Re: I Want to identify best Linux approach, and any pitfalls.
- From: Dances With Crows <danSPANceswitTRAPhcrows@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 13:38:46 -0600
On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 18:09:40 +0000, The Natural Philosopher staggered
into the Black Sun and said:
> The machine will be run as a wired networked machine with one MAC OS9
> and one PC Win 98SE on a local network, behind a NAT router [attached]
> to the Internet. I am happy with nearly all of the networking issues -
> atalk and samba etc.
MacOS 9? Glutton for punishment, eh?
> Printers will be an ageing Laserjet 6P (already networked: Talks
> LPR)and a HP designjet 650C large format inkjet...parallel only that
> one..be mice if [the] Mac [could] talk to it though..ghostscript?
There's nothing in the atalkd manuals about printing from OS 9 clients.
I've never tried that, since I rarely print stuff anyway. If the old
Mac can talk to a Samba printer, no problem. Check your MacOS software,
since that's probably where the problems will show up.
> I will need some form of CD-ROM or DVD burning for backups and data
> exchange.
k3b, works well for CD-R(W) and DVD+-R(W) AFAICT.
> I'd like to play DVD's as well, but I understand there are issues.
xine or vlc or ogle. No problems using xine here. You'll have to
install libdvdcss, but the RIAA aren't going to go after you for that.
For video that isn't on DVD, mplayer/gmplayer works well.
> Ideally I'd like to use an integrated cheap motherboard with Intel
> graphics chips. Built in sound and networking etc.
"Cheap" is the *LAST* thing you should look for in a motherboard. In
x86 machines, the motherboard is the thing that's the most difficult to
diagnose problems with, and the thing that's the most difficult to
replace. Also, Intel's graphics chips suck. If you want hardware
accelerated 3D (for playing games, mostly), you want an nVidia card.
Most NICs work without a problem. Many onboard sound chips work, but I
always see people reporting funny problems with the latest Intel 8x0
whatever that's just slightly different from the 33 previous versions
and won't be fully supported until the next stable kernel release.
> What I need is a desktop that is as near Win98 as I can get, without
> [excessive] configuration.
? Linux is not Windows and never will be. KDE behaves fairly similarly
to Windows by default, and it can be made to look a lot like Windows,
but there are and will always be differences at low levels. The sooner
you get that, the happier you'll be with your Linux system.
> Firefox NEARLY works, but some sites I use daily require IE6 rendering
> engine and Java implementation. What else is there? Mozilla with IE6
> rendering?
I.Exploder rendering is only available via I.Exploder, which doesn't
exist for Linux. If this is a deal-breaker for you, you will not be
happy with Linux.
> I want to scan in stuff on my HP Scanjet 4100C...it LOOKS like there
> is support for this at least.
xsane, probably. It'll be on your distro CDs, and sane-project.org says
the 4100C is completely supported. Anything that has a SANE backend
should be controllable from Gimp as well.
> I have a Nikon Coolpix camera with USB interface...I'd really like to
> be able to pull images off that and delete them on it
Most USB cameras behave as Mass Storage Devices. Just plug the camera
in, mount it, and treat it like a disk. Some cameras have alternative
interfaces, and those alternative interfaces are supported by the
gphoto2 library and/or GUI frontends like digikam.
> Any discussion on CAD and 'artistic' drawing programs that run native
> would be of extreme use. I will pay for the [right] software here as
> this is something I use a fair bit.
No idea about CAD. What do you mean by "artistic" here? Vector-based?
> Apart from that of course a decent C, C++ and maybe Java development
> [environment] is needed.
vim/emacs, make, ctags. eclipse or kdevelop if you think you need a
GUI.
> What I am hoping that you can help me with is deciding which hardware
> NOT to get (more than identifying the correct best spec units) and
> identifying anything that WON'T work.
Avoid anything made by PCChips. I've had good luck with Abit and Asus
motherboards. Athlon64 is the way to go for best bang/buck. Integrated
video cards are usually terrible. Integrated sound can be a crapshoot.
> I am leaning towards SUSE Linux, but have no particular religion -
> used Debian and Redhat in the past.
I've heard that SuSE's documentation has gone downhill a great deal. If
you're feeling confident and you have a decent Net drop (> ISDN), try
the Debian netinst CD--the installation process has improved
tremendously with the ncurses-menu-driven thing they're using.
> Plus any extra software that would be needed to get functionality up
> to roughly what I have here, without crashing...
? Was the list in your first message a complete list of your
requirements? If it wasn't complete, complete it. If it was complete,
I commented on everything that I had knowledge about. HTH anyway,
--
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin / mail: TRAP + SPAN don't belong
http://www.brainbench.com / "He is a rhythmic movement of the
-----------------------------/ penguins, is Tux." --MegaHAL
.
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