General Question regarding linux

[cmr0385]

Hi, I used to be a member here a couple of years ago when it was linuxnewbie and not justlinux, and kinda fell out of the groove. I am not fluent in linux, but can make my way around and compile things and all, set up ftp and web servers to an extent, just that kind of stuff. Well, now I am looking to get back into it somewhat. My current setup is:

Airport Extreme BaseStation (802.11g/b w/LAN)
12" Apple PowerBook with Airport Extreme (802.11g)
400mhz/384mb ram something with Win2000 for my dad (802.11b)
350mhz/128mb ram with Slackware 9.0 wired to the BaseStation doing pretty much nothing
Apple Performa6215cd 70mhz/32mb ram not networked

My question is what can I really do with this Linux box? It has a 8gig hd, and I really have no idea what to do with it. There is a firewall run through the wireless server, and the Powerbook has to control the server as far as I know. Id like to put it to use any way possible. Any and all suggestions will be used, even if it means putting it to use for others, I dont really care, just is sitting around day after day looking sad. Thanks for the response. :) :) :)

-Corey

[hlrguy]

seti@home? If I had a spare machine, I would build a media center to connect directly into my stereo system. xmms can be controlled by remote control, and with a TV card out, I think it would be pretty cool. I love expanded stereo that xmms offers, which isn't available on any of my stereo components. With the visualization plugins, it would be a great way to listen to music and basically veg out on the sofa once in a while. :)

hlrguy

[cmr0385]

Thats a pretty cool idea. Ill get the seti@home going, but as for the media center, the computer is a little older, does it have the processing power? It has 2 free PCI slots and one free ISA slot. Id imagine the media thing would come with a PCI slot. Maybe Ill look into that. Thanks :) :) Any more suggestions? :) :)

-Corey

[hlrguy]

My folks old P75 would play MP3/Ogg fine, WITH a sound card. It was painful to try to rip/encode on it though. If you want to play with a media center, even just to learn, check out xmms.org and just download the 2,000+ (more? just a guess) plugins it supports and play. :) I would think you can find a cheap PCI Video card with TV out on the slackware mailing lists. The most useful thing I do (besides work, using Linux of course) is music, Audacity, rezound, etc. I have a huge music library and am always working on these things. If you are interested in weaning your Dad off Windows, install VNC Server and then let him connect/use a Linux desktop from the Windows PC.

hlrguy

[cmr0385]

Yea, that sounds really cool. I dont know how quick he wants to get off windows. I just taught him how to rip his CDs to his hard drive to listen to. I get called in every other minute to teach him something new ... Ill go to xmms.org and take a look around, it sounds pretty cool. I used to use audacity on my mac, until I got Cubase. Its a little more stable for my recording. Any possibility of using the linux box as a mixer or sequencer or anything cool for recording? I never really thought of that. Hey, thanks so much for the great ideas :) :) :)

-Corey

[hlrguy]

I would only use Linux as a mixer. That or Mac. Windows has way too much going on in the background. My wife never burtn a clean CD, and ripping was sometimes error prone. (Note: WMe my only data point). Follow my sig on equivalents. I have fun there a lot. :)

hlrguy

[cmr0385]

Yea, right now Im using my PowerBook for almost everything. It mixes, it records, it masters, it is my little portable DAW. It also is my Photography unit, and will be my Video unit if I ever get into that. So, Itd be nice to use my linux box as a mixer that goes into my PowerBook. Any way of doing that? Thanks for the help, youve been a lot of it :) :)

-Corey

[El_Cu_Guy]

Seti@Home, whoa!

If I had one or more spare machines I would dedicated them to fighting cancer.

Check it out here (http://theregister.co.uk/content/31/30699.html)

Note: Unfortunately the software only runs on Windows. My suggestion would be a minimalist installation (along with all necessary updates). Use msconfig (or similar) to kill unnecessary startup processes. Replace the shell with something like Bluebox (http://blueboxshell.org/), LiteShell (http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~mosses/rob/liteshell/) or some other minimalist shell (http://psa.shellscape.net/index.php?cat=3).

[cmr0385]

Can you explain this a little better to me. Ive never really done a lot of hardcore tweaking (if that is what this is) of windows. Which OS to install, I have 98 and 2k. Also, exactly how do you replace the shell in it? I think that would be more than a worthy cause, if you could give me a little insight on how to do it. Is the computer powerful enough to do that? Thats a really good plan. Thanks so much :) :) :D

-Corey

[El_Cu_Guy]

Since this isn't a Windows fourm I'll offer 3 solutions.

1. Read the docs for each shell. Each has it's own method.

2. PM me. I rarely check this because I simply don't care.

3. (best) Go to Linuxquestions.org and post this question in the non-Unix forum under General (posting under Linux-General will result in your post being moved). I and others will offer advice on replacing the shell as well as answering your other questions. Any oher forum even remotely related to Windows is usally a patheitc waste of time.

Example:
"How do I install this program? I just don't understand the basic concept of double clicking the setup icon"