What is "low spec" for you?

[D. Michael McIntyre]

On Saturday 15 December 2007, Karlheinz Noise wrote:
> I was one of those newbies, if you might recall. I got checksum errors when
> I tried to even install US on my old Celeron 400, asked why, and nobody
> gave me any help other than "Don't bother, get a better machine."

Look, I've *tried* to do this stuff on low spec hardware.  I have first-hand 
experience with a variety of old hand-me-down computers in the Pentium, PII 
and PIII range.  I spent a lot of time in particular on a PII- or PIII-400 
(not sure which) that I was trying to get working just well enough to run 
Rosegarden with a very minimalist soft synth setup.  It never happened.

If I was quick to tell you to quit wasting your time with a 400 MHz Celeron, 
that's why.  It wouldn't have accomplished anything other than guaranteeing 
you would have a completely miserable first experience.

As it happened, you still had a completely miserable first experience.  I'm 
sorry about that, but it doesn't change the facts about the machine you were 
trying to use.  That one *guaranteed* a miserable experience, whereas the 
other one gave you a fighting chance (and you still lost the fight, as it 
turned out.)
-- 
D. Michael McIntyre