Although this thread is a bit old, I'll toss in a couple of comments.

First, often a Linux installation that appears to be completely locked up isn't. What has happened is that X has deadlocked, or KDE has deadlocked, or some such, with the result that mouse and keyboard don't work. However, in this case it will be possible to SSH in from another computer to work on the system. I have had to do this many times.

Second, the hard lockup when trying to post with the browser more than likely is a corrupted browser installation, or some library mismatch. The consequence is to deadlock X. This has happened to me in the past, and the usual solution has been to reinstall the browser, or the Java installation, or whatever in particular was causing the trouble.

If it is possible to SSH in, then you will be able to figure out what is happening - or at least you will be able to kill X, drop the system to sysinit 1, thus regaining control of it, and then bring it back to sysinit 5 to restart the graphical environment.

Now, the way to use SSH from a Win2K machine is to either get Putty (which is not what I do) or to install Cygwin on the Windows machine (which is how I do it). Then you can use the bash shell and many unix commands on Windows.

I appreciate all of the comments and suggestions so far. Today I loaded WindowsME and started to look for trouble spots on my own computer. I noticed that, for some reason it tends to keep starting new instances of the Machine Debug Manager (mdm.exe) and there were about 15-20 of them running this time. I went through the process of killing every instance one by one, then tried this site again (I know, don't use ME, it sucks, yada-yada-yada...). All I did was to load this page, then I noticed that once the page was finished, it started over loading again, as if I had refreshed. I then immediately (without doing anything on the site) replaced it with another site's page, and within seconds I was hopelessly locked. Obviously, mdm.exe is not the problem.

So, right now I'm on Windows 2000 and so far absolutely no problems as usual, so I guess if I want to interact with the site this is what I'll have to do instead of booting ME. Since I originally wrote this, my fiancee has had another site crashing ME the same way. The main reason we default to ME is that my modem is twice as fast. The driver that comes with W2K does not allow me to connect at more than 28.8, and I did find a suitable driver once that would allow W2K to connect at the higher speeds but unfortunately I have yet to find it again. Anyway, that should clear up a few things for now, and I'll take into consideration all of the replies so far.

Thanks everyone!

The fact that you even got ME to boot was a great achievement. Kudos to you for your perseverence!

What is your time worth? ME is widely recognized as the absolute nadir of the Windows family of operating systems.

Modems are cheap; f---ing around with an OS that is widely known to be unreliable, and that is causing you problems wastes a lot of time.

If you can't find the right driver for Win2K and your modem, you'd be way ahead of the game to just replace the modem.

Just a note. Only been computing for about 10 years, but I tend to experiment A LOT. When the " ahem" experts told me the secondhand Compaq Portable 11 286 I had bought was not up to the task. I just had to play. Ended up running Win Ver 3 on a so called non-multi-tasking processor with 640 Kb of memory non upgradeable soldered to the motherboard. That machine got me through tertiary studies in Enviro-Engineering. The only problems I ever encountered have been with flaky hardware. Windows blue screening during install traced to bad mem chips etc.
As for your distro, take the offer you have been given to upgrade to a newer version, I personally gave up on RH at 7, am impressed by the RH based Mandriva, my current system is Mandriva 2006, soon to be upgraded to 2007. keep plugging away, and don't be afraid to holler fer help. The people at this forum are terrific, almost seem to stampede each other to help us newbies. If I could row Australia a little closer I could probably swim the rest of the way with a disk in my teeth for you.
Best wishes to you and take care.

regards shorty943.

Hey everybody,

I'm using 2K to log in and write this, and I'm ready and willing to install the latest version or near to latest if someone is willing to send the disks. I'll send them back if you want, or I'll send you a pile of unrecorded regular CD's (the old 650MB kind) in return. If anybody is interested, just let me know what you want, the disk(s) back or some new recordable blank CD's (I have a lot of them). I'm even willing to give my mailing address right here:

Gary Morris
103 Kenneth St.
Monroe, NC 28110, USA

I'd really appreciate it and will gladly send the disks back or some new unrecorded CD's if you prefer. Just let me know, and Merry Christmas all!

gmorris, you've "fallen amongst friends" here. Your problem sounds like a combination of things, old un-patched OS, maybe a flakey graphics card, etc. all contributing a little bit.

I'm based in the UK, otherwise I would send you some of my large collection of install disk's. If you don't have any luck with someone nearer, let me know by PM.

I've been doing a lot of experimenting with various flavours of Linux and have a few points to offer regarding choice of a distro to send. The main issue is older hardware, and modem support. Knoppix is the best I have tried for legacy support, and so far I can run the live CD on everything I have, from a 1999 Compaq Presario with 266Mhz P2 with 96Mb ram, to my Mum's new Dell Inspiron with 1.6Ghz Centron M and 512Mb ram.

I now have Suse 10.2 on two new laptops, but it won't run happily on the old one, or on my older P2 desktop.

Fedora Core 6 is very slow, but it did find all the hardware on the old Compaq apart from the modem - needed a Linmodem driver for that.

Kubuntu/Ubuntu had problems with legacy hardware when installing from the live CD, but the Alternative versions with the text based installer worked fine.

Slackware takes more effort, but 11.0 with the 2.4 kernel also works on all my hardware.

I now have Mandriva 2007 on one laptop, and that had some difficulty getting the 1280x800 display working, but it worked fine on an older desktop.

The main issues to watch out for:

Display/graphics - some distros find the correct drivers for older hardware easier than others, but usually the default settings will get you working, and you can manually set the correct ones. It sounds like you won't have some of the problems I had with widescreen display's!

Modems - HCR drivers and soft-modems can be a real pain, but if you Google Linmodems, you will find a lot of help. I'll have a look through my notes, and post some links.

IMHO Knoppix is probably the place to start, and for the long term Slackware is so stable, if you don't mind tinkering with it.

Good luck, and let us know how you get on.

Happy holidays to all the folks on this thread and in the LQ forums. In nearly 10 years of working with Linux this definitely the place to be.

If you have a DVD drive, I could mail you a copy of Slackware 11 or Sabayon 3.1. Or I could see what I could break down into CD's. If you want a Knoppix, I've got 3.6 - it's a little old (ahem) but it works. Or Gentoo (see Knoppix.) Sadly, I'm on dialup and can no longer get the images quickly as I could when on broadband.

Is 95b one of your "Winders" options? I had excellent results from it 6 & more years ago, especially on dial-up.

1 oft neglected piece of advice is "find a LUG".
http://www.linux.org/groups/usa/northcarolina.html
plus http://maps.google.com/?q=28810 shows you are probably closest to
http://www.linux.org/groups/usa/1261_CharLug.html
http://www.charlug.org/

Good luck, I'm off to run the local Weekly Linux Workshop.

Hiya folks; this is indeed a pleasant thread, and LQ is a pleasant place to hang out.
If anyone can verify whether a Windows XP Home OEM Install Disk (technically a DVD) will boot and install off a CDROM drive, that'd be helpful. And also, Mr. Morris, if you could specify if you have a DVD drive or if your CD drive will boot a WinXP install disk, that'd be good too.

The reason is this (If no one has yet sent, or plans to send, some software to this gentleman):
I no longer use Windows and would be more than happy to send my original WinXP home DVD, as well as a slipstreamed WinXP Home Service Pack II CD I made, down to Mr. Morris. I also could send an Ubuntu install disk and a Knoppix 5.1.1 install disk, if you're interested.
I have a few other Linuxes as well, but of them all (except slackware) I would recommend Knoppix or Ubuntu for both their usability and capability. North Carolina is a lot closer to me than it is to the U.K. too and I doubt it would cost me very much to send a few CD's thru the mail.

And unless your home (Mr. Morris) is simply swamped with blank discs to the degree that you are tripping over them, I don't expect anything in return, and you can keep the CD's.

As far as the Windows Discs, they're bought and paid for, licensed for home use and have the original Genuine MS hologram sticker & booklet that came with my PC, with the registration code. I don't believe there's anything illegal about me giving it away, as I'm not using it.

As for Slackware, if you'd prefer that instead of Ubuntu and/or Knoppix, I will burn some duplicates of my installation discs and send them instead.

I'd be able to send this stuff within the next 3 weeks, maybe less (I'm just slightly less broke than you are, but hopefully I'll be working soon)

Please let me know what you think, and other users please advise if there's already stuff on the way!

Sasha...

While I have no doubt that this is being made with 100% good intentions, unfortunately I think that offering to furnish/burn copies of commercial software could run counter to the LQ Rules Windows comes with some pretty restrictive licensing conditions, and transferring or copying them would almost certainly be outside the EULA.

The topic of a CD/DVD marketplace and/or exchange has been discussed in the past; unfortunately doing so would create a lot of unnecessary and unproductive legal and/or tax consequences. For that reason LQ.org currently is not in a position to support such an effort.

Oh dear.. Well, I certainly am making the offer with good intention 100%, but in order to remain completely within the LQ rules, I must recind this offer. Sorry Mr. Morris. The Linux CD offers still stand however so if interested, let me know.

And for clarity and for the benefit of all people concerned, now or in the future: My offer WAS NOT to copy, burn, or otherwise duplicate and/or distribute any commercial licensed software. My offer INDEED WAS to charitably donate an original DVD in its original packaging, which I believe is my right to do, as well as to donate the one service-pack-enhanced backup of said original DVD as is allowable by the licensing agreement to the best of my knowledge.

I apologize if any part of my offer violated LQ rules, or violates or appears to violate the licensing agreement associated with the software. That wasn't my intention. The offer is recinded.

Ya, sure is a nuisance, that stuff!
Sasha

Thanks Sasha. Unfortunately this is the sort of thing that potentially involves a lot of gray. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished

Hey, as far as I know, nobody else has notified me that they are sending anything so feel free to send whatever you can or think is best. I have enough time and disk space to install and boot from multiple OS's. I've only ever used RH and Mandrake (which I liked for several reasons), but I love to try other things. Right now I have Linux running on the old Pentium 120 w/80MB RAM, and 4 separate Windows on the PII 400 w/256 RAM. I couldn't get RH7 to run with the graphics card no matter what I did, so I don't try it anymore on the faster one. Console windows were stable and no problem, but X would crash within 5 minutes most of the time, usually causing a complete "hard" reboot, which as most of you know is not good. Now I use VNC as I only have one decent monitor that you can actually see, so I run Linux and operate it through the Windows network on the decent monitor! It works, though, so that's what I must do in order to run X AND Windows at the same time now.

Well, as I've said, GrapeFruit, I'd be delighted with whatever you could send whenever you can send it. I hope to hear back soon, and thanx!

G

Wow, I can imagine running Windows and X would be near impossible on that hardware. Windows is bad enough, and even a minimalist X environment would be a strain on top of that.

As you have linux experience, I think Ubuntu would not impress you (just my opinion) so I recommend Knoppix, as was recommended by someone else above, and Slackware, because it rules and does everything and is totally supported.
Slack will run on anything, and is so configurable you can use whatever you want of it, all or hardly any. The entire install is over 3GB, so depending on your space, you can chop that down quite a bit.
I'm also going to send a fairly recent Gentoo, and OpenLX-Edge, neither of which I use at all.

So.. Would you prefer I send copies of the original ISO's, so you can MD5-verify the packages and burn them yourself, or would you prefer them burned and ready to run? Makes no difference to me at all, but I haven't burnt anything using Linux yet, and if as you say you have lots of disks, I think it would be best if I send the ISO's.

Let me know what you think, and if all sounds good to you, consider it done. As I said, it'll be a couple weeks or so yet, but as they say, 'the thrill is in the chase'