A step backwards

[Kurt Wall]

Also sprach Kevin O'Gorman:
>
> My wife's Windows software got so hosed last week that it was
> impossible to even read a CD, to reinstall Windows.  So it was either
> reformat the partition and start over, or install Linux.  Happily, she
> let me install Linux, and I chose COL 3.1.1 WS.

Bonus! I gather, though, that it did not go well. :-(

> Unfortunately, things did not go well.  I've heard this story before,
> most recently from dep.  But this time, even though I am right here,
> and doing the heavy lifting, I'm going to put Windows back on the
> machine, I think.
> 
> The problems:
>    Netscape that came with it ran a couple of times, got into trouble,
>    and will no longer run.

Any clues why? No helpful output on the console or anything? I'd suspect
Java straightaway, based on past experience. I'd also check the obvious
things, like disk space, resource-hogging processes, yadda yadda.

>    Mozilla 1.0 mail is balky, and my wife can't stand it.  I'm running
>    fetchmail because Moz couldn't talk POP to the ISP (though that was
>    originally working with Netscape).  Then I have MOZ using imap to
>    get at /var/spool/mail/<her> because MOZ doesn't seem to have a
>    Movemail.  But after reading a single email, it goes haywire and
>    needs MOZ to be shut down and restarted or else all attempts to
>    deal with mail get wedged forever.  I can't find anything useful
>    in /var/log/messages or /var/log/mail.

How about an xsession log file somewhere? I don't know where Caldera puts
them these days, but perhaps in $HOME or /var/log. Perhaps turning up the
log level in /etc/syslog.conf will help. I don't use Mozilla's mail client,
some I'm no help there.

>    My wife is fed up.  She says it used to be fun, and this is no fun
>    at all.

Understandable.

Kurt
-- 
"Die?  I should say not, dear fellow.  No Barrymore would allow such a
conventional thing to happen to him."
		-- John Barrymore's dying words