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Windows 95 vs. 98

Reader B. Marto writes: "Don't run Win98 unless you have a P2 system or, believe me, you are asking for problems."

GB replies: After extensive testing of the AMD K6-2 and other Socket 7/non-Pentium II based systems running Windows 98, I disagree with you. In fact, you are more likely to have problems if you install a recent Socket 7 motherboard and you are not running Win98. Consider the Gigabyte GA-5AX motherboard I have in the machine on my desktop at the moment. I had no problems whatsoever setting up Windows 98 on a system with this mainboard and an AMD K6-2/300 (a very speedy CPU for the money, I might add.) It includes Universal Serial Bus connectors, an AGP port and ACPI capabilities -- none of which are supported by Windows 95 or Win95 OSR2. Win98 includes a Bus Mastering IDE driver to optimize the performance of the system's Ultra DMA hard drive -- whoops, another feature not included in the OS back in the old days of Windows 95.

Many people also find Windows 98's completely automatic Internet Setup Wizard far easier to set up than the one in Windows 95 (or the iMac, for that matter).

Forget about the vagarities of Plug'n'Pray in Win 95 and 98 for hardware, why can't we have Windows compatible software that is? Not wishing to seem to support Microsoft's monopoly in an O/S, is it too much to ask to have a little standardization here? My experience has shown about a 60% chance the software will load and cause conflicts, freezes or other unpleasantness requiring a call to the software or computer's help line. And I'm not one to go tinkering about with various files to make it work. That should not be the job of most users who just want the stuff to install and run. Thats what R & D is for, and why we pay vast sums of money for $6.00 worth of CD. Most manuals still do not acknowledge the Install/Uninstall process in Settings - which may give you some idea how interested the developers are - and even software that has been created to make the computer a happy place causes nightmares. Just look at the tech discussion sites for McAfee or Symantec, for example. It's enough to make the average home owner look for a computer with a substantial bundle included and loaded, and never look at additions.
Of course, the tech lines will invariably blame another company for the problem, and one cannot help but feel that perhaps Microsoft may tweak the source codes so as to make the O/S more compatible with their approved partners - but the fact remains that amongst all that bloatware out there, there is still little effort made to make the stuff failsafe for the user. And frankly, that's just not good enough.

-- Barry W Cook
Calgary, AB

I enjoyed your article on cheap computers, particularly the advantages of buying "almost obsolete" hardware. I have been using this strategy since I got into computing in 1985 with a Commodore 64 (discounted when the 128s and Amigas were released). I highly recommend living on the edge of obsolescence to all my fellow cheapskates, and using the same strategy for software, especially entertainment, (check EA.com for $1.99 games, most of which were

$70+ a few years back!!). Now I just upgrade components including the mother board, always taking advantage of the low price of superseded technology.

Related to this I have a technical question. Presently I have a socket 7 MMX capable mother board and a non MMX pentium 133 CPU. The motheroard's maximum recommendedbus clock speed is 66 Mhz, 75 is possible to set but not recommended, (something to do with the Intel VX chipset; it's all geek to me!). If I get a good deal on a 75 Mhz bus clock speed Pentium or Clone, such as a 266 or 300 Mhz MMX CPU, can I run it at 66 Mhz (which would of course reduce the chip speed accordingly) without problems? or do these chips have to run at their rated speed?

GB replies: The CPUs and motherboards we've tried this on (We tried running a Pentium 350 at 233 MHz) worked, but the Abit motherboard reported error conditions.
Q: How should I pronounce Linux ?

A: This is a matter of religious debate, of course! Here's an answer from the Linux FAQ (http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/iwj10/linux-faq/section8.html#q_8_8):

If you want to hear Linus himself say how he pronounces it download english.au or swedish.au from ftp.funet.fi (in /pub/OS/Linux/PEOPLE/Linus/SillySounds). If you have a soundcard or the PC-speaker audio driver you can hear them by typing

cat english.au >/dev/audio

The difference isn't in the pronunciation of Linux but in the language Linus uses to say hello. The English version was parodied very well by Jin Choi as "Hi, my name is Leenoos Torvahlds and I pronounce Leenooks as Leenooks."

For the benefit of those of you who don't have the equipment or inclination: Linus pronounces Linux approximately as Leenus, where the ee is as in feet but rather shorter and the u is like a much shorter version of the French eu sound in peur (pronouncing it as the u in put is probably passable).

When speaking English I pronounce it Lie-nucks (u as in bucket) --- this is an anglicised pronunciation based on the analogy with Linus' name, which in English is usually pronounced Lie-nus (u as in put). It is of course quite acceptable and common to modify the pronunciation of a proper noun when it changes languages.

I think I can safely say that the pronunciation Linnucks (short i as in pit, short u as in bucket) is wrong in English, as it is not the original Swedish pronunciation, not a sensible direct anglicisation of it, and not based on the anglicised version of Linus' name.

Subject: New Amiga magazine soon to be released!
Just a note to friends about a new full size Amiga magazine that is just starting up production. It's called Amigactive and it will be printed monthly and come with a cover CD-ROM disk packed with software.

Those wishing to learn more about Amigactive can look it up at http://www.amigactive.com/
--
Mathew R. Ignash

Webmaster of Honorable Mention, The MCUG Amiga SIG Web Page and Amiga
Decade, Matt's Amiga Dictionary And Reference, and Matt's Original Rifts
Material.
(http://www.rust.net/~mignash/)
Webmaster of The C64/128 Web Directory.
(http://www.cucug.org/c64128.html)

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