I am a happy Slackware user who has learned to compile programs
and set up x windows the hard way. Tar.gz is a fine way to do things but
it seems that rpm has taken it a large step further.
In the tradition of Linux, my cd-rom of Red Hat 5.1 cost me $7.00
US delivered to my door. I was very pleased with the loader! It makes
loading Linux about as simple as loading win-98. FDISK in DOS is a crummy
software designed to keep users from trashing their hard drives. Fdisk in
Linux is a tool that you CAN trash your hard drive.
When the video card game stops and we have a generic 2 meg svga
card then getting x windows up will be easier. I bet win-98 has 1000 video
drivers!
There is software called Ghost, that will transfer everything on
the Master hard drive to the Slave in 10 minutes! This is two 4.3 gbyte
drives. We use this when the company I work for is making computers. I
expect it's used by Dell too. If the motherboards are about the same as
the Master hard drive was loaded, the many slave hard drives come up in
seconds working fine. Ghost works only with IDE drives.
Well it occured to me that if I can get Red Hat to run on the
motherboards we use and load it up properly on one machine and make that
hard drive a Linux and win-98 system we can sell a dual boot machine as
cheaply as we do the win-98 only.
Hard to believe but you CAN I am certain mass produce computers
with Linux on them. This solves the basic problem. And we can sell a Linux
only machine for $83.00 less than a win-98 version.
Bottom line is that it appears Red Hat is going the proper
direction and we Hams will be smart to port the things we *Love* from
Slackware and other loads and run Red Hat. I can see shipping hard drives
all over that have everything set up as a Linux Ham wants. Tell him he
Must have motherboard xyz with sound and video on board, and at least a
xyz or better processor. He recives the hard drive and is up 30 minutes
later.
Best wishes
- Karl F. Larsen, 3310 East Street, Las Cruces,NM (505) 524-3303 -