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ebolla · Jul 17, 2002, 01:57 PM

okay - someone gave me an old 200mhz 96mb crappy pentium machine
i've decided to just run it as a stereo system and install mandrake linux with Blackbox window manager(i'm not quite ready to jump into comand line)
the only OS i've ever used extensively is Classic Mac and a little Windows 98 at work
and i was hoping to get some help to figure out linux from a Mac user point of veiw
1. whats a good file browser? Nautilus is just too fat and slow- is there anything as fast and minimalist as macOS finder?
2. and good mp3/cd players? i'm using xmms right now
3. i'm using blackbox right now because it is so fast- but i cant figure out desktop icons or even a dock- how can i get the most out of it or should i try another window manager?
4. are there any other good apps that could help me create an easy to use fast GUI?

i know this is really basic but i just need to get the machine running in a way i can actually make use of it- after that i can get more into linux/unix to get ready for a switch to OSX on my macs
hey- what about installing GNU/Darwin?

thanks-

Ludovic Hirlimann · Jul 18, 2002, 02:37 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by ebolla:

1. whats a good file browser? Nautilus is just too fat and slow- is there anything as fast and minimalist as macOS finder?
2. and good mp3/cd players? i'm using xmms right now
3. i'm using blackbox right now because it is so fast- but i cant figure out desktop icons or even a dock- how can i get the most out of it or should i try another window manager?
4. are there any other good apps that could help me create an easy to use fast GUI?

i know this is really basic but i just need to get the machine running in a way i can actually make use of it- after that i can get more into linux/unix to get ready for a switch to OSX on my macs
hey- what about installing GNU/Darwin?

thanks-

<hr /></blockquote>You should forget the GUI because it uses a too many resources and you really don't need it
1)mc :: midnught commander. It looks like explorer on w98 and is in text mode, works fine. You'll need to use it maybe an hour and'll you'll be hoocked.
2)I don't do audio
3) Yes try <a href="http://www.openStep.org" target="_blank">OpenStep</a> with windowmaker has a window manager.
4) KDE is I think what you're looking for.

ebolla · Jul 18, 2002, 12:33 PM

thanks- i'll try midnight commander
i have nothing against using text and command line- i've just never used that before
but if there are any other apps that can be just as easy then tell me about them
(a GUI isnt all that easy to use when it drags from the graphics)
what about audio apps in text?

jean-henri · Jul 18, 2002, 06:54 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by ebolla:

... if there are any other apps that can be just as easy then tell me about them (a GUI isnt all that easy to use when it drags from the graphics)
what about audio apps in text?<hr /></blockquote>If you decide to use KDE you may avoid heavy filemanagers (Konqueror) and install an application called Krusader instead. Same principle as MC, but with a Graphic UI - very easy to use. It also have ftp and other things as well. You can find RPM packages for several KDE versions.

Hobbes · Jul 19, 2002, 02:30 AM

I can't even get Mandrake installed on the old PeeCee I had laying around. I'm trying to install 8.2, and everytime I get to the format stage, it takes FOREVER. Maybe I'm not being patient enough, but I can ZERO ALL DATA on my iBook's 20G HD in a little over an hour. I've left the PeeCee going for hours and its still not done, even though it only has a 4.3G HD!

Any ideas? Am I not being patient enough? Just for kicks, I'm going to leave it overnight.

bluehz · Jul 19, 2002, 08:36 AM

I pulled an old PC outta someones dumpster about a year ago and its been sitting around my house collecting dust ever since. Finally decided to do something with it about a month ago. Decided I wantedto play with Linux on it. Did a little research and found that the best low-resource (this PC is ancient Pentium 100MHz with 24mb RAM) Linux distro is Slackware. I had never heard of Slackware - its sort of the dark horse ofthe Linux community. I downloaded the ISO and had it up and running in about 2 hrs. Very impressive!!! I don't have enough RAM to run the GUI (ala X-Windows), but I don't need that anyway. I use it on my in-house LAN of OS X machines as a mailserver (Qmail), webserver (Apache), Hotline server, and DNS caching server. Works fantastic. I don't even have a monitor attached to it....just control everything on it via SSH connection from OS X machines. I was quite amazed at how well all my UNIX learning for Mac OS X has translated to Linux too...feels roght at home. Give it a look see: <a href="http://slackware.com" target="_blank">http://slackware.com</a>

Hobbes · Jul 19, 2002, 10:14 AM

Well, I left it overnight and by morning, it was still stuck on the "formatting hda1" segment. No progress. It must be locking up right there.

petej · Jul 23, 2002, 04:39 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by ebolla:
4. are there any other good apps that could help me create an easy to use fast GUI?<hr /></blockquote>I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this. If you mean you'd like to know what to use to create some kind of application with a graphical user interface, check out <a href="http://tcl.tk/" target="_blank">Tcl/Tk</a>, which runs on Mac OS 9 and X as well as Linux (and Windows and a bunch of other stuff). It's a scripting language with an easy syntax, and with the Tk extensions, you can do a full GUI application with it.

Secret Vampire · Jul 24, 2002, 06:47 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by bluehz:
I pulled an old PC outta someones dumpster about a year ago and its been sitting around my house collecting dust ever since. Finally decided to do something with it about a month ago. Decided I wantedto play with Linux on it. Did a little research and found that the best low-resource (this PC is ancient Pentium 100MHz with 24mb RAM) Linux distro is Slackware. I had never heard of Slackware - its sort of the dark horse ofthe Linux community. I downloaded the ISO and had it up and running in about 2 hrs. Very impressive!!! I don't have enough RAM to run the GUI (ala X-Windows) [/URL]<hr /></blockquote>You should be OK with 24MB for X, it won't be fast, but it'll work provided you don't use something like gnome/kde. Slack is one of the better (IMO) distros, unfortunately it's not easy to get anything but the intel version on CD.

Secret Vampire · Jul 24, 2002, 06:59 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by ebolla:
okay - someone gave me an old 200mhz 96mb crappy pentium machine
i've decided to just run it as a stereo system and install mandrake linux with Blackbox window manager(i'm not quite ready to jump into comand line)
the only OS i've ever used extensively is Classic Mac and a little Windows 98 at work
and i was hoping to get some help to figure out linux from a Mac user point of veiw
1. whats a good file browser? Nautilus is just too fat and slow- is there anything as fast and minimalist as macOS finder?
2. and good mp3/cd players? i'm using xmms right now
3. i'm using blackbox right now because it is so fast- but i cant figure out desktop icons or even a dock- how can i get the most out of it or should i try another window manager?
4. are there any other good apps that could help me create an easy to use fast GUI?

i know this is really basic but i just need to get the machine running in a way i can actually make use of it- after that i can get more into linux/unix to get ready for a switch to OSX on my macs
hey- what about installing GNU/Darwin?

thanks-

<hr /></blockquote>For the file manager you could try gentoo, it's like a gui driven mc, that doesn't suck like the gui version of mc

MP3 players aren't something I'm too familiar with, I generally use mc or gentoo to select a song to play, and have it set up so that the file manager calls up mpg123 (a command line player) to play it, mc comes with that as default for mp3s, but you need to set up a play button for gentoo.

Window managers, I'm a fan of very minimalist ones, so I can't help too much, though I've seen a clone of the NeXTstep GUI, which looked pretty nice <a href="http://www.afterstep.org/" target="_blank">http://www.afterstep.org/</a>