Re: Tiresome not-even-newbie question

[Peter Evans <peter@example.com>]

Uvak Coder, Viktor Pavlenko, Norman Diamond, Jim Breen, Stephen
Turnbull: Thank y'all for your comments on what was in inexcusably
prolix message.

I'll now spare this list the excruciating boredom of a rerun of all
of the input, interspersed by my "Yes, that sounds a very good point",
"Wow, I hadn't thought of that", etc. Instead, here's what I plan to
do:

Configure the [Windows, sorry] software on my new laptop so it can take
over completely from this old one (i.e. render this old one totally
superfluous).

Make boot floppies, etc., for this old one; do as much other paranoid
preparation as I can think of, and then nuke every trace of Windows 98
from its hard drive.

Install RH 6.2J on this old laptop.  (Or anyway, attempt to. And
probably let off a further stream of pleas for help.)

> Besides, someday you're going to delete Linux from your
> old laptop and you'll reinstall an OS that's known for far
> worse failings, right?

Ah, Mac OS?  Uh, no, you mean Windows?  No.  I've no plan to do so. 
I'm supposed to return the machine to its owner eventually, but when
that happens nobody's going to give a damn about the software that's on
it. (Moreover, I notice that the going rate in Otto [Akihabara] for
used examples of the identical machine is \26,000; by the time I return
this one it will probably be destined for the third world [e.g. the
Japanese school system] or a landfill.)

>I am never again going to install Linux without
>installing NetBSD first; luv that bootselector!

Mmm.  This is a valuable list: even the footnotes to apparently
unrelated messages look useful.

> Peter despammed:

Yes, sorry about this.  My membership, with my real address, of the
N-Computing list is perhaps an indirect reason why that address has got
onto the mailing list of a syndicate of Australian pornospammers.  I am
very keen not to attract more junk, and note that the archives of this
list, complete with mail addresses, are open to anybody's browser
(read: anybody's spambot).  O Tokyo-resident (or other) Linux-using
human reader of this message, please do not take my use of this address
here as an implicit (or worse) declaration of my distrust of you.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Peter "lamebrained Windows user" Evans
mailto:peter@example.com
Offering ardor, passion, meat:
http://hoary.org/ads/saus.html