On Sat, 2006-02-11 at 22:59 -0700, Victor Odhner wrote: > I'm having problem setting up a Kubuntu 5.10 > (Breezy) system on an old Pentium II 350 box > with an old SoundBlaster card and an Acer > 7133s monitor. > > It is not recognizing the Sound Blaster. I get an > error message box saying "Error while initializing > the sound driver: device /dev/dsp can't be opened; > no such file or directory." That's on the Autodetect > setting. Other messages on other device settings. > I installed "esound" because some occurrences of > this message were reported fixed by that, but no go. > > When I try to configure the display, it does not ask > what kind of monitor I have, and won't offer me > better than 800x600 resolution. Adding insult to > injury, the sound setup dialog demands more than > 800x600 and has no scroll bar! > > To that last problem, I know I've had Linux setups > before where I had "virtual desktop" space so that I > could pan around by dragging the mouse. Is there > some way I can use that here? > > Any suggestions (or even just sympathy!) would be > appreciated. I'm doing this for a friend who has > no money and is no hacker. (I've got half a mind to > just go out and buy him a Mac mini!) > > A recommendation for a better distro for old > equipment might also solve my problem. I've got > good bandwidth, so burning a few experimental > CDs is no problem at all. ---- can't help much because I don't know debian or ubuntu but for virtual screen size...you have to edit the modeline in xorg.conf - probably more pain than it is worth. You can always pick up one of the $200 boxes that Wal-Mart and Fry's sells with Linux on them and wipe out the Linux and put any flavor you want. Remember, the mac mini is gonna need a mouse, keyboard and doubtful that monitor you are looking at is gonna work very well with it. Last go around, I recall Mepis Light, PcLinux and puppydoglinux mentioned for aging hardware. Craig --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss