Post by BillPost by Ben MyersPost by BillPost by Ben MyersPost by WettlesheimI have an 1998 Gateway PII-400 that has been upgraded with a Powerleap
1.4 overdrive kit, maximum amount of ram added, Audigy soundcard,
128gb ATI video card, and a 400 watt power supply. I've been thinking
about trying to use Ubuntu Linux and adding a wireless network adapter
card so I can go online with it to check email, waste time (facebook
maybe) etc. Is there a specific network card that would work well in
this PC? Any suggestions for which version Ubuntu Linux to use? The
PC worked really well years ago and has been gathering dust the last 5
years, it's time to either experiment with it or get rid of it.
Thanks in advance,
Ron
Ron,
Ubuntu does a good job recognizing Linksys wireless cards. Start with
the latest Ubuntu 9.10, which includes very nearly the latest and
greatest Firefox, Thunderbird, and OpenOffice. Unlike Micro$oft, Linux
development and packaging is very careful not to drop support for older
hardware, altho I'm not sure a current version of Linux would install
and run on a 128MB Pentium... Ben Myers
Ben I may not be as knowledgeable as you, but to say MS drops support for
older hardware is not quite accurate. It is the manufacturers that drop
support and do not supply MS with drivers. I went through two such events
with HP printers and scanners. In both cases MS told me they were not
even provided with generic drivers and HP confirmed they would not be
doing it and I had to buy new machines.
I also had a friend back in the Win98 to XP days that had a nice Canon
multi function printer that Canon dropped dead...no drivers no updates.
My friend cussed out MS until he got to the truth. Canon killed it
Bill
You are right. "Drops" is not the right word. How about "excludes"?
Micro$oft has a fixed quota of space to sell on its install CD's/DVD's. So
the hardware manufacturers offer up some drivers, and pay the tribute.
Other drivers are available, but not on the install media, but for
downloading from somewhere.
Then there is the issue of collusion between Microsoft and hardware
manufacturers, especially HP. Just looking at the NT family of products
(NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7), what rationale is there for changing the driver
model with EVERY new version? Well, you can claim ineptitude on the part
of Microsoft, which is partially correct. Or you can think in terms of
all those expensive pieces of hardware rendered obsolete because the
manufacturers cannot cost-justify changing (or even completely rewriting)
drivers for equipment no longer sold. It's not that HP kills a product.
Or that Canon does it. Microsoft gives them a convenient excuse for
killing products... Ben Myers
I am a VAR and been selling for 20 plus years to the export market. HP
changes printers quicker than you can blink an eye. You have no idea how
many printers HP will kill for whatever reason and it has nothing to do with
MS.
If there is collusion to kill products I am not privy to that much insider
information, but I can understand it. Otherwise we would still be driving
the Edsel (which may not be a bad idea)
MS is in a no win situation. The more they support anything via backward
compatibility, the more bloated the OS becomes and the complaints and rants
increase. So the question is where do they draw the line and how far back.
They have to work with others like HP to come to a middle ground. MS will
never please everyone and that's ok , but to continually blame them for
everything that is mostly driven by market reaction and direction, is a
stretch
And for the $ in MS that's great too. I and a ton of others ( like their
employees worldwide) have made a tidy sum over the years from their
stock....something the EU and even our government wanted to break up at one
time. But that's another topic.
So we will agree to disagree and sorry to the OP for sidetracking
Bill
Well, each new version of Windows also gives HP a convenient excuse to
kill off some more printers. The willingness of HPaq to change printer
models faster than you and I change underwear is causing people to look
elsewhere for all but business-class lasers, for which HP is somewhat
compelled to continue driver support by its enterprise customers. Of
course, much to HP's chagrin, a printer with full PostScript Level 2 is
virtually guaranteed not to go obsolete. PostScript is the basic black
style of the printer world. PostScript goes well with anything or any OS.
A lot of the killing of printers could stop if people would simply check
for support of all their hardware before making the move to a new OS.
And I have some clients who willingly pay a few bucks for me to devise
workarounds so that the killed-off printers come back to life as very
functional zombies.
For example, recently, one of my clients bought a Dell with Vista on it,
against my advice about Vista. Then the complaint started about being
unable to print to the old, but reliable OfficeJet attached to an XP box
in the other room. Best Buy, Dell, everyone told them it couldn't be
done. I installed a second driver on the XP system for a B&W DeskJet
600, set up the printer for sharing, then found the "DeskJet 600" on the
Vista machine. Voila! Now they can print on the DeskJet. If they
needed to print in color, I could also have used the color DeskJet 600
driver, since the DeskJet 600 is the lowest common denominator among HP
inkjets and its driver is the basis for many (but not all) inkjet
printers since.
Oh, yeah. I get no margin whatsoever even trying to compete with the
big box stores to sell inkjet printers on a one-off basis. So I make my
money keeping the older printers going, when the printer is reliable
enough to make it worthwhile. I have a number of clients using the
older HP DeskJets, which are far easier on the pocketbook than the new
ones with cartridges of higher capacity. Buying a new HP inkjet is like
attaching a siphon to your credit card, running off to Staples or
somewhere very often to buy still more inkjet cartrdiges.
Back on topic a bit, Ubuntu and other Linux distros generally provide
good support for older printers... Ben Myers
