7 ms·

Reviewing a Dell Linux PC 23 years ago

98 points by lproven 3y ago

lemper 3y ago
with that much of dough now (inflation adjusted), I just hope that common server focused Linux distros are supported out of the box. my experience with dell workstation (refurbed one though), was pretty ok ish. not that buttery smooth but was ok.
- ghaff 3y ago
  PCs used to be pretty costly. The long-time editor in chief of PC Magazine coined "Machrone's Law" that the PC you wanted always cost $5,000--and that held pretty well into at least the late 90s. Supported Linux on one or two PC models is a pretty longstanding sideline of Dell's. They've had some version of Ubuntu on a laptop for a long time.
  - steveBK123 3y ago
    Right, and that was in 90s dollars! It's pretty astounding what you get for $2k 2023 dollars now, which is roughly $1k in 1998 dollars. Plus that $2k 2023 machine will be good enough for probably 5 years even for a pretty serious professional. Versus a $3k 1998 machine that even for a young hobbyist was basically decrepit in under 3 years. So your modern day computing run rate is like $400 2023 dollars per year, versus late 90s being easily the equivalent of $2k 2023 dollars per year.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      Once GUIs became the norm, that shiny new PC you bought/built was basically not fast enough on Day 1. Whereas I still use my 2015 iMac and MacBook and they're really not even that bad for photo and video editing. I did buy an M1 Pro MacBook for multimedia but I'll be the first to admit it was sort of a luxury purchase. (And partly for reasons that may not really play out.) My first dual floppy PC clone (who could afford a hard disk or genuine IBM?) in 1982 was somewhere in the low 4 digits all-in which was probably close to 10% of my gross salary as an engineer at the time. But, yeah, you can get a very well equipped Mac for about $3K these days. (Which is obviously not the economy PC option.) Even if you were starting from scratch you'd probably have to really work to get it up to $5K with external monitor, external hard drives, peripherals, printer, etc.
baz00 3y ago
Oh wow I bought one of them at the time to run windows 2000. Nicely put together machine.
alchemist1e9 3y ago
There is something seriously bothering me recently when I look back on last 20 years of computing. > This supports dual Pentium III processors running at up to 1GHz and up to four RIMMs; the review machine had two 64MB modules for 128MB of dual-channel RDRAM. I recently dug out from storage an old, from 2002, reasonably high spec Thinkpad (sorry don’t have exact specs on hand). I was obviously running Linux on it at the time as I’ve been using Linux as my primary operating system since 1995! Yes seriously I have. Anyway. I decide to boot it up, knowing it was stored it pretty much ideal conditions. It works perfectly, except battery of course. It only has 64MB ram! But everything runs, the web browser. And it’s fast. I only spent about 1 hour playing round. But it left me distraught. What has happened that our web browsers use 2G of memory and are slow! What really is the software progress in last 20 years? Obviously the hardware has progressed massively but I couldn’t help but be concerned with how little improvement was immediately obvious, in fact it was so fast and reactive GUI, faster than today!
- jcelerier 3y ago
  I've installed a clean windows 11 on some okay hardware a few days ago (i7 10750H, 32G ram, two 5GB/s NVMe SSD, GTX 2060) and everything is so astonishingly slow, at first I was mad but now I'm just utterly amazed. I'll sometime wait three seconds for the explorer to open. Launching any non-trivial app takes on average 10 seconds. Sometimes copying stuff from a disk to another will show the incredible speed of 2 MB/s on stuff that should be literally instant. I have to wait for git which literally never happens to me on Linux ; just opening an MSYS shell lags (it's just a console and bash ffs!). MsMpEng.exe uses 15 - 20% CPU constantly even when turning every A/V shit off. And let's not even talk about usability - I got stuck for some reason with keyboard layouts that I didn't install, and apparently in Win 11, by default, not less than THREE SHORTCUTS will switch between layouts - ctrl+shift, alt+shift and win+space, which made coding absolutely insane until I could find a way to the "advanced keyboard settings" where the "alt+shift" shortcut could be turned off (which apparently also automagically turned off the "ctrl+shift" one). And I could find hundred of messages on boards complaining about this, with "Microsoft MVPs" answering with the most generic and useless advice like "chkdsk", "do a check from your bios", "update your drivers". Linux on the same hardware absolutely flies even when ran from a USB 2 stick, with as much eye candy with e.g. KDE Plasma. And let's not talk about C++ compile times which are insane in Windows with the exact same compiler & toolchain (clang 16, libc++, lld...) compared to Linux, even when taking care of installing it on a separate drive, excluding the whole drive from virus scan...
datalus 3y ago
Truly this is the year of Linux on the desktop!
- juunpp 3y ago
  Its popularity always growing by an epsilon.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
oaiey 3y ago
The articles has some nice statements which did not age well: A video card suitable for gamers but not for a workstation. We have 2-3 Business Hype cycles which rely completely on graphic cards. Or the shocking default setting of DHCP in the TCP/IP setting. As if today 90% of network stacks would work without DHCP and IMHO a Network Admin would never rely on a front end for managing IP addresses.
- lproven 3y ago
  [Author and submitter here] Yep -- that's why I thought it was funny, and why I bothered rescuing and fixing the text and posting it on my blog.
browningstreet 3y ago
I'm struck by how beautiful that page design was. We don't really daily printed things that look nice anymore. Certainly web pages don't look/read well, and as much as I like Feedly/Unread, reading an article there isn't better than reading a printed magazine article.. then and still.
- least 3y ago
  The unfortunate reality of working with responsive layouts and unlimited canvas sizes are that it's rare to see anything on the web that looks as delightful as a page in a magazine or book, where the dimensions/aspect ratio are static. There are occasionally some pages that really demonstrate the best of what can be but creating these is significantly more expensive than designing a nice looking layout for a magazine. I actually really miss designing webpages without any consideration for accessibility or for different sized screens because I felt like you could be a lot more creative back when you'd just throw a "Best viewed at 800x600 in Internet Explorer" disclaimer on your website.
  - AnonCoward42 3y ago
    I honestly don't see the dichotomy here. Can't you do both if you want? Use a design like the one on Liam on Linux' site and make it responsive (where necessary). Actually ... this site is already responsive enough imo.
    - least 3y ago
      > Can't you do both if you want? Use a design like the one on Liam on Linux' site and make it responsive (where necessary). Actually ... this site is already responsive enough imo. You can't both enforce a very specific aspect ratio and dimensions and be responsive with any semblance of practicality. The reason the magazine page can look good is because the person designing it knows exactly the size of all the elements, the aspect ratio and dimensions of the page it's being printed to. All of the graphics are placed intentionally, and all of the type is set intentionally to exactly where they want it to be and how they want it to look, with of course the constraint of the content dictating what that will be. On a webpage you're just doing a lot of guessing of what the viewport might look like for users. You probably could, through media queries, determine if a person's viewport is exactly right for your one desired layout and only show it if that's the case, but that'd be a waste of resources. You could also enforce the layout you want in your css by setting things by pixels and then you'll be sure that it looks exactly as you intend... except then it isn't responsive. So hypothetically, yes, you could still have it be responsive, but there's just no point, is there, if only the people that happen to meet your very specific requirements ever see it? That's why good web design is hard and why it's become, in my opinion, kind of boring in terms of layout design. You have to account for all those different devices looking at it and try to make it look as nice as possible while still being useable.
ericzawo 3y ago
I can't believe companies were totally cool with shipping very expensive family computers in 2000 with "no sound support." Lol.
- forgotusername6 3y ago
  I remember the intense frustration of my first computer of having to select which sound card you had for certain games. Oh sure, your computer did come with sound, but not for this game as your card wasn't on the list of supported cards.
  - jackvalentine 3y ago
    My memory was pretty much every cheap ISA/PCI card could emulate the SoundBlaster 16 though. I kinda loved fiddling with the sound configs. (I had a very much not cheap Ensoniq SoundScape Elite)
- jeffbee 3y ago
  "Precision Workstation" was not marketed to home users. It was a real workstation. The Dell home systems were Inspiron and Dimension.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- lproven 3y ago
  [Author/submitter here] > very expensive family computers in 2000 with "no sound support." This was not a family computer. It was an expensive high-end professional machine. But saying that... yes, you're right, and that is the primary reason why I called it out in the review 23 years ago. I felt it was inexcusable then (and now it looks even worse, of course). The secondary reason, which I couldn't spell out so clearly without losing the magazine several £million in advertising per year, was this: If one of the biggest PC companies selling its own hardware with this OS can't get the sound chip working, this tells you several things: * They are not very expert at doing this and that means they don't really know what they are doing. So, if you want all your devices to work, smoothly, and keep working, you should choose a specialist vendor instead. * That this OS is not really ready for prime time yet because even a major vendor can't get its sound support working, so watch out, and don't buy this for any kind of audio work. In other words, pointing out a minor flaw was my way of putting up a big warning sign.
demondemidi 3y ago
Nice to see XFree86 is much easier to setup these days.
- lproven 3y ago
  It is. Until it goes wrong. Then you are totally screwed. It's all automatic and there's nothing to troubleshoot or fix.
deepakin 3y ago
Oh man, I remember attempting to install Mandrake Linux on a HP machine back in '03......Ended up taking all night and into the morning with a buddy and I, and even then some drivers were missing and did not work well... Good times though for sure.
Mistletoe 3y ago
Does anyone notice how different his writing is than what we see now? I miss when people wrote like this. Everything now is so direct and informal. Internet writing now is like a text message, as abrupt and emotion laden as possible, like it knows the readers have an attention span of less than ten seconds. We’ve lost something.
- pjerem 3y ago
  No, good prose still exists but you have to pay for it. You are just overwhelmed by free low quality content.
  - OJFord 3y ago
    This is a blog though, it's written like a (a often paid, yes) newspaper or something article, sure, but it isn't, afaict this is some guy's blog. I agree with GP, it's a rare treat to be treated as an adult by such things, and I don't think it's anything to do with free, it's just the style of 'informal'.
    - lproven 3y ago
      [Author submitter here] > This is a blog though You are both right and totally wrong. Mostly wrong. > it's written like a (a often paid, yes) newspaper or something article It's written like a magazine article because it is an article that the magazine paid me to write in 2000, and I just found it by accident and put it on my blog. So it is my blog but that's pro work that has been edited. > but it isn't, Wrong. > afaict this is some guy's blog. Then you can't tell very well. Sorry, but you can't. This is the magazine: https://archive.org/details/PersonalComputerWorldMagazine/PCW%20200009%20September%20Created%20From%20PCW%20Cover%20CD/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/PersonalComputerWorldMagazine/PC... I wrote the original article, 23Y ago, and I wrote the blog post too, and I am writing this. These days I write for the Register and you can read my stuff every day there: https://www.theregister.com/Author/Liam-Proven https://www.theregister.com/Author/Liam-Proven
      - 3y ago
jeffbee 3y ago
Unmentioned in the review is the disaster of trying to upgrade your RAM in these. I had the model 620, on which the 8 RIMM slots were on two expansion cards. RIMMs were invented by a person who appreciated the user-friendly nature of SCSI. You had to correctly deduce if and where to install "Continuity RIMMs" which shorted the bus to termination networks on the motherboard. And of course you were responsible for not losing these if you ever removed them from the system.
- antod 3y ago
  I had completely forgotten about RIMMs. Probably because I went out of my way to avoid them at the time - I can't really remember the details of why now though :) One thing struck me on that review though - 128MB RAM would've been pretty low specced for a pricy dual PIII 866 workstation by late 2000. I had that much a few years earlier with a dual PII 266 in a company that wasn't exactly flush with cash. I suppose having a TNT card meant it was about as low specced as workstations got.
- lproven 3y ago
  [Author/submitter here] > RIMMs were invented by a person who appreciated the user-friendly nature of SCSI. Excellent! Very nearly a tea | nose > keyboard moment. Well played. :-) The thing is that, as a reviewer, you only get the machine for hours to days. All you can talk about is what's in front of you, not maintenance, upgrading and so on. RDRAM was a huge mistake for the computer hardware industry, but I ascribe this more to Hanlon's razor than anything else.
thsksbd 3y ago
The old keyboards of 90s and early 2000 laptops were ideal.
- lproven 3y ago
  Yes they were. This wasn't about a laptop, but still, you're not wrong.
ralmidani 3y ago
I don’t have experience with GNU/Linux going back that far, but even since 2014 (when I got started with Ubuntu), I’ve seen things get much, much better. These days my personal and professional daily drivers are, respectively, a 2021 and a 2022 Framework laptop, both with Fedora/GNOME updated regularly. The software is so much more usable than any MS OS since Windows 7, and even MacOS of the past 2-3 years (many people I talk to have remarked on how MacOS quality and usability have been degrading recently). The only pain points I notice with my Framework are not strictly software-related (dislaimer: I don’t play much in terms of modern games anymore); power management/suspend (an atrocity in my experience), and quality of internal peripherals (the mic, webcam, and trackpad are almost useless, so I use just use a dock and external peripherals - and they work great with minimal hassle). Not to sound like a broken record, but 2024 will probably be the year of the GNU/Linux desktop, especially with Framework’s AMD 16-inch laptop with upgradeable GPU making a huge splash, and MS and Apple continuing to alienate developers and power users. I’m actually glad they’re getting worse because it pushes more people toward FOSS - severe but temporary punishment is actually more effective and less cruel than life in prison.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  I keep reading about XYZ being the reason people will finally flock to GNU/Linux, since Windows XP, instead me and others gave up on the desktop, and went back to Microsoft/Apple/Google offerings. While Valve admitted failure, and has to emulate Windows (yeah not quite emulation), as mechanism to have games on GNU/Linux, not even studios developing Android games with the NDK can be bothered to target GNU/Linux.
  - bitwize 3y ago
    The thing that will get Linux over on the desktop is the thing that got Windows over: preinstalls, on almost all models, from all major PC vendors. It'll never happen, but that's what it'll take.
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      The netbooks show how well it worked, with every OEM having their own flavour.
stodor89 3y ago
I'm sure they'll figure out the sound stack any moment now. 2001 will surely be The Year Of The Linux Desktop. What an exciting time to be alive!

98 points by lproven 3y ago

with that much of dough now (inflation adjusted), I just hope that common server focused Linux distros are supported out of the box. my experience with dell workstation (refurbed one though), was pretty ok ish. not that buttery smooth but was ok.

ghaff 3y ago
PCs used to be pretty costly. The long-time editor in chief of PC Magazine coined "Machrone's Law" that the PC you wanted always cost $5,000--and that held pretty well into at least the late 90s. Supported Linux on one or two PC models is a pretty longstanding sideline of Dell's. They've had some version of Ubuntu on a laptop for a long time.
- steveBK123 3y ago
  Right, and that was in 90s dollars! It's pretty astounding what you get for $2k 2023 dollars now, which is roughly $1k in 1998 dollars. Plus that $2k 2023 machine will be good enough for probably 5 years even for a pretty serious professional. Versus a $3k 1998 machine that even for a young hobbyist was basically decrepit in under 3 years. So your modern day computing run rate is like $400 2023 dollars per year, versus late 90s being easily the equivalent of $2k 2023 dollars per year.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Once GUIs became the norm, that shiny new PC you bought/built was basically not fast enough on Day 1. Whereas I still use my 2015 iMac and MacBook and they're really not even that bad for photo and video editing. I did buy an M1 Pro MacBook for multimedia but I'll be the first to admit it was sort of a luxury purchase. (And partly for reasons that may not really play out.) My first dual floppy PC clone (who could afford a hard disk or genuine IBM?) in 1982 was somewhere in the low 4 digits all-in which was probably close to 10% of my gross salary as an engineer at the time. But, yeah, you can get a very well equipped Mac for about $3K these days. (Which is obviously not the economy PC option.) Even if you were starting from scratch you'd probably have to really work to get it up to $5K with external monitor, external hard drives, peripherals, printer, etc.

baz00 3y ago

Oh wow I bought one of them at the time to run windows 2000. Nicely put together machine.

alchemist1e9 3y ago

There is something seriously bothering me recently when I look back on last 20 years of computing. > This supports dual Pentium III processors running at up to 1GHz and up to four RIMMs; the review machine had two 64MB modules for 128MB of dual-channel RDRAM. I recently dug out from storage an old, from 2002, reasonably high spec Thinkpad (sorry don’t have exact specs on hand). I was obviously running Linux on it at the time as I’ve been using Linux as my primary operating system since 1995! Yes seriously I have. Anyway. I decide to boot it up, knowing it was stored it pretty much ideal conditions. It works perfectly, except battery of course. It only has 64MB ram! But everything runs, the web browser. And it’s fast. I only spent about 1 hour playing round. But it left me distraught. What has happened that our web browsers use 2G of memory and are slow! What really is the software progress in last 20 years? Obviously the hardware has progressed massively but I couldn’t help but be concerned with how little improvement was immediately obvious, in fact it was so fast and reactive GUI, faster than today!

jcelerier 3y ago
I've installed a clean windows 11 on some okay hardware a few days ago (i7 10750H, 32G ram, two 5GB/s NVMe SSD, GTX 2060) and everything is so astonishingly slow, at first I was mad but now I'm just utterly amazed. I'll sometime wait three seconds for the explorer to open. Launching any non-trivial app takes on average 10 seconds. Sometimes copying stuff from a disk to another will show the incredible speed of 2 MB/s on stuff that should be literally instant. I have to wait for git which literally never happens to me on Linux ; just opening an MSYS shell lags (it's just a console and bash ffs!). MsMpEng.exe uses 15 - 20% CPU constantly even when turning every A/V shit off. And let's not even talk about usability - I got stuck for some reason with keyboard layouts that I didn't install, and apparently in Win 11, by default, not less than THREE SHORTCUTS will switch between layouts - ctrl+shift, alt+shift and win+space, which made coding absolutely insane until I could find a way to the "advanced keyboard settings" where the "alt+shift" shortcut could be turned off (which apparently also automagically turned off the "ctrl+shift" one). And I could find hundred of messages on boards complaining about this, with "Microsoft MVPs" answering with the most generic and useless advice like "chkdsk", "do a check from your bios", "update your drivers". Linux on the same hardware absolutely flies even when ran from a USB 2 stick, with as much eye candy with e.g. KDE Plasma. And let's not talk about C++ compile times which are insane in Windows with the exact same compiler & toolchain (clang 16, libc++, lld...) compared to Linux, even when taking care of installing it on a separate drive, excluding the whole drive from virus scan...

datalus 3y ago

Truly this is the year of Linux on the desktop!

juunpp 3y ago
Its popularity always growing by an epsilon.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

oaiey 3y ago

The articles has some nice statements which did not age well: A video card suitable for gamers but not for a workstation. We have 2-3 Business Hype cycles which rely completely on graphic cards. Or the shocking default setting of DHCP in the TCP/IP setting. As if today 90% of network stacks would work without DHCP and IMHO a Network Admin would never rely on a front end for managing IP addresses.

lproven 3y ago
[Author and submitter here] Yep -- that's why I thought it was funny, and why I bothered rescuing and fixing the text and posting it on my blog.

browningstreet 3y ago

I'm struck by how beautiful that page design was. We don't really daily printed things that look nice anymore. Certainly web pages don't look/read well, and as much as I like Feedly/Unread, reading an article there isn't better than reading a printed magazine article.. then and still.

least 3y ago
The unfortunate reality of working with responsive layouts and unlimited canvas sizes are that it's rare to see anything on the web that looks as delightful as a page in a magazine or book, where the dimensions/aspect ratio are static. There are occasionally some pages that really demonstrate the best of what can be but creating these is significantly more expensive than designing a nice looking layout for a magazine. I actually really miss designing webpages without any consideration for accessibility or for different sized screens because I felt like you could be a lot more creative back when you'd just throw a "Best viewed at 800x600 in Internet Explorer" disclaimer on your website.
- AnonCoward42 3y ago
  I honestly don't see the dichotomy here. Can't you do both if you want? Use a design like the one on Liam on Linux' site and make it responsive (where necessary). Actually ... this site is already responsive enough imo.
  - least 3y ago
    > Can't you do both if you want? Use a design like the one on Liam on Linux' site and make it responsive (where necessary). Actually ... this site is already responsive enough imo. You can't both enforce a very specific aspect ratio and dimensions and be responsive with any semblance of practicality. The reason the magazine page can look good is because the person designing it knows exactly the size of all the elements, the aspect ratio and dimensions of the page it's being printed to. All of the graphics are placed intentionally, and all of the type is set intentionally to exactly where they want it to be and how they want it to look, with of course the constraint of the content dictating what that will be. On a webpage you're just doing a lot of guessing of what the viewport might look like for users. You probably could, through media queries, determine if a person's viewport is exactly right for your one desired layout and only show it if that's the case, but that'd be a waste of resources. You could also enforce the layout you want in your css by setting things by pixels and then you'll be sure that it looks exactly as you intend... except then it isn't responsive. So hypothetically, yes, you could still have it be responsive, but there's just no point, is there, if only the people that happen to meet your very specific requirements ever see it? That's why good web design is hard and why it's become, in my opinion, kind of boring in terms of layout design. You have to account for all those different devices looking at it and try to make it look as nice as possible while still being useable.

ericzawo 3y ago

I can't believe companies were totally cool with shipping very expensive family computers in 2000 with "no sound support." Lol.

forgotusername6 3y ago
I remember the intense frustration of my first computer of having to select which sound card you had for certain games. Oh sure, your computer did come with sound, but not for this game as your card wasn't on the list of supported cards.
- jackvalentine 3y ago
  My memory was pretty much every cheap ISA/PCI card could emulate the SoundBlaster 16 though. I kinda loved fiddling with the sound configs. (I had a very much not cheap Ensoniq SoundScape Elite)
jeffbee 3y ago
"Precision Workstation" was not marketed to home users. It was a real workstation. The Dell home systems were Inspiron and Dimension.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
lproven 3y ago
[Author/submitter here] > very expensive family computers in 2000 with "no sound support." This was not a family computer. It was an expensive high-end professional machine. But saying that... yes, you're right, and that is the primary reason why I called it out in the review 23 years ago. I felt it was inexcusable then (and now it looks even worse, of course). The secondary reason, which I couldn't spell out so clearly without losing the magazine several £million in advertising per year, was this: If one of the biggest PC companies selling its own hardware with this OS can't get the sound chip working, this tells you several things: * They are not very expert at doing this and that means they don't really know what they are doing. So, if you want all your devices to work, smoothly, and keep working, you should choose a specialist vendor instead. * That this OS is not really ready for prime time yet because even a major vendor can't get its sound support working, so watch out, and don't buy this for any kind of audio work. In other words, pointing out a minor flaw was my way of putting up a big warning sign.

demondemidi 3y ago

Nice to see XFree86 is much easier to setup these days.

lproven 3y ago
It is. Until it goes wrong. Then you are totally screwed. It's all automatic and there's nothing to troubleshoot or fix.

deepakin 3y ago

Oh man, I remember attempting to install Mandrake Linux on a HP machine back in '03......Ended up taking all night and into the morning with a buddy and I, and even then some drivers were missing and did not work well... Good times though for sure.

Mistletoe 3y ago

Does anyone notice how different his writing is than what we see now? I miss when people wrote like this. Everything now is so direct and informal. Internet writing now is like a text message, as abrupt and emotion laden as possible, like it knows the readers have an attention span of less than ten seconds. We’ve lost something.

pjerem 3y ago
No, good prose still exists but you have to pay for it. You are just overwhelmed by free low quality content.
- OJFord 3y ago
  This is a blog though, it's written like a (a often paid, yes) newspaper or something article, sure, but it isn't, afaict this is some guy's blog. I agree with GP, it's a rare treat to be treated as an adult by such things, and I don't think it's anything to do with free, it's just the style of 'informal'.
  - lproven 3y ago
    [Author submitter here] > This is a blog though You are both right and totally wrong. Mostly wrong. > it's written like a (a often paid, yes) newspaper or something article It's written like a magazine article because it is an article that the magazine paid me to write in 2000, and I just found it by accident and put it on my blog. So it is my blog but that's pro work that has been edited. > but it isn't, Wrong. > afaict this is some guy's blog. Then you can't tell very well. Sorry, but you can't. This is the magazine: https://archive.org/details/PersonalComputerWorldMagazine/PCW%20200009%20September%20Created%20From%20PCW%20Cover%20CD/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/PersonalComputerWorldMagazine/PC... I wrote the original article, 23Y ago, and I wrote the blog post too, and I am writing this. These days I write for the Register and you can read my stuff every day there: https://www.theregister.com/Author/Liam-Proven https://www.theregister.com/Author/Liam-Proven
    - 3y ago

jeffbee 3y ago

Unmentioned in the review is the disaster of trying to upgrade your RAM in these. I had the model 620, on which the 8 RIMM slots were on two expansion cards. RIMMs were invented by a person who appreciated the user-friendly nature of SCSI. You had to correctly deduce if and where to install "Continuity RIMMs" which shorted the bus to termination networks on the motherboard. And of course you were responsible for not losing these if you ever removed them from the system.

antod 3y ago
I had completely forgotten about RIMMs. Probably because I went out of my way to avoid them at the time - I can't really remember the details of why now though :) One thing struck me on that review though - 128MB RAM would've been pretty low specced for a pricy dual PIII 866 workstation by late 2000. I had that much a few years earlier with a dual PII 266 in a company that wasn't exactly flush with cash. I suppose having a TNT card meant it was about as low specced as workstations got.
lproven 3y ago
[Author/submitter here] > RIMMs were invented by a person who appreciated the user-friendly nature of SCSI. Excellent! Very nearly a tea | nose > keyboard moment. Well played. :-) The thing is that, as a reviewer, you only get the machine for hours to days. All you can talk about is what's in front of you, not maintenance, upgrading and so on. RDRAM was a huge mistake for the computer hardware industry, but I ascribe this more to Hanlon's razor than anything else.

thsksbd 3y ago

The old keyboards of 90s and early 2000 laptops were ideal.

lproven 3y ago
Yes they were. This wasn't about a laptop, but still, you're not wrong.

ralmidani 3y ago

I don’t have experience with GNU/Linux going back that far, but even since 2014 (when I got started with Ubuntu), I’ve seen things get much, much better. These days my personal and professional daily drivers are, respectively, a 2021 and a 2022 Framework laptop, both with Fedora/GNOME updated regularly. The software is so much more usable than any MS OS since Windows 7, and even MacOS of the past 2-3 years (many people I talk to have remarked on how MacOS quality and usability have been degrading recently). The only pain points I notice with my Framework are not strictly software-related (dislaimer: I don’t play much in terms of modern games anymore); power management/suspend (an atrocity in my experience), and quality of internal peripherals (the mic, webcam, and trackpad are almost useless, so I use just use a dock and external peripherals - and they work great with minimal hassle). Not to sound like a broken record, but 2024 will probably be the year of the GNU/Linux desktop, especially with Framework’s AMD 16-inch laptop with upgradeable GPU making a huge splash, and MS and Apple continuing to alienate developers and power users. I’m actually glad they’re getting worse because it pushes more people toward FOSS - severe but temporary punishment is actually more effective and less cruel than life in prison.

pjmlp 3y ago
I keep reading about XYZ being the reason people will finally flock to GNU/Linux, since Windows XP, instead me and others gave up on the desktop, and went back to Microsoft/Apple/Google offerings. While Valve admitted failure, and has to emulate Windows (yeah not quite emulation), as mechanism to have games on GNU/Linux, not even studios developing Android games with the NDK can be bothered to target GNU/Linux.
- bitwize 3y ago
  The thing that will get Linux over on the desktop is the thing that got Windows over: preinstalls, on almost all models, from all major PC vendors. It'll never happen, but that's what it'll take.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    The netbooks show how well it worked, with every OEM having their own flavour.

stodor89 3y ago

I'm sure they'll figure out the sound stack any moment now. 2001 will surely be The Year Of The Linux Desktop. What an exciting time to be alive!