Dear Linux users,
Firstly, Sheila has asked me to apologise because, due to interruptions, she is still working on an article about the FOSS and GNU Linux Open Day in Victoria, As I am writing, Sheila is working feverishly on that article and says it should be published soon on http://candobetter.net .
My existing hardware configuration and/or the Linux distributions I have tried to install have got the better of me. See APPENDIX 1. For this reason and because I want a PC with sufficient grunt to be able to run a java application (which will run the order of 100-200 or more threads (http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/conf/pdpta/pdpta2004-3.html#SinnamonT04). It seems that a 64 bit processor will be needed as a 32 bit processor cannot address more than 4 Gig of memory (see http://developer.amd.com/Pages/1130200686.aspx http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/microarchitecture/intel-64-architecture-embedded.html).
I intend to go to a hardware dealer (possibly MSY in Cheltenham tomorrow) so i need advice as to what will be a hardware configuration that:
1. has sufficient power to run the multi-threaded Java application mentioned above; and
2. will mostly allow at least one Linux distribution to be installed and quickly without causing me anywhere the number of problems I have faced for at least the last two weeks (see APPENDIX 1).
I would also be interested in what Linux Distribution others would recommend. I have had serious problems with Debian and Saboyan and have found Linux Mint and Ubuntu wanting (see APPENDIX 1). With the latter I two, I simply could not get the Apache server to log its rewriting of URLs with the Rewrite module.
If you aren't able to help with an e-mail before 10.30AM tommorow, could you please consider texting me on 0412 319669 so I can ring you back and get advice from you after I have left home?
Thanks,
James Sinnamon
APPENDIX 1 : Problems I experienced trying to create a Linux installation on which I could develop an test Drupal web-site
It seems as if I won't be able to install the Linux configuration I need to update and test the Drupal content-managed site I help administer (http://candobetter.net) I just could not get Apache to write logs of its rewriting of URLs on either my Ubuntu or Linux Mint distributions and have not yet got the advice I need from a Linuxquestions forum (http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-server-73/how-to-log-apache-mod_rewrite-907238/). I tried installing Debian Linux, then Samboyan Linux. Debian just may have worked but it came with almost no Apache configuration files. I would have had to write everything myself or copy them from elsewhere, So I tried to install Samboyan Linux. Samboyan promised to work "out of the box" but after it spent many hours downloading over 1 Gig of files, most programs failed to work. Some programs simply failed to appear after I selected them from the menu, I wish I had persevered with Debian.
What subsequently bothered me about Debian was that when I told it to re-boot it simply re-booted straight back to Debian! it somehow skipped over both BIOS and the Boot sector boot menu. I could only see BIOS or the boot sector meu if I hit the reset button.
What had it done to BIOS and the boot sector to make that happen? It seems that Linux Mint also tampers with the boot sector making some earlier Linux installations inaccessible.
I found that the Linux distributions I used were unable to cope with my having two hard disk drives. They created boot sectors which contradicted each other on both Hard disks. Also, confusingly more than one Linux distribution was written to the same partition. One partition seemed to have the exact same Linux distribution written to it twice.