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Re: [TCLUG:435] High School needs Linux info



Sometime around the 24th of June in 1998, the wannabe 3|173 h4ck3r Tim Wilson sed:
 
> Jim Walters wrote:
> 
> >         Here are some of my goofy ideas:
> >         1) Depending on the amount of onboard video RAM, you may not need to upgrade the video.  
> >         1M VRAM will support 1024x768x256 I believe.  On a 486,
> >         running a high-color mode will slow things way down IMHO.

Yes, 1M VRAM does support 1024x767x256. Yes, that's as high as my 1MB card
goes. And I'd agree, running 256 colors is probably the way to go here. I
had to go around and set all the workstations at my high school -up- to
256 colors when they upgraded all the machines. When they installed
Windows95 on them, they set the video drivers to 16-color, and then
wondered why it looked so bad :P

> I think these Compaqs only have 256k on-board video. I tried doing a
> quick install on one of them a couple weeks ago and didn't have much
> luck getting X to do anything.

Were you trying it with XFree86, or MetroX (the commercial servers
sometimes bundled with RedHat) ? MetroX is more compatible with different
video cards, as far as I've tested. E.g., I'm only able to get my Cirrus
Logic CLGD5430 to actually -do- 1024x767x256 with a MetroX server, not
with XFree86.

> I'm wondering what to use as a server. I don't know if I should use one
> of the Pentiums I've already got or buy a nice workstation from VA
> Research or something to be the server. I can't afford to buy a real
> "server," but I don't think I really need one at this point. What do you
> think?

Myself, I wouldn't go out and buy a server in this situation. Linux will
make one of those 133Mhz pentiums a nice server. Go out and buy it at
least 64mb ram (2 32mb sticks ~ $60) and a bunch of hard drive (6-12gb,
$200-$400) and you're set. Up until last year when they finally got around
to upgrading, my high school was running their main Netware server as a
486dx66/32mb, and it wasn't too bad.

> Luckily, the 486DX machines are identical. This should make it easier to
> configure one of them and then "clone" it over the network to all of the
> other ones.

Theoretically this is nice. I've had some problems at school when trying
to do things like this, but that was always with Win/DOS and we all know
how finicky that can be. Linux should be fine, though.

> I'm also very interested in the Corel office suite that should be
> available in the fall. Maybe they'd be willing to give me a really great
> deal on a site license.

I haven't heard much about it. Is it just a port of the Win95 version of
the Suite ?

--
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| Josh Becker                   - aka -                     JellyD |
| email: joshb@techie.com                       IRC: EFnet, DALnet |
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