New to the list

[Janina Sajka]

Welcome, Brice.

You've come to the right place to ask for help. I'll chime in and give you my two cents, and I know others will do the same. Your job, should you choose to accept it, will be to decide among the potentially conflicting suggestions. What can I say--that's the world of Linux where there are more choices than one can shake a stick at.

But, let's get down to business.

If you don't want the Win 98 -- plan to just dump it. The Linux installation process will take care of that without further ado.

You're in great shape with that internal Doubletalk. You've hit the jackpot, in fact. Leave that where it is.

You should read some to get oriented on what's involved in a Linux installation. I recommend the HOWTO on installing the Speakup Modified Fedora Core of Linux available at:

http://www.linux-speakup.org/ftp/disks/fedora/HOWTO_INSTALL.html

However, helpful as this doc may be, you can't install Fedora because you only have 48 megs of RAM (unless you add some, of course). You also can't install Suse.

So, I expect you'll be choosing between Debian and Slackware, possibly Gentoo, though I'm not sure about the minimal requirements for Gentoo. Someone here will tell you.

I do want to say that what you have will work quite well--though you won't be doing graphical Linux probably with this system. I happen to have a 200 Mhz Pentium with only 32 Mb RAM that's running Debian just fine.

There are a set of install disks on the Speakup site that you can use to start the installation. You should get them and start installing. It doesn't matter of you don't get it right right away, because you have nothing to lose on this machine.

If you do as I did with Debian and the disks on the Sp[eakup site there are two things to keep in mind:

That particular release is fairly old. You will want to upgrade it once it's installed. Fortunately, it's easier to upgrade once your Linux is up and running than it is to get to that point in the first place.

There's a very good HOWTO at the Debian site about installation that you should also read up on.

Again, welcome to Speakup.

Brice Mijares writes:
> Hello All,  I'm new to the list and am going to need some help.
> I have an older computer that has been sitting around here for a couple of
> years and decided to put it to some use.  It's a P-200, with 48 megs of ram,
> and currently it has win 98, and a PC double talk synthesizer.
> I want to teach myself Linux, but I should say, I've got a little experience
> with it, or better yet, UNIX.  Now, what's the best way to go about this,
> meaning do I want to dump win 98 since I don't need it, and do a clean
> install of Linux.  If so, Which  package should I go with
> Also, will there be any speech as I do the installation?  I'm sure there is
> more questions I should ask, but  until I get going, I don't know what
> further to ask.
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina at afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175