[Techtalk] What I did over the Christmas Holidays!

[Lothan]

I don't if this will help, but you can select File | Import/Export from
Microsoft Outlook to export a folder to comma-delimited format (or to
Excel, dBase, Access, etc.). It can be a pain because it must be done
one folder at a time. I don't know if any of the Linux mailers will
import any of these formats directly. It's not that difficult to convert
from comma-delimited format to UNIX mail format, though.

-----Original Message-----
From: techtalk-admin at linuxchix.org [mailto:techtalk-admin at linuxchix.org]
On Behalf Of Jennifer Davis
Sent: Friday, December 28, 2001 12:33 AM
To: Techtalk Mailing List
Subject: [Techtalk] What I did over the Christmas Holidays!


Note: At the end, I troll for advice...sorry!

After about a week or more of messing around with my closest friend's
computer, I think I have finally got it converted over to linux from
Windows ME.  Under Windows, it seemed to require a re-install every six
months, and I was getting tired of doing it.  She is not a terribly
experienced user.  She essentially uses her PC for the web, email, and
some word processing.  To me, she seemed like a perfect candidate.  When
she does master her PC, if she chooses to, it will not take her any
effort
at all to master Windows.  If she chooses not to, then I can administer
her pc as I have been since 1996.

I chose to install Slackware 8.0 as it is the distribution I am most
familiar with.  I may switch it to one of the RPM distros , such as
Mandrake, Redhat or SuSe if she decides she wants to learn about
managing
her pc.  In setting up the pc, I learned a lot.  The first problem I had
with the installastion was video.  I could not get her on-board S3Virge
to
work.  I must have tried 20 configurations for X and nothing worked.
Since the video card was only a 1MB card anyways, I spent $10 on a 4MB
ATI
Mach64.  It works brilliantly and ran on my first attempt to configure
X.
Her desktop is Gnome.  In retrospect, she might have done better with
KDE,
but on a Pentium 200, I find that KDE is just a little too sluggish.
Sound was a little more difficult.  She had al old OPL-3ax card that I
gave her years ago that was not working well, possibly due to a
connection
breaking in it.  I switched it over to a CS4232.  It seems to work okay,
but I am having problems with /dev/dsp.  I have run chmod 777 /dev/ds*
and
playing mp3s is still not great.  Since I've used a PPPoE over ADSL
since
I started using linux, I had no experience with PPP dial-up.  I seemed
to
have problems like crazy.  The first one being the fact she had a
winmodem.  I bought her a modem that I thought was a PCI hardware modem
that I just could not configure, then I settled on giving her my old 56K
external.  After using the external, everything went just fine.  For
mail,
I installed Balsa.  It's nice.  The only problem I am having here is
getting her old email.  She used MS Outlook Express and I have not yet
found a way to import her old mail.  The other problem I have run into
is
with games.  I cannot seem to get her gravis gamepad to work.  Finally,
I
have upgraded the kernel to 2.4.16 because I heard that the 2.4 kernels
run a bit faster.  I haven't really noticed a difference.

To summarise, I am very happy with the result, and she really hasn't
noticed a difference.  I just have a few lingering problems that I would
like to clear up and hopefully not have to work on this PC ever again.
They are:

1.	I think that there is a conflict with the sound card and another
device.  How do I check?  In windows, I would use the device manager
control panel.

2.	What is trick for running the joystick module in Slackware with
a
2.4.X kernel?

3.	What is the Slackware way of installing a printer?

4.	Is there good documentation for running the modem as a fax
machine?  Is there a fax howto?  Is it relevant for Slack?


5.	Are there any tools/tricks for converting MS Outlook Express
email
boxes, files or whatever into standard linux mailboxes?  Sorry, jargon
escapes me here.

6.	What is the secret for having the PC shut itself off?  I know
it?s
in the kernel configuration, but I just have never mastered the API
thingee.

Thanks for putting up with this long post, and for letting me beam and
for
offering solutions if you have any.  Take care...


Jennifer Davis


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