Do you have a link to a site where I could download the free version? I wasn’t able to find one using the directory at Linux.org.
…is no solution.
So it turns out that the reason she “needed a new computer” was that her printer died. All the new printers (and she bought the newest, a whiz-bang printer-copier-scanner-fax-espresso-machine) boldly advertise that they are “COMPATIBLE WITH WINXP!” on the side, so it was clear that it wouldn’t work with her old POS. And so, the effort to build her a new machine was borne mostly out of the desire to make this new printer work. Jurphette looked at the old machine and the new printer and scoffed, thinking that surely these two machines would be incompatible. She is quite smart and would have been right, had the machine been purchased more than a few months earlier.
I went up there this weekend prepared to do a reconnaissance mission to determine whether a new machine was warranted. I brought with me a few sticks of RAM of various vintages. When I looked over her machine, I was elated; it was one of the first Compaq Presario models to include USB ports! I moved the 75W power supply out of the way of the 233MHz CPU, unmounted the 5.25" 3GB hard drive, and installed a stick of 32MB of PC100 RAM to go with the 32MB that were built onto the board. I took care not to jostle the L2 cache, which was perched in a RAM-like socket next to the CPU. I re-assembled the machine (now with sixty four megs of RAM!!) and fired up Windows 98. When I plugged the printer into one of the two USB ports on the back, Win98’s “plug and play” worked like a charm. The printer transparently replaced her old one. She clicks the same “print” button as before, the same everything as before… and it just works. No need to learn a new OS (WinXP or Linux). No need to re-install AOL on anything.
She’s pleased with the new setup, and amazed that her machine runs so much faster with the new printer. She even went online to see if pictures would download faster. I did my best to explain why she shouldn’t expect any performance gains in that department.
Maybe we’ll try Linux next year.
Maybe you could also look into a used Macintosh. 4 years - 1 freeze, no crashes for me.
No, see… it works now.
I did not, in fact, need to build a new machine.
Thank you all for your help. I have solved the problem. Everyone’s fine here, thanks… just… fine. How are you?
/me waits for some helpful soul to suggest a Commodore 64, or perhaps a VAX.
How about a 333MHz Compaq Proliant rack mount server? I know where there’s one going to waste …
Just kidding. I do know where one is, and it isn’t being used, but it belongs to somebody else.