Baslinux mailing list

[Ron Clarke <ariadne AT acepia.net.au>]

Hi Sindi,

On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 20:14:38 -0400 (EDT)
Sindi Keesan <keesan AT iamjlamb.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 23 Apr 2004, Ron Clarke wrote:
> 
> > Hi Sindi,
> > > I heard 6.20 was better than 6.22 but I forget why.  Why?
> >  
> >     I have no idea if it is or if it isn't.  I only have MSDOS 5.0 and 
> > 6.20 to look at.
> 
> I asked, and the difference between 6.20 and 6.22 is the use of drivespc 
> instead of dblspc (double space) because it turns out MS infrigned on 
> someone else's software rights. 

     Yes, I knew about that.  As it happens, double-space (copyright 
infringed) was Stacker,
and is better than the MS replacement.  I used to use it, but no more.

> Should make no difference to linux.  If 
> you are just using DOS to boot linux, 5.0 should work as well (and the 
> himem.sys from 5.0 does not mess up Xvesa like that from 6.2).

    I do most of my work in DOS 6.20, and very happy with it.
I use a boot [menu] in config.sys now, so that is no longer an issue.
(Thanks to those who suggested it.)
 

> >     Don't know anything about first 8 MB.
> > 
> 
> From reading the primer about partitioning, DOS uses CHS system for 
> addressing hard drive locations instead of LBA and CHS has a limit of 8G 
> that it can address, therefore you need to put DOS in the first 8G and 
> boot linux from DOS in the first 8G, but linux partitions can use the 
> rest.  So if the drive is over 8G DOS should not be the last partition.

   That is the way I have done it, anyway, so I have no probs there.  :)
 

> > > >    The DOS partitions needed Nortons Disk Doctor to setup properly.  
> > > > After that, I simply installed the Linux distros I wanted into the
> > > > partitions I had set aside for them.
> > > 
> > > What did you use Disk Doctor for that fdisk could not do?
>  
> >    I had to format the new DOS partitions, and even then they failed
> > Norton's Disk Doctor check, so I let NDD fix them.
> 
> THere was something wrong with the drives?
 
   Yes, NDD found problems.  This is Norton 8.0, written by Peter Norton,
before Symantec got their hands on it, and I trust it.
 
> > >  Which linux 
> > > distros do you use and how much space do they occupy? 
> > 
> >    Machine 1:  BL2.1 has 32 GB to play in.
> 
> Wow, what do you do with it all?  Store music?

    Among other things.      :)

    I sequence MIDIs from scratch, many of the tunes are my own, and I make 
MP3s and OGGs from them.

But I still have most of it empty, held in reserve so to speak.
 
> >    Machine 2:  BL2.1 has 5 GB, and Peanut Linux (RedHat based) has 10 GB.
> > 
> > > Do you use more 
> > > than one and if so why?

   To learn how to network between two partly identical linux installations.

> >     Peanut was recommended by a techie friend I trust.
> 
> > It is the very latest (as of 6 months ago) based on a RedHat distro. I
> > am not real happy with it because although it is able to run a lot of
> > multimedia stuff that BL2 doesn't, there is something not quite right
> > about the X-windows setup and I have yet to find the problem(s).
> 
> Is it that BL2 kernel does not support the hardware, or BL2 libraries 
> don't support the hardware, or the programs you want are not available 
> compiled for SW71?  Can you use Xvesa with peanut linux?

   Some are not available for SW 7.1.
   On that machine (lois), there is a Vibra16 sound card that Peanut can use, 
but I haven't found the necessay mods for SW 7.1 yet.
   Peanut has a newer PDF viewer than SW 7.1, and it also runs mplayer - 
the only player I have for .WMVs, VIVO.
   I use XVESA in BL3.

>  
> >    It will probably turn out to be that I am not using enough gun, so to
> > speak - I have 64 MB RAM on an AMD K6 450 MHz machine.
> 
> That is similar to our fastest computer.  What sort of multimedia stuff 
> have you been able to use it for?

    My main machine plays MIDI, MP3, MOD, MPEG, AVI, MOV, QT, RAM, RA, audio 
CD.

>  Can you play DVD movies?  We have a DVD 
> drive and could not find any use for it.

   I have the software to play DVD, but no DVD drive.

Regards,
         Ron


-- 
Ron Clarke 
AUSREG Consultancy      http://www.valylink.net.au/~ausreg/index.html
Tadpole Tunes           http://tadpole.mytunebook.de/
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