Dell Inspiron2600 Laptop and Linux

[Martin McCormick]

"John Heim" writes:
> Probably the only thing to consider is that debian

	Actually, that is good for me. I have used Redhat on
some systems because that was what was there and I don't have
any problems with it except Debian is what I have on all the
desktops I use at work and at home. The only real difference for
the laptop is that I don't have a true serial port there. There
is a dialup modem in there and I probably need to leave that
alone to have that capability if necessary. The laptop does have
an Ethernet port, USB port and CDROM drive so it is pretty nice.
Since it is 5 years old, it doesn't have a wireless adapter but
I wouldn't need that nearly as much as I need the Ethernet port.

	Kermit is an excellent program for serial port access.
on the system I have at work, I use one serial port to go to an
old DOS P.C. equipped with kermit and an Echo speech box and
then I use C-kermit on the Linux box to make use of its second
serial port to talk to any other boxes I am working on at the
time that aren't ready for the network yet.

I hope on the laptop that I can get the whole works including
speech on there so the only extra hardware to lug around would
be the USB to serial converter.

	On desktops, I have had good luck with an 8-port RS-232
box and the correct drivers on the USB side so I trust that
technology. The only problem is that the Linux box needs to be
fully up to get the serial port.

	I may give oralux a try to see how well it likes the
different hardware one runs in to on a laptop.