I have a customer who wants a laptop with Linux. My impression is he wants to learn Linux. I have refurbished laptops: IBM ThinkPad A21m, with Pentium III processor @ 750 MHz, 512MB RAM, and I can upgrade the hard drive to 40GB. Which distro of Linux would you recommend?
I would ask Mike Pfaiffer, but he passed away earlier this year.
Thanks, Rob Dyck
Wow, I didn't know Mike had died in July, reading the obituary now. Unbelievable. Spoke to him not long ago at MUUG/MWCS, he seemed to be a fun, nerdy person like most of us, but according to his page he was suffering from long-term health issues? After a few discussions I did seem to detect he was low on enthusiam/direction in his life but didn't know he had health concerns which I imagine contributed if not lead to his death. So unfortunate.
His extensive personal page lives on for now (assumedly under his parents' Shaw account): http://members.shaw.ca/pfaiffer/mike.html
:-(
On Sun, Oct 6, 2013 at 11:46 PM, Robert Dyck rbdyck2@shaw.ca wrote:
I have a customer who wants a laptop with Linux. My impression is he wants to learn Linux. I have refurbished laptops: IBM ThinkPad A21m, with Pentium III processor @ 750 MHz, 512MB RAM, and I can upgrade the hard drive to 40GB. Which distro of Linux would you recommend?
I would ask Mike Pfaiffer, but he passed away earlier this year.
Thanks, Rob Dyck
Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
Mike's obituary:
http://passages.winnipegfreepress.com/passage-details/id-205359/name-Mic hael_Pfaiffer/date-range-all/keyword-michael_pfaiffer/order-publish_date %7CDESC,last_name%7CASC,first_name%7CASC/
Muddy Waters Computer Society http://mwcs.mb.ca/
Mike's BlogSpot http://d-mike.blogspot.ca/
And Mike had occasionally written articles in 2011 for Call-A.P.P.L.E. under the psuedonym "Blank Mike". http://www.callapple.org/
I still have the Minecraft server he set up for me. I use it to test mods that I write. I promissed his father I would go over to clean up his computers. I intend to get a copy of the save-game world file from the Minecraft server he set up for himself. I had played with him, so want to keep it.
Rob Dyck
-----Original Message----- From: roundtable-bounces@muug.mb.ca [mailto:roundtable-bounces@muug.mb.ca] On Behalf Of Colin Stanners Sent: Monday, October 07, 2013 1:28 AM To: Continuation of Round Table discussion Subject: Re: [RndTbl] Linux distro for Pentium III
Wow, I didn't know Mike had died in July, reading the obituary now. Unbelievable. Spoke to him not long ago at MUUG/MWCS, he seemed to be a fun, nerdy person like most of us, but according to his page he was suffering from long-term health issues? After a few discussions I did seem to detect he was low on enthusiam/direction in his life but didn't know he had health concerns which I imagine contributed if not lead to his death. So unfortunate.
His extensive personal page lives on for now (assumedly under his parents' Shaw account): http://members.shaw.ca/pfaiffer/mike.html
:-(
On Sun, Oct 6, 2013 at 11:46 PM, Robert Dyck rbdyck2@shaw.ca wrote:
I have a customer who wants a laptop with Linux. My impression is he wants to learn Linux. I have refurbished laptops: IBM ThinkPad A21m, with Pentium III processor @ 750 MHz, 512MB RAM, and I can upgrade the hard drive to 40GB. Which distro of Linux would you recommend?
I would ask Mike Pfaiffer, but he passed away earlier this year.
Thanks, Rob Dyck
_______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
Robert,
I met Mike at the U of Manitoba. I just found out that he passed away. Mike was a good friend but we have not talked in years. He was such a healthy guy. Do you know what he passed away from?
Norm
Mike has cirrhosis of the liver. Ironic since he never touched a drop of alcohol in his life. In fact, he got ill at the very scent of alcohol. When I volunteered with him, if I used isopropyl alcohol to clean a computer, he had to leave the room until the alcohol cleared. It turned out that was a symptom of cirrhosis of the liver.
Doctors looked at a rare inherited condition. Last time I exchanged email with him, they hadn't confirmed the source cause. By the time they figured out it was cirrhosis, it was acute. He was too ill to volunteer. His doctors tried to get him a liver transplant, but that was too late. Before they could arrange the operation, he died.
His online obituary.
http://passages.winnipegfreepress.com/passage-details/id-204570/name-Mic hael_Pfaiffer/min-run-date-1374901200/order-publish_date%7CDESC,last_nam e%7CASC/
I still miss Mike.
Robert Dyck
-----Original Message----- From: roundtable-bounces@muug.mb.ca [mailto:roundtable-bounces@muug.mb.ca] On Behalf Of norm wall Sent: Saturday, May 31, 2014 1:26 AM To: roundtable@muug.mb.ca Subject: Re: [RndTbl] Mike Pfaiffer
Robert,
I met Mike at the U of Manitoba. I just found out that he passed away. Mike was a good friend but we have not talked in years. He was such a healthy guy. Do you know what he passed away from?
Norm
Still need advice for a Linux distro. Earlier today I tried Mint 15 Cinnamon 32-bit, and Ubuntu Desktop 12.04 LTS 32-bit. Neither work on this laptop. Their complaint is the graphics chip is too old. It's an IBM ThinkPad A21m, the graphics chip is ATI Rage Mobility P/M A21/2.
Thanks in advance, Rob Dyck
On 2013-10-07 14:39, Robert Dyck wrote:
Still need advice for a Linux distro. Earlier today I tried Mint 15 Cinnamon 32-bit, and Ubuntu Desktop 12.04 LTS 32-bit. Neither work on this laptop. Their complaint is the graphics chip is too old. It's an IBM ThinkPad A21m, the graphics chip is ATI Rage Mobility P/M A21/2.
If the ATI driver in Xorg doesn't work for that chipset, you might want to try the Xvesa server instead. Hopefully, the chipset isn't so old that it predates VESA standards! :)
If you want something in the Ubuntu family, Lubuntu might be a good choice for something ligher-weight than Mint or Ubuntu. (It uses the LXDE desktop.)
If the ATI driver in Xorg doesn't work for that chipset, you might want to try the Xvesa server instead. Hopefully, the chipset isn't so old that it predates VESA standards! :)
If you want something in the Ubuntu family, Lubuntu might be a good choice for something ligher-weight than Mint or Ubuntu. (It uses the LXDE desktop.)
LXDE on Ubuntu (Lubuntu) and Debian is a great way to save precious RAM, still get a decent desktop interface (graphical panel, menu, file browser), and still have access to the best repositories of well maintained software from a major distro. I even use machines with decent RAM as I really don't need more functionality than it provides and prefer to leave RAM available for caches etc.
Plus, with no OpenGL required, it works under vnc, so I'm able to stay consistent remote and local.
XFCE has the same qualities but uses more RAM.
On ubuntu 12.04 the ati video driver package is xserver-xorg-video-ati. Remove that (and xserver-xorg-video-all which depends on it) and see if X falls back to using xserver-xorg-video-vesa .
Video playback and Adobe Flash support probably will be bad to non-existent though. (And old Adobe Flash plugin for Firefox is a dead end anyway in terms of future security support, the Adobe Flash support baked into Google Chrome is going to continue to be supported, but it requires OpenGL support)
In terms of desktop environments, definitely don't mess with anything that requires OpenGL like Gnome 3 or Ubuntu Unity (they have a 2D version of Unity that they're going to abandon, it always sucked anyway).
On 2013-10-07 Mark Jenkins wrote:
Video playback and Adobe Flash support probably will be bad to non-existent though. (And old Adobe Flash plugin for Firefox is a dead end anyway in terms of future security support, the Adobe Flash support baked into Google Chrome is going to continue to be
Is it? I hadn't heard that. You mean my Firefox on Linux is vulnerable right now because of outdated Flash? Am I *forced* to use Chrome now?
As for distro, the problem is probably just the lack of good 3D support on old hardware for the stupid modern GNOME3's and Unity. If it was me, I'd do a Fedora install but do a minimal install (no X) and add X + XFCE and the bare minimum I need. XFCE in 2D mode will run just fine on that laptop.
Is it? I hadn't heard that. You mean my Firefox on Linux is vulnerable right now because of outdated Flash?
They're going to provide security support only (no feature updates) for what I think is the 11 series for a little while. Only way to flash 12 is Google Chrome.
Good news is that more and more stuff stuff out there doesn't require flash, and more than just videos, some kinds of various animation and soundish type stuff is being done without it now too.
As for distro, the problem is probably just the lack of good 3D support on old hardware for the stupid modern GNOME3's and Unity.
Were AGP 2x ati cards and chips in the Pentium III world ever able to do OpenGL even on Windows, or were they just Direct X and/or programed directly by specific games?
On 2013-10-09 Mark Jenkins wrote:
Were AGP 2x ati cards and chips in the Pentium III world ever able to do OpenGL even on Windows, or were they just Direct X and/or programed directly by specific games?
To my recollection, that era was *more likely* to have OpenGL support, before DirectX became uber-dominant. I used to remember running stuff like Unreal and Half-Life in GL mode (on Windows) for better performance. I could be remembering wrong though...
VESA??? I think VESA is from the 80386/80486 era, and that even Pentium 1 (desktop) computers started adopting the PCI bus for several reasons, including the replacement of the short-sighted VESA bus. So, a Pentium 3 should heavily post-date VESA.
Hartmut Sager
On 7 October 2013 14:48, Gilbert E. Detillieux gedetil@cs.umanitoba.cawrote:
On 2013-10-07 14:39, Robert Dyck wrote:
Still need advice for a Linux distro. Earlier today I tried Mint 15 Cinnamon 32-bit, and Ubuntu Desktop 12.04 LTS 32-bit. Neither work on this laptop. Their complaint is the graphics chip is too old. It's an IBM ThinkPad A21m, the graphics chip is ATI Rage Mobility P/M A21/2.
If the ATI driver in Xorg doesn't work for that chipset, you might want to try the Xvesa server instead. Hopefully, the chipset isn't so old that it predates VESA standards! :)
If you want something in the Ubuntu family, Lubuntu might be a good choice for something ligher-weight than Mint or Ubuntu. (It uses the LXDE desktop.)
-- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: gedetil@muug.mb.ca Manitoba UNIX User Group Web: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ PO Box 130 St-Boniface Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg MB CANADA R2H 3B4 Fax: (204)474-7609 ______________________________**_________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/**listinfo/roundtablehttp://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
On 13-10-07 10:08 PM, Hartmut W Sager wrote:
VESA??? I think VESA is from the 80386/80486 era, and that even Pentium 1 (desktop) computers started adopting the PCI bus for several reasons, including the replacement of the short-sighted VESA bus. So, a Pentium 3 should heavily post-date VESA. Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
Yes and no.
You're thinking of the VESA LocalBus slot, which was short-sighted only in the sense that it was designed by a bunch of video card mfgrs to make their products look good - it did exactly what it was supposed to, and it was cheap enough that m/b mfgrs (mostly) just implemented it without putting up a fight.
However, VESA, the association, continues to define standards for video-related things today. Some of the most important bits are the spacing of the mounting holes on the back of LCDs (yes, seriously), and a common definition of how to set video cards into a certain resolution with a linear, non-accelerated, frame buffer mapped to a certain address space... this latter piece is what the X "VESA" driver supports, a lowest-common-denominator mode so that you can at least set the resolution correctly on pretty much any video card today.
-Adam
Ah, thanks for the clarification. You're right about what I was thinking of. That's the trouble with having been around "back then". :)
Although I did know that VESA was/is also an association, I didn't know of anything they had done since the VESA LocalBus days, especially not that all-important mounting hole spacing on the back of LCD's. Being able to flip resolutions with generic (VESA) "commands"/register-pokes/whatever is a great idea.
Hartmut Sager
On 8 October 2013 09:36, Adam Thompson athompso@athompso.net wrote:
On 13-10-07 10:08 PM, Hartmut W Sager wrote:
VESA??? I think VESA is from the 80386/80486 era, and that even Pentium 1 (desktop) computers started adopting the PCI bus for several reasons, including the replacement of the short-sighted VESA bus. So, a Pentium 3 should heavily post-date VESA. Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
Yes and no.
You're thinking of the VESA LocalBus slot, which was short-sighted only in the sense that it was designed by a bunch of video card mfgrs to make their products look good - it did exactly what it was supposed to, and it was cheap enough that m/b mfgrs (mostly) just implemented it without putting up a fight.
However, VESA, the association, continues to define standards for video-related things today. Some of the most important bits are the spacing of the mounting holes on the back of LCDs (yes, seriously), and a common definition of how to set video cards into a certain resolution with a linear, non-accelerated, frame buffer mapped to a certain address space... this latter piece is what the X "VESA" driver supports, a lowest-common-denominator mode so that you can at least set the resolution correctly on pretty much any video card today.
-Adam
Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
On 2013-10-06 23:46, Robert Dyck wrote:
I have a customer who wants a laptop with Linux. My impression is he wants to learn Linux. I have refurbished laptops: IBM ThinkPad A21m, with Pentium III processor @ 750 MHz, 512MB RAM, and I can upgrade the hard drive to 40GB. Which distro of Linux would you recommend?
Just off the top of my head, I'd say Puppy Linux might be a good choice. It's one of the only tiny Linux distros that I've actually booted up to have a look at.
There are a few more to choose from, as can be seen here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_Linux_distribution
(Not sure if all the above will run on a PIII, but my guess is most would, since they're aimed at the older/smaller systems.)
A Google search will likely point you in the right direction...
https://www.google.ca/search?q=small+linux+distro+for+pentium+iii
By the looks of it, this question gets discussed a fair bit.
I would ask Mike Pfaiffer, but he passed away earlier this year.
MUUG has lost 4 members so far this year (actually since February), sadly. I hope this isn't a trend... :(
MUUG has lost 4 members so far this year (actually since February), sadly.
I hope this isn't a trend... :(
Lost 4 members due to death? I thought it was getting annoying at Skullspace, losing a numbers of members due to them moving to bigger cities for jobs, this is quite scarier.
On Mon 07 Oct 2013 03:04:18 PM CDT, Colin Stanners wrote:
MUUG has lost 4 members so far this year (actually since February),
sadly. I hope this isn't a trend... :(
Lost 4 members due to death? I thought it was getting annoying at Skullspace, losing a numbers of members due to them moving to bigger cities for jobs, this is quite scarier.
It could be worse, we could be the Seniors' Amateur Radio group, where attrition by old age is considered a normal part of their operating model :-/. -Adam
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Adam Thompson -
Colin Stanners -
Gilbert E. Detillieux -
Hartmut W Sager -
Mark Jenkins -
norm wall -
Robert Dyck -
Trevor Cordes