[sanctus]

I guess in informatics there are two kind of questions the trivial ones and the bloody hard ones. I don't know to which mine belongs, but here we go:
I want to get Paw at my universty, I know the network adress to get there but how do I log on the university network from home? I have still only windows 98, I went on network but the came all the make a new client stuff and Ididn't really know what to do. My computer also wanted to look for a new modem so I obviously did something wrong.

Thanks for anyone who knows!

P.S.: I know I can get Paw also at Cern site, but there are all my files at university that I can put in the public folder and therefore somehow read them at home without having to burn them on a cd and carry them home.

[alexander]

You really should switch from 98 before you get owned by some beginner scriptie... it is one of the most unsafe windowses that ever came out
The thing is, it all depends on how the network in school is set up... i think you should be much better off talking to your IT people at school, seriously. I can say that you can do it with SSH, and you can, but again i would recommend talking to the people who know how their network is built, so they can say, yup, you can do it and here is how, or nope, you cant do it and here's why...

[sanctus]

Thanks, I'll follow your suggestion.

And about windows 98, it's a while I'm thinking of buying a new computer, but I don't know if I should get a portable one or not, what do you suggest? But I'm sure that I'll run Linux and windows on it.

[Tormod]

Get a laptop...it's much more practical for you.

But what is "Paw"?

[sanctus]

Paw: Physics analysis workstation.

It's the predecessor of root, developed by CERN to be able to work with gigabytes of data. On the cern site you find it, for free (actually the guy who made wanted to commercialize it, but it went against cern's philosophy). Paw used to be the standard for particle physicians, but now its replaced by root. One other adavantage of paw is that it is very small, but I can't tell you much more I still have to learn how to use it.

About a laptop, I guess you are right but still I have to know which one and so on, something that's not trivial....

[alexander]

If you want to get something really great, wait for the g5 laptops to come out. They will be awesome, and they run probably the most perfect OS for a user like you, on one side, it is a full GUI based system, on the other, it is Unix-based, very secure, and if you really want, you Portage, the Package Management System that makes Gentoo so great, has been ported to OSX, so you can have the comfort of it within a windows-like environment, and you can install Gentoo on Mac hardware, it will run awesomely too. OSX is very resource demanding, and systems are built for it, but Linux is nowhere near that resource demanding, so you will have awesome performance, + Macs come with i think nvidia cards if i'm not mistaken, its either that or ATI, no matter both of these companies video cards have pretty good support in linux, generic drivers yes, but they'll allow you to play any new game that comes out for Linux on highest resolution and so forth...

[Tormod]

They'll cost a fortune, though.

[alexander]

G4s are about $1600 to $3000 depending on what you really want, and it doesnt have to be a g5, g4 will be great for all your applications too.

[nemo]

You might consider eBay. Many large corporations use eBay as a way to get rid of excess computers that would otherwise be thrown away. Along that line - approaching a company directly occassionally works. I would probably investigate the local businesses in your area a bit -- a dentist's office might only be getting rid of a worthless machine, but a graphics studio may be getting rid of a machine that would be a significant upgrade for you. As far as OS is concerned, I am a Linux addict. If you're looking for one that won't be a complete culture shock from Win98, you might consider Mandrake Linux.

[alexander]

whatever you do, dont get a dell, if you have a chance and cant get an apple, get an IBM powerbook instead, those cases are really great, nondestructible...