Fantom Driver on Windows 98

[bungeshea]

Hello,
I purchased a machine with Windows 98 on it for a very low price (50 cents) and I was thinking about installing BricxCC on it. BrixCC installed fine, but the Fantom driver did not. Is there a version of the Fantom driver that I can install in Windows 98?

[spillerrec]

Most software nowadays don't support OS'es before XP, so I doubt it.

If you are feeling adventurous, you could try to install Linux on it and try to get it working there. While I'm no big fan of Linux, win98 just isn't a good system and it should be possible to get running properly even on lower spec computers.

[bungeshea]

I just thoght that it was strange that BricxCC supported 98 but the Fantom driver doesn't.

As for installing Linux, I tried installing Ubuntu but when I booted from the CD the compter just froze up. The only way to turn it off was pllling the plug and now I can't get it back on.

[mattallen37]

BCC is used for programming the RCX as well, and that does work with 98.

[mightor]

There are many other distros, other than Ubuntu:

• SuSE (easy to use)
• Linux Mint (I have no personal experience with this one, but it seems popular)
• CentOS (based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux)
• Debian (Ubuntu's forefather)
• Slackware (one of the oldest distros that still exists)
• LFS (Linux From Scratch - if you like to torture yourself)

There are more Linux distros out there than there are Linux users, I think. So just spend some time looking for one. I have never come across a computer that wouldn't run a Linux distribution of some sort and I've been using it since 1994. (I started with Yggdrasil)

Here's a nice list of a couple of the major distros out there: http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

Regards,
Xander

[HaWe]

I would suggest to install win xp (also costs almost nothing and works fine with lots of available drivers)

[spillerrec]

As for installing Linux, I tried installing Ubuntu but when I booted from the CD the compter just froze up. The only way to turn it off was pllling the plug and now I can't get it back on.

I said if you where feeling adventurous ; )
Since it was running win98 it might be quite old have the specs can be rather low. Bear in mind that Ubuntu isn't a lightweight distribution and the official requirements are min. 386 MB of RAM and 512 MB is recommended. There is a good chance your computer don't have that kind of specs...
I tried running Ubuntu for a few months and while it was easy to install and get running, I don't like it that much. I have been more happy with Arch Linux which I currently have installed on my laptop. It is a pain to set up though : P

You could try winXP, but I personally wouldn't install it on a computer which have less than 512 MB of RAM. While it is possible to run with 256 MB, it doesn't run that great once you have installed the service packs according to my experience. And SP2 is the minimal requirement for software nowadays, so not updating comes with complications... (Gimp 2.8 which just came out a few days ago requires winXP SP3 as min. for example.)