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I think that you guys should start having bets each week on how far into the show will Pat say the word "Kanotix"
Each week it always come back to Kanotix....just takes different amounts of time...

BTW - love the show!1 Keep it up guys!!

Bye from Sydney, Australia!

I do love Kanotix but I'm also running Debian and Slackware. I'm not afraid to try out new distros. Maybe something better will come around.

I went through a period where I would download any distro I could get my hands on....I now have a collection of about 2dozen different distros....I also would download the ones that you guys would mention on the show....

Yesterday I found a "stack" of old laptops (PIIs and PIIIs) at the office. Seems as though we don't use them anymore 'cause XP doesn't run well on them. Our "knowledgeable" IT people consider them garbage.

The only thing is, a Project Manager needs a laptop to take to a potential client's office to demonstrate a database I built for them in OpenOffice. And, the last viable laptop that IT had available just packed it in (running XP no less).

So, I took one of the laptops (a Toshiba) and I installed Kanotix on it. Hmmm... everything was detected and Kanotix runs just fine on it. A little slow, but fine none the less. OpenOffice 2.0 also works like a charm and I got Samba going so I could access the corporate network.

I handed the resurrected laptop over to the Project Manager, to get accustomed to it, and he was amazed at how well it worked. Just as good as that newer laptop he had the other day... before it crapped out. I think I'm going to resurrect the other defunked laptops I saw in the storage cupboard and distribute them. Who needs an IT dept. when you have Linux and someone who know how to use it?

I love my Kanotix! Pat should make it an official "sponsor" of the show

"So, I took one of the laptops (a Toshiba) and I installed Kanotix on it. Hmmm... everything was detected and Kanotix runs just fine on it. A little slow, but fine none the less. OpenOffice 2.0 also works like a charm and I got Samba going so I could access the corporate network.

I handed the resurrected laptop over to the Project Manager, to get accustomed to it, and he was amazed at how well it worked. Just as good as that newer laptop he had the other day... before it crapped out. I think I'm going to resurrect the other defunked laptops I saw in the storage cupboard and distribute them. Who needs an IT dept. when you have Linux and someone who know how to use it?"

I see this everyday at my place of work - throwing good quality computer stuff away just because it supposedly old and XP and I even heard someone say this "VISTA won't run on it".

I just shook my head - I said give me the laptop I will make it rock. But he couldn't cause of coporate policy of course. But the look on his face was really funny when I said that. It was a combination of perplexed and anger.

But it got thown away and it was a perfectly fine laptop.
I am convinced some people have been so brainwashed that if nothing runs on Microsoft then it isn't any good or just needs to be discarded (both software and hardware). I am also convinced that some people just shouldn't be in IT.

One of these days I am going to get these so called old trashy laptops and I will be very happy.

Anyway - good job judland - sounds like at least the people at your work have an open mind. My work the company is so in bed with microsoft no one else cares about anything else other than microsoft.

Hmm -- they must sell all the stuff you guys toss out to my company. I'm on an 800 mhz celery w/ onboard shared memory gfx *box* - forget about a lappy. Well, actually the rest of the guys in the NOC got lappys, but I was left out. I didn't mind though, since I was also left out when the cellphones were being given out .

It, no joke, takes 2 minutes to search PDFs on that bad boy.

jsusanka wrote: Anyway - good job judland - sounds like at least the people at your work have an open mind. My work the company is so in bed with microsoft no one else cares about anything else other than microsoft.

Well, I wouldn't say it's a result of an open mind... the junior IT guy in our office is more indifferent to the goings on than the IT managers at head office. And, besides, it was an easy way for him to get the Project Manager who was out a laptop off of his back.

That's really the only way I can make any progress in my scheme for Open Source supremacy.... I look for these little thorns in our IT department's sides, make the problem known to someone higher up in the chain of command, and get them complaining to IT about it. Then I tell the over-worked Microsoft IT guy that I'll take care of it for him.

The Exchange Servers keep them so busy at chasing fires, every once in a while I get a chance at slipping something by. Use Microsoft to my advantage, right?

The manager using the Kanotix laptop I set up asked me today if it was possible to do something with any of the other retired laptops. Seems as though he would like to keep the one I set up for his business trip. He wants to "play around with it" for a while.

*Insert evil laugh* Seems as though my plan is working.

jsusanka wrote:I see this everyday at my place of work - throwing good quality computer stuff away just because it supposedly old and XP and I even heard someone say this "VISTA won't run on it". ... But it got thown away and it was a perfectly fine laptop.... I am convinced some people have been so brainwashed that if nothing runs on Microsoft then it isn't any good or just needs to be discarded (both software and hardware).

;i have this conspiracy theory that MS has specifically engineered subsequent versions of windows with ever increasing inefficiencies purposefully. take, for example, the movement of "temp" directories into user specific subdirectories and the inclusion "prefetch" and other memory and disk space-eating subsystems in xp. what does the average user do when a system comes grinding to a halt? buy a new computer, of course!

jsusanka wrote:I am also convinced that some people just shouldn't be in IT.

;you have the "wizard" and the fabled "micrsoft ease of use" to thank for this.

jsusanka wrote:One of these days I am going to get these so called old trashy laptops and I will be very happy.

;exactly... just clean up after other people's ignorance. but you have to be careful, or they'll start expecting you to do with less and you'll end up like linc did when his work ordered new computers. when i heard that, i was so angry for him. "so-and-so, you seem to do with our cast-aways most of the time, so we're going to give you the hand-me-downs." grrr... how about: "you've saved us so much time and money with your expertise, we're giving you the pick of whatever system you want," instead guys??? riiiight.

;treehead

Patrick wrote:I do love Kanotix but I'm also running Debian and Slackware. I'm not afraid to try out new distros. Maybe something better will come around.

I talk about SUSE 10 the way you talk about Kanotix, Pat

Did ya try out SUSE 10? It's great man, on some other distros, notably Kubuntu Hoary (Gotten better in Breezy), I've had Konqueror crash quite often, Konqueror in SUSE 10 never crashes, rock solid and very polished and sniny KDE desktop

Judland,

Any way you could send me one of those laptops? I'd pay the shipping and handling charge to get a working old laptop that I could put linux on down here in the states.

mowestusa

mowestusa wrote: Any way you could send me one of those laptops? I'd pay the shipping and handling charge to get a working old laptop that I could put linux on down here in the states.

I wish I could. Really, I do. However, even though they're deemed "useless" I still can't get the office management to part with them.

"We can't just give you our old equipment. What if other people in the office want it? It wouldn't be fair."

Of course, no one else has shown any interest in any of this old equipment. But I'll keep hounding them.

If I do manage to get a couple of them, I'll let you know, mowestusa. Promise!

Tsuroerusu wrote: Did ya try out SUSE 10? It's great man, on some other distros, notably Kubuntu Hoary (Gotten better in Breezy), I've had Konqueror crash quite often, Konqueror in SUSE 10 never crashes, rock solid and very polished and sniny KDE desktop

I was just looking at SUSE 10 and was thinking of giving it a go, but I noticed that the web site states a minimum of 256MB of RAM. My test machine only has 196MB. Do I really need 256MB to run it or is that just so "newbies" don't complain about how sluggish KDE 3.5 is if they're PC is not quite up to specs? And do I really need all FIVE (count 'em.. 5) CDs?!

Judland wrote:

Tsuroerusu wrote: Did ya try out SUSE 10? It's great man, on some other distros, notably Kubuntu Hoary (Gotten better in Breezy), I've had Konqueror crash quite often, Konqueror in SUSE 10 never crashes, rock solid and very polished and sniny KDE desktop

I was just looking at SUSE 10 and was thinking of giving it a go, but I noticed that the web site states a minimum of 256MB of RAM. My test machine only has 196MB. Do I really need 256MB to run it or is that just so "newbies" don't complain about how sluggish KDE 3.5 is if they're PC is not quite up to specs? And do I really need all FIVE (count 'em.. 5) CDs?!

I havn't tried it on a machine with less than 256, but the KDE really has a lot of bells and whistles, so you may need to scale it's rims down

You can just do a network installation over the internet, there are a bunch of servers that has a full archive of the RPMs included on the CDs that you can install off of, you just get the network boot iso from opensuse.org

I just pulled the iso off of bittorent. One torrent = 3.8 gig (includes 5 cd iso's). I'll try it out today or tommorow in between watching the big Spanish derby (Real Madrid vs Barcelona) and coughing.

Patrick wrote:I just pulled the iso off of bittorent. One torrent = 3.8 gig (includes 5 cd iso's). I'll try it out today or tommorow in between watching the big Spanish derby (Real Madrid vs Barcelona) and coughing.

Just as a note for ya, when the installer finishes, it will provide you with the option to install updates, don't do that at this stage but let the system fully boot up into KDE and then do it, I had a few issues doing it at the end of the install.