Re: [seul-edu] Lean and Clean Linux

[Ray Olszewski <ray@comarre.com>]

At 09:27 AM 7/9/00 -0500, Michael Viron wrote:
>At 07:46 AM 07/09/2000 -0500, you wrote:
>>Dear Educator Friends:
>>
>>I am working at a small parochial elementary school, teaching technology
>>and installing networked computers. Previously we have had W95 machines
>>loaded with Netscape, Word, and All the Right Type.  This has worked fine.
>>However, I have decided to convert the school (gradually) to Linux.  I'm
>>sure you all know the multiple good reasons for doing this.  The problem I
>>am having is that the standard machine at the school has 16mg RAM and 450
>>HD (Pentium 90). 

The prior answer offered some good suggestions. Let me expand a bit on them.

For more information about setting up your low-end Pentiums as Xterminals,
check these URLS:
        http://www.silvervalley.k12.ca.us/chobbs/xterms/
        http://www.solucorp.qc.ca/xterminals/
        http://www.menet.umn.edu/~kaszeta/unix/xterminal/index.html

There are several "lightweight" X window managers that may serve your needs
better than full-blown Gnome or Kde. Examples are blackbox and XFce. I've
even found the old fvwm95 to perform tolerably well on a 486, albeit one
with 32 megs of RAM. I know Debian includes both blackbox and XFce as
optional X packages; probably RH does as well.

One last option to consider is upgrades. One method is consolidation: make 2
machines into one, giving each 32 megs of RAM and 900 megs of hard disk.
Without knowing the details of your situation, I don't know if this advice
is practical. Or you might look into some of the used-computer outlets to
see if you can purchase additional memory at reasonable cost -- try
http://www.compgeeks.com/, for example.

Finally, in talking about your concerns with Red Hat installs, you are
mixing apples and oranges a bit. The fact that RH dunps a lot of stuff on
the hard disk doesn't slow performance; it just crowds the hard disk. The
performance problem comes from running unneeded apps in the background, and
default Red Hat installs do start a lot of junk running. 

Your problems with Debian are unfortunate, since Debian installs can easily
avoid this problem. (At least the newer Debian 2.2 can; I assume your
reference to "Debian 6.1" was a slip of the fingers for Debian 2.1.) But
your difficulties with NIC detection aren't the result of your inexperience;
this is an area where RH is head and shoulders ahead of Debian. 

Still, you should notice if your "generic" cards are all ending up using
only one or two modules -- what I think of as "generic" or no-name cards
typically use ne.o (isa cards) or tulip.o (pci cards). If you find that the
bulk of your cards are one or the other, foregoing automatic NIC detection
may be less painful than you are assuming.

Or do what I do. When I do installs on unfamiliar equipment, I carry a RH
install disk, that I use just for NIC detection. Once I know what driver is
needed, I can easily go on to do a Debian install. 


--
------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
Ray Olszewski                                        -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, CA           	 	         ray@comarre.com        
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