1 Jan
1998
1 Jan
'98
12:42 p.m.
I've still got an old Slackware install (3 year old
install) with kernel
1.1.59 running a mail server, domain name server (about 100 domains) and
routing a couple megabits of traffic from one ethernet board to another.
Slackware is just a rock-solid product.
I'm definitely not saying it isn't rock-solid. The copy running my server
is about two years old, although the kernal was upgraded to 2.0.x so I
could run netatalk since I initially wanted to use it as an Appletalk
server. Still does that, but does a lot of other stuff also now, of course
it's just for personal use. I use it to tie my various old computers
together and transfer software I've gotten off of the Internet to them.
You might consider Caldera Network Desktop. It's
easy to install, they
have telephone tech support (which is nice if you're trying to figure out
why X won't work with this or that video card) and at $99-$129 the price
really isn't too bad for what you get. Plus it comes with Netscape and
RealAudio these days and can do so much out of the box, it's quite fun.
I've seriously considered Caldera. Although I can't be bothered with phone
support, and I do my surfing from a Macintosh. I like it's looks because
of the X-Windows desktop that comes with it. I think it's called
LookingGlass and is a commercial product. I've used it before, and it's
about the best I've used for X-Windows.
I've always found the support from the newsgroups to be excellent, although
I've not had to do that for several years.
The nicest video card is some Trident unit with 1m of
ram...a buddy is
going to give me a nice SVGA card of some sort, which he says will make X
fun and pleasant for me.
I've actually got a Trident with 512k in the server, it's run X in 256
colours since late '92 or early '93, but isn't fun. The Pentium 133 I use
for Linux has a 2Mb Diamand {something} 2000, and is quite nice. The only
reason I own that card though is because it was cheap, and OPENSTEP
supports it (I built the system to run OPENSTEP).
If you are running X you want a good card, X in 16million colours is
beautiful! If you want something really wild try the enlightenment window
manager, but be forwarned it wants a fast system. X also really wants the
system to have more than 16Mb of RAM.
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
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