User Feedback :: First time to use linux ever...



I'm so freaking impressed and giddy about DSL.  

A little background...

I've never "used" Linux before.  I messed with Unix some off and on as related to work and when I was active duty military.  But for my home computers I've always used Windows.

When I married my wife a few years ago and we began combining all of our stuff.  It was inevitable that we had duplicates of things.  CD's, VHS Tapes, Silverware, etc...  Invariablly her stuff was better than mine, except for her computer.

I've always built my own systems and generally devote about $100 a month to keeping it up to date hardware wise, she on the other hand had a Compaq Presario.  We decided to keep both computers so that when one of us was on the good computer the other could get online to check email and what not.  Over the course of the last five years our "good computer" has continued to get better while the old Compaq for the most part collected dust.

So all that said... I had maxed out the Compaq's RAM (one dimm slot that supported 256 MB0) and had also upgraded the AMD k62 350 processor with a k62 500 processor that I'd found at a garage sale for a couple of bucks. I'd also added a 10GB harddrive and CD/RW for $10 bucks from a GoodWill thrift store.  At that point though I'd reached the motherboard and power supplies limits.  

The restore disks that shipped with the Compaq included Win 98.  Make sure you take notice of the lack of SP beside that Win 98.  By the time I ran through the update cycle for Windows (the 2 sps, and all the security updates), the system was choking.  It would take for freaking ever to load the O/S.  Once the O/S was loaded it would take even longer to load any apps.  Once loaded things were ok... but once the system went into standby mode it would take a hard reboot to get it back up...  Seriouslly frustrating...

So for the most part the computer had become unusable.  In the back of my mind I "knew" that it should be a good candidate for linux... but not knowing how to do an install, and the general voodooery that I had associated with Linux kept scaring me away.  Years ago I had tried a linux install (circa 97) and although I had managed it, for the most part I found it unusable.

But this weekend, I made the decision to either get a usable O/S up and running on the Compaq or Ebaying the thing and being done with it.

I spent a few hours online trying to find info on how to perform an install on a Presario 7360.  I can't tell you how many times I ran across comments along the lines of "don't even attempt it....  compaq drivers are non existant" or "Presario's are crap...  Their drivers are horrible" or "you'd be better to just get another system"

At this point I figured that the ebay route would probably be the net result of the weekends endeavours, but I was going to give it an honest effort.

As I write this remember that my grand sum knowldege of Linux equates to what I've learned this weekend...  Reading through forums and google searches, I found the general consensus to be that Slackware or derivative thereof would be the best choice for the old Compaq.  After running through multiple distros though, it became evident that Slackware wasn't going to load...  I could get them up via the CD but not installed onto the HDD.

I had about given up when I thought just for giggles I'd try one of the full versions.  So I installed Debian, and what do you know... it worked...  it was incredablly slow, but it worked...  I did the install over the internet and it worked, but the end result wasn't much better than the fully updated Win98 install.

But the fact that Debian worked gave me hope... and so I looked for a Small Debian package... and came across DSL.

To this point I had installed or attempted to install; Debian, Knoppix, puppy, vector, Deli, Slackware, and 4 or 5 others that I've already forgotten with either no luck or parital luck or lots of luck but the end result was unusable.

after burning the ISO for DSL I had made the decision that this was my last attempt.... if it didn't work then I was done with Linux for the forseeable future.

Very long story short... It worked like a charm.  From the point that I started the download of DSL to the point when it was installed on the harddrive of the Compaq took about 10 minutes.  A  couple more minutes devoted to setting up my email accounts and I'm done.  It's a dream.

It's fast... I've got enough ram on the Compaq that everything loads there I think and it's blinding fast... as fast if not faster than the "good" computer...  Most importantly the comptuer is usable!  I checked it this morning before I left for work and OMGWTFBYOB it's been up for over 12 hours and hasn't been  rebooted!!!  HOLY COW!!!  I'm sold!

I want to give my thanks to this community for providing DSL.  It's brought the Compaq back from what was soon to more than likely be the landfill.  I'm still in the dark as to how to actually use the thing, but I can surf and check my email which for now is all that I was wanting...  Might end up being that that IS all that I want.  I don't have any real desire to become "knowledgable".  I just wanted to be able to do those two things...  So once again Thanks!  $'s will be donated in the very near future, probably tonight when I get home and see that it's still up and running and waiting to surf!  It's definatlly going to be more than the $1 that's being asked for!
Welcome to the Revolution!!!
Great review!

I think once you start fiddling with it you will enjoy it more

However if you just wanted it for email and surfing then stock is the way to go!

P.S.  You will never have to hit the power button again with DSL and linux...unless something critical happens it will chop along with no problems!

Brian
AwPhuch
I am also a relatively new user of Linux.  I started dabbling with it because I came into possession of a massive amount of old computers and wanted to make a computer lab.  This was before I found Damn Small Linux so the differnet labs I set up ran a few different distros.  And I always kept a liveCD at hand for when one of the my windows comps simply could not start up any other way.

Now that I've tried DSL a bit, I am possitively hooked.  The speed, the size, and the features are unbelieveable.  I've introduced it to friends that were equally shocked to find how good it is and how useful it is in a real bind.

I have always wanted the smallest, fastest OS I could get.  I tweaked the hell out of every MS OS I had to get it running the way I wanted and I am amazed that all that effort was beat out by a fresh boot of DSL.

I wasn't sure how appropriate it was to gush on the boards like this but I couldn't think of anything else to write about.  I run this on P166 laptops with 32MB Ram up through P42.8ghz with 1gb ram and Athlon XP 3200+ with 2gb ram desktops and have yet to have an issue of any kind.

original here.