re: clean-up after OE tantrum delete
Friday, August 7, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Windows 98 Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by gewg_
(3936 messages posted)
Arminius wrote:
|ERPMan has a good collection of updates....for as long as it lasts.
|http://erpman1.tripod.com/index.html
|
That is a very good page--actual the W98 page that is linked from there.
(A lot less cluttered than AXCEL216's pages.)
Here is a link that will outlast the actual page:
http://web.archive.org/web/20071114072357/http://erpman1.tripod.com/w98meupd.html
|Here is a link to the full browser IE6SP1.
|[link]
|
I'm going to chime in again here with my usual doom and gloom:
The online apps provided by Micros~1 are the WORST available of their class.
Better, more modern, more secure stuff has been available FOR YEARS for FREE.
I use the SeaMonkey suite (which was previously called the Mozilla suite
and which is Firefox's big brother). It can provide any or all of the following:
Browser, email, chat client, HTML editor.
For a separate browser and email client from that same family,
Firefox and Thunderbird are available. (You want the 2.x stuff for W98.)
Opera also provides an excellent modern suite with a browser and email client.
Any of those will import all your old email/Favorites.
Any of those is easily superior to Internet Exploder / Outbreaks In Excess.
(Those M$ programs are the vectors for **most** Windoze infections.)
Any of those is more modern and more secure that M$'s junk.
...and way back in 2004, the US Government's computer experts said
STOP USING INTERNET EXPLORER.
(OE calls IE to do any HTML rendering, making OE an even bigger steaming pile.)
In addition, Win9x hasn't been supported by MSFT for over 3 years now.
I question the wisdom of people
who recommend spending money on this unsupported 10 - 11 year old OS.
Indeed, here in the 21st Century, where the Software Libre community is strong,
there is rarely any reason to spend money on software.
Unless there is some esoteric program that an employer/client requires you to run
and which ONLY works under Windoze[1],
the things *most* people do with a computer can be done with Linux for FREE:
Surf the 'Net, email, instant messaging, read/edit documents.
.On top of that, the Ubuntu software repository, for example,
currently contains over 26,000 zero-cost, fully-vetted application programs
and you can get/install any of those with just a few clicks
by using the "Package Manager" that come with Linux
(and which makes Windoze's Add/Remove Programs look brain-dead).
With a Free Software environment:
You don't have to pay for software (already mentioned).
No Product Keys; no Product Activation; no Windows Genuine DISAdvantage.
Linux will run on your old hardware.
You don't need to get/use/maintain anti-malware apps.
(You won't have those anti-malware apps sucking up resources either.)
Linux **comes** with LOTS of USEFUL software.
Additional (still free) programs are just a few clicks away (already mentioned).
You don't need to defrag your hard drive.
You don't need to scurry about looking for device drivers;
(Linux has the best out-of-the-box hardware support of ANY OS.)
Here's the best part:
You don't have to *install* Linux to try it; you can run it from the "LiveCD"
--and (unlike M$'s terrible CDs) a Linux CD loads to a graphical desktop,
just as if it *was* installed to the hard drive--
but the hard drive never gets changed unless you like your "test drive"
and YOU say you want to install Linux.
(If you have the hard drive space, it can co-exist with Windoze.)
If you don't like the look & feel of *that* Linux "distribution", just try another.
There are hundreds of variants[2]; there's one to suit everyone.
Some distributions (aka "distros") suitable for current Win98 users:
Damn Small Linux is often mentioned, but this distro has gotten to be even better:
http://google.com/search?q=SliTaz
Puppy Linux is another
light version of Linux that works on Win98-era boxes.
This one takes just a bit more resources but is very nice
(and uses the same package manager / software repositories as Ubuntu):
http://google.com/search?q=intitle:moonOS+LXDE
If you have at least 256MB of RAM, Linux
Mint is AWESOME.
It is also based on Ubuntu
and it **comes** with Flash, Java, Acrobat Reader, codecs, Microsoft fonts
--all the stuff that even Windoze users have to download separately[3].
...and I'll bet there's a
bunch of nerds in your community
that can demo several versions of this modern software ecosystem
--even on YOUR computer (again: the "LiveCD" thing)--
so you can try them out and choose the one that appeals to you most.
They can fix you up (install/configure it for you)--again without spending any money.
http://google.com/search?q=installfest
You can even find a mentor there.
[1] ...and, even then, **most** Windoze-compatible apps from the Win98 era
**will** run under Linux using something called WINE (also Free Software).
[2] There are only about a dozen basic versions of Linux
(e.g. Debian, RedHat, SuSE, Gentoo) but there are LOTS of "spins" of each of those
with those variants pre-customizing the basic look and feel.
[3] Write your Congresscritter
and tell him how STUPID you think software patents are.
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 | | | |  | re: clean-up after OE tantrum delete (gewg_: Fri, Aug 7, 2009, 12:05 pm) |
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