Jones is the oldest computer. He is a 486 DX2/66 with 20 MB of RAM and an NE2000 compatible Ethernet card. He used to dual boot to Win95 and Linux until his 850 MB hard drive crashed (for the second time). He recently received two 540 MB drives from a nice guy who didn't need them. Solaris 2.6 and his new drives will resurrect him, and he will become my gateway. More news at 11...
3/8/99 22:00
Tried to install Solaris. Install doesn't like the CDROM and hard drive on the same IDE channel, no matter who's the master. Need to buy another IDE cable and give it another shot with the devices on separate channels. Linux will install just fine. Hmmm, is there a lesson here?
Technically speaking, Gunther is not actually my computer. Gunther is a Firm provided resource. Gunther happens to be a Compaq Armada 7400 notebook (my only name brand computer) with a 300MHZ Pentium II processer, 128 MB RAM, and an IBM 6.5 GB hard drive. He also has a somewhat swappable floppy disk and CD-ROM arrangement. I say somewhat because one must shutdown (not suspend) the computer, swap the floppy for the CD-ROM or vice-versa, and reboot. This is definitely sub-optimal. Gunther also sports two PC card slots, whose current occupants are a TDK V.90 modem, and a 3COM Etherlink card. Gunther is definitely the most preppy of all my computers - he insists on name brand stuff. If Ralph Lauren made keyboards, Gunther would have one. Gunther also has sound, and a hell of a good looking 13.3 inch TFT display.
Gunther's hard drive is currently split about 70/30 between Win95 and Linux partitions. The usage ratio is actually closer to 50/50. Because he is my work computer, I use him for such things as Lotus Notes, MS Office, and other Firm specific software. Gunther will never improve my MOLUx ratio. (Microsoft Office vs. Logged on to Unix - a term originally coined by Aaron Renn)
Whistler has the distinction of being the first ever computer I assembled myself. I picked out all of the components myself, and put him together. (If only Boris Karloff had been available for the first power up.) Whistler's guts include the following:
- Epox P55 motherboard with Via AGP chipset (pre 100 MHZ bus version)
- AMD 300 MHz K6-2 (overclocked to 333)
- 8.5 GB Maxtor DiamondMax Ultra 33 - fast and not chatty
- 96 MB RAM
- STB Velocity 4400 AGP video with nVidia's RIVA TnT chipset
- Diamond Monster Sound MX-300 with Aureal's latest chip, Yamaha three piece speaker system
- Advansys PCI UltraWide SCSI Host Adapter
- Netgear (Bay Networks, now Nortel) FA310tx PCI 10/100 Ethernet card
- External Full-Height Seagate 9 GB SCSI Hard Drive (circa 1990)
- US Robotics External 28.8 Sportster Modem (I'll get to 56K eventually - for now I use Gunther)
- Gravis Xterminator gamepads (2)
Whistler is primarily a game playing and development machine. He's got the horsepower to run GIMP without blinking, and can play Madden 99 plenty fast enough to be fun. (Yes, I'm sure your 500 MHz with its brand new Canopus VooDoo3 card could smoke my sorry ass, but so what?)
My dad has kindly donated an HP Pavilion for my continuing education. I don't know what I'm going to run on it yet - in fact, it may even live with my wife. She currently has no computer at home, and is now missing it. (Did I mention I don't live with my wife during the week? The joys of commuting - an entirely different story.) The Pav has a 133 MHz chip, an Intel chipset, no hard drive, some crappy videocard-on-a-chip, and who knows how much memory. It will soon have an Ethernet card, a hard drive, and a good operation system. Maybe I'll put GNU HURD on it - haven't really explored that yet.
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