Reply to Matt, message 3, Tue 6 Jul. [TriLUG] Streamlined distro build for laptops and workstations

[Michael Prorock]

> On Wed,  7 Jul 2004 12:00:07 -0400 (EDT), <trilug-request at trilug.org>  
> wrote:
>Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2004 13:23:19 -0400
> From: Matt Frye <mattfrye at gmail.com>
> Subject: [TriLUG] Streamlined distro build for laptops and
> workstations
>     I am looking for information and people's experience in getting
> any particular distro/hardware combination to install on a laptop or
> workstation such that a non-IT customer would say it "works" for them.
>  Before people start foaming at the mouth, let me define what I mean
> by "work."  In this context, "work" means "do work," as in a business
> desktop OS, spreasheets, web with java and flash, etc.  Stuff people
> want.
>     I have been able to acheive that balance and efficiency with
> Linux, but not without having put a lot of time and energy into it.
> Too often, getting a new Linux build to "work" is an exercise in
> configuration and debugging.  Reconfig and debugging is obviously not
> something that everyone has the time or desire to do, so I'm looking
> for best case suggestions.  Obviously, configuration often depends
> upon requirements, but I'm looking for the closest thing to that
> "configuration utopia."
>     I've heard good things about Mandrake, but haven't tried it yet.
> Fedora is no where near what I need and RHEL aint exactly free.  I am
> doing this for my nonprofit that will serve other nonprofits, so cost
> is key, but I need to strike a balance between low cost and
> functionality.
>     Any suggestions would be appreciated.
> Matt
>

Matt,

I've had quite a bit of experience in this regard, only recently having  
moved from the status of broke college student to broke starving artist,  
having therefore to get the most out of the least.

Most recently I convinced my boss to leave his dear, "user friendly" win2k  
system for linux.  It has been an absolute success, only after he stopped  
cussing long enough to sit down and think about how to press a different  
icon to get to his p*rn.  The bigest trick is showing stubborn people the  
fact that just because linux works differently (and better, I might add)  
than windows, that that doesn't mean it doesn't work.  There are more than  
enough ways to "user friendly" a system up, that is, make it handle such  
that windows/non-computer people (ah - the blasphemy  ) can use it  
effectively, with as little cussing as possible.  As I alluded to, the  
biggest difficulty is not with getting the software right, but getting  
people to change their way of looking at, and interacting with, a  
computer, i.e. to drop their M$ endowed, pre-concieved notions.  Not only  
is this the biggest drawback keeping linux from going as mainstream as it  
could, but the biggest problem with peop... Sorry, tangent.  Now back to  
the real thing.

Initially, to ensure as little downtime as possible, I went with a  
mandrake install - it is as user friendly as windows, if not a little more  
so, and the hardware detection and auto setup tools are marvelous, - the  
difficulty is, that unless you have decent hardware, it tends to want to  
do just a little too much for you, and has a tendency to run even slower  
than win2k.  As I write, I am working on the gnuwly modified (as of last  
week) system.  Mandrake gone. Slow.  Debian (albeit a selective install)  
here to stay.  If you're looking for speed, stability and the ability to  
modify a systems packages to work on almost any hardware with the least  
amount of downtime and compiling I highly recommend it.  All but 3 of my  
systems are running Debian (the servers run woody, the desktops sarge, and  
the other three consist of 1 AIX box, and 2 gentoos).  This is not to  
incite a useless and possibly morally wrong distro war, only to say what I  
have had the best luck with over the years in keeping systems running fast  
and well on wide varieties of hardware, used for wide varieties of tasks,  
and used by people with varying degrees of computer expertise (usually  
lack of it).

What makes the system usable for my boss is the barest of configuration  
tweaks (I must reiterate -  he is  NOT a computer person), WDM for login,  
WindowMaker/GnuStep for his window manager, Opera as the mail client,  
OpenOffice, and XMMS.  These are all launched from locked dock icons, and  
the only other things available on his desktop are a docked clock and cpu  
monitor.  Opera treats him as well, if not better than outlook, and solved  
his frustration of initially attempting to deal with kmail and evolution.

Despite the apparent attractiveness of gnome it turned out not to be the  
best choice for a number of reasons.  1) It offered to many choices of  
things to do, 2) It resembled windows just enough to really confuse him,  
3) Too clunky for many older, but still in use, workplace desktops.   
WindowMaker, in contrast, offered better configuration options, plus speed  
on any system faster than a 486, plus
its relatively small amount of hard disk usage.  Despite the oldness and  
slowness of the machine (IBM 300pl, PII, 400mhz, 256mb ram, bogomips  
764.62), it is far more useable than it ever was under windows, finally,  
and with no more complaints from him about the box not working, being too  
slow, or giving him the blue screen of death like a new york driver gives  
the finger.  I have compiled a custom 2.4.6 kernel for the box, which made  
a very noticeable difference over the stock kernel.  If you wish, rather  
than eat up too much space here, I can send you some of my package  
selections, and possibly throw a couple shell scripts your way to install  
Woody/Sarge in as user friendly a manner as possible, along with the  
window maker config scripts that I use.  Currently I'm working on my own  
distro that is oriented solely towards the graphic design community (macs,  
anyone?) so the I understand the issues you raise, and their validity.

As for laptops, I even have a useable configuration based off of sarge on  
my ancient pI166mmx Thinkpad.  If that's not stretching the life of a  
system I don't know what is.  Very usable for browsing, coding (not really  
compiling), minor word processing (abi-word comes to mind), and updating  
our website.  On an old as dirt machine (my first linux "box," I still  
can't quite let it go) this is more than acceptable.

If you would like some more detailed help that would not be of direct  
interest to the group, feel free to e-mail me.

Michael Prorock
mfproroc at bellsouth.net

-- 
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