~ linux update: for some reason, every command in mandrake takes about 5 minutes to execute; we hope it is just the video issues making it difficult to refresh the screen – otherwise, windows 9x is a more efficient os for this piece. so, tired of waiting mandrake, we reinstalled redhat 6.2 [w], which seems to run a little faster. Xconfigurator seems to be quite a gyp; there is no place to insert your own sync rates, even though the dialogue box says it is ‘ok’ to do so. all we are left with are the ten or so specified choices, none of which match our monitor perfectly. we tried about 15 configurations, and still had no luck, so we decided to push on without worrying about the screen. our broader hopes include a new monitor, so fooling around with the configuration of this one seems to be wasteful. despite the garbled screen, we managed to configure the network with planet and reach the internet. immediately, we downloaded and installed gaim [w] with resounding success; we moved on to m16 [w] and axyftp [w], which is such a duplicate of ipswitch that we again became shaken in our certainty of what the true benefits of being a linux user are…

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