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Bill Horne <bhorne at banet.net> writes: >I've a 386 with 8MB Ram, 5.25 floppies, a 40MB hard drive, with a >monochrome monitor. Please tell me if it's a viable platform for >"home office" use, running Linux. 8 MB of ram is enough if you don't run X. 40 MB is too little disk space. One option you might consider: get a CDROM drive and a CDROM with a "live" filesystem, so you don't have to put /usr on the hard disk. (I have not set up this kind of system, so I can't help with the details.) This will be slower than a hard disk, but still faster than the 8088. I would set up at least 4 MB of swap space, to allow emacs. For a character-based spreadsheet, check out oleo and sc. >5. How much of a learning curve will an experienced DOS user have in >stepping up to Linux? My sister has never used a "point and drool" >interface, so she's used to using a command line, but I don't want to >give her a system that's going to need several months to master: she >has five kids and little spare time. >6. How much of a learning curve will *I* have to climb in order to >get this system working? I have used UNIX at school, and know the >basic commands, but I haven't programmed in years and have never >assembled an OS from source. What time commitment should I plan for? You both have a lot to learn, but you will not need to do any programming. I suggest picking up a copy of "Linux for Dummies". Incidentally, my rule of thumb is: to make it faster, buy more memory. to make it easier to administer, buy a bigger disk. - Jim Van Zandt *** Subcription/unsubscription/info requests: send e-mail with subject of "subscribe", "unsubscribe", or "info" to discuss-request at blu.org
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