which distro? Post: 48468

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Operating Systems Linux Debian which distro? Post 48468 by LivinFree on Tuesday 9th of March 2004 12:16:52 AM

03-09-2004

Registered User

I'm not a Knoppix expert, but I think it's a little more stripped down - a live filesystem that you can boot up somewhere, like the floppy "tomsrtbt" distribution (with more tools, and features, of course.)

The suggestion above to check your hardware versus the compatibility list is a great one. Also, you may end up having to use something that's "just close enough" to work in a less-than full-featured capacity. If you really want to try some stuff, sometimes you can find a bleeding edge driver that may or may not work well. It can get pretty tricky sometimes, but I've rarely found a time that I couldn't make something work, with the exception of getting a decent resolution on a cheap-o on-board graphics hookup.

As for your specific requirements, without spending a ton of time to research every one, I'm going to make a guess and say you can do most of what you need here, if not all of it with a Linux distribution. I am not taking into consideration drivers or lack thereof, so checking that compatibility list will be beneficial (although you're most likely to find support for older hardware, such as yours).
Running Windows programs via WINE or VMWare is going to be painful. As in painfully slow... Perhaps you might want to look into Open Office,which, while not perfect, is pretty neat.
I can't really comment on the printing issue, but I'm fairly sure it's possible to create a simple postcript file on disk, then shoot it over to another machine (possibly even setting up print services on your OSX laptop.)
Since I'm not within immediate reach of a Linux box at the moment, I don't know if there's filesystem support for HFS+ in the kernel, but if not, you could always format the disk another way (Mac OSX and Linux can both speak FAT32, for example.)

Now, I know you don't want to hear it, but purchasing hardware can be an effective way to get a working system. I bought, a while back, an HP9000 workstation from eBay, which cost under $50 USD, including shipping. It was preinstalled with Debian GNU/Linux, which runs on that chip (pa-risc), although I can also install NetBSD if I choose so (or HP-UX, which the machine is built to run - I have an HP9000 running HP-UX, and I have to say it's quite zippy, considering the age of the box.)

Hope this helps a little - I don't have any real solid answers, but it shouldn't stop you from jumping right in! That's how many of us started.

LivinFree

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LEARN ABOUT CENTOS

grub-file

GRUB-FILE(1)                                                       User Commands                                                      GRUB-FILE(1)

NAME

       grub-file - check file type

SYNOPSIS

       file OPTIONS FILE

DESCRIPTION

       Check if FILE is of specified type.

       --is-i386-xen-pae-domu
              Check if FILE can be booted as i386 PAE Xen unprivileged guest kernel

       --is-x86_64-xen-domu
              Check if FILE can be booted as x86_64 Xen unprivileged guest kernel

       --is-x86-xen-dom0
              Check if FILE can be used as Xen x86 privileged guest kernel

       --is-x86-multiboot
              Check if FILE can be used as x86 multiboot kernel

       --is-x86-multiboot2 Check if FILE can be used as x86 multiboot2 kernel

       --is-arm-linux
              Check if FILE is ARM Linux

       --is-arm64-linux
              Check if FILE is ARM64 Linux

       --is-ia64-linux
              Check if FILE is IA64 Linux

       --is-mips-linux
              Check if FILE is MIPS Linux

       --is-mipsel-linux
              Check if FILE is MIPSEL Linux

       --is-sparc64-linux
              Check if FILE is SPARC64 Linux

       --is-powerpc-linux
              Check if FILE is POWERPC Linux

       --is-x86-linux
              Check if FILE is x86 Linux

       --is-x86-linux32
              Check if FILE is x86 Linux supporting 32-bit protocol

       --is-x86-kfreebsd
              Check if FILE is x86 kFreeBSD

       --is-i386-kfreebsd
              Check if FILE is i386 kFreeBSD

       --is-x86_64-kfreebsd
              Check if FILE is x86_64 kFreeBSD

       --is-x86-knetbsd
              Check if FILE is x86 kNetBSD

       --is-i386-knetbsd
              Check if FILE is i386 kNetBSD

       --is-x86_64-knetbsd Check if FILE is x86_64 kNetBSD

       --is-i386-efi
              Check if FILE is i386 EFI file

       --is-x86_64-efi
              Check if FILE is x86_64 EFI file

       --is-ia64-efi
              Check if FILE is IA64 EFI file

       --is-arm64-efi
              Check if FILE is ARM64 EFI file

       --is-arm-efi
              Check if FILE is ARM EFI file

       --is-hibernated-hiberfil
              Check if FILE is hiberfil.sys in hibernated state

       --is-x86_64-xnu
              Check if FILE is x86_64 XNU (Mac OS X kernel)

       --is-i386-xnu
              Check if FILE is i386 XNU (Mac OS X kernel)

       --is-xnu-hibr
              Check if FILE is XNU (Mac OS X kernel) hibernated image

       --is-x86-bios-bootsector
              Check if FILE is BIOS bootsector

       -h, --help              Display this help and exit.  -u, --usage             Display the usage of this command and exit.

SEE ALSO

       The  full documentation for grub-file is maintained as a Texinfo manual.  If the info and grub-file programs are properly installed at your
       site, the command

              info grub-file

       should give you access to the complete manual.

grub-file (GRUB) 2.02-2ubuntu8.3                                     July 2018                                                        GRUB-FILE(1)

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