[olug] New Linux User (long)

Luke -Jr luke at dashjr.org
Sun Aug 19 14:11:52 UTC 2007


On Saturday 18 August 2007, Eric Penne wrote:
> player.  HPLIP for the printer.  I told him the scanner probably
> wouldn't work and that he'd be lucky if the printer itself worked.  I

Actually, scanner support tends to be great, and most printers work.
Unless you meant the hardware itself being dead...

> He then asked about ripping his CD collection so I popped in one of
> his CDs and realized mistake #2.  I had installed the MP3 decoder but
> didn't install the MP3 compression.

Why exactly would you need MP3 compression these days?

> He was impressed with the system.  I showed him all of the programs
> like OO.org, K3B, Amarok, DigiKam, Konqueror, Firefox, games, etc..

OO.org I can understand for compatibility purposes, but Firefox really 
provides nothing but memory hogging ;)

> I installed Kopete in case she develops the IM addiction.

Psi is much nicer on the memory, and if there isn't a preexisting IM 
addiction, the standards-compliance requirement shouldn't be too painful.

> He's thinking about buying an LCD monitor and wireless keyboard since he
> didn't even spend $100 on the PC. 

Just a note... when I got my LCD monitor, the result was 2x the desktop 
space-- all of a sudden my memory usage almost doubled as well ;)
Also, if he intends to be copying all his music to the HD, he might find he 
needs to upgrade that (not sure what size it already has).
So it *might* be worth considering saving that extra cash a bit longer, just 
in case.

> I told him that he has a computer much faster than anything I have.
> My fastest PC is a P3 1GHz laptop.  He asked me how a geek like me
> could get away with such an old PC.  I told him it was because of my
> meager requirements (no gaming) and linux.  Sure I've added RAM (1GB)
> to my desktop machine (Duron 700MHz) and a new video card (ATI 9600)
> with hardware MPEG decompression to offload some of the work from the
> processor but in the last 7 years with that desktop I've only put
> about $100 into it.

Indeed, my last upgrade was prompted by a motherboard dying, and that was 3 or 
4 years ago. Since then, my only upgrade needs have been HD and RAM, plus a 
video card just for a few more FPS and future software upgradability (the 
9200 drivers work great and max out the card, but the X850 drivers still have 
a long way to improve while still doing at least what the 9200 could).



More information about the OLUG mailing list