[ARC5] Well OT - Linux

[Leslie Smith]

  Hello Roy,
  Back to the subject of Linux - if you give me your postal address I'll
  send over a disk.
  "A disk" = Puppy Linux 5.2.5.
   
 To boot 'The Puppy' you press the "alt boot" key when you turn your PC
 on.
 You push the CD into the CD drive and let the PC boot.  First time this
 will take about 90 to 120 seconds.
  The complete OS loads into RAM so it's useful to have 256 MBytes of
  RAM.  
  (Less will work ... but not so well.  You need at least 128 Mbytes.)
  Once The Puppy is loaded into RAM, everything runs at the speed of
  blazing light.
  eg I showed this to my daughter yesterday.  I'm running a Dell laptop
  with 256MBytes of RAM and a 40GB hard drive.
  It's an old machine.  I demonstrated loading speed to my daughter
  yesterday.  It took 3 seconds to load the spreadsheet.
  Kylie said,  "That IS fast!".

  There is a word-processor, spreadsheet, Adobe Reader, Video Player,
  Dial-up or ethernet capability, text editor, file manager and so on.
  PLUS some lovely desk-top screen savers showing Australian scenes.  
  One bad thing about using Linux is that the commercial world likes to
  change file "formats" eg doc vs docx.
  In this way Linux users are forced to change to swap files with other
  people.
  At the same time, because Linux is not commercially driven there is no
  compulsion to constantly up-grade and a 1980's Chevvy isn't a bad car,
  even today.
  Puppy Linux lacks artistic finesse - less fonts, less "artistic"
  buttons & co.   This is the price of "compact".

  Once your PC is running with Linux you can set the OS up to boot from
  a USB thumb drive.
  If you set the boot order so USB has precedence over Hard Drive and
  unplug the USB  Windows will "boot".
  "The Puppy" doesn't touch the hard drive unless you make it do that.
  You can "mount" the hard disk from within "The Puppy", so you can load
  and save to the HDD in both Linux and Windows.
  This is useful when you work with text files or Adobe files in both
  operating systems.

  If you want to test the file formats for compatibility I can send a
  document file and a spreadsheet file and you can gain a superficial
  understanding of compatibility.
  I use the "Opera for Linux" as a web browser with Linux.  It's very
  fast.

  Linux is available thru the post, and a disk costs little.
  If others on this list would like a disk and you're (Roy) prepared to
  re-distrubute disks from US I will copy 5 (or 10) and post them with
  your disk.
  I'll post the max weight I can before the price break (in freight
  charges) takes effect.

  I'd be happy to distribute disks from here - but the cost of
  international postage from Australia to USA is quite high since Sept
  11th.

  Look forward to your reply.  

  73 de Les Smith
  vk2bcu at operamail.com


On Fri, Sep 27, 2013, at 4:40, Roy Morgan wrote:
> 
> On Sep 26, 2013, at 4:25 AM, Leslie Smith <vk2bcu at operamail.com> wrote:
> 
> >  Puppy Linux is a very compact version of Linux.
> >  Boots from a CD and runs at the speed of light in RAM.
> > 
> >  However, a CD sells for the outrageous price of $5.00 so only the rich
> >  and famous can afford such an elegant thing ….
> 
> Les,
> 
> I am hearing more and more about Linux.  I had minimal exposure to it
> when I worked in IT, unlike a few of the folks around me (who were *real*
> computer scientists).  But now, I have a MacBook Pro running Mountain
> Lion (OSX-10.8).  I think that I could get a full dose of Linux, and
> perhaps a useful one, by getting under the covers with this computer.
> 
> No doubt Puppy Linux would work well on this machine, yes?  My goal would
> be to be able to run some of the Teletype programs on this computer, and
> too get my mind exercised (or exorcised!) a bit.  Maybe I should start a
> savings program to amass the $5 over time.
> 
> Roy
> 
> Roy Morgan
> RoyMorgan at alum.mit.edu
> K1LKY Since 1958
> 

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