This may not seem like such a big deal to anyone else out there… but it is a huge deal to me. This post is being made from a Mozilla browser under the 9th version of the redhat distribution of linux. Not only that, but it is on a computer that I built out of old pieces I found in my dad’s basement. yee haw… read on to hear of my adventures with linux….
Now you are all probably thinking… gee, what’s the big deal with that, but let me tell you I am very happy right now. The parts that I used for this computer were just pieces that I had purchased in the past, or my dad had used before. Nothing too fancy: PII-266 256Mb Ram 8Gb hard drive On-board video/sound/etc… old asus cd-rom, no floppy (as the power supply only has one connector for a floppy drive, and it appears to be dead).
When first put the thing together (on wednesday i believe) and booted up, I was getting all sorts of screwy problems. Things that really scared me (cuz i had no idea how to fix them)… ie what the crap is a Kernel Panic: aiee???? Anyway, what I discovered (with a little help from Mike, even though he probably didn’t realize it) was with my Ram. I guess you are not supposed to be able to use different sizes of ram chips or sticks… (no mixing 256 sticks with 64 sticks). I guess windows is built to handle the different types, but linux isn’t… at all. So once i pulled out the mismatched ram, thinks fired right up…. well sorta.
next problem, video. The monitor that i was using was a stinkin old compaq. It didn’t really want to work in the resolution that linux wanted to use… so I stole one of my dad’s monitors and just need to find either a replacement for him, or a new one (or kvm switch) for me.
Next issue… networking. This is probably the part that scared me the most. Any of you that have done any networking with windows (other then xp i suppose) know that trying to get computers to recognize each other can be slightly less then enjoyable. Needless to say, I was a little nervous about trying to get the internet on this computer. But i plugged in my network card (praying that it would already have drivers for it… remember i have no floppy), and sure nuf it picked it up. I didn’t even have to configure the darn thing, it took care of it all by itself. I was nearly in tears of joy.
Anyway… I am soo stinkin happy right now. My next goal is to figure out web-serving. This was the whole reason for setting up the linux computer. I am sick of paying godaddy 10 bucks a month for something that I barely use anymore. But with web serving I also need to figure out ftp and mail servers…. SO I have my work cut out for me. If any of you know anything about apache … 😊
I suppose that is enough drivel to drive even the most durable of you up a wall… 😊 woo woo