lcd monitors and linux

[Collins Richey]

On Thu, 27 Mar 2003 19:16:07 -0500
Bruce Marshall <bmarsh at bmarsh.com> wrote:

> On Thursday 27 March 2003 19:02 pm, el lodger wrote:
> > On Thu, 27 Mar 2003 18:11:37 -0500
> >
> > Bruce Marshall <bmarsh at bmarsh.com> wrote:
> > > Gee Collins, we agree on something!!  I too recommend Viewsonic
> > > and I'm using a Viewsonic VE800 (18inch) LCD monitor as I type
> > > this. Connecting it to SuSE 8.0 was no problem... it self
> > > configured itself and you are right, it wants to run at its max
> > > resolution of 1280x1024.
> > >
> > >
> > > The look and feel of it 'might' be a bit better than a tube
> > > monitor but not enough for me to really be worth the difference in
> > > price.
> > >
> > > (and here I am with a gentoo CD I'm going to play with and you're
> > > off playing with Slackware...  (my first linux distro) )  What
> > > comes around,
> >
> > Marshall, let me know how the Xconfig goes with your gentoo!
> > el lodger
> 
> Well maybe Collins or someone else can tell me this...  
> 
> I downloaded the 194MB cd to do the install but I only have a 56KB
> dialup line (24/7 tho) and I'm wondering what kind of time it is going
> to take to get it all together?  People seem to say that it takes
> broadband in which case it may not even be a starter.  But I think
> I'll at least get it started so I can see what it looks like.  Every
> night I could load up a pretty large chunk of it.
> 
> Am I crazy?  (to try gentoo...)
> 

Well, one of the gentoo developers still uses dialup.  

During the install you can do 'emerge-p system >file' and use the list
to generate a script with 'emerge--fetchonly' commands to download the
stuff overnight(s). I would suspect 1-2 nights just to get everything. 
One the downloads are done, then you can issue 'emerge system' for real.
 
Of course, that's only the base system(no X, etc.). Downloading X, KDE,
Mozilla, Gnome, Gimp, etc. over dialup is going to be painfully s-l-o-w.

Since you already have a running system, you can do the gentoo work from
the chroot environment - just let it chug along until it's done while
you enjoy doing something else.

With dialup, it's going to take you a couple of weeks to get a normal
system going.  Once you've suffered through that, you'll like the
system.  Most of the upgrades after that will be less painful, until one
of the biggies comes along again.

I never tried gentoo until I had cable, so it was not so bad for me.  I
can rebuild a system in about 2+ days.

Not quite the same as RH, Mandrake, etc.

YMMV.

--
Collins