Hello people. I have some questions

[Alex Martelli]

"jeroen paul goudsmit" <hcj.goudsmit at wanadoo.nl> wrote in message
news:Ak9j7.72$Cz3.594 at pollux.casema.net...
> Thank you all so much. I'll just go to www.python.org to download it all.
>
> (my pc is:   os - Windows ME (it sucks!)

Alas, yes, it does.  I don't go in for Microsoft-bashing, and I find
Win98 somewhat usable (not stable, sigh, but, oh well), and NT4 in the
latest SP more than usable, but ME is definitely the pits, and I'm not
too convinced about /2000 either.

If you have some diskspace to spare, you might want to look into
http://www.winlinux.net/2001/ (there are other excellent Linux
versions designed to fit in well with Microsoft OS's, but AFAIK
Winlinux/2001 is the only one that specifically supports ME).

Python runs just as well on Win/* systems as on Linux, BSD, &c
ones, but it cannot fully compensate for lack of underlying OS
quality -- and Unix-like OS's are just heads and shoulders above
MS's offers in the /95/98/ME line.  Winlinux won't give you the
FULL potential benefits of Linux -- it's designed so that you
don't have to repartition your disk, etc, so it shares the weak
FAT-based filesystem common to those MS OS's -- a Linux running
on its own filesystem (particularly on its own partitions) would
enhance your box by much more, BUT you wouldn't be moving so
smoothly between the Win side (where you presumably have some
applications you want to keep using) and the Linux side (where
there are zillions of excellent free applications, and things in
general run so much better).

>                   processor - AMD duron 800 mhz (sucks too)

No way -- it's a great little chip.  No Athlon, sure, but it
still beats the pants off any (BAH) Celeron and most Pentiums
too.  Depending on your motherboard/BIOS details, the stepping
level of your Duron chip, how good are your power supply, your
RAM, and particularly your cooling-system, you may well be able
to overclock your machine and squeeze another 10% or 20% of
raw CPU performance from it, by the way.

Right now, as my home-LAN's router/firewall/gateway/proxybox,
I'm setting up an old Pentium-90, 64MB-RAM machine (with Linux,
so far, though I _am_ looking hard at OpenBSD, for that sense
of total security it gives:-), but I'm also hungrily eyeing a
special offer at my local supermarket -- US$500 for a Duron-900,
128M RAM, 20G IDE disk, fast CDROM, decent monitor/video/sound/&c
(which I don't need for its job, though), *and a PCI bus* (rather
than the bad old ISA in my old box) so I could mount 2 or 3 cheap
ethernet cards without hassles.  This way I could run a decently
configured Squid and other 'heavy' proxies right on the box...
(not really consistent with maximum-security ideas, but...).


>                   RAM - 128 (getting 128 extra next saturday...)

The more the merrier, *as long as* your OS doesn't get its
knickers in a twist the way /95/98/ME sometimes do.  Unix-like
OS's are particularly good at exploiting whatever amount of
RAM you have, and Win NT and 2000 not too bad at it, but the
cheaper/home-oriented MS OS's aren't quite as clever about it.


> I'm 14 years old and program only form the fun.

Programming is the most fun-filled activity I've ever tried
(and I've tried many, as my life's been quite a big longer
than yours so far:-), *particularly* with Python.  Overclocking
and playing with Unix-ish OS's aren't too far behind, though!-)


Alex