Darkelve

I'm looking for a distribution that runs okay on an old laptop, Compaq Presario 128mb ram and -I think- 600 or 800Mzh or so PIII processor. Hard drive 20 GB or so. Runs Windows ME right now, but no one uses it anymore (probably partly *because* of the WinME... :-x ). It has a PCMCIA card, Intel Pro/Wireless 2011(B). I am guessing there are not native drivers for it yet, which probably means the distro should have easy ndiswrapper setup. Also, it should be relatively small, fast (especially boot time), and have an easy to use package manager with automatic dependency handling. Should run preferrably KDE or XFCE or -less preferrably- Gnome. Doesn't have to have the latest-and-greatest packages, but does have fairly recent and stable ones (e.g. Firefox 1.5). Should have easy updates. Any distro that comes to mind?

Well, at least it's shorter than your usual postings :P Not that I mind, don't misunderstand me. But I think if there was a contest on who posted the most *amount* of text in these forums, you'd definitely be in the top 3 ;)

That C# thing was a joke on my part... since a couple of the applications I've run which were written in C# crash regularly... so I thought that's a crappy language. Or maybe the programmers weren't very good...

Are you trying to tell me you're smart? :P

0,30% ? Now let's do the same with a Windows box B)

Cute. Linspire was slow and bulky to begin with, hopefully this being-based-on-ubuntu thing will also mean it'll get better.

You mean that book about "Object Oriented C#"? ;)

I've heard (on suseforums.net ) that OpenSuSe 10.2 (and SuSe distro's in general) work great on laptops. I use OpenSuSe 10.2 myself, but for a laptop, I'd still say Linux Mint if you don't mind Gnome. If you like KDE, then OpenSuSe 10.2 is a pretty good bet.

I want one! So stop torturing me with those screenshots! Is that AdiumX you are running to chat? Anyway, I suppose I'll have to post some screenshots of my own desktop:

8/10

Well, you don't have to buy DRM'ed titles from iTunes if you don't want to... you can play mp3's just fine... with Rockbox you could even play Ogg although myself I'm too scared to go anywhere near it :P There are certain things about this ipod though that are just so damned handy: - the click wheel which makes navigation&control very easy - the fact you can plug it in and it acts as a USB flash drive (1GB in my case) - the clear and crisp screen - the backlight! - the weight and size - not heavy and I can put it nearly anywhere - long battery life & charging through USB cable! Things that I hate - the headphones: you can spot an Ipod user by it from a mile away! I'd prefer to be less 'recognizable'; plus the headphone wires start to curl incredibly after a couple months of use, they're also a tiny bit on the short side. - the fact that it didn't come with an AC adapter by default. I bought one seperately. Usually I have a computer handy, but for example when going on vacation I didn't. Okay, so it was rather expensive, but since I commute every day for 3 hours in total, it's worth it. It does suck the new models come at the same price but have 2GB storage though... :-x

Or Linux Mint. Which is basically Ubuntu Edgy Eft + a bunch of proprietary codecs and drivers + some small but useful improvements.

Maybe, but someone told me that ICT stuff in general is very expensive in Australia.

Actually, I want it too. If I had loads of cash, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. And a Macbook Pro too, by means of accessory .

It's not a simple phone, it's a revolutionary communication device :ph34r: (well, at least Apple thinks so.)

Actually, the more I'm thinking about the iPhone, the more I'm liking it. Too bad it's going to have quite a heavy price card. I mean, for that amount of money you can almost get a Mac Mini (to stay in Apple land). Of course, that one's less "mobile", for starters... :P

Calm down SoulSe, Apple is cool ;) Personally, the most important barrier that I will ever have for buying an iPhone (or other multimedia phone) is an affordable internet (EDGE, 3G or whatever) subcription. Seeing as the iPhone does wireless though, and I pass quite a lot of WIFI-hotspots when commuting, it might actually be a great solution for me. Hopefully the wireless signal will be strong enough then.

For all the things that Apple do good (marketing, ease of use, pretty products, ...) one of the reasons I'm shying away from Apple products is because they seem to always want to lock it, bolt it, and lock you in... I do have an iPod. I don't have to use iTunes luckily, but if Apple had its way, I'm sure they would have me use it. There's also a To Do list in the iPod's features, but unless you've got Apple's iCal, there' seems to be no truely easy way to synch or get data in there. And I'm sure there are more examples like that.

Talking about Apple, I found the experiences of "this guy" interesting to read: http://www.bitrot.de/macswitch.html It's a little dated, but interesting nonetheless. And it underscores one of the most important advantages of Linux: between OSX, Windows and Linux, only with Linux you are totally in control.

Am I correct in saying that Macbooks are especially useful for people who travel a lot (I mean compared to most "Windows" laptops)? Well, maybe that's logical for a "notebook", but I know a lot of people buying laptops and then they just keep it on some table in the house all of the time!

The $100 sounds about right. I made a similar comparison and I came out at less than that when comparing an iMac with a similar computer from a configure-it-yourself online shop with very good prices. I came out at a difference of €50. However, I also took into a count the design of the case (which is, in the case of the iMac, the screen, so I took a somewhat more expensive case to compensate for this) and I picked "Win XP Professional" in the choice for an OS, because I think Mac OSX has more features than WinXP Home and so is more comparable to XP's PRO version. And I added a wireless card and a €15 Bluetooth stick/dongle thing. Just curious as to why you didn't like your $1600 mac. What kind of mac was it, and why didn't you like it?

In other news, Microsoft announced they will be coming out with their own OS you can install instead of the default OSX one: Windows iPhone Home Edition :D (of course, this was only a joke )

Looks evil ;) Evil? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? :P

Also don't forget to check out the free Wine (Cedega is based on an older version of it). It has improved very much and with some effort, you can get certain Windows games to run. For example I could install and play Keepsake perfectly, and Dreamfall ran with some technical shortcomings. Gabriel Knight II worked perfectly. Other games didn't run or could not get installed at all.

My new OpenSuSe 10.2 desktop. One is a clean desktop, the other a busy desktop.