[rescue] Sun Kit Needed for EE Student Here

[Don Y]

Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> Wed, 03 May 2006 @ 16:31 -0700, Don Y said:
> 
>> their conscious awareness. If, instead, you think about what you bought the
>> machine for in the first place and base your ongoing "re-evaluations" of the
>> machine's worthiness on *that* decision (and don't let others subtly change
>> the criteria you use), then there's no reason why the *machine* has changed
>> (become "slow").
> 
> Desktop apps, games, and each release of Windows use more and more resources,
> and that drives the PC upgrade frenzy.

Yup.  Hence, keep focused on why you *got* the machine in the first
place (i.e. which applications you *were* planning on running).
You can't blame the PC if you have subtly decided that your
"needs" are now greater.  It would be like complaining that
your LX had "suddenly" become dreadfully slow -- running Sol10
even though you GOT it to run 2.6!  :-/

> In the UNIX world, Gnome tries hard to fullfill that role...

I was going to suggest KDE, as well... (below)  :>

> For those of us who buy machines to do work with sane applications (and
> even KDE is sane compared to a lot of Windows stuff), we generally know
> what apps we'll be using when we get it and if they run OK.
> 
> That means we'll keep using it until real work becomes too much burden
> for the machine, or we'll have a server to offload it to.

Exactly.  I.e. my Windows machine is stuck in W98-land.  The
apps that it runs suit me just fine.  I have no need to upgrade
to the latest feature (bug) set for each of those applications
(with the attendant increase in resource requirements without
accompanying BENEFIT increases).

I am noticably annoyed with moving to W2K on the VW320 as I
know I will inevitably lose some applications and have to
upgrade others (if it ain't broke, why fix it??).  But,
space is limited, here, and I would rather hang on to the
VW320 and discard the 800MHz Athlon than the other way around...
(even though the Athlon is far easier to support!)

> We are also generally more discplined about how we use resources, and
> more of our work is batch oriented, while your typical Windows task
> involves reacting to the computer and forced realtime interaction
> with little alternative.
> 
> Aside: why are so many @#$% websites set up so you have to babysit downloads
> and things like that, instead of just getting a URL you can deal with later?
> It isn't necessary, not even for load handling and useless stats!
> 
>> I suspect your problem was the BIOS doing your thinking for you. I can
>> usually get any disk to at least *boot* from even ancient BIOS'es -- long
>> enough for the real OS to start up and "fix" the problem.
> 
> Generally just create a /boot partition (or OS equivalent) that you locate
> under 1GB, and you'll be just fine. The BIOS can't see the rest of the drive,
> but it doesn't matter because a good loader can, and from that point you
> should be fine.

Yup.  Sometimes you have to play games with geometries if
its an *old* BIOS.  But, you can also often upgrade the
BIOS and possibly avoid those issues.  Annoying to see how
many vendors (not just PC's... SPARCs, Macs, etc.) impose
silly, arbitrary constraints on bootstrap!

>> Again, that depends on where you are and what resources you have access to.
>> I see 4x500MHz servers discarded pretty regularly.
> 
> I obviously need to move...

Trust me, this is the WRONG time of year to be considering
that!  :>  (we're already flirting with the century mark...)

>> It's distressing but most folks really seem happier in the PC camp --
>> even those running Linux/*BSD/etc.
> 
> I think this is mostly pragmatic for a lot of people.

Exactly.  No need for "religion".  Get what you need to do
the job most effectively IN YOUR ENVIRONMENT.  I'm annoyed
at how few non-Linux users I run into locally (I run other
*BSD's, no Linux).  So, that's a subtle "tax" I incur for
my choice to run other OS's.  <shrug>  If I were in college,
I would probably seriously reconsider that choice as *there*
the goal is to get through it with the least hassle!