Marc said about 1 hour later

You're almost there, one more OS jump (::cough:: Mac ::cough::) and you'll be in the right place! ;)

Ubuntu is clearly the best version of Linux I've seen though. But...it's still Linux. All the issues you deal with while dealing with Windows will be gone, but they will be replaced with likely endless driver "issues" and lack of good applications. Note I said good and I quoted issues. There's plenty of junk applications out there for Linux and although your drivers will likely install, they may act up. But that depends highly on the components in your machine. Feel free to contact me if you're looking for a specific application, I've most likely spent an unbelievable amount of time finding a good one for Linux.

I don't mean to get your hopes down, but don't get your hopes up. I'd honestly take XP or Vista over almost any version of Linux just because I don't have the time to install my video card drivers, configure them, debug them, reinstall them, configure them differently, debug them, repeat.

Also, how are you going to game in Linux, or are you an all console guy now (Understandable, I haven't played a game on the PC in like 2 years)?

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GJ said about 10 hours later

Drivers: haha, using older hardware (read, 2002-2005 stuff), so I'm not expecting hideous driver issues. Still, I expect a few hiccups, especially with the more interesting hardware and of course, my printers. As for the video card driver issue that you describe--I am doing EXACTLY that with XP, so worst case I see no difference. If anything, I'm just so damn sick of the BSOD that I need a change of scenery.

Good apps:

Open Office: That's the primary app I'll be installing, and it works pretty darn good on XP, so I expect it to work the same over on Linux.
Wine: Supposed to be a pretty good win-compatibility app. We'll see just how good it is. :)

I will need a GUI compression interface (I can do gzip, tar, compress, etc., but I'm not the only one using this box), email and browser (plan to use Firefox and T-bird, like I do today).

I'll want a nice editor...right now, I'll likely use Edit Plus thru Wine till I find something decent that runs native in Linux. I'm not a vi snob by any means. :)

Obviously, I'll need some other cool tools--cd / dvd burning software, etc.

Gaming: I've spent most of the past year console bound because my machines have been very unstable, to say the least. I do plan to game on Linux, likely thru Wine for my existing Win games, and I'll see what's out there in terms of native Linux games. I assume, next to nothing beyond simple casual games.

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Marc said about 10 hours later

Funny you should mention a GUI compression interface for Linux. To be honest, I don't know of a good one. If you were using KDE as a window manager, it comes with one called Ark, which is "ok", but get this: It doesn't work on any other Linux window manager. Since you're using Ubuntu, you'll be using Gnome as your window manager (Unless they've changed that, I know they're talking about switching back to KDE), so I don't have any good suggestions, maybe they've got one built in now.

Open Office and Wine should work well. Open Office was practically born on Linux, so it's gonna work just as well if not better than on Windows. Wine works really well for a lot of applications or not at all.

A good editor would probably be jEdit. I spend most of my time in Eclipse nowadays, but I still pull out EditPlus for doing some pretty sweet text editing on regular old files. From what I've read, EditPlus should run fine under Wine, but if not jEdit is probably your best choice.

CD/DVD burning software, hopefully Gnome comes with some, I know KDE does. If not, I've heard some good things about X-CD-Roast.

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Marc said about 11 hours later

Oh and vi absolutely...100% completely sucks. Vim is no better. It is the most difficult to use editor ever, and even when you finally learn how to do simple text editing (It's like Ctrl + I + I + Esc - 4 mod 2 right?), the added features are not worth it. But I'm not bitter or anything. :)

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GJ said about 12 hours later

I've used vi for uh, like almost 20 years...it's a necessary evil, but as a unix programmer I do all my real editing in Edit+. In regards to KDE / Gnome, I think the DVD I'm getting has both Ubuntu and kubuntu on it.

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Geoff said about 19 hours later

To make a quick jump back to Mac's for a second, I would like to put my 2 cents in for a moment. If you should ever decide to buy a Mac...make sure it is Intel based, which if you're buying new, won't be a problem.

I abhor my PowerPC mac. The OS is super duper cool, but the computer is super duper slow at times. That and it plays Flash files horribly...which is more of a Flash issue than anything, but irritates the heck out of me!

I hear the new intels though have worked wonders...then again I heard after buying a mac, I'd never turn back....eh, jury is still out on that one.

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Marc said about 22 hours later

I don't know what's wrong with your computer. Did you ever try taking out that extra ram chip to see if that may be causing the strange problems?

All I know is you have a cat and a dog and animals are deadly to computers. I've heard many unbelievable computer problems that turned out to be problems with cats/dogs sleeping and/or walking on computer keyboards.

As another benefit to the Intel macs, you can run Windows natively on it, as well as Windows applications natively in Mac OS X using Parallels. Kicks Wine's butt any day.

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GJ said about 24 hours later

Also, I can't run OS X on my hardware....I run AMD chips, kids, no SSE2 support.

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GJ said 1 day later

Hey Marc--ever use Cedega for games in Linux?

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Marc said 2 days later

Nope, I never really tried gaming in Linux, mostly cause I never gamed much in Windows either. I have heard of it and heard it works quite well. From what I've heard, you're best bet is to try it in Wine, if you want it to work better (or work at all) try it in Cedega. The only reason people say that is because it costs money, but supposedly it supports better high quality graphics support in most games compared to Wine.

GJ said about 5 hours later

Here is the damn audio track for this beast.

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Geoff said about 7 hours later

For have more computer problems.... :)

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GJ said about 9 hours later

Now, play Half Life 2 and have this stupid voice some up again and again. You wonder how normal people suddenly go on rampages. :)

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Steve said 1 day later

Maybe you should have stuck with an AMD chip....

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GJ said 1 day later

Yeah, then it would say "Wussie, Wussie"

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GJ said 1 day later

Oh, btw, found it. It's the Gigabyte mb monitor. I use smart fan control on the CPU fan, and it was dropping below 1000 rvm, so the monitor freaked out. The "Danger Danger" sound is their default.wav file. Pretty funny.

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Geoff said 1 day later

Comment deleted on 5/10/2008 at 11:00PM

Steve said about 2 hours later

Hey Kristen,

Are you sure the notch is too small? Sometimes memory can take some force to install it (not too much, but some). If you look on the memory sticks, it should tell you what it is. Confirm that your new memory and the memory in the computer is all the same - PC3200/DDR400.

As for the grounding strap, I've never used one, and never had a problem, but I also don't build my computers while standing on a carpet, and try to touch something metal once on the non-carpeted floor before touching the computer to try to discharge any static electricity build up. I'm not saying that's good practice, just that's what I do.

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Steve said about 2 hours later

Oh, and as for ordering 2 sticks versus 1, if your computer is running PC3200, it probably doesn't need two identical sized (MB/GB) memory sticks. It does need two identical SPEED memory sticks though. They usually don't need to be the same make of memory either. Um, wait, all that goes for AMD processors anyway. I'm thinking that those picky Intel processors might want identical size and speed memory in pairs. Marc should be able to answer that for you.

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Marc said about 3 hours later

The big thing to check is like Steve said, make sure the memory you bought is the same speed/type. PC3200/DDR400 was popular around the time you got your computer. Then again, so was RDRAM, which could account for why it doesn't fit. RDRAM is a whole different breed than the PCxxxx. Check the old memory and give me as much info as you can and I'll look into it.

In terms of size and speed differences, Intels could care less. I would recommend to stay as similar as possible for sanity. Because if your old memory was PC3200/DDR333 and your new memory is PC3200/DDR400, you would expect the new memory to help out a lot since, it's DDR400 and a little bit faster. Unfortunately, like a team, memory works as fast as it's teammates. Your DDR400 will downclock to DDR333, so you might not get as big of a boost.

Basically, look at your old memory, and match the first part (PC3200 or RDRAM 800) and then the second part (DDR400) get equal to or greater than your old memory (Which shouldn't be hard since it's newer ;)).

NOTE: Unless your memory says DDR-II or DDR-2, do not get DDR-2. DDR-2 will NOT work with DDR. Like RDRAM, they are a whole different breed.

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GJ said about 5 hours later

Generally, notches aren't different sizes. You only have a problem when you have a mismatch in the number of notches. The notches are there to ensure you orient the memory in the right way.

One thing to look at: does you new memory have the same notch footprint as your old memory?

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Kristen said about 6 hours later

Ok, here's what is written on my old memory: 256MB/8 RIMM 4200 (Samsung) It doesn't have any D's on there at all. I had saved all my paperwork but I don't have any packaging from the memory...though I do have the motherboard info.

My new memory says DDR1. And the notches do look different--the new one looks narrower to me. Maybe I don't have PC3200 after all?

Oh, and next time I will install it on my hardwood floor, instead of my living room carpet. Thanks for the tip!

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Kristen said about 6 hours later

I just found Corsair 4200 on new egg, I guess that's the one I probably need. At least it's cheaper! Let me know if I'm on the right track there.

Also, I feel stupid asking this, but since I am replacing memory, do I need to back-up what I want to save somewhere, like my spreadsheets and pictures? The how-to's online did not seem to indicate this. I'm wondering if that stuff is somewhere else...I take it the "hard-drive" is something else?

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GJ said about 14 hours later

Quick five minute lesson:

Memory (RAM) is the storage used by the CPU when the computer is on. Hard drives are magnetic platters that can store data without a source of power being applied constantly. So, memory is considered temporary storage, and hard drives are permanent storage.

The computer loads data from the hard drive to the memory chips on startup--mostly, because it can read and write to memory far, far faster than it can to a disk drive. When you perform a save in an application, data is written from memory to the hdd. If you computer crashes, this is why you can lose things--memory chips lose their contents shortly after their power supply is terminated.

OK, back to notches. As I said before--notch size is not the problem. It's their location and number that will be the problem. You have "fingers" in the memory socket that are meant to line up with the notches in the memory, which will prevent you from a) putting in different architecture memory and b) putting in memory backwards. That's why I said to compare your old memory to you new memory--see if the notches line up with the two of them.

Now for the bad news...you do not have PC3200. Because it says RIMM, I believe you have RDRAM, so this new memory won't work. Here comes the 15% restocking fee. :)

How many memory slots do you have available on the machine? Are you trying to add new memory to the existing memory, or replace existing memory with higher density chips? Finally, how much memory are you trying to get to (and better yet, what problem are you trying to fix?) Memory can fix some problems, but only if you're short on memory to begin with.

Go ahead and call my cell if you want to talk live.

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Geoff said about 15 hours later

Kristen, your better off throwing your computer out the window and starting from scratch. :)

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Marc said about 17 hours later

You have RDRAM Kristen. That's the problem. RIMM is another acronym associated with RDRAM. Here's an ebay search for your kind of memory:

http://computers.search.ebay.com/rimm_Other_W0QQsacatZ172

I would look for ebay to buy this stuff. Unfortunately, as great as RDRAM was, it's very hard to find and thus can be expensive. You'll get more bang for your buck when you do upgrade over regular SDRAM/DDR. The problem with RDRAM is you DO need to buy them in twos. So if you want to add 1GB of RDRAM, you'll need two 512MB. Typically people will sell them in twos, you'll see that even on eBay. Keep note however, if you already are using all four, you'll be replacing two, so if you have these four:

128MB
128MB
128MB
128MB

And you get 2 512's, you'll have:

512MB
128MB
512MB
128MB

Notice the order I did those in. RDRAM typically is installed that way. But once you get the right stuff, just google RDRAM installation, or ask me and I'll find a good tutorial.

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Kristen said about 18 hours later

Ok, yes, here comes that 15% restocking fee. Good thing I saved this task for the summer when I have some time. Geoff, I am secretly hoping that my school will forget that they loaned me this laptop mac, because even though I still can't figure out how to cut and paste w/o a mouse, it doesn't take 20 minutes to load up.

I wanted to put some more memory into my computer basically so it will run faster. I seriously have to turn it on and then walk away for at least 10 minutes to get it to finish starting up. That's not cool when I just want to hop on and check my email. I tried taking off programs that I don't use and defragging it. I really don't have much on there. The internet runs really slow too--much slower than the connection I have right now through the same source.

I have 2 memory slots (the slots with the white securing things), not 4. Does that mean I'm really screwed? LOL I guess the most I could do is 512 MB with 128 MB. I guess all that does really is add 256 MB. That's not much. Starting to sound like it's not worth it. Humph.

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GJ said about 19 hours later

You have 512MB of ram now, if one of your sticks says 256MB. You don't need *really* need more ram to run normal apps...I'd only go to 1GB if I was running really nasty apps like big games or development tools. You'll be fine running browsers and office-style applications with half a gig.

Even if you had 256MB of ram, this would be enough. If your machine is running slow, I can think of a bunch of reasons:

1. Swap file is likely fragmented. Nope, windows defragger won't fix this. I have a program that does.
2. Disk drive is nearly full. Windows no like this. You want your main C drive no more than 75% full, ever.
3. 10 minute startup: likely, you are loaded a ton of start up apps. Most apps today do things like "check for updates automatically" and as a result, chew up memory and load at startup. Alternately, your machine could be timing out, waiting for a device to respond for up to five minutes.
4. Web browser speed: this is dictated more by your internet connection than anything else. Do a bandwidth test here, and see if yours measures up.

There are all sorts of other things to check, but these are the biggies I can think of offhand. Always check with your geeky brothers on this sort of thing! ;)

I'd buy the memory from you, except that I'm running DDR2 (apparently, I can't learn from my own advice about buying one-off architecture RAM).

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GJ said about 19 hours later

Oh, also, we could possibly set up a connection between your machine and mine, and I could help tweak your box that way. Just a thought.

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Kristen said 1 day later

Ok, let me put my computer back together either later tonight or tomorrow and then I'll see. I have to print my RMA anyways:)

I don't know how a direct internet connection could be less effective than wireless--maybe something in my configurations. I'll let you know what the test says when i hook this thing back up when I get back from work. Did I mention that I got a part time job at my gym? Gotta save up for a down payment--the prices are finally falling enough for me to afford a townhouse maybe in January. Unfortunately the banks want you to pony up some money up front first though!

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GJ said 1 day later

The whole internet thing, if there is a problem, isn't necessarily something wrong with your computer. A super-saturated network could be the problem, so that bandwidth test would help identify if that's one of the culprits. Not much you can do about it, though, other than find another provider if yours isn't, well, providing. :)

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Kristen said 1 day later

New problema now--reinstalled my memory and now when i turn it on it yells at me, saying something like "system memory failure". I'm having flashbacks to LOST. I think for now I'm going to hook up my printer to this computer. Just wish I could access my iTunes. I hope to God I didn't erase that or my purse business stuff. I'll be pretty screwed. Though that stuff should be on the hard drive....

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Marc said 1 day later

You probably don't have one of the sticks all the way in. That would be my guess. So you get a system memory failure, but you can still use the computer?

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GJ said 2 days later

Like Marc said--very likely, one or both of the chips are not seated properly. Try reseating them.

If they still don't work...you may have found why grounding straps are a good thing--as memory tends to be the second most sensitive item in the PC, next to the CPU itself.

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Kristen said 2 days later

I'm good--Good thing Andrea's boyfriend is a computer techie! One of the sticks wasn't in all the way, but I didn't want to force it or mess with it too much b/c I thought I'd damage it. He tooled around with it and eventually it hooked in ok. Loading slower than molasses, so I'll go through and try those websites.

Checked the C drive disk space: only using 25%. Good there. I looked into defragging and it said that I didn't need to.

Bandwidth test: 2486.3 Kbps connection speed. Between a Full T1 and N x T1. That looks pretty good. And like I said, the Mac I'm on using the same connection is going superfast, and my roommate's connection is hooked up to the same thingee and hers is fast.

I do have this hardware wizard that pops up every time I turn on the computer: some multimedia audio controller or something. I think I have the disk for that. I'll try that next time it pops up. I also have yahoo instant messenger that pops up, but I can't imagine that would be causing the problem.

Maybe later next weekend I can hook my computer up to yours GJ, so you can take a joyride and figure out the deal.

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GJ said 2 days later

Good to see it's back up and running. Truth to be told, I've only cooked a handful of devices over the years due to electro-shock damage (esd) out of the hundreds of items I've played with. So...anyhow...

I'll show you a few things on my laptop that you can take a look at on your computer. And yes, next weekend we could look into setting up that "virutal advisor" hookup.

GJ said about 2 hours later

Driver issues for me: one so far. My HP 2600N had no driver for XP64...but they DID have a driver for Vista 64. Took all of about five minutes to figure out how to get that to install in XP and work with my printer. Problem solved.

There is very little difference for many of drivers...well, those drivers for things not effected by DX (video and sound mostly).

So, that said...check out this page that shows how to install this version of iTunes on XP64 and get it working with your iPhone. It's kinda like what I had to do with the printer, but a bit more involved.

Google is your friend, dude. Learn how to use it! LOL.

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Geoff said about 4 hours later

Yup, already tried that...twice. Got a blue screen as a result, and then it wouldn't recognize my phone at all (I could at least charge the bugger through USB before I attempted this hack). Trying another hack which may still work...

But I'm looking ahead 2 years or so...what kind of support will XP x64 have VS Vista x64. I'd rather not spend an hour trying to get a Vista driver to work with XP.

Marc, since you have Vista running...what can I expect from it that blows? From what I read with people running nice systems, they aren't having too many problems with it lately now that many of the drivers for hardware are now supported.

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Geoff said about 4 hours later

Also, GJ, do you do any overclocking on your system at all? It is grossly easy with this EasyTune5Pro software. My system runs pretty cool sitting by idle at 34C/93F (System) and 25C/77F (CPU). And my fans aren't running at full speed either (manual switch controlled ones).

Any thoughts on overclocking?

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Marc said about 5 hours later

Vista is terrible. My system is relatively old by today's standards (5 years)...but new enough that it shouldn't have any problem running Vista (According to Vista's rating it does based on your system specs). In general, I'm relatively stable, but most average tasks are SLOOOOW. Like...even moving a file. Now to most people, copying and moving is no different, but to any programmer, you know copying is slow, but moving should be instantenous and is on Windows XP, Mac OS X, and Linux. Vista somehow finds a way to make it about as slow as copying. This is highly annoying when doing work.

Second thing I've noticed: Windows Explorer crashes all too often...and programs tend to go into this Not Responding mode quite often. And not third party stuff either. Microsoft Outlook 2007 (The latest version built for Vista) CONSTANTLY does this. You'll know when the application suddenly stops responding and you get this white translucent overlay. I guess their not responding happens so often they decided to go with a nice UI for it. :)

In general, everything just feels sluggish. Maybe a 64 bit processor would help out, but who knows. All I know is I've been running Vista for about a year now, and while at school I eventually got used to the problems I had with it, then suddenly I go to IBM, have a laptop running Windows XP and forgot how good XP really is. I'll give it to Microsoft, XP is REALLY good. It's no Mac OS X, but it is rock solid, quick, and very often responsive. I can't imagine running some of these huge IBM programs on Vista. (As a side note, my laptop IBM gave me has a sticker for Windows Vista...so this machine is new, even IBM gave up on it).

The iTunes issue is interesting, but I'll let you know that iTunes 8 should be out September 9th. Maybe they'll fix the problem, but I doubt it. iTunes has had several releases since 64 bit processors have existed, but ya never know.

Recommendation: Look how Vista and your Adobe programs work together. Read lots of reviews. Those programs can be very unstable on XP, so you don't want them to become unusable on Vista. Maybe you'll have a different experience with Vista, but I can't say I would recommend the "upgrade" to anybody.

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Geoff said about 14 hours later

Got iTunes working (except CD burning, which reminds me of it everytime I open the application).

Needless to say, it was a pain in the butt! After having to fool Apple's website into thinking I'm running Windows Vista x64, just to download the right file, I had a whole series of hacks to get it to work (requiring me to install 2 separate programs and an extension add-on for FireFox).

After all is said and done, it does recognize my phone, but won't burn CDs. To top it all off, every time Apple release a new version, I have to uninstall my phone drivers and iTunes, and redo the whole process over again.

Lucky for me, iTunes v8 comes out next week.

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GJ said 1 day later

As Marc said, don't expect much from IT8. As for overclocking, yeah, I do overclock. Not much, though--only about 5-7% right now. Heating increase has been all but non-existant...but don't rely on idle CPU temps. Try running some killer test apps that max out your CPU, then see how you do. It's a much better sign of your system's cooling ability.

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Geoff said 2 days later

Installed Vista yesterday without too much trouble. Couple minor hiccups which were easily fixed. Overall initial impressions are very good. System runs smooth, easy to navigate, searching is very good, and from a visual standpoint, it is light years beyond XP. The Aero interface IMO looks better than a Mac. Yes I said it. The Mac still ousts it in just about every other visual feature, but the transparent window panes and blurred background behind it are just plain cool. The window switching is also very cool, though I do like Mac Spaces better since it gives you virtually 4 (or more) monitor screens.

I immediately turned off User Account Control which is easily the worst feature of any operating system in the history of computing. Are you Sure? Yes I am Sure! Positive? *CLICK* Problem solved.

All together, under my initial impression I would give Vista a "B"

Pros:

-Looks stunning for a Windows System.

-Searching is much improved

-Gadgets are nice (though Mac's use of them is still better)

-Windows reporting and problem solving appears much improved and more user-friendly. I was actually able to find answers to some questions I had with ease.

Cons:

-User Account Control blows, hardcore. Just flip the switch.

-Minor bug with one Windows Update that would fail to install for x64. Did a quick search on MSN for the error code and found an immediate and easy solution: Access the file directly from Microsoft and install via IE browser. Worked fine.

-Couldn't get OS installation to work off boot. It would start up but then sit there on the splash screen and do nothing. Had to start from inside XP. Wasn't a good start, but from there it was pretty much uphill.

I will be installing all of my hard-core software and give you my thoughts on how well the system handles me doing some actual real world work, besides browsing the Internet and checking emails. More to come...

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GJ said 2 days later

Of course, you can install Google Desktop on XP and then have a kick-butt search tool on a much higher-performance XP system. Like mine. :)

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Marc said 2 days later

Whatever you do, don't install Windows Search 4.0 on Windows XP. Absolutely a massive resource hog. Probably because it was pulled from Vista and ported to run with XP. :)

EDIT: Changed "ported to work" to "ported to run" ;)

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GJ said 2 days later

Until Google Desktop breaks in some fashion, or some other search engine outstrips it (win live isn't that search engine), I'm staying a GoogleMan.

Still using Chrome, too, despite it's charming quirks.

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Geoff said 2 days later

I installed Windows Search 4.0 on my XP. I liked it. My computer was already running slow...so who cares hahaha.

GJ said about 2 hours later

Called Steve...he's all set for now.

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Geoff said 1 day later

YOU'RE no fun.

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GJ said 1 day later

You're no English major.

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Geoff said 1 day later

Don't blame me, my spelling/grammar check should have picked that up.

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GJ said 1 day later

You have a grammar plug in for your web browser? Now THAT is funny. No spelling checker would have caught that, btw.

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Geoff said 1 day later

I'm not afraid to admit my English spelling and grammar suck. Our language could have been written better by Microsoft. I'm amazed anyone can speak it!

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GJ said 1 day later

Language isn't so hard. It's all in the details. Too bad English has so many of them.