Linux questions

frank · Post by **frank** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:29 pm

Well I think that it is time for me to try Linux again. I have decided that I am going to purchase Fedora, OpenSuse, and Ubuntu. I'll see which one I like the best and stick to that one. What does everyone think of those choices? Anyways my main questions are

1. Is www.osdisc.com a credible place to buy from?

and

2. Is there some place that I can test my hardware compatibility before I make my purchase?

AndrewAPrice · Post by **AndrewAPrice** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:44 pm

I personally use Arch Linux. Is there a reason you are buying the CD's? I use the Arch Linux FTP install disc (around 20MB) and install the latest packages straight off the Internet.

SpooK · Post by **SpooK** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:56 pm

Unless you have a terrible internet connection and/or no CD-writer, I would recommend downloading the ISO images and burning them instead.

I personally recommend Ubuntu for those users who want it to "just work" (i.e. Windows users) and Gentoo for intermediate server admins and power users.

frank · Post by **frank** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:58 pm

I have Dial up or I would download them.

frank · Post by **frank** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 9:02 pm

5 kilobytes per second sound slow enough for you. And thats on a good day. The CDs cost like $1.95 - $7.95 for each distro. Well worth it if you ask me.

Twitch · Post by **Twitch** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 9:02 pm

Doe you have slower download speeds so you can't burn and FTP one?
If so it looks like it's a good company.
But a agree with MessiahAndrw that geting one from the distros FTP is easier method.

Update LOL I took too long to type
I don't see any harm in buying from there.

LOL one time I ran out of disc so I free ordered ubuntu LOL I swear it came 3months later

But I was happy with the quality and free shipping so I didn't mind

Twitch · Post by **Twitch** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 9:06 pm

frank wrote:5 kilobytes per second sound slow enough for you. And thats on a good day. The CDs cost like $1.95 - $7.95 for each distro. Well worth it if you ask me.

Also ebay has a lot of distro sellers you might want to check

AndrewAPrice · Post by **AndrewAPrice** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 1:14 am

frank wrote:5 kilobytes per second sound slow enough for you. And thats on a good day. The CDs cost like $1.95 - $7.95 for each distro. Well worth it if you ask me.

How much do you pay for your dial-up? Add the cost of dialing in several times a day, the cost of an extra phone line (or your spouse/roommate/parent complaining they want to use the phone 24/7) and DSL is quiet an affordable option.

frank · Post by **frank** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 9:04 am

MessiahAndrw wrote:
frank wrote:5 kilobytes per second sound slow enough for you. And thats on a good day. The CDs cost like $1.95 - $7.95 for each distro. Well worth it if you ask me.
How much do you pay for your dial-up? Add the cost of dialing in several times a day, the cost of an extra phone line (or your spouse/roommate/parent complaining they want to use the phone 24/7) and DSL is quiet an affordable option.

$15.95 a month, no cost for dialing in, no extra phone line. If it were only as easy as getting DSL. But see the problem is that I live in this small little rural area where most of the land is farm land and I can't get DSL. I can't get cable internet. The only other choice for high speed internet would be by satellite, which is $59.99 a month.

SpooK · Post by **SpooK** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 10:33 am

frank wrote:
MessiahAndrw wrote:
frank wrote:5 kilobytes per second sound slow enough for you. And thats on a good day. The CDs cost like $1.95 - $7.95 for each distro. Well worth it if you ask me.
How much do you pay for your dial-up? Add the cost of dialing in several times a day, the cost of an extra phone line (or your spouse/roommate/parent complaining they want to use the phone 24/7) and DSL is quiet an affordable option.
$15.95 a month, no cost for dialing in, no extra phone line. If it were only as easy as getting DSL. But see the problem is that I live in this small little rural area where most of the land is farm land and I can't get DSL. I can't get cable internet. The only other choice for high speed internet would be by satellite, which is $59.99 a month.

The thing you have to calculate is if it is cheaper to download GetRight (or some other download manager) and download the ISOs over a day or two OR to just pay for someone to ship you a copy. On a good dial-up connection you can probably do it in about 10 hours or so.

frank · Post by **frank** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 11:53 am

Let's do the math. The average iso is about 650 mb at the most. Okay that translates to 665600 kilobytes. At 5 kilobytes per second that means that it will take about 40 hours per cd. And thats if my ISP doesn't cut my download speed to 2.5 kilobytes like they do when I download big files. So spending $10 - $40 dollars doesn't bother me a bit.

SpooK · Post by **SpooK** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 12:06 pm

frank wrote:Let's do the math. The average iso is about 650 mb at the most. Okay that translates to 665600 kilobytes. At 5 kilobytes per second that means that it will take about 40 hours per cd. And thats if my ISP doesn't cut my download speed to 2.5 kilobytes like they do when I download big files. So spending $10 - $40 dollars doesn't bother me a bit.

Go ahead

Kevin McGuire · Post by **Kevin McGuire** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 3:15 pm

I am not sure, but has anyone ever tried hooking a modem to two cheap walkie-talkies via the microphone of course using big resistors at first? You can actually connect two modems directly you just have to produce a dial tone on the line for the server side.

Of course then you could buy a cheap microphone plug and break it apart and perform the same procedure, but hook it to a sound card and see if you could perform software modulation of digital data onto a carrier wave produced by the walkie-talkie, you know it is about 1hz - 20khz at least. I think most sound cards can go up to 44khz. That should be the same exact method a modem uses except you might be able to achieve better results since you could go all over the audio frequency range for bandwidth?

The FFT would be a good start I guess?

It does not have to be a walkie-talkie, but some sort of modulation and demodulation of sound between two remote points. If a friend lived a couple of miles away you should have a pretty good chance of getting the device high enough (enclosed in a bucket) or something so that the transmission would reach.

If you bought two cheap sound cards and two sets of walkie-talkies, which most have a channel selection knob of digital panel you should be able to double the data if you have enough CPU speed on both ends.

I used to live in the country, but I never thought about these ideas or I would have tried them.

frank · Post by **frank** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 6:26 pm

Well since this went OT pretty quick I am going to restate my question. I have decided that I will just buy them from www.osdisc.com.

Is there a place that I can check my hardware compatibility online. For example I have always had trouble getting Linux to work with my modems, I guess they have always been win modems. No I don't mean a live disk. I mean like a list or something.

@spook
Yeah I saw that, but it also says it may take up to 10 weeks. I'm impatient.

SpooK · Post by **SpooK** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 7:25 pm

frank wrote:Well since this went OT pretty quick I am going to restate my question. I have decided that I will just buy them from www.osdisc.com.

Is there a place that I can check my hardware compatibility online. For example I have always had trouble getting Linux to work with my modems, I guess they have always been win modems. No I don't mean a live disk. I mean like a list or something.

@spook
Yeah I saw that, but it also says it may take up to 10 weeks. I'm impatient.

Go with the shipper recommendations found on the actual distro's sites... I gave you one such link above.

As for WinModems... good luck... there has been some progress but they are practically Windows proprietary and most try to avoid them.

Other than that, unless you have a really old computer (before Pentium) or a laptop... you shouldn't have any hardware issues with the major distros.