[GRLUG] Ubuntu 6.06

[Bob Kline]

I'm using Kubuntu 6.06 , and find that apt-get alone
makes using it worthwhile.  But I also remember
that John-Thomas Richards has been urging people
to use Debian for at least three years now,  for
some of the same reasons.  Some members of the
group now using (Ku/U)buntu can maybe wish they'd
been more receptive earlier on to the Debian approach.

Leading to the first question.  Would Debian itself
have any additional advantages,  or does Ubuntu/
Kubuntu capture the essence of it?   What I have read
about Kubuntu suggests that it uses the same
program library as Debian,  but probably loads fewer
packages during a standard installation.  Just
guessing.  Any of the real experts here have an
opinion on this?

I can say I don't like sudo.  I'd much rather have a
traditional superuser approach.   Does Debian still
use the traditional approach?   If so,  that could be
a reason to switch over at some point.

On a completely different wavelength,  has anyone
here tried a distribution called "Puppy?"   I was given
a copy when I bought a machine at VC Tech last
Thursday.   The fellow at the counter simply thought
I might be interesting in trying it.

BTW,  the machines at VC Tech still seem to be on a
downward slope.  Most of the units on the shelves
were 500MHz region machines with a paltry 128M
of memory.  I found a 1GHz Gateway that hadn't
been put on display yet,  fired it up,  and it had
256M of memory.  But not much else.  It told the
fellow at the counter I needed at least 512M,  and
he reached in a drawer and pulled out another
256M stick.

I then noticed that there was a big box of memory
sticks near the counter,  leading me to wonder
whether they are stripping a lot of machines for
their memory and other things. If so, what they do
with the memory then?   The first time I went to the
place many of the machines on the racks had 512M.
Now I haven't seen any in the last two trips.

The fellow suggested $25 for the memory,  and
before he got any further I said "too much."  But
that is less than the $35 or more one typically sees
for new PC-133 memory now.  And of course they
will let you make sure it works at some level.

So I ended up with a 1GHz machine with 512M of
memory for $50.   $50 !?  I don't know how he came
up with the price,  but was pretty quick to day "done."
But of course it's a Gateway,  and the guts of it
are proprietary.  I anything happens to the motherboard
the machine is a junker.  It's a "design" where part of
the motherboard plugs in to a another board that
has the PCI slots,  IDE and floppy cables,  etc.  So
even the case is proprietary - you could not put an
ATX motherboard in it later if need be.

But,  odds are that it will last a while.  Everything -
i.e.,  sound,  video,  USB, etc. - works.  The intention
of  was just to stick in an IDE drive mobile rack so
I could play with different versions of Linux.

And hey,  it's all burned in...

   -Bob


   -Bob

On 6/18/06, Brad Becker <investmgmt at s91195370.onlinehome.us> wrote:
> Ubuntu 6.06 is frickin amazing.  Big thumbs up for Automatix too!
> All codecs, plug-in's, bittorrents, vid drivers, etc handled with aplomb.
>
> That is all!  :)
>
> - Brad Becker
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