Quote from Forum Archives on May 25, 2000, 9:29 pm

Posted by: jwrennie <jwrennie@...>

>Is it possible to have Linux as a network file server and client workstations
Windows
>OS?

Yes. you want a peice of software called samba that comes with most linux
distro's. It will allow a linux box to look almost completely like a win nt
file server and PDC.

>One other thing. We have an "ancient" AMD 486 system, 16 MB RAM, one 220
>MB HDD and another 580 MB HDD, with standard VGA card, 56K Supra Express

For linux you would probably need to scrounge a bit of extra ram if you want
to run X windows comfortably. You will to some degree get the same swapping
problem with X as you do win M$ windows. If you playa round with it thought
and use a small window manager for X you can get around this problem a bit.

>modem, sound card and 4X CD-ROM. Current system is Windows 95 Thai version,
>MS-Office suite 95 and IE 4 system. Saw a posting of this Linux Mandrake and
wou

Well you can get an office suite for linux (for free to boot, and theirs about
6 to choose from), and can use netscape or lynx as a browser.

>ld like to know if it will run on our system. Windows takes so much
resources, somet
>imes it crawls. I have half a mind to change to the system as I've known
Linux OS

It will run quite happily. But it might take a bit of fiddling to get up and
running well given the older hardware. Not impossible, just a bit of work.

>word processing, Internet browsing, and record keeping a bit. Mostly word
processi
>ng.
That bit is easy.

>We also have propriety Thai Bible software that runs as a macro in Word and
an
>old version of the Online Bible (Windows, English) which is used in lesson
and serm
>on preparation.

You may be out of luck here. How old is the version of word ? Again a bit
fiddly but an option is to use WINE which will let you run (certainly older)
windows apps under linux without to much trouble. You can get some free Bible
study software from www.crossword.org that will run under linux. Its called
the sword project.

As for difficulty using. The system does require a bit of administration by
one person, but most users can simply log in an use it. Once its setup and
they are shown where to find what it isn't hard to use at all.

>Any enlightment on the matter would be very much appreciated.

Hopefully that was helpful.

Jason