Political Blather

[Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO]

I wasn't going to do this, but you struck a nerve.
 
I call BS.  Over and over again, I have pointed you to DamnSmall Linux
(DSL). http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, they have "50MB of Penguin
Power."  There should be no barrier to entry for a user getting DSL.  It
is so small that anyone can download it.  Hell, Microsoft distributes OS
patches that are four times larger! One guy even got DSL running on a
486 with >32MB of RAM.  The only barrier you might bring up is that if
you still don't have a CD burner, even though they are now mainstream.
You could always get someone to burn one for you or order a CD. Or you
can run embedded from within Windows, using Qemu or VMWare.  They even
have a method (called poorman's install) that uses a Tom's Rootboot
floppy to boot the PC, download and install the DSL image to PC.  So
please stop telling people that some old piece of crap PC or laptop
won't work with Linux.  You can get even the most basic system up and
usable.  If that doesn't work, try Debian and for pete's sake ask for
help and come to a meeting with your old crappy hardware.  It can be
made to work.  Kepht still uses a 386 with Debian!!

And to Luke: So what if your little blinky lights on your shiny new
laptop don't work.  Same goes for the 3d hardware acceleration.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html Keep writing letters to the
hardware manufacturer to get Linux support, whether it is GPL drivers or
scanner software that works with *nix.  Tell em you are using their
hardware in the hopes that they will see a Linux market growing and give
it more support or tell em you are not buying their piece of crap and
you are telling 15 friends not to buy it either since they don't fully
support Linux.  But for gosh sakes do something besides bitch about it
and spread inaccurate information.  Same goes for the rest of you.
Think for more than five minutes before spewing on the intricacies of
Linux and its
Libertarian/Commun/Social/Agrarian/Anarch/Darwin/Optim-ism.

And if you didn't laugh at that last line, then you don't know me well
enough.  Come up and introduce yourself at the next LUG meeting.
Jhutchins, read some manual pages before trying stuff.  I know you
immediately throw away stereo instructions, but try reading to find the
answer for once.  Luke and Chuck need to take a few college courses on
government and history as they are a bit mixed up.  Take Jared with you,
he'll entertain the prof.  Monty, you are awesome.  Oren, put the
tin-foil hat back on.  Rich, how's it going dude? Dave Nichol, you are
one crazy dude.  Did I miss anyone?  Peace out.


>-----Original Message-----
>From: Oren Beck
>Sent: Monday, January 22, 2007 11:28 PM

>Where does it stop? I submit that there are quite functional 
>software tools for daily needs that will run on cheap hardware.
>Many of which sadly are legacy DOS or win95/98 yet, I 
>challenge the FOSS world to get any OS  and Applications 
>package that equals win95 for raw usability on old gear.
>My example is a Pentium 75 thru 233 laptop with under 50 mb 
>ram and under 1gig hd. The  concept of a GUI distro that will 
>have an acceptable user response time and run on laptops such 
>as described has not yet been demonstrated to me.
>But win98 despite all it's flaws works well enough for most 
>net interactions at a simple text and browse level.
>Much as I do use LiveCDs from laptops there is still a lower 
>footprint for win98 than any user comparable Linux shown to me 
>so far.. So show me better on such hardware!
>I want to be able to displace ms from many more laptops!