operating systems

;-) Hotze head-scratched, yawned, then typed: Uh, PC's can do _anything_? Kewl. Set up an IBM PC with 64K RAM, 1 35-track SSDD Floppy drive, run a multi-user, multi-tasking operating system on it, and still have enough RAM/Floppy room left over to actually do something *useful*. Lemme know when it's done. My CoCo in the next room is set up to do just that. Oh, and BTW: I can do *everything* you listed above on my Atari 1040STf... albeit not as quickly as my Cyrix box (but there *is* a reason why I overclocked it!! ;-) but anything possible on today's Pentium machines can be done right now by machines at least 10 years old... sometimes better! Linux isn't hard. My first install with _no_ Linux experience took just over an hour to install... and when I was done, (with only the initial kernal boot) it was useful. My latest Win95 install took me almost 6 hours to get it working somewhat -- ButtPlug-n-play chose the wrong Ethernet cards -- but after 3 reboots the wrong drivers (I tried putting in the right drivers -- NT doesn't even mind being helped along, but 95 whacked the right ones and reinstalled the wrong ones) started working marginally. Two more reboots to get the SCSI card working with the scanner, A reboot to get the screen at the correct resolution / color depth, and 2 more reboots after software installs that required it. Granted, Linux isn't an ooey-gooey with pretty pictures, and as such one might require 1/2 a brain to use it -- my personal opinion -- good. Keep all the idio-er-users with a brainless box... <Tangent> Just had a Luser call the voice-mail today with this message: "Uh, my daughter just downloaded our entire computer onto a disk. How do I get it back and boot it?" Not to sound like a shit-fer-brains, but my holiday is better spent talking to you guys & gals than spending 6 hours on the phone talking to a lady who specifically told me "I don't want to learn anything about my new computer -- I just want to get on the Internet." -- My boss specifically forbade me to answer those types of calls anyway ('cause I usually like to be helpful to newbies) and I don't get my regular work done. Yep, Win95 is the NOS for her! (NOS stands for Non-Operating System). But I digress... </Tangent> Sorry for the rambling, Have yourselves a joyous and prosperous '98, and keep those geezers computing!!!! :-) Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger Merchberger | If at first you don't succeed, Programmer, NorthernWay | nuclear warhead disarmament should *not* zmerch(a)northernway.net | be your first career choice.