a1600n has had Vista Ultimate 64 bit and 6 Gb of
RAM installed and will (probably) be given to my 16 yo grandson . My desktop
(Asus M2A-VM/Phenom X4 1.8 Ghz/8Gb RAM)will get 7Pro/64 as will the "server"
(Asrock N68C-GS4FX/Phenom X4 2.3Ghz/8Gb RAM) that lives out in my machine
shop . I'll probably get another (7Pro/64) license for the one destined as
a media server hooked to the TV . That will leave the only box running XP
the laptop hooked to my stereo . Makes networking all these comps much
easier ...
--
Snag



---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

On 04/07/2017 08:24 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
I decided to try it out in one box that's kind of "extra" as a dual boot
with WinXP Pro - on a separate hard drive of course . Ran into a formatting
(?) problem early on in the install though , and decided to come back to it
later .
The times they are a changing . And that was fershure Dylan .




To avoid the possibility of screwing up your Windows system, disconnect
the hard drive completely and on a spare hard drive install Linux

Now you can experiment all you want...

I've been using Linux since the year 2000 and it's now my main OS

"Terry Coombs" news Sat, 08 Apr 2017 21:26:51 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

Oh , please please offend me ...

Did you hear the one about the sadist and the masochist ?
Masochist says , please please please hurt me !
Sadist says "no" .

This and the thread above about OS upgrades has been most
enlightening .

I hope it was beneficial to you. Some of the regulars to this
newsgroup do not seem to have a very firm grasp on the systems they
use everyday, self taught or otherwise. For example, one poster
claimed that NT had 8bit and 16bit code inside of it. It actually has
neither. It's a pure 32bit OS (32bit/64 bit in later editions). 16bit
code is emulated for backwards compatability purposes. later editions
of NT no longer provide native emulation for 16bit code of any sort.
You have to use 3rd party options to continue using it with them.

Bottom line is that the HP a1600n has had Vista Ultimate 64 bit
and 6 Gb of RAM installed and will (probably) be given to my 16 yo
grandson . My desktop (Asus M2A-VM/Phenom X4 1.8 Ghz/8Gb RAM)will
get 7Pro/64 as will the "server" (Asrock N68C-GS4FX/Phenom X4
2.3Ghz/8Gb RAM) that lives out in my machine shop . I'll probably
get another (7Pro/64) license for the one destined as a media
server hooked to the TV . That will leave the only box running XP
the laptop hooked to my stereo . Makes networking all these comps
much easier ...

Samba isn't hard to network. And, what you quoted is a signature. :P
I've got a lot of them, I just haven't swapped it out yet.

In my professional opinion as a certified technician, You're wasting
your money. But, it's your money and your decision.

--
I would like to apologize for not having offended you yet.
Please be patient. I will get to you shortly.

philo news Apr 2017 23:32:43 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

On 04/07/2017 08:24 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
I decided to try it out in one box that's kind of "extra" as a
dual boot with WinXP Pro - on a separate hard drive of course .
Ran into a formatting (?) problem early on in the install though
, and decided to come back to it later .
The times they are a changing . And that was fershure Dylan .




To avoid the possibility of screwing up your Windows system,
disconnect the hard drive completely and on a spare hard drive
install Linux

Now you can experiment all you want...

I've been using Linux since the year 2000 and it's now my main OS

I like it quite a bit myself. Really like it. The desktop is so much
different than the old shell accounts I've had since I was a young
teenager. [g] I can take a more hands on approach now, instead of
ssh/telnet sessions that just aren't the same. Speaking of 2000, I
actually retired from Vx that year. It was time.





--
I would like to apologize for not having offended you yet.
Please be patient. I will get to you shortly.

On Sat, 08 Apr 2017 01:43:35 -0700, mike wrote:

On 4/7/2017 9:58 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 04/07/2017 08:43 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
I misspoke , it was a partitioning issue . I've been looking at the
instructions and it's not clear to me just what the problem is . I'll
study
it some more later , no great big hurry .

New disk, right? I've had trouble with disks that have been in use.
Defrag, defrag, and defrag again to get all the crap stuffed into one
area so you can create a partition.

defrag doesn't necessarily push all the stuff to one end.
There are programs to do that so you can change partition sizes.
Windows will let you shrink/expand a partition and takes care of
all that.
I think you can do the same thing with linux gparted. If not,
surely there are programs that can.
To resize partitions with Windows you need to be running a minimum of
Win7, IIRC.. There ARE third party utilities that will do it on XP -
like spinrite?

On 04/08/2017 06:56 PM, Diesel wrote:
philo news Apr 2017 23:32:43 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

On 04/07/2017 08:24 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
I decided to try it out in one box that's kind of "extra" as a
dual boot with WinXP Pro - on a separate hard drive of course .
Ran into a formatting (?) problem early on in the install though
, and decided to come back to it later .
The times they are a changing . And that was fershure Dylan .




To avoid the possibility of screwing up your Windows system,
disconnect the hard drive completely and on a spare hard drive
install Linux

Now you can experiment all you want...

I've been using Linux since the year 2000 and it's now my main OS

I like it quite a bit myself. Really like it. The desktop is so much
different than the old shell accounts I've had since I was a young
teenager. [g] I can take a more hands on approach now, instead of
ssh/telnet sessions that just aren't the same. Speaking of 2000, I
actually retired from Vx that year. It was time.








I had computer experience back in the old punch card days but by 1982 I
got damn sick of computers and swore I'd never touch one again.

Other than using an old DOS inventory program at work, I pretty much had
no contact until my (now) wife gave me her old P-1 in 1999.

It did not take me too long to get back into things and within six
months was quite used to win9x...so I needed a bigger challenge.

Have to admit I was clueless regarding Linux at first. From the time I
got my Red Hat 5.2 CD until the time I got it installed and everything
properly configured...was about six months...but I learned a lot!


Now Linux is very easy to install and use but to a newbie there are
still a few things that might be a little confusing...but for the most
part there is nothing to it.

news Sun, 09 Apr 2017 00:01:19 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

To resize partitions with Windows you need to be running a
minimum of Win7, IIRC.. There ARE third party utilities that will
do it on XP - like spinrite?

spinrite doesn't repartition anything. It's a low level drive
testing/data recovery utility which is actually two seperate exe's in
one. Instead of a DOS stub that tells you to run it in Windows, it's
the actual program. It *requires* a DOS environment. When executed
under Windows, you're greeted with options for creating media
that'll reboot your machine into freedos and execute the actual
program from there for you.

The single executable file is really two seperate executables in one.
The MZ section is the actual program, which is ignored if run under
Windows. Windows will run the PE code below it, instead. The PE code
isn't the actual program, though. It's just a front end to let you
create bootable media (using freedos) so you can reboot the machine
into a supported environment and execute the MZ section of the
executable that actually does the work.

Spinrite isn't freeware, but, it's reasonably priced.

https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

I've still got Spinrite 6 someplace around here. And it does work in
many cases. Used to use it quite a bit at a shop I worked at.

You do NOT need to be running Windows 7 to resize partitions. Where
do you even get that idea? Just how do you think we
resized/split,merged, etc partitions prior to Windows 7?

http://www.easeus.com/partition-manager/epm-free.html

Works well, but, as always, backup your data before playing with such
tools. Partition magic is another decent one I have experience with.
Again though, you would want to backup your data before using these
utilities, just to be on the safe side. As, things can go wrong. IE:
power outage in the middle of the job, for example.

I'm saddened to see what passes for IT expertise these days. Really
disappointing...

--
I would like to apologize for not having offended you yet.
Please be patient. I will get to you shortly.

philo news Apr 2017 00:10:52 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

On 04/08/2017 06:56 PM, Diesel wrote:
philo news Apr 2017 23:32:43 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

On 04/07/2017 08:24 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
I decided to try it out in one box that's kind of "extra" as a
dual boot with WinXP Pro - on a separate hard drive of course .
Ran into a formatting (?) problem early on in the install
though , and decided to come back to it later .
The times they are a changing . And that was fershure Dylan .




To avoid the possibility of screwing up your Windows system,
disconnect the hard drive completely and on a spare hard drive
install Linux

Now you can experiment all you want...

I've been using Linux since the year 2000 and it's now my main
OS

I like it quite a bit myself. Really like it. The desktop is so
much different than the old shell accounts I've had since I was a
young teenager. [g] I can take a more hands on approach now,
instead of ssh/telnet sessions that just aren't the same.
Speaking of 2000, I actually retired from Vx that year. It was
time.








I had computer experience back in the old punch card days but by
1982 I got damn sick of computers and swore I'd never touch one
again.

Ahh. You're a bit older than myself. I got my start originally on the
green screen apples at the tender age of five. Moved onto the coco3,
and went into the world of Intel from there. Was *never* a mac
fanboy. And, didn't much care for those apples, either. Would have
preferred my first computer to be an Intel, but, I didn't buy the
first one, my grandmother did as a bday gift when I was eight years
old. It took me awhile to adjust from writing code on the apple to
the coco..Although both machines had BASIC on a rom chip, the
dialects didn't have that much in common. Borland assembler on the
coco was way different than what Apple's assembler was too. OS-9 was
a different beastie altogether; but it could actually multitask!
****ing incredible operating system for it's time, infact.

Ran my first BBS (spitfire v3.2) on a Tandy 3000NL-AT class machine.
(286 10megahertz) via a single 1.44 meg floppy disk with a 2400baud
zoom modem. Not only did the machine boot DOS v3.2 off of it, the
entire board ran on the same floppy. Beat the pants off the acoustic
coupler I had on my coco. Oh how I long for the days of tight
efficient code. It's almost's unheard of now.

I didn't have a HD at the time. I did get one a bit later though. a
friend gave me a 40meg drive that used a proprietary 8bit LONG ISA
controller card with the HD attached to the back of it. He pulled it
from his XT tandy 1000 series. I believe it was MFM, but, it could
have been an RLL. It was a long time ago.

It did not take me too long to get back into things and within six
months was quite used to win9x...so I needed a bigger challenge.

Windows 9x wasn't my first experience with Windows... I actually
started with Windows v1.0 (yes, v1.0), but, I preferred Desqview at
the time. Moved onto Windows 3.x, but it's time slicing abilities
sucked donkey dick for running a multi line board. And later, OS/2.
OS/2 warp beat the pants off Windows 3x AND 9x, but, IBM couldn't
advertise for ****. Most of my experience with linux was via shell
accounts, until I decided to run it local.

Have to admit I was clueless regarding Linux at first. From the
time I got my Red Hat 5.2 CD until the time I got it installed and
everything properly configured...was about six months...but I
learned a lot!

Aye.

Now Linux is very easy to install and use but to a newbie there
are still a few things that might be a little confusing...but for
the most part there is nothing to it.

I totally agree. It's come a very long ways!


--
I would like to apologize for not having offended you yet.
Please be patient. I will get to you shortly.

On 04/09/2017 04:02 AM, Diesel wrote:


snip

Ahh. You're a bit older than myself. I got my start originally on the
green screen apples at the tender age of five. Moved onto the coco3,
and went into the world of Intel from there. Was *never* a mac
fanboy. And, didn't much care for those apples, either. Would have
preferred my first computer to be an Intel, but, I didn't buy the
first one, my grandmother did as a bday gift when I was eight years
old. It took me awhile to adjust from writing code on the apple to
the coco..Although both machines had BASIC on a rom chip, the
dialects didn't have that much in common. Borland assembler on the
coco was way different than what Apple's assembler was too. OS-9 was
a different beastie altogether; but it could actually multitask!
****ing incredible operating system for it's time, infact.

Ran my first BBS (spitfire v3.2) on a Tandy 3000NL-AT class machine.
(286 10megahertz) via a single 1.44 meg floppy disk with a 2400baud
zoom modem. Not only did the machine boot DOS v3.2 off of it, the
entire board ran on the same floppy. Beat the pants off the acoustic
coupler I had on my coco. Oh how I long for the days of tight
efficient code. It's almost's unheard of now.

I didn't have a HD at the time. I did get one a bit later though. a
friend gave me a 40meg drive that used a proprietary 8bit LONG ISA
controller card with the HD attached to the back of it. He pulled it
from his XT tandy 1000 series. I believe it was MFM, but, it could
have been an RLL. It was a long time ago.

It did not take me too long to get back into things and within six
months was quite used to win9x...so I needed a bigger challenge.

Windows 9x wasn't my first experience with Windows... I actually
started with Windows v1.0 (yes, v1.0), but, I preferred Desqview at
the time. Moved onto Windows 3.x, but it's time slicing abilities
sucked donkey dick for running a multi line board. And later, OS/2.
OS/2 warp beat the pants off Windows 3x AND 9x, but, IBM couldn't
advertise for ****. Most of my experience with linux was via shell
accounts, until I decided to run it local.

Have to admit I was clueless regarding Linux at first. From the
time I got my Red Hat 5.2 CD until the time I got it installed and
everything properly configured...was about six months...but I
learned a lot!

Aye.

Now Linux is very easy to install and use but to a newbie there
are still a few things that might be a little confusing...but for
the most part there is nothing to it.

I totally agree. It's come a very long ways!





What I did after I became familiar with Win9x and at the same time I was
trying to figure out Linux...

Started collecting vintage machines to make sure I got a good background
on all I missed during those years I stayed away from computers and did
fool with Win1 and up.

Got 8088's, 286's 386's and even a Kaypro running CP/M

Out of all my vintage machines I think the IBM PS-2 is my favorite,

It's a 486 33 mhz but runs Win95 great!

I also fooled with OS/2 and even have ECS running in a virtual machine
just for the heck of it

On 04/09/2017 4:02 AM, Diesel wrote:
....

OS/2 warp beat the pants off Windows 3x AND 9x, but, IBM couldn't
advertise ...

The problem with OS/2 was there were no applications available to run
under it natively and it was _not_ "a better Windows than Windows".

There were several enterprise apps built on it (just saw a regional
airlines terminal the other day still!! that boggled me mind) but there
really were just no applications. There was one small outfit which I
forget their business name that tried to write a spreadsheet but by the
time they reached market it was too late--it was actually a pretty
decent start, but it was basically one guy in a garage kind of effort
with no support from IBM to any extent. If they had intentions of
making it a serious product it needed to have had IBM support to
introduce apps specific for it at the time that could compete. The toy
demos that were distributed did more to harm than help.

Did several spectroscopy applications at the time around the Canberra
data acq cards that they had bet on OS/2 but again just a niche and a
tiny, tiny one at that...not much demand for the general public.

--

philo news Apr 2017 13:33:20 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

What I did after I became familiar with Win9x and at the same time
I was trying to figure out Linux...

I was learning sco unix, I think it was via shell accounts prior to
my first experience with linux in the mid to late 90s. Most of the
mainframes I was gaining shall we say, unauthorized access to were
using unix....What's a bored kid with a computer to do right?

Out of all my vintage machines I think the IBM PS-2 is my
favorite,

I can't say as I found that series of machine a favorite. Very
proprietary, totally turned me off of it.

It's a 486 33 mhz but runs Win95 great!

SX or DX? When we ran boards, windows 95 wasn't so hot on those
machines once you went multiline. OS/2 warp OTH, ran swell. Available
applications were very limited, and that's IBMs fault. They didn't do
anything as far as serious advertising goes. So, few developers took
it seriously. If it had IBMs support behind it, it would have rocked
the socks off anything MS was offering at the time. Especially when
you consider MS was working jointly with them until they had a
falling out. And thus was born MS own 'version' known as Windows NT.

And the rest as they say, is history...

I also fooled with OS/2 and even have ECS running in a virtual
machine just for the heck of it

I'm not familiar with ECS.


--
I would like to apologize for not having offended you yet.
Please be patient. I will get to you shortly.

dpb news 14:20:20 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

On 04/09/2017 4:02 AM, Diesel wrote:
...

OS/2 warp beat the pants off Windows 3x AND 9x, but, IBM couldn't
advertise ...

The problem with OS/2 was there were no applications available to
run under it natively and it was _not_ "a better Windows than
Windows".

That depends on what you were using it for. I was running a multiline
BBS at the time, so for my needs, OS/2 Warp was kicking the dog**** out
of Windows 95 as far as multitasking was concerned. It offered better
memory management and more efficient time slicing. Which, is what you
needed when you ran a DOS based bulletin board system with multiple
lines.

Did several spectroscopy applications at the time around the
Canberra data acq cards that they had bet on OS/2 but again just a
niche and a tiny, tiny one at that...not much demand for the
general public.

Entirely IBMS fault, too. They did a great job writing an OS, and an
absolutely terrible job advertising it to recruit users and developers.
Windows NT was born from the fallout.

--
I would like to apologize for not having offended you yet.
Please be patient. I will get to you shortly.

On 04/10/2017 4:56 AM, Diesel wrote:
....

Entirely IBMS fault, too. They did a great job writing an OS, and an
absolutely terrible job advertising it to recruit users and
developers. Windows NT was born from the fallout.

NT came along earlier when MS hired the VMS architect after DEC
collapsed and he refused to consider OS/2 as viable. The insistence of
IBM on supporting their corporate client base over the personal market
also played into the much less widespread availability of drivers for
consumer PC hardware which was burgeoning and limited market share.
Needing either an installed Windows on the machine "red spine" or an
internal license "blue spine" for the Windows support meant OS/2 on its
own was significantly more expensive to use any Windows apps, another
blow to widespread adoption outside specialty organizations.

All the advertising in the world had no hope in defeating MS/Windows as
IBM was to insular to accept an open hardware model that had already
sailed as the way of the PC market never to be recaptured. With the
unique API/GDI, developers had to develop for both and the support tools
that were supposed to be able to convert never happened. With all the
major hardware players licensing Windows for new machines it was a no
brainer for which OS the existing developers would write and as noted
before IBM didn't subsidize any to have any competition for any consumer
app in time.

The issues within OS/2 in how it handled some of the virtualization
meant still could hang the whole machine in DOS/Windows sessions and
took many, many, many fix packs to work around a lot of those issues by
the time Warp 3 was released.

For enterprise dedicated applications it was indeed "better", but the
market simply wasn't large enough and the cost too high to be viable. A
"lean, mean" outfit with a single talented overseer and the financial
resources of an IBM might have made a product; the real IBM "not so much"...

--

dpb news 14:21:04 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

On 04/10/2017 4:56 AM, Diesel wrote:
...

Entirely IBMS fault, too. They did a great job writing an OS, and
an absolutely terrible job advertising it to recruit users and
developers. Windows NT was born from the fallout.

NT came along earlier when MS hired the VMS architect after DEC
collapsed and he refused to consider OS/2 as viable.

http://www.os2museum.com/wp/nt-and-os2/

The relationship between NT and 32-bit OS/2 is very murky. It is
known that Microsoft was working on 32-bit OS/2 2.0 in the late
1980s. It is also known that NT was initially meant to support a 32-
bit OS/2 API, but that plan was later scrapped for obvious political
reasons. At least one feature "exception handling" is so similar
between OS/2 2.0 and NT and at the same so unique in context of other
operating systems that it was clearly designed by the same group of
people, and the implementations were intended to be compatible.

In 1990, after Microsoft internally decided to dump OS/2 and
concentrate entirely on Windows, most of Microsoft’s OS/2 developers
were reassigned to NT. However, that did not influence the basic
design of NT, which had been created long before then. NT adopted
several technologies from OS/2, but very little or no code (16-bit
Intel assembly code was of little use within NT). HPFS and FAT
filesystem support was written from scratch for NT, the NDIS network
driver interface underwent a major overhaul, LAN Manager components
were rewritten.

On a more mundane level, OS/2 was the platform used to build NT
before NT became self-supporting. After all, who wanted to develop on
DOS. Aside from editors and compilers, OS/2 also ran the Intel i860
emulator used in the very early stages of NT development, before any
hardware was available.

After the Microsoft-IBM split, the relationship between NT and OS/2
became somewhat schizophrenic. Microsoft sometimes tried to pretend
that OS/2 had never existed and sometimes loudly bad-mouthed anything
IBM did with OS/2. At the same time, NT (up to and including Windows
2000) shipped with an OS/2 subsystem which ran character-mode 16-bit
OS/2 applications. Microsoft also had a Presentation Manager add-on
for NT which supported OS/2 GUI applications, a semi-secret product
hinted at in documentation but never actually advertised.

In the end, Windows NT survived and OS/2 did not, although OS/2’s
demise had arguably more to do with Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 than
NT.

[1] Zachary, G. Pascal (1994). Showstopper!. The Free
Press/Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-935671-7

What you wrote isn't wrong, mind you, but, what I wrote isn't wrong,
either.

They have a very, checkered past to say the least. And, I was still a
kid when this all went down. Suffice to say, OS/2 didn't make it, and
NT is still alive and well (er, depending on your POV)




--
I would like to apologize for not having offended you yet.
Please be patient. I will get to you shortly.

On 04/10/2017 04:56 AM, Diesel wrote:
philo news Apr 2017 13:33:20 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

What I did after I became familiar with Win9x and at the same time
I was trying to figure out Linux...

I was learning sco unix, I think it was via shell accounts prior to
my first experience with linux in the mid to late 90s. Most of the
mainframes I was gaining shall we say, unauthorized access to were
using unix....What's a bored kid with a computer to do right?

Out of all my vintage machines I think the IBM PS-2 is my
favorite,

I can't say as I found that series of machine a favorite. Very
proprietary, totally turned me off of it.

It's a 486 33 mhz but runs Win95 great!

SX or DX?

Can't recall, the machine is packed away somewhere

When we ran boards, windows 95 wasn't so hot on those
machines once you went multiline. OS/2 warp OTH, ran swell. Available
applications were very limited, and that's IBMs fault. They didn't do
anything as far as serious advertising goes. So, few developers took
it seriously. If it had IBMs support behind it, it would have rocked
the socks off anything MS was offering at the time. Especially when
you consider MS was working jointly with them until they had a
falling out. And thus was born MS own 'version' known as Windows NT.

NT3.1 was not terribly stable but from NT3.51 on it was pretty good IMHO

And the rest as they say, is history...

I also fooled with OS/2 and even have ECS running in a virtual
machine just for the heck of it

I'm not familiar with ECS.




ECS is the present incarnation of OS/2

OS/2 ran well on IBM hardware but not so well on other.

ECS seems to work better.

I keep it just as a novelty

On 04/13/2017 05:34 AM, Bud Frede wrote:
Diesel writes:

philo news Apr 2017 13:33:20 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:


Out of all my vintage machines I think the IBM PS-2 is my
favorite,

I can't say as I found that series of machine a favorite. Very
proprietary, totally turned me off of it.

One good thing about most of the old IBM PCs of the '80s is that they
came with good keyboards. I know a lot of people who used their IBM
keyboards long after the PC it came with was landfill.


At one time I had a lot of those good/ sturdy click/clack keyboards, I
think I only have one left/

As for vintage PCs, I have a hard time thinking of any PC that I've
thought was interesting enough to keep around as more or less a curio. I
have an Apple IIGS Woz Edition though, and wish I had an Altair or maybe
a Heathkit H11... I also have some old Sun hardware that I've fired
up occasionally, but I'll probably chuck even that since it's not that
fun to play with compared to say a Raspberry Pi.

I just don't have enough time to play with all the cool new toys there
are, let alone old ones.




I use to spend hours fooling with those antiques but packed away or gave
away all of them
It's a 486 33 mhz but runs Win95 great!

SX or DX? When we ran boards, windows 95 wasn't so hot on those

I never ran any of the DOS-based Windows versions, and don't associate
the word "great" with any of Microsoft's software. (Although I suppose
you could say that much of it is a great PITA.)


machines once you went multiline. OS/2 warp OTH, ran swell. Available
applications were very limited, and that's IBMs fault. They didn't do
anything as far as serious advertising goes. So, few developers took
it seriously. If it had IBMs support behind it, it would have rocked
the socks off anything MS was offering at the time. Especially when
you consider MS was working jointly with them until they had a
falling out. And thus was born MS own 'version' known as Windows NT.

I used OS/2 from 2.1 to Merlin and was pretty happy with it, but I've
talked to people who developed apps for OS/2 and they say that it wasn't
that wonderful. It had IBM working on it, where developers were judged
by how many KLOCs (1000s of Lines Of Code) they could churn out, so not
much in the way of elegant code got added in that way. Then you had some
clowns at Microsoft where they didn't care about the quality of the
code, they just wanted to crank it out, sell it, and then fondle their
stock options. I've read that Microsoft also did some things to sabotage
the OS/2 development effort, and of course they left a lot of stuff
half-finished when they screwed IBM and concentrated on Windows 3
instead.

The core of NT was evidently quite good, but the people who were
developing the GUI parts also decided that it would be a good idea to
try to learn C++ at the same time. I've read that Cutler was not happy
with how they turned his silk purse into a sow's ear.


And the rest as they say, is history...

I also fooled with OS/2 and even have ECS running in a virtual
machine just for the heck of it

I'm not familiar with ECS.

I think that's EComStation, which is what OS/2 is being called these
days. I thought about seeing if I could get it running in a VM, but
could never drum up enough interest to do so. (I've played with an Amiga
emulator and a Commodore 64 emulator in the past, and once I got it up
and working, I was at the "what do I do with it now?" stage and I
suspect it would be the same with OS/2.)

Bud Frede
Thu, 13 Apr 2017
10:34:20 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

As for vintage PCs, I have a hard time thinking of any PC that
I've thought was interesting enough to keep around as more or less
a curio. I have an Apple IIGS Woz Edition though, and wish I had
an Altair or maybe a Heathkit H11... I also have some old Sun
hardware that I've fired up occasionally, but I'll probably chuck
even that since it's not that fun to play with compared to say a
Raspberry Pi.

I do wish I'd kept my coco3...It was my first computer.

I don't know what happened to it.

I just don't have enough time to play with all the cool new toys
there are, let alone old ones.

Same here.

I never ran any of the DOS-based Windows versions, and don't
associate the word "great" with any of Microsoft's software.
(Although I suppose you could say that much of it is a great
PITA.)

ROFL.

I used OS/2 from 2.1 to Merlin and was pretty happy with it, but
I've talked to people who developed apps for OS/2 and they say
that it wasn't that wonderful. It had IBM working on it, where
developers were judged by how many KLOCs (1000s of Lines Of Code)
they could churn out, so not much in the way of elegant code got
added in that way. Then you had some clowns at Microsoft where
they didn't care about the quality of the code, they just wanted
to crank it out, sell it, and then fondle their stock options.
I've read that Microsoft also did some things to sabotage the OS/2
development effort, and of course they left a lot of stuff
half-finished when they screwed IBM and concentrated on Windows 3
instead.

It did have some issues some serious with the way in which it did
things and expected you to interact with it, but, still not as a bad
as it was during win3.x days. And, as another poster commented, you
could ****up your code in one console/session and cause a cascade
crash throughout the OS. That sucked ass at times...


The core of NT was evidently quite good, but the people who were
developing the GUI parts also decided that it would be a good idea
to try to learn C++ at the same time. I've read that Cutler was
not happy with how they turned his silk purse into a sow's ear.

When writing the kernel for an OS, that's not the time to practice a
new language.

I think that's EComStation, which is what OS/2 is being called
these days.

Ahh. That explains it. I haven't seen os/2 (or warp) since the board
was taken down for the last time, it was time for the SysOp to attend
college and it was time for me to be moving on as well. So, I never
kept up with it. I do miss those days though. Things were so much
different. a good board had something very close to a real family.
We'd goto cookouts, help each other out in person, etc. Nothing like
things are today.

I even remember a weekend I spent at my buddies house who ran the
board. It was time to do a system wide backup. He asked how much
space I had on my 486DLC/40 (yea, cyrix) along with the other
CoSysOps. We networked them with cat5 (practically unheard of then)
and did a major data backup, spanning across to other machines so he
could replace a bad hd and put the data back and get the board back
up and going. That was fun as hell man. For all of us. Was our first
time actually hands on networking the boxes in that way. [g]


I thought about seeing if I could get it running in a
VM, but could never drum up enough interest to do so. (I've played
with an Amiga emulator and a Commodore 64 emulator in the past,
and once I got it up and working, I was at the "what do I do with
it now?" stage and I suspect it would be the same with OS/2.)

I loaded an apple emulator a few months ago. I did the same thing as
you when I got it running. Okay, cool, just like I remember it. Now,
WTF am I going to do with this thing? I have NOTHING it knows about,
and, nothing I have outside of it's emulated world will even talk to
it.. so.. what good is it now. lol.

So, I fired up oregon trail and ran it for a couple of hours. Other
than the trip down memory lane as a kiddo, it was of no further use.
It was kind of neat that I remembered all the keyboard commands and
was able to get out of the running game and edit variables on the
fly; the old 'cheats' still worked. [g] Of course they would have,
the computer and game thought it was the 80s. heh.

I still play nintendo on an emulator from time to time on my linux
lappies. Avoid the noid, Mike tysons super punchout; before Nintendo
re-released it without tyson. Last night, I played a game of super
mario brothers 3. If my linux machine was self aware, it would
probably seriously question the point in emulating 8bit hardware on
it's 64bit platform. As in, "seriously dude? WTF are you doing? I'm
basically idling doing this, you know that right?" lol



--
I would like to apologize for not having offended you yet.
Please be patient. I will get to you shortly.

On Thu, 13 Apr 2017 18:22:46 -0500, philo wrote:

On 04/10/2017 04:56 AM, Diesel wrote:
philo news Apr 2017 13:33:20 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

What I did after I became familiar with Win9x and at the same time
I was trying to figure out Linux...

I was learning sco unix, I think it was via shell accounts prior to
my first experience with linux in the mid to late 90s. Most of the
mainframes I was gaining shall we say, unauthorized access to were
using unix....What's a bored kid with a computer to do right?

Out of all my vintage machines I think the IBM PS-2 is my
favorite,

I can't say as I found that series of machine a favorite. Very
proprietary, totally turned me off of it.

It's a 486 33 mhz but runs Win95 great!

SX or DX?

Can't recall, the machine is packed away somewhere

When we ran boards, windows 95 wasn't so hot on those
machines once you went multiline. OS/2 warp OTH, ran swell. Available
applications were very limited, and that's IBMs fault. They didn't do
anything as far as serious advertising goes. So, few developers took
it seriously. If it had IBMs support behind it, it would have rocked
the socks off anything MS was offering at the time. Especially when
you consider MS was working jointly with them until they had a
falling out. And thus was born MS own 'version' known as Windows NT.

NT3.1 was not terribly stable but from NT3.51 on it was pretty good IMHO

And the rest as they say, is history...

I also fooled with OS/2 and even have ECS running in a virtual
machine just for the heck of it

I'm not familiar with ECS.




ECS is the present incarnation of OS/2

OS/2 ran well on IBM hardware but not so well on other.

ECS seems to work better.

I keep it just as a novelty

OS/2 ran well on SOME IBM equipment. I remember it only being stable
on the microchannel machines at one time - and we had one microchannel
"close" that it worked well on. IIRC it was one out of 5 supposedly
identical boards - - -

Bud Frede
Fri, 14 Apr 2017
13:09:23 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

Diesel writes:

Bud Frede
Thu, 13 Apr
2017 10:34:20 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:


I think that's EComStation, which is what OS/2 is being called
these days.

Ahh. That explains it. I haven't seen os/2 (or warp) since the
board was taken down for the last time, it was time for the SysOp
to attend college and it was time for me to be moving on as well.
So, I never kept up with it. I do miss those days though. Things
were so much different. a good board had something very close to
a real family. We'd goto cookouts, help each other out in person,
etc. Nothing like things are today.

I even remember a weekend I spent at my buddies house who ran the
board. It was time to do a system wide backup. He asked how much
space I had on my 486DLC/40 (yea, cyrix) along with the other
CoSysOps. We networked them with cat5 (practically unheard of
then) and did a major data backup, spanning across to other
machines so he could replace a bad hd and put the data back and
get the board back up and going. That was fun as hell man. For
all of us. Was our first time actually hands on networking the
boxes in that way. [g]


I knew quite a few people who ran boards. Other than one guy who
ran his board on a Commodore 64, they used either Desqview or
OS/2.

One of them was quite large and was PCBoard on OS/2 with multiple
nodes and quite a few phone lines. I don't remember the details,
but he actually had a separate building for the board, and
connected it to his house with thin net. (He ran the thin net
through a garden hose and buried it so it wasn't visible.)

He also had nice computer desks and computers connected to the
network for each of his kids and for his wife. It was the first
time I had seen anyone with a LAN in their house.

He didn't survive the transition to the Internet though. He
thought that he could provide some Internet services through
PCBoard and keep all of his subscribers. I told him repeatedly
that people would just want a SLIP or PPP connection so that they
were more directly connected.

He was sort of right in that AOL did much what he was doing, but
was much more successful at it. However, ISPs offering dialup
probably grabbed the majority of his customers, since BBS users
were mostly computer hobbyists, and they liked the less-controlled
experience of being a part of the net and being able to choose
what client software they used for various services, etc.


I still play nintendo on an emulator from time to time on my
linux lappies. Avoid the noid, Mike tysons super punchout; before
Nintendo re-released it without tyson. Last night, I played a
game of super mario brothers 3. If my linux machine was self
aware, it would probably seriously question the point in
emulating 8bit hardware on it's 64bit platform. As in, "seriously
dude? WTF are you doing? I'm basically idling doing this, you
know that right?" lol

I've played some of the old Apogee Commander Keen games in dosbox,

I had/still have? the regged versions. Spent a few weekends writing
saved game editors for them and Duke Nukem. Prior to the 3d editions.

and I also tried out a few games with MAME. It was kind of cool
seeing Donkey Kong and Centipede again, but you really need a
joystick to play those arcade games and I'm not that into games
that I'd buy a good joystick and set things up.

Same.

I played a lot of pinball as a teenager and when I was in college,
and played some of the arcade video games, but still preferred
pinball. When I started using personal computers, I never really
got into games; there were always too many other interesting
things to do with a computer.

Same here.
Once I learned how to code initially, it opened a whole new world for
me. The computer wasn't in control, I was. [g]


--
I would like to apologize for not having offended you yet.
Please be patient. I will get to you shortly.

On 2017-04-13, Bud Frede wrote:
One good thing about most of the old IBM PCs of the '80s is that they
came with good keyboards. I know a lot of people who used their IBM
keyboards long after the PC it came with was landfill.

I still use a genuine IBM PS/2 keyboard, connected via a USB adapter.

A company in Kentucky still makes this type of mechanical keyboard,
available with USB or PS/2 interface:

http://www.unicomp.com/

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roger Blake (Posts from Google Groups killfiled due to excess spam.)

NSA sedition and treason -- http://www.DeathToNSAthugs.com
Don't talk to cops! -- http://www.DontTalkToCops.com
Badges don't grant extra rights -- http://www.CopBlock.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Sat, 15 Apr 2017 02:40:50 -0000 (UTC), Roger Blake
wrote:

On 2017-04-13, Bud Frede wrote:
One good thing about most of the old IBM PCs of the '80s is that they
came with good keyboards. I know a lot of people who used their IBM
keyboards long after the PC it came with was landfill.

I still use a genuine IBM PS/2 keyboard, connected via a USB adapter.

A company in Kentucky still makes this type of mechanical keyboard,
available with USB or PS/2 interface:

http://www.unicomp.com/
Nice keyboard - at $115 US

wrote:
On Sat, 15 Apr 2017 02:40:50 -0000 (UTC), Roger Blake
wrote:

On 2017-04-13, Bud Frede wrote:
One good thing about most of the old IBM PCs of the '80s is that they
came with good keyboards. I know a lot of people who used their IBM
keyboards long after the PC it came with was landfill.

I still use a genuine IBM PS/2 keyboard, connected via a USB adapter.

A company in Kentucky still makes this type of mechanical keyboard,
available with USB or PS/2 interface:

http://www.unicomp.com/
Nice keyboard - at $115 US

hmm, mine was in the 80s.

note they are not identical to the original
model M's that came with the IBM PC, but they
are close enough that i can type like a monster
once again (after many years of typing on
keyboards that had no depth or touch to them).

the original keyboard was metal and weighed
quite a bit. when i gave the PC away in '96 i
regret giving that keyboard away. this one is
a plastic case (and creaks when i move it).


songbird

On Sat, 15 Apr 2017 18:03:42 -0400, songbird
wrote:

wrote:
On Sat, 15 Apr 2017 02:40:50 -0000 (UTC), Roger Blake
wrote:

On 2017-04-13, Bud Frede wrote:
One good thing about most of the old IBM PCs of the '80s is that they
came with good keyboards. I know a lot of people who used their IBM
keyboards long after the PC it came with was landfill.

I still use a genuine IBM PS/2 keyboard, connected via a USB adapter.

A company in Kentucky still makes this type of mechanical keyboard,
available with USB or PS/2 interface:

http://www.unicomp.com/
Nice keyboard - at $115 US

hmm, mine was in the 80s.

note they are not identical to the original
model M's that came with the IBM PC, but they
are close enough that i can type like a monster
once again (after many years of typing on
keyboards that had no depth or touch to them).

the original keyboard was metal and weighed
quite a bit. when i gave the PC away in '96 i
regret giving that keyboard away. this one is
a plastic case (and creaks when i move it).


songbird
I loke my Rocketfish BT keyboard. It doesn't click but has a
reasonable feel to it.
My favourite years ago was the Keytronics KT104

songbird Sat,
15 Apr 2017 22:03:42 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

wrote:
On Sat, 15 Apr 2017 02:40:50 -0000 (UTC), Roger Blake
wrote:

On 2017-04-13, Bud Frede wrote:
One good thing about most of the old IBM PCs of the '80s is
that they came with good keyboards. I know a lot of people who
used their IBM keyboards long after the PC it came with was
landfill.

I still use a genuine IBM PS/2 keyboard, connected via a USB
adapter.

A company in Kentucky still makes this type of mechanical
keyboard, available with USB or PS/2 interface:

http://www.unicomp.com/
Nice keyboard - at $115 US

hmm, mine was in the 80s.

Oh yes, the clicky clack keyboards. Heavy *******s too. You could knock
somebody out if you hit them upside the head with one and it wouldn't
hurt the keyboard. [g]


--
I would like to apologize for not having offended you yet.
Please be patient. I will get to you shortly.

Bud Frede wrote:
....
I have various things that I want a computer to do for me, and I'd
rather that it do them with the minimum of muss and fuss. I don't want
my desktop environment to change radically every few years like it does
with Windows, KDE, or Gnome. That means that I also avoid distros like
Arch or Fedora. I got my fill of constantly fiddling around with the OS
20 years ago.

i've been happy with using Debian with the MATE
desktop (for this older machine it's about all it can
do well other than even more basic window managers).


I'm sure that some day someone will come up with a new paradigm for a
desktop GUI that will be a major improvement over what I'm using now,
but so far I haven't seen anything that's truly better - just
different.

once they get direct wiring to the brain figured out
the whole game changes completely. i expect i will opt-
out of that interface (seeing how bugs and hackers are
still a feature of the landscape and i don't expect that
to change).


(I did think that Sun's Project Looking Glass had some very
useful features, but I think it was ahead of its time since the graphics
chipsets at the time weren't really adequate to do 3D with good
performance.)

anytime you are into graphics to a significant
extent you are talking memory/processor power, but
the onboard graphics in the CPUs has been coming
along pretty well.


songbird

Bud Frede
Fri, 21 Apr 2017
10:24:00 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

Diesel writes:

"Terry Coombs" news Sat, 08 Apr 2017 01:24:05 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

I decided to try it out in one box that's kind of "extra" as a
dual boot with WinXP Pro - on a separate hard drive of course .
Ran into a formatting (?) problem early on in the install though
, and decided to come back to it later .
The times they are a changing . And that was fershure Dylan .

Just so you know, I'm using Linux Mint 17.3. 18x series hasn't
matured enough yet, imho. So, I'm waiting that one out. Your box
specs are decent, so I'd go with the KDE version with codecs. 18x
series doesn't include them. I *hope* they reconsider that in a
later release. You can install them once it's up and running
though, if you decide to roll with 18...

I have quite a few servers running on Ubuntu 16.04, which is what
Mint 18.x is based on. Both of my desktop systems are running Mint
18.1. I haven't had any issue with stability.

Excellent. However, the fact 18.1 exists and 18.2 is just around the
corner indicates to me atleast, it's not as mature as 17.3, just yet.
So, I'll continue waiting for a bit longer. I also have 17.3 running
various servers for me, and, I prefer stability over 'new' features
that are already being changed to 'improve' them further.

http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3228

I have various things that I want a computer to do for me, and I'd
rather that it do them with the minimum of muss and fuss.

Same here.

I don't want my desktop environment to change radically every few
years like it does with Windows, KDE, or Gnome.

Which desktop are you running on 18.1?



--
I would like to apologize for not having offended you yet.
Please be patient. I will get to you shortly.

Bud Frede
Mon, 24 Apr 2017
10:41:55 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

Also, I don't run servers using Mint. I don't think it's usable as
a server OS. That's why I stick to Ubuntu (and waited about a year
before using 16.04 for production servers).

I suppose it depends on the servers role, then. For me, it's a file
server essentially. Provides read only access to my other machines for
music/movies/isos, etc. Things I want/need the other computers to be
able to access without them having to store local copies. Nothing uber
fancy. If I was going to run another kind of server, I'd run CentOS or
FreeBSD. Especially if it was facing the internet.

MATE. I'd also be ok with LXDE or XFCE, but MATE is my favorite. I
lean towards a minimal desktop, and MATE (Gnome 2) stays out of my
way but also has some nice comfort features that I appreciate.

I've got MATE on the older machines that aren't snappy with KDE. For
the ones that can handle it with ease though, I like the eye candy and
additional 'features' out of the box. KDE has spoiled me rotten. [g]


--
I would like to apologize for not having offended you yet.
Please be patient. I will get to you shortly.

Bud Frede
Tue, 25 Apr 2017
10:18:04 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

Diesel writes:

Bud Frede
Mon, 24 Apr
2017 10:41:55 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

Also, I don't run servers using Mint. I don't think it's usable
as a server OS. That's why I stick to Ubuntu (and waited about a
year before using 16.04 for production servers).

I suppose it depends on the servers role, then. For me, it's a
file server essentially. Provides read only access to my other
machines for music/movies/isos, etc. Things I want/need the other
computers to be able to access without them having to store local
copies. Nothing uber fancy. If I was going to run another kind of
server, I'd run CentOS or FreeBSD. Especially if it was facing
the internet.


Even for a plain file server I'd choose something other than
Mint. There's no need for the desktop stuff that Mint includes
on a server.

I don't disagree with you, but, I like the fact I can use the
machine as if it were another computer on the network while it
provides limited file access to others. Think of it as an adhoc
windows network server. Makes more sense to you that way?

FreeBSD is a good choice for a server, and OpenBSD is too. Ubuntu
is not my first choice for a server, but it's what my workplace
has decided on. I'd rather use CentOS or RHEL, and I've been
agitating to move to those.

RHEL is a fantastic option, but, it's not free as far as I know.
https://access.redhat.com/products/r...nux/evaluation
Unless the 30day evaluation is not just the OS, but, support? And
the OS itself is still 'free'? I'm a bit unclear concerning that.


For use at home on my own network, I'd probably go with Debian or
OpenBSD. I don't have any servers setup at home currently, but I'm
planning to make some changes this summer and may add one or two.
(I'm actually thinking of using Raspberry Pi's for that kind of
thing. I guess in that case I'd be looking at Raspbian or Arch
since those seem to be popular.)

I've never gotten into the Raspberry...What makes it so interesting to you?

[snip]

I've got MATE on the older machines that aren't snappy with KDE.
For the ones that can handle it with ease though, I like the eye
candy and additional 'features' out of the box. KDE has spoiled
me rotten. [g]

I did like KDE 1 and 2, and 3 was ok. I've tried all the versions
of KDE, but never stuck with any of them for very long.

I understand. To each his/her own. I really don't care for the
GUIs present on Vista onwards, I really like XP's GUI...And wish MS
didn't **** it up...Alas.

I have friends that rave about how great KDE is and tell me how
I'd love it if I would use it for a while. Maybe I'll give it a
try again at some point, but for now I'm pretty happy where I'm
at.

LOL! I know what you mean.




--
I would like to apologize for not having offended you yet.
Please be patient. I will get to you shortly.