[sclug] take one PC bought at auction
Neil Haughton
n.a.haughton at bigfoot.com
Sat Oct 25 09:05:40 UTC 2003
Those auctions are really worth while (don't spread it around!),
particularly the 'ex-corporate' ones. Just before Christmas I picked up
a 17" Compaq V70 monitor, very clean, for ?21 at the door.
Neil Haughton
>- take one PC bought at auction
>---------------------------------------------
>
>Bid ?55 which cost ?71 out of the door at Rivermead which got me
>
>IBM PL300
>model 6862 N10
>Pentium III 450mhz
>128mb RAM
>8.4gb HDD
>CD 40x
>Onboard S3 graphics
>Onboard sound
>Onboard 10/100 LAN
>
>This was just the base unit so a keyboard, mouse and mains lead were
>salvaged off an old PC.
>
>The case needed a good clean on the inside and outside but everything worked
>apart from the floppy drive which had a damaged mechanism. As the computer
>can boot from a CD this wasn't essential (but if anyone has a floppy going
>spare drop me a line). I just remember paying ?70 for my first 1.44mb floppy
>!
>
>A quick search on the IBM website found all the manuals although these are
>really just background reading.
>
>All the machines at the auction are stripped of software except for enough
>of DOS to boot up and run CD drivers so you will need to lay your hands on
>an OS.
>
>We hope to have more about auctions on and offline soon....
>
>
>
>- add SuSe 8.0*
>---------------------
>
>I used 8.0 though 8.2 is the latest release; the personal version is around
>?45 and the professional version around ?60. The box comes with 6 CDs and
>one DVD (with the same contents as the DVD), three manuals and 90 days
>support which accounts for the cost as most of the software is free. But
>remember this isn't just the operating system but just about every program
>you need or don?t need. See www.suse.co.uk
>Is it of course possible to download various distributions of Linux for free
>or purchase CDs only for a modest sum (see www.linuxemporium.co.uk) or you
>can quite legitimately borrow the CDs from someone.
>
>Despite all I had heard about Linux the installation was painless - I just
>booted from one of the CDs, all the hardware was recognised automatically,
>then I was asked to choose from a list of programs to install which then
>prompted me to install a few more of the CDs. After about half an hour I
>had a fully functioning system including a complete Office clone and
>various media players. A quick delve into the configuration and clicking on
>a couple of boxes had the browser working on the Net All this was already
>prepared before I came to the meeting though !
>
>Fortunately a small band of enthusiasts from the local Linux group had
>turned out
>and helped me to get the onboard speaker working as well as getting showing
>me how to set up Samba which allows Linux to be networked up to Windows.
>
>We plan to see how this project progresses but next time I'll try to bring a
>larger screen !
>
>- don't read the manual
>-------------------------------
>
>I didn't - it was all in the set up software ...
>
>
>Mike
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject:
> Re: [sclug] RUG 6 May 03 notes
> From:
> Tim Sutton <suttont at onetel.net.uk>
> Date:
> Sun, 18 May 2003 20:52:15 +0100
> To:
> "Mike Mallett" <mike.mallett at ntlworld.com>
>
>
>Hi Mike
>
>That was a really interesting presentation you gave at the RUG meeting! I was
>going to throw in the offer of doing a follow up on 'The Linux Desktop
>Experience' which will probably turn out to be the Linux KDE Experience
>because of my strong bias towards KDE :-) The idea being to give those in RUG
>unfamiliar with what you can do on linux a better flavour of how it can
>productively used for day to day work.
>
>We could cover:
>
>Basic DE:
>---------------
>Background to the project
>Kicker
>The kde file dialog (which is brilliant!)
>Theming your desktop
>
>Internet:
>---------------
>Konq (its the best browser :-)
>Kmail as a mail client
>Kopete (instant messaging)
>
>Multimedia:
>----------------
>The GIMP!
>Pixie
>XMMS
>
>Productivity:
>----------------
>OpenOffice
>
>Development:
>----------------
>Quanta
>Kdevelop
>
>Q & A:
>----------------
>
>Any other SCLUG members who want to pitch in to cover some of the above topics
>are more than welcome. :-) Or maybe offer the same talk from the GNOME
>perspective (where things dont overlap)?
>
>I can also bring along a couple of sets of Mandrake CD's so anyone interested
>can take it home and try it out. I probably would only have time to write one
>or two sets, so if any other SCLUG folks could offer to burn up a couple of
>sets that would be useful. Maybe knoppix might also be usefule here?
>
>Interested? Follow the black & yellow penguin neo .....
>
>Tim
>
>8<------------ original message snipped -----------------
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject:
> RE: [sclug] RUG 6 May 03 notes
> From:
> "Mike Mallett" <mike.mallett at ntlworld.com>
> Date:
> Sun, 18 May 2003 21:44:54 +0100
> To:
> <suttont at onetel.net.uk>, <sclug at sclug.org.uk>
>
>
>
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Tim Sutton [mailto:suttont at onetel.net.uk]
>>Sent: 18 May 2003 20:52
>>To: Mike Mallett
>>Cc: sclug at sclug.org.uk
>>Subject: Re: [sclug] RUG 6 May 03 notes
>>
>>Hi Mike
>>
>>That was a really interesting presentation you gave at the RUG meeting!
>>
>>
>
>So did I !
>
>I have read a lot about Linux but never really attempted an installation.
>The hardest part of the job was cleaning up the case !
>
>
>
>
>
>>I was
>>going to throw in the offer of doing a follow up on 'The Linux Desktop
>>Experience' which will probably turn out to be the Linux KDE Experience
>>because of my strong bias towards KDE :-) The idea being to give those in
>>
>>
>RUG
>
>
>>unfamiliar with what you can do on linux a better flavour of how it can
>>productively used for day to day work.
>>
>>
>>
>
>That would be an excellent idea as I would take me a while before I could
>claim to know anything sensible about it.
>
>Also many thanks for the offer of further CDs. I was lucky to have a
>reasonable spec machine to use but I suspect other members may be using an
>older PC with more modest specs.
>
>RUG still has an old 486 with Linux on ...
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject:
> [sclug] dd pain
> From:
> pieter claassen <pieter at openauth.co.uk>
> Date:
> 19 May 2003 09:14:40 +0100
> To:
> sclug <sclug at sclug.org.uk>
>
>
>I have to regularly copy hard drives for redistribution and I have the
>following peculiarities that I though somebody might shed some light on.
>
>I just dd if=/dev/hda1 of/dev/hdd bs=4M | bs=50M (I have tried different
>block sizes but they don't seem to make much difference)
>
>I normally boot the machine from a CD distro and mount no partitions on
>the drives to be copied, not even swap, but alas I find a few funny
>things happen:
>1. It takes either very long or not to copy. These disks as all 40GB and
>the inconsistency bug me.
>2. When I start the dd, I can normally see kswapd getting very active.
>Even if I boot the machine in single user mode with no X.
>
>Here are my questions:
>1. Can anybody think of a practical way to see how dd is doing in terms
>of progress. Unfortunately it currently only tells me on completion that
>all is fine or not.
>2. Why is kswapd going even if there is no swap space mounted?
>3. Can anybody think of a faster more optimised and safer way to do
>this? I find that sometimes I stare for minutes at the screen to make
>sure that I get the "if" and "of" right, but one slip and I will be a
>very sad person!
>
>Thanks,
>Pieter
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject:
> Re: [sclug] RUG 6 May 03 notes
> From:
> David Herring <dave at netfm.org>
> Date:
> Mon, 19 May 2003 11:33:36 +0100
> To:
> suttont at onetel.net.uk
>
>
>
>
> Tim,
>
> This would be a bery interesting talk - I would like to attend.
>
> Do you beleive the Kmail is better that the Mozilla email client ?
>
> Similarly do you find Konqueor better that Mozilla for browsing ?
>
> Let us know when the talk is talking place,
>
> Regards Dave
>
>
>
> Tim Sutton wrote:
>
>> Hi Mike
>>
>> That was a really interesting presentation you gave at the RUG
>> meeting! I was going to throw in the offer of doing a follow up on
>> 'The Linux Desktop Experience' which will probably turn out to be the
>> Linux KDE Experience because of my strong bias towards KDE :-) The
>> idea being to give those in RUG unfamiliar with what you can do on
>> linux a better flavour of how it can productively used for day to day
>> work.
>> We could cover:
>>
>> Basic DE:
>> ---------------
>> Background to the project
>> Kicker
>> The kde file dialog (which is brilliant!)
>> Theming your desktop
>>
>> Internet:
>> ---------------
>> Konq (its the best browser :-)
>> Kmail as a mail client
>> Kopete (instant messaging)
>>
>> Multimedia:
>> ----------------
>> The GIMP!
>> Pixie
>> XMMS
>>
>> Productivity:
>> ----------------
>> OpenOffice
>>
>> Development:
>> ----------------
>> Quanta
>> Kdevelop
>>
>> Q & A:
>> ----------------
>>
>> Any other SCLUG members who want to pitch in to cover some of the
>> above topics are more than welcome. :-) Or maybe offer the same talk
>> from the GNOME perspective (where things dont overlap)?
>>
>> I can also bring along a couple of sets of Mandrake CD's so anyone
>> interested can take it home and try it out. I probably would only
>> have time to write one or two sets, so if any other SCLUG folks could
>> offer to burn up a couple of sets that would be useful. Maybe knoppix
>> might also be usefule here?
>>
>> Interested? Follow the black & yellow penguin neo .....
>>
>> Tim
>>
>> 8<------------ original message snipped -----------------
>>
>>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject:
> RE: [sclug] RUG 6 May 03 notes
> From:
> Leon Ward <leon.ward at added-dimension.co.uk>
> Date:
> Mon, 19 May 2003 11:54:35 +0100
> To:
> "'David Herring'" <dave at netfm.org>, suttont at onetel.net.uk
>
>
>I think MUA choice is all down to personal preference.
>Kmail / Mozilla / Evolution / mutt / pine / whatever
>
>There are 100's of good ones out there, lets not get into "X is better coz
>it just is" flame war.
>
>The talk maybe interesting, especially if it could touch on the idea of
>rolling out a desktop to many corporate users.
>
>BTW / Does Konq use gecko or its own rendering engine?
>
>nard
>
>
>
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: David Herring [mailto:dave at netfm.org]
>>Sent: 19 May 2003 11:34
>>To: suttont at onetel.net.uk
>>Cc: Mike Mallett; sclug at sclug.org.uk
>>Subject: Re: [sclug] RUG 6 May 03 notes
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Tim,
>>
>>This would be a bery interesting talk - I would like to attend.
>>
>>Do you beleive the Kmail is better that the Mozilla email client ?
>>
>>Similarly do you find Konqueor better that Mozilla for browsing ?
>>
>>Let us know when the talk is talking place,
>>
>>Regards Dave
>>
>>
>>
>>Tim Sutton wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Hi Mike
>>>
>>>That was a really interesting presentation you gave at the
>>>
>>>
>>RUG meeting! I was
>>
>>
>>>going to throw in the offer of doing a follow up on 'The
>>>
>>>
>>Linux Desktop
>>
>>
>>>Experience' which will probably turn out to be the Linux KDE
>>>
>>>
>>Experience
>>
>>
>>>because of my strong bias towards KDE :-) The idea being to
>>>
>>>
>>give those in RUG
>>
>>
>>>unfamiliar with what you can do on linux a better flavour of
>>>
>>>
>>how it can
>>
>>
>>>productively used for day to day work.
>>>
>>>We could cover:
>>>
>>>Basic DE:
>>>---------------
>>>Background to the project
>>>Kicker
>>>The kde file dialog (which is brilliant!)
>>>Theming your desktop
>>>
>>>Internet:
>>>---------------
>>>Konq (its the best browser :-)
>>>Kmail as a mail client
>>>Kopete (instant messaging)
>>>
>>>Multimedia:
>>>----------------
>>>The GIMP!
>>>Pixie
>>>XMMS
>>>
>>>Productivity:
>>>----------------
>>>OpenOffice
>>>
>>>Development:
>>>----------------
>>>Quanta
>>>Kdevelop
>>>
>>>Q & A:
>>>----------------
>>>
>>>Any other SCLUG members who want to pitch in to cover some
>>>
>>>
>>of the above topics
>>
>>
>>>are more than welcome. :-) Or maybe offer the same talk from
>>>
>>>
>>the GNOME
>>
>>
>>>perspective (where things dont overlap)?
>>>
>>>I can also bring along a couple of sets of Mandrake CD's so
>>>
>>>
>>anyone interested
>>
>>
>>>can take it home and try it out. I probably would only have
>>>
>>>
>>time to write one
>>
>>
>>>or two sets, so if any other SCLUG folks could offer to burn
>>>
>>>
>>up a couple of
>>
>>
>>>sets that would be useful. Maybe knoppix might also be usefule here?
>>>
>>>Interested? Follow the black & yellow penguin neo .....
>>>
>>>Tim
>>>
>>>8<------------ original message snipped -----------------
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>--
>>
>>David Herring
>>---
>>Netfm Ltd
>>T: 07092 140694
>>M: 07766 086179
>>F: 07092 337656
>>
>>
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>>sclug mailing list
>>sclug at sclug.org.uk
>>http://www.sclug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/sclug
>>
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>>
>>
>
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>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject:
> [sclug] chat bots
> From:
> "Chirstopher West" <chriz_w at hotmail.com>
> Date:
> Mon, 19 May 2003 11:57:08 +0100
> To:
> sclug at sclug.org.uk
>
>
> if anyone is interested in chat bots heres a link with a few at the
> other end :)http://www.chatbotfriends.com/links.html
>
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