New to Linux? Newbies & Gurus-Not So Newbies - All Distros Tips & Lore

Cat, as I've said, I've been "Linux" for a long time.  Ever run Windows 3.x on a 286?  Linux would run on the same hardware, again, night and day in performance.  Going to a 386, I just didn't know what to do with all the extra power.  So the performance on the laptop wasn't a real surprise to me, the ease of installation is the bigger surprise.

 

 Going to a 386,

1990 the AusPak 386 cost close to $3500 in Australia.

 

Ever run Windows 3.x on a 286?

... early 1992. My first PC was a 286AT, 13" screen with 12 MHz refresh, 1MB RAM, 40MB HDD. Windows 3.1, with MS-DOS 4.0 underlying.

WordPerfect 5.1 ran on it with as little as 490KB RAM.

As the DOSes progressed through 5.0 and up to 6.22, I was using DOSSHELL as a File Manager preferably to Explorer.

Got programs' devices to run in HIMEM using Memmaker, and for other programs compatibilty that would only run on a 386 normally with at least 2MB RAM, I used a command "setver" to fool Windows into accepting the correct version.

Wiz

 

 

 Ever run Windows 3.x on a 286? 

Yes at work, though back then only were allowed access to certain software needed for the job & that only. It wasn't until 2000 that I got my first taste at my own computer, a combined work & personal notebook. Back then, it was big to have 128GB of RAM & a 20GB HDD, though someone in the IT department upgraded that to 40GB for me with a spare, they kept things well stocked. A couple of years later, upgraded the same to 2GB RAM, though on the Dell site & in the user manual (so couldn't have been a typo), it said that it would only accept two 512MB sticks. Someone told me that Dell & other OEM's at the time misled consumers in an effort to upsell to higher powered computers. Shady dealings, that's for sure. In fact, still have a Dell Dimension 2400 in the closet that said the same, until about 2008 when consumers began questioning these things. It too, would accept & run 2GB in total RAM, though as sold, one only had the option of two 512MB sticks (max capacity). 

My Linux beginnings were with i386 CPU's, and then a few months later, 64 bit CPU's, though until 2011 or so, the 'recommended' install was still 32 bit & it didn't take me long to discover why. Back in 2009, driver support was very lacking for 64 bit computers, though these had been on the market for at least 4 years. It was around 2011-12 that most Linux OS's began to work well with 64 bit computers w/out making one's own drivers, another task that was well beyond the scope of a newbie, and 32 bit was no longer 'pushed' off on those with 64 bit computers. 

 

... early 1992. My first PC was a 286AT, 13" screen with 12 MHz refresh, 1MB RAM, 40MB HDD. Windows 3.1, with MS-DOS 4.0 underlying.

 

Sounds like some of our first work computers there, slow as dirt, as well being on a dial up connection. Yet they got the job done, the main computer would upload the data to our portable handheld computers for route sales.

Cat

@NickAu:

 

 

 Going to a 386,

1990 the AusPak 386 cost close to $3500 in Australia.

 

... and that one I mentioned? Cost about AUD$2,300 back in 1992.

In Oz, I find not so much that the prices have come down, but that rather, for the same bucks, you get more bang for your buck, than we did then.

Wiz

 

 

... and that one I mentioned? Cost about AUD$2,300 back in 1992.

Wiz, could you imagine what kind of powerhouse of a PC you'd have for that same price now?

Unlike food & many other things that we need, electronics, to include computers, has plunged in price & increased in power countless times over since the early 90's. Back then, I couldn't even afford a computer, and many others were in the same boat. In the early 2000's, Dell waged a price war like never seen prior, and since then, the pricing has dropped, and the power keeps going upwards (on PC's). Unfortunately, mainstream notebooks & other portables hit their power peak in 2012, Haswell brought major downgrades for mobile users, most i7's are no longer true quad core, and at less than 20W, a joke. Really, how many virtual machines or amount of photo editing does one expect from a non-quad i7? Not much, I hope. Though I fully understand the reasoning, power was sacrificed to obtain battery life, when in reality one could have had both (optionally) with an adapter to install a spare battery in the optical drive's place. Or carry one of many very high mAh extra rechargeable battery packs, that'll plug into a USB port to provide power for hours. 

Yet the desktop PC rules, and pricing continues to fall for more powerful units than before. The said can be said for the graphics cards inside, these packs a lot more power, running off the fumes of earlier (& very hot running) models. All of that heat was wasted energy, and with every major release (at least with a nVidia card), the power requirements are less, and more performance in return. I suspect the same with AMD, though I've only had one recent model, a 2012 version that was on promo, the MSI R7770 1GB GDDR5 OC edition that I pulled out of here to swap for a GTX 960. The newer uses less power, runs at lower temps, and gets more done with 2GB of GDDR5 memory. 

Same for CPU's, the PC that I replaced this one with was running a P4 (Northwood) CPU at 3.06MHz with H/T, with only 512MB of L2 cache (no L3) & it was using more power than this one does. That CPU when new also cost more than the i7-4770, as it was one of the first CPU's with H/T technology. Unfortunately, it was crippled by the lack of L2 cache & the fact that it was a single core CPU. 

Point being, for the most part, we can today purchase a lot more for a lot less, and come another 10-15 years, there's no telling what we can do with the same cash. For desktop users, I'd expect a small to mid sized server PC to replace the traditional PC, or the components will be upgraded to the point where the PC can be used for either mode, and chances are at a minimum, 8 core CPU's on Intel based PC's will be standard equipment (6 core for budget models), along with by then, at least DDR5-6 RAM, and a couple of bumps to the GPU at GDDR8-10. Technology will not stand still, the engineers are working as I'm typing this post to make computers more powerful & energy efficient. 

Linux OS's will be absolute powerhouses on this hardware.

Cat

Latest progress on my "updated" "update" script.

But first, for those whom may have just now come across this Topic, and find it a bit lengthy to wade through, you can find a Table of Contents and an Index starting at

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/548703/new-to-linux-newbies-gurus-not-so-newbies-all-distros-tips-lore/?p=3570316

In a few pages time, I will provide a fresher version of those Posts.

After extensive testing of the update script, with its revision of saying "Yes" to downloads and update/upgrade processes, I am satisfied it works across Debian-based Distros of all colours. As an illustration of that, below is a screenshot of GParted showing my current state of the nation on the Toshiba.

Of those listed, the only ones not currently employing the update script are:

• Sabayon (Gentoo family)
• Manjaro (Arch-based) and
• Mageia (RPM-based)

I will be working on those soon, once I have become familiar with the different CLI syntaxes.

Hierarchical structure of folders and files also differs, so I have to establish the right place to house the update script in each.

Stay tuned as "update" evolves.

Wizard

Way waayyy     

How about a new thread for "update" script and sceenshots of that?

This topic has nothing to do with your partition table.

 

In a few pages time, I will provide a fresher version of those Posts.

Please don't post just to say you're going to post later.

 

Ever run Windows 3.x on a 286?

I have Mandrake Linux running on a P1 166 with 4M RAM on a 250M hard drive...

What do i win?

i also have a 5 or 6 pack of floppies holding... wait for it... DOS 5.0  (FYI: i don't even have a floppy drive any more)

My Linux is bigger than your Linux (previous job)

Tier 1 backbone right off Quest and Level3 with triple redundancy... blah blah blah (60,000 servers hosting just over 3MIL sites)

My computer "monitor"

My "power supply"

My "computer room"

@wiz

 

@raw – you revealed an impressive computer setup from a former workplace at another of my Topics – I wonder if those were Linux servers?

Yes, my "area" was a mix of Redhat and CentOS. It was very unusual for me to admin a windows server.

Except maybe to change a password or a reboot. (i am not MCSE)

One of the cages had these in it. Tech's were not allowed in there.

At one point the Army housed a server there with an armed guard (as in M-16 and sidearm armed)

The company was sold and at present the new place houses ~111,500 servers.