Re: [TCLUG:15841] 3 Newbie Questions

[Christopher Reid Palmer <chrisp@dusk.bitstream.net>]

Welcome to Linux! :) Read on...

On Mon, 10 Apr 2000, Chad Davidson wrote:

> 1.  I installed from my CD-ROM drive so my floppy was not used in the
> installation.  When I mount a floppy disk, I can see the contents, but
> if I try to open anything on the floppy (or even copy files to or from
> it) my computer freezes.  Do I have something configured wrong or is my
> floppy drive bad?  Is there some way I can unfreeze it?  (I tried
> Ctrl-Alt-Del and Ctrl-Alt-F1.)

Wow, that's weird. Does it happen when you do all this as root, as well?

How frozen does it get? Can you log in as root and kill whatever process
is using the floppy? (Read the kill manual page: `man kill` at the
prompt.)


> 2.  I have 64 MB of RAM and a 450 MHz AMD K-6 processor.  I am using
> KDE.  When I use the Task Manager (or free) to monitor how much RAM I am
> using, I see that I am using about 56 MB of RAM when I have no
> applications running.  If I try to open any application, it seems to run
> very slowly (I assume because it is using swap RAM).  Is 64 MB of RAM
> enough for basic operation (using KDE with StarOffice and GIMP)?  Is
> there something I can do to speed things up?  Do I have KDE
> misconfigured in such a way that it uses too much RAM?

64MB is plenty, if you don't run KDE. KDE eats memory, as you've 
seen. Personally I prefer to run just a window manager and not a whole
`desktop environment' like KDE or GNOME, for this reason. Look into Window
Maker or IceWM. You would have to put the following, or something like it,
in a file called .xinitrc (note the preceding dot) in your home directory:

===
xterm &		# Get at least a terminal window to start
kedit &		# Maybe a simple app by default also
exec wmaker	# For Window Maker
===

Yes, you can still run KDE applications even if you're not running KDE as
your desktop environment. So that's helpful.

You can get Window Maker or IceWM from www.freshmeat.net, if they aren't
already on your system.


> 3.  I now want to install a 3Com 905 10/100 NIC card.  How do I find out
> the required software drivers/packages to install?  Are these packages
> on my OpenLinux CD? (I hope so because I cannot get my floppy to work,
> see #1 above)

Yes that's a common card and probably already supported. I don't know
anything about Caldera, but getting that card to do its magic shouldn't be
too difficult with whatever Caldera's system configuration utility is.


--
Christopher Reid Palmer : innerfireworks.com

Necklaces sends out subversive signals.
beware.
alien attacks?
-- d93kp