YDL 2.3 on "Wallstreet" PB-G3/233Mhz, 288Mb RAM, 18Gb HD

[Andrew Stout]

>2. * CRITICAL *, sadly enough: If your SCSI CD-R will be your installation
>device, you'll have to pass an 'init=/dev/scd0' (makes sense? no. worked
>for me? yes) or some equivalent argument to the kernel via BootX. The
>installation script does *not* automatically map SCSI CD-Rs to /dev/cdrom
>even if they're the only CD-ROM devices available (although it maybe
>should, ahem? Dan? ;-)) and, unfortunately, it also does not allow for the
>selection of a different installation source. (Again, haven't used the X
>installer, maybe that one does.)
>
>3. If you have no bay CD-ROM, install as much as you can right off the
>bat. What I used to do was just to keep the ISO image handy on my HD and
>mount it as a loopback device when I needed an RPM -- if you can do that,
>it'll save you the occasional lockup that I've run into when trying to
>mount CDs from my previously rock-solid CD-R drive, as well as save you
>the hassle of either risking your skin with a hot plug and a
>rescan-scsi-bus.sh or having to power down to load your CD-R every time
>you need an obscure library.

not an issue, luckily.  I have the standard bay CD-ROM, and it still 
works about 80% of the time...  ;-)

>4. Run Gnome, not KDE (see many posts since 2.3 release about total
>sucking of KDE 3.x in YDL).

Right.  I'd been leaning toward Gnome before seeing all the stuff 
about KDE in 2.3, there's no question now.  I'm considering, 
actually, not even running Gnome and just running enlightenment (or 
windowmaker, or <insert your favorite window manager here>), but I 
think I might be able to configure Gnome to fit my style, and I'm not 
so strapped for system resources that I need to worry about the 
overhead.

>5. Edit your Xconfig4 (is that what it's named? dang it, i haven't had to
>mess with it much so I don't recall) to select the highest probed
>resolution and at least 16 bit color. For some reason X autoprobing likes
>to think that everyone would prefer by default to run at 640x480, 8 bits.
>I suspect that you, like the rest of the world, do not.

Does this happen in installation, or something I configure 
post-installation?  (if the latter, how/where do I find it and change 
it?)

>beat good ol' pdisk in a dead heat (hint: not on yer life). I assume the
>external drive is going to get mounted sporadically as /mnt/transfer or
>something?

yeah.  As you may know, the SCSI port on Wallstreets isn't so 
reliable--or at least, my SCSI connection (port and adapter-cable) 
isn't--so I don't use it for anything crucial now that I have a 
decent sized internal hard disk.  I'll use it for backup and extra 
storage, and once I get a new computer for transferring stuff between 
the two.

>7. Sound server seems to kind of work -- xmms plays clicky MP3s, Sawfish
>widgets play seconds-delayed feedback noises until you turn the thing off
>again. Proabably good ways exist to fix all this with a renice or
>something, but I haven't bothered. Could be persuaded to if you need
>confirmation on a broken feature or anything.

I will want to get sound working well--one of the things I want to do 
with linux is play with soundtracker and related things, and a large 
chunk of my music collection is on mp3...

>Feel free to email me directly if you'd like a better walkthrough. I'm
>currently procrastinating on several dozen important projects and so will
>have a great deal of time.

=) Thanks a lot, Nathan.  I'm sure I'll have plenty of questions as I 
go through this process.  Other PBG3/relevant experiences out there?

--A.