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Eneto-55

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20 minutes ago, kencombs said:

maybe because I had no  thumb drive in it?

Fact is you need to get into bios & set the booting drive .... could be a thumb drive, A DVD  or your hard drive ... chances are it is your hard drive now ... you need to change the boot order . Los looks at the rabbit hole

 

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46 minutes ago, kencombs said:

OK, you guys have gotten my attention.  I have some old laptops and netbooks around.  I just charged up a Compaq netbook that I used to take on trips to keep up with email and forums.  Atom processor, 1.5 gig hard drive and 1 gig of memory loaded with XP.  The Firefox version on it won't connect with any of my normal sites now, only Microsoft.com.  that strikes me as weird.

 

Anyway that seems like a perfect Mint test bed, using the 'lightest' version, what do you Linux guys think?  Only thing that I saw that could be an issue was when I tried to set the boot order the USB port didn't show as an option, maybe because I had no  thumb drive in it?

Well maybe you are correct. You certainly have a good opinion.

The hard drive is important ... I have a 2 terabyte here on linux.  While my lightest laptop is 8 gigs ram This pc is 32 gigs of ram on linux. ...I also have a old win xp box ... just a joke and nothing I plan to use ... I put my best hardware forward on Linux. You do you.

 

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2 hours ago, kencombs said:

OK, you guys have gotten my attention.  I have some old laptops and netbooks around.  I just charged up a Compaq netbook that I used to take on trips to keep up with email and forums.  Atom processor, 1.5 gig hard drive and 1 gig of memory loaded with XP.  The Firefox version on it won't connect with any of my normal sites now, only Microsoft.com.  that strikes me as weird.

 

Anyway that seems like a perfect Mint test bed, using the 'lightest' version, what do you Linux guys think?  Only thing that I saw that could be an issue was when I tried to set the boot order the USB port didn't show as an option, maybe because I had no  thumb drive in it?

Some of those site may have changed their internet addresses over the years since you were using it.  I'm actually surprised that Micorosft.com would connect, because with Internet explorer anyways, they make so the older versions don't work anymore.  (Lots of times it's the links or buttons on a website that no longer go anywhere, or like on the QuickBooks update site, you cannot change the version year of the update you want to download.

Probably know this already, but regarding the BIOS setup page, on some systems you access it with the F2 key/button (Intel boards), HP mostly used F10 (I think), and boards from MSI or Gigabyte all used the Delete key.  (I just wait until the Number Lock indicator LED lights up, then hit the correct key.  If you miss it, you have to restart again.)

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1 hour ago, Los_Control said:

Well maybe you are correct. You certainly have a good opinion.

The hard drive is important ... I have a 2 terabyte here on linux.  While my lightest laptop is 8 gigs ram This pc is 32 gigs of ram on linux. ...I also have a old win xp box ... just a joke and nothing I plan to use ... I put my best hardware forward on Linux. You do you.

 

Well one of the Linux benefits that I here touted all the time is the ability to run with fewer resources than that nasty ole windows.  That little box runs XP great.   10 on the other hand just doesn't like anything less that 8gig.   Mint 18 Xfce is supposed to be ideally suited to limited disk and RAM.

 

I also have  couple of older laptops with 4 gig and larger drives.  Whichever I wind up using will only be a email an net browser when traveling and will get a SSD for quick loads.

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9 minutes ago, Eneto-55 said:

Some of those site may have changed their internet addresses over the years since you were using it.  I'm actually surprised that Micorosft.com would connect, because with Internet explorer anyways, they make so the older versions don't work anymore.  (Lots of times it's the links or buttons on a website that no longer go anywhere, or like on the QuickBooks update site, you cannot change the version year of the update you want to download.

Probably know this already, but regarding the BIOS setup page, on some systems you access it with the F2 key/button (Intel boards), HP mostly used F10 (I think), and boards from MSI or Gigabyte all used the Delete key.  (I just wait until the Number Lock indicator LED lights up, then hit the correct key.  If you miss it, you have to restart again.)

Oh, I can get to the BIOS OK, it's just that it only shows one boot possibility, C drive.  It will probably show the USB port when there is a thumb drive inserted

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Just now, kencombs said:

Oh, I can get to the BIOS OK, it's just that it only shows one boot possibility, C drive.  It will probably show the USB port when there is a thumb drive inserted

Different computers of different ages have different capabilities. I have never seen a computer that could not boot off of a alternative source.

My current herd of computers are I3, I5, A I7 and this machine is a xeon with 32 gigs ram....

 

 

If you are talking some old pc with windows xp .... good chance it will not boot off another option, need to add the cd to it. I have no clue what you are doing.

 

Lets say you have a old pc and want to install Linux, you have options and can be done.

Linux is meant to run on your best hardware, not some old red headed step child. But it runs fine on 5 year old machines .... 10 year old and pushing your luck.

 

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43 minutes ago, Sniper said:

I remember building desktops in 1990/91 when a 40M hard drive was considered huge.

 

lol

 

Wasn't even born yet haha. A large part of my childhood was oregon trail and operation space station on an old macintosh with the 5.25 inch floppy discs. A simpler time of plug and play and hours of enjoyment. Wish I still had it.

 

Edit: Windows 95 was one of the biggest things ever to happen at the house those we got plenty of fingers waved at us for being on too long.....

Edited by maddmaxx1949
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I only started building computers in 2008.  But speaking of hard disk capacities, our Kaypro II had dual floppy drives, and the first thing you would do is slip in the OS disk, load it into memory, then pull that disk and put in the word processing disk, or what ever program you were needing.  Next one was our first laptop, and the first one with a HDD.  20 meg.  They said that no one would ever need more than that.  (The mission's computer techs also said that it wouldn't last long at all, if we took it out to the village, where we had no protection from humidity.  I DID have to replace that HDD, a proprietary Conner drive.  It cast me about $200.00.  What go ti was these tiny ants that apparently raised some sort of bacteria for food, something that would turn rubber into glue.  The rubber seal dissolved and ran all over the disk inside.  I figured no way is any American going to believe me when I had to describe what happened, but I ended up talking with a vet who had been in Nam, and he said that the soles of their military issue boots did the same thing.  The jungle is brutal on electronics and such like.)  I ran that laptop for 12 years, starting at the end of 1990.  It came with DOS 3.3, upgraded later to 6.1.  It would boot in less than 20 seconds, and it ran for hours on end on battery power.  A couple years before that, we had taken a solar panel down with us, and set up a small system, mostly to run the two-way radio that was our only connection with anyone on the outside.

Edited by Eneto-55
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9 hours ago, Pete said:

"I'm honestly surprised at the number of people posting that build their own machines on here. I wouldn't have guessed that many did so."

 

Being a computer nerd and a Mopar nerd is not mutually exclusive...

 


Its more that I think of some people that are attracted to vintage iron are also technologically adverse. Sure some of that is a preconceived notion based on stereotypes, but there is a grain of truth in it. I'm still a bit surprised at the number of people posting on this thread in a short period that they build their own machines. It seems quite high. Its not a bad thing at all though. 

I was fortunate that we had a PC when I was young. I took an interest in computers in elementary school, and my parents had a need for one with the businesses that they ran at the time - so they bought one and I also benefited. It was an IBM PS/2 50z with a 286 processor. (1988 probably....) Quite the technological marvel at the time. It was purchased from the original Micro Center location on Lane Avenue in Columbus Ohio. One of the best things was my parents did not pay to have anything installed (which was a normal expense to have people setup the machine and install the software for you). We learned how to do it ourselves. Our first OS built on top of MS-DOS was Lotus Magellan...... which took longer to use than to just use MS-DOS because at the time none of us knew how to write a batch file to boot up into that piece of software. lol 

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My first computer was an Amiga.  We had a genuine IBM pc on the ship to run a radio interference program the Navy was using to track issues with antenna locations, frequencies used and such.  We used it mostly to play games, lol.  The Amiga was a much better computer, both from a user interface aspect as well as graphics, sound and game playing.  Only thing neat about the IBM was the Bournelli drive.

 

I learn computers on a Commodore PET with a cassette deck as it's removable storage medium.  The modem was a telephone handset cradle. 

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I'm running Windows 10 on a couple of old Dell laptops for personal use and not really having any problems. They're good enough to get e-mail, surf the web  and open PDF's and Word documents. Work laptop runs Win10 with just a few apps. I've been working for a large company in the financial "industry" the last several years so everything's locked down tight, can't do anything not approved by the company anyway. 

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I am so glad I retired from all that hassle when I did. Win10 was just getting to be a PITA. I was so tired of backing people out of buggy updates. I do a bit of engineering on the PC but no “office” stuff anymore.

 

I still have OpenOffice though. And I was running Redhat and Mandrake back in the 90s, plus a Novel network, but engineering software companies forced us into the all-Microsoft merry-go-round. I have run nothing but DOS or Windows since.

 

Now, I recently retired a high spec winXP machine that would make a good Linux rig for my shop. I think I’ll look up mr Torvolds & see what’s up.

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Just now, Ulu said:

Now, I recently retired a high spec winXP machine that would make a good Linux rig for my shop. I think I’ll look up mr Torvolds & see what’s up.

He is a clown, says exactly what he thinks  :)

 

IMHO, all my machines are old. This current machine posting from is a I3 with 8 gigs ram. I bought it from a auction for $10 with no hard drive & 2 gigs ram. I bought a hard drive from ebay and 8 gigs ram ... I have less then $100 in it ... just never paid attention.

 

I bought a Dell xp machine from a yardsale for $10 a few years ago ... Very happy it came with some great powered speakers, keyboard/mouse ... I got my $10 from it.

While I really needed a new shop pc, I chose to not even bother installing Linux on it. I looked for 6 more months to buy a auction pc. You can install linux on it.

 

If you can imagine, A 10 year old pc a I3, !5, I7, My office pc is a xeon. with 16 gigs ram and have 32 gigs to install in it.

My point is, I run linux on my best hardware ... it is bleeding edge and steps ahead of windows or macs.

 

Most linux at this point, are 64 bit architecture ... all the big ones dropped 32 bit architecture. I would almost bet the xp machine is a 32 bit.

This just limits you to the distributions that will work on your machine ...

Long story short, a newer pc will work out of the box with linux.    A older pc will work, but you need a fair amount of knowledge to make it work ... you will get frustrated.

 

Just a heads up, your machine will work, some late xp machines were 64 bit capable. Still the ram limitations do not match what we want today, the power supply does not match what we want today ... Getting linux to work on a old xp machine is more like a novelty and for fun or show, not for use.

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Oh, it will work. It is a high spec 64 bit multi core cpu. I don’t recall what one off hand. Dual or quad core.

 

I have a $$$ 4-head GeForce video card that might cause me worry if it were too new, but it is probably just right to have good drivers now. I have my choice of other video cards just laying around though, so something will work.

 

I also have a 128 gb SSD for it, so big enough, 500gb HDD and 128gb RAM so enough to load the os and run from RAM.

 

The thing that concerns me most about running a Linux on this machine would be the fact that it also has on-board sound, USB, and VGA.

 

If the motherboard turns out to be unfavorable for this I do have some other machines laying around. I actually still have kind of a computer graveyard with operable gear that goes back to the IBM PC/AT and PS/2 model 50.

 

Maybe someday I’ll get the urge to load up a 5 1/4 inch floppy of ZORK.

 

(naaa…I don’t have time for games anymore.)

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Ulu
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7 hours ago, Ulu said:

Oh, it will work. It is a high spec 64 bit multi core cpu. I don’t recall what one off hand. Dual or quad core.

Yeah will be fine for sure .... While my xp machine is probably from the beginnings of xp's life cycle and very ancient. XP did have a long life cycle.

The Geforce will be fine. Linux has opensource nouveau drivers that are quite mature and work well. While the Nvidia drivers are also available.

Usually opensource drivers are installed, if you want nvidia then you will need to check a box accepting the License agreement then those drivers will become available.

 

I doubt you will have any issues with drivers for sound & if you install a gpu the onboard gpu/vga will be ignored.

Also modern desktop environments like kde or gnome, multiple monitors is dead simple. I use 3, 24" monitors on this machine ... fits my desk ... the shop I run dual monitors.

Only driver issues I find anymore, sometimes wireless can be a issue. While most are plug & play, some you need to jump through hoops to get them to work.

Like install wired to the router, then accept the license agreement for closed source drivers, then install the drivers and wireless will now work.

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Thanks for all the advice. I am not surprised that it has gotten much more plug and play than it was back in the 90s.

 

In fact I was counting on exactly that to make my life easy.

 

I do have a USB nano device for the Wi-Fi, And of course that’s the thing that I was most concerned about not working correctly in Linux.

 

I’m sure it’s not USB 3.x. But  it’s less than 100 feet from my router so I could run RJ-45 out to the shed. I’ve got hundreds of feet of used RJ 45 I was going to scrap anyway.

 

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Some pros and cons but I see alot I don't particularly care for

 

"Windows 11 Home edition requires internet connectivity and a Microsoft account to complete device setup on first use." booooo

 

"Internet Explorer is disabled. Microsoft Edge is the recommended replacement and includes IE Mode which may be useful in certain scenarios."

 

Taskbar:

  • Some icons may no longer appear in the System Tray (systray) for upgraded devices including previous customizations.
  • Alignment to the bottom of the screen is the only location allowed.
  • Apps can no longer customize areas of the Taskbar.

one pro other than it being completely removed "Cortana will no longer be included in the first boot experience or pinned to the Taskbar."

 

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