Re: I want to migrate to Linux

General Schvantzkopf <schvantzkopf@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:B42dnfjZc8V9AVjanZ2dnUVZ_v3inZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxx:

On Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:22:51 +0000, pcbldrNinetyEight wrote:

General Schvantzkopf <schvantzkopf@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:CpmdnbRc9NJPO1nanZ2dnUVZ_obinZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxx:
Please post the specs for your machines. If you don't have a lot of
RAM you will want to be looking at a lighter weight distro, Xubuntu
for example. If you have 1G then you can run anything, 512M will run
a Gnome system but you'll probably want to limit the number of
applications that you have open at any one time. You can even run a
Gnome system in as little as 384M but it's not particularly
pleasant. Xubuntu uses a lighter weight window manager so it runs
better on low spec machines. It won't be quite as user friendly as
Ubuntu, but it's probably better than Win98.

Biostar NF325-A7
http://www.biostar-usa.com/mbdetails.asp?model=nf325-a7

Sempron 3100+ 64bit

Patriot 512MB DDR 400, PC 3200 (one DIMM installed in each machine)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220027

Seagate Barracuda ST380215A 80GB IDE HD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148236

ZOGIS GeForce FX 5500, 256MB DDR, 128-bit, AGP 8X, VGA
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131014

Sony DVD AW-Q170A
http://www.cyberguys.com/templates/SearchDetail.asp?productID=12666

IN WIN IW-J619T2.J350L+ Beige Mid Tower 350W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811108056

For the first of my twin PCs I built in November '07 I initally
bought two Kingston DIMM from Newegg. One was bad and one was good. I
returned the bad and they sent me bad in return. At that point I gave
up. When I built the second PC in January I installed one Patriot
512MB DIMM.

WIN98SE will not run with more than 512MB installed. I have a plan to
modify it to accept 1GB but I haven't tried yet.

I don't usually have more than about six apps open simultaneously. I
can easily up both machines to 1GB each if this will improve Linux
performance. If I dual boot I will be required to make WIN98SE accept
1GB of ram but that should be possible.

I will reply to your other post later today with a list of apps for
which I seek Linux equivalents. Thank you for your help.

You should definitely up the RAM to at least 1G, preferably 2G which
is what your motherboard can handle. Run Win98 in a VMware virtual
machine

Can I test a VM with 512MB or is that hopeless?

A VM divorces the
hardware compatibility problem from the software compatibility issue.
For example your issue with total RAM goes away, you will just set the
VMs RAM space to be whatever Win98 can handle. You also don't have to
worry about drivers because the underlying Linux OS is taking care of
that problem. The Win98 VM talks to generic VMware devices, VMware
takes care of translating between Linux and Windows.

I am very fuzzy on this VM thing. Will I install WIN98 in VM like I
would a freshly formated drive? So Linux will supply drivers so WIN98
can use my hardware? If so then that is excellent and when the day comes
to build new PCs I could still run WIN98SE and not need any drivers. At
that point I'll be able to build anything I want and run anything I
want.

A Win98 VM will be pretty small as long as
you don't keep any data in it which you wouldn't want to do anyway.
You will keep all of your data on the Linux host where it can sit on a
modern file system instead of FAT32 and where it's easy to copy
between systems and to backup. The Win98 VM can access those
directories via SAMBA, if you do a network mount in Win98 they will
appear as Windows disks.

Is SAMBA a file management tool? So I will keep the files I create with
WIN apps on a drive other than the one that holds my apps? Will the
files I create with my WIN apps still be readable by a WIN only PC?

--
pcbldrNinetyEight
.

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