Baslinux mailing list

["Walter Webber" <skipwebb7 AT earthlink.net>]

I am Walter or  Skipwebb7 .  For some time I have known about Linux but have inherited computers that have had Windows already installed. I always wanted to put together a computer. Having some electronic experience I thought I could do it. I had a little help along the way and completed the job about a year ago. Then came the question of what OS should I install? My stepson strongly recommended WindowsXPprofessional. Which I did. Every thing was fine at first then went down hill. Now I want to learn Linux.

 

Last summer I picked up an apple laptop, PowerBook 180. I have tried all the tricks I know to get into the BIOS but nothing works. The delete key, ctrl+alt+s, there is no alt key on this machine and the stuck key does not bring up the BIOS. Any suggestions? What I would like to do is to remove the OS and install BL on the hard drive. How do I format the hard drive to take out the MacOS?

 

I went to ibiblio>distribution>basic Linux. The window shows two possible downloads. I wanted to create the two floppy disks. It states that I will need two floppies. I start the download an a little over 50% a box comes up that there is not enough space on the floppy. I formatted the floppy and the summery states that it has 1.457+ MB. What am I doing wrong?

 

Reading some of the posts on the mailing lists makes me think there may be another place to post my questions? I may be in over my head in the Linux Lake. I think it is time to get my feet wet and start learning.

 

There is another part to this. My stepson fixed up an old dell laptop with Debian on it. Libby could get on line and talk with her friends. All went well at first. Debian became slower and slower, it became harder and harder to stay on line. One of the problems with the laptop is the phone connection. I am hoping the phone connection on the external modem with the apple will be better, it looks better, Now Libby does a lot of her e-mail on the desktop. The problem with the laptop sounds like the problem I had with the desktop, slower and slower all around. How is Linux with the ills of the internet, spyware viruses, ect. ?