Embracing My Inner Nerd and Linux

Off Topic
21

[quote]dre wrote:
Thanks m0dd3r! I understand that Fiesty Fawn is the newest release and will upgrade to that.

You make some very good points and I think my wife will ok with it.

However, and I hate to say this, she’s one of them “AOL” people. She was using it long before we got together and I haven’t broke her of the habit. So, does the AOL IM work in Linux? I know that will be her biggest request! haha

I’m in the process of trying to dual boot my work laptop with Ubuntu so I can get more familiar with it. Currently running XP also running XP at home.

Like you suggested, I want to be really knowledgeable with it before we make the switch at home.

It’s good to know some Linux users out there that I can bounce questions off of. Thanks!

[/quote]

Hmm, when you say AOL IM do you mean just the AIM protocol? Or does your wife actually still use the AOL service? If it’s the former, that’s easy, there are plenty of AIM clients for linux, I usually use gaim. If she actually uses the aol service, I’m not sure.

I’m fairly certain they offer most their services through the aol website now, so if she still uses and aol.com email address she can get it there (and probably hook it up to thunderbird or evolution via pop3 or imap to download mail).

Jay

edit: I actually use gaim (or trillian, which isn’t free) on my windows boxes as well, I like it better than the standard AOL aim client as it doesn’t have ads and news and all sorts of other crap popping up at me all the time.

22

[quote]dre wrote:
Thanks m0dd3r! I understand that Fiesty Fawn is the newest release and will upgrade to that.

You make some very good points and I think my wife will ok with it.

However, and I hate to say this, she’s one of them “AOL” people. She was using it long before we got together and I haven’t broke her of the habit. So, does the AOL IM work in Linux? I know that will be her biggest request! haha

I’m in the process of trying to dual boot my work laptop with Ubuntu so I can get more familiar with it. Currently running XP also running XP at home.

Like you suggested, I want to be really knowledgeable with it before we make the switch at home.

It’s good to know some Linux users out there that I can bounce questions off of. Thanks!

[/quote]

Hey hey,
Great to have another Linux user on board. The switch can be frustrating at first and somewhat difficult. However, in the end, it is well worth your effort and I am incredibly happy that I took the time to jump ship.

Upgrading from DD to FF is definitely a priority for you, countless updates make the switch well worth your while. IM functionality is definitely to be had. I use gaim and I believe it comes bundled with FF. Even if it does not, sudo apt-get install gaim will pull it down in lickity split.

Although I am by no means an expert, my roommate is one of the sharpest linux users I know. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me/post here. Additionally, there is an awesome community that is thrilled to support you and they are only a few clicks away (the ubuntu forums rock).

Good luck to you.

23

It is better to never play with you fstab if you are a beginner. Instead add commands like that into one of your rc files.

24

I hate windoze, and Mac isn’t far behind. I really like Linux, but some things can be a pain in the ass.

For server stuff, Linux kicks butt, and is close to the stability of any Unix varieties or IRIX, but for desktop, there’s a long way to go before things are as “nice-and-easy” as with those OTHER OSs.

25

When my hard drive went flippy on my computer, I used a Knoppix boot cd in order to attempt to move files from my primary harddrive to by secondary drive so that I could reinstall windows.

I couldn’t move the files (I had only used Linux for a GRAND total of five minutes at this point), the screen flashes a display that SOMETHING IS OVERCLOCKED, and crashes.

Yes, I crashed Linux. Bow!

Anyway, I take the hint, check my bios, reset the default, WINDOWS WORKS AS NORMAL.

I still reinstalled it, because… ya know… screw it.

Even though it crashed, and I could barely use it, the Knoppix was still fun to play with between the crashes, since it just looked so bloody different. I might try it again later.

-Gendou

26

Well, I’ve got FF downloaded and will copy to a cd. Today is the day that I attempt to dual boot my work laptop with FF/XP.

Wish me luck.

Hopefully sometime today I’ll be up and running.

Oh and yes, I was talking about AIM. She just goes to AOL.com to check her mail. So I can use GAIM, beauty.

27

[quote]DanErickson wrote:

you want to add something like
mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /home/Kuz/Windows

in /etc/fstab

It is better to never play with you fstab if you are a beginner. Instead add commands like that into one of your rc files.
[/quote]

I disagree, well, sorta… The fstab syntax isn’t really that difficult and so long as you make a backup copy before you start effing around with it you should have no problems.

Also, don’t fuck around with the existing entries if you don’t know what you’re doing. Adding an entry to mount an NTFS partition or something of the sort shouldn’t have much effect on the rest of the file however, even if done wrong.

Also, always test it with mount -a before rebooting and suddenly learning that your swap partition isn’t mounting and you’ve mounted your mp3 partition as /, this is not good.

However, you should make sure you know how to boot from a cd and replace the fuxored file with the backup should you fuck up any of the existing entries (sy, delete your root partition or swap space for some reason) and cause your machine to be unbootable.

Jay

28

[quote]graphicsMan wrote:
I hate windoze, and Mac isn’t far behind. I really like Linux, but some things can be a pain in the ass.

For server stuff, Linux kicks butt, and is close to the stability of any Unix varieties or IRIX, but for desktop, there’s a long way to go before things are as “nice-and-easy” as with those OTHER OSs.

[/quote]

Care to elaborate? No offense, but your whole post sounds like it was written a few years ago. Linux is world renowned for its capabilities as a server OS, and is often times chosen over traditional UNIX for it’s stability and security.

As far as being a desktop system, read my previous post regarding switching OSes. More often than not, those things you consider a “pain in the ass” are just done a little bit differently than the way you’re used to. They take some getting used to and hence cause frustration.

I’ve been using linux in one capacity or another as my chief desktop OS for several years now. The newer Ubuntu and Fedora releases are both totally usable on desktop systems, even to the average user. I got my 87 year old grandmother, who’d never used a computer before in her life, up and running on my ubuntu box pretty easily. At least as easy as it would have been to get her on Windo$e or Mac OS.

Admittedly, all she wanted to do was send/receive email and play solitaire, but nonetheless…

Jay

29

[quote]dre wrote:
Well, I’ve got FF downloaded and will copy to a cd. Today is the day that I attempt to dual boot my work laptop with FF/XP.

Wish me luck.

Hopefully sometime today I’ll be up and running.

Oh and yes, I was talking about AIM. She just goes to AOL.com to check her mail. So I can use GAIM, beauty.[/quote]

Good luck with the dual boot, just a word of caution. BACK EVERYTHING IMPORTANT UP!!! Especially if you’re doing this on a work computer. You’re going to have to repartition, or at least adjust the size of your windows partition and create a couple new ones for the linux install.

Doing this can cause, what we geeks like to call, catastrophic failure! i.e. you could corrupt your windows partition and lose it, requiring reinstallation.

I know the repartitioning tools in the ubuntu install are a lot better than they used to be, but I always like to air on the side of caution. If possible, and you have the time and resources at work, you may want to just back up everything on your laptop to a server or something.

Then wipe the disk, repartition, format, and do the 2 installs fresh (windows first usually, that way the grub or lilo bootloader can find it and set up the bootloader for you to choose which to boot. Windows bootloader sometimes doesn’t recognize linux partitions, hmmmm, I wonder why… ) I don’t know about your work setup, so this may not be possible though.

Are you working from a guide or something for the dual boot setup, or just winging it? If possible, find a guide online and do the laptop install near another computer so you can look things up as you go along, just in case.

It’s really not that difficult, but if something goes wrong or you don’t know how to answer one of the install questions, it’s helpful to be able to look it up right away instead of having to quit the install, reboot in windows, check it out, and then restart the install.

Good luck again,
Jay

30

I did find a guide online that I will be following.

As far as backing everything up, we keep anything important on our servers so all I would lose are my .mp3s that we aren’t suppose to have anyways. So, don’t tell!

Honestly, I don’t know why I’m even going to attempt this while at work. Maybe because I really don’t have anything better to do at the moment and the techie in me wants to try something new.

Plus my friend won’t shut up about how great Fedora is. I figure this way I will atleast understand what he’s talking about now when he starts spewing his shiat.

Good idea about having another computer with the guide available should things so south. I’ve got a desktop on my desk that I just loaded Ubuntu on so I’ll use that.

Alright, here goes nothing.

[quote]m0dd3r wrote:

Good luck with the dual boot, just a word of caution. BACK EVERYTHING IMPORTANT UP!!! Especially if you’re doing this on a work computer. You’re going to have to repartition, or at least adjust the size of your windows partition and create a couple new ones for the linux install.

Doing this can cause, what we geeks like to call, catastrophic failure! i.e. you could corrupt your windows partition and lose it, requiring reinstallation.

I know the repartitioning tools in the ubuntu install are a lot better than they used to be, but I always like to air on the side of caution. If possible, and you have the time and resources at work, you may want to just back up everything on your laptop to a server or something.

Then wipe the disk, repartition, format, and do the 2 installs fresh (windows first usually, that way the grub or lilo bootloader can find it and set up the bootloader for you to choose which to boot. Windows bootloader sometimes doesn’t recognize linux partitions, hmmmm, I wonder why… ) I don’t know about your work setup, so this may not be possible though.

Are you working from a guide or something for the dual boot setup, or just winging it? If possible, find a guide online and do the laptop install near another computer so you can look things up as you go along, just in case.

It’s really not that difficult, but if something goes wrong or you don’t know how to answer one of the install questions, it’s helpful to be able to look it up right away instead of having to quit the install, reboot in windows, check it out, and then restart the install.

Good luck again,
Jay[/quote]

31

[quote]m0dd3r wrote:

Care to elaborate? No offense, but your whole post sounds like it was written a few years ago. Linux is world renowned for its capabilities as a server OS, and is often times chosen over traditional UNIX for it’s stability and security.

As far as being a desktop system, read my previous post regarding switching OSes. More often than not, those things you consider a “pain in the ass” are just done a little bit differently than the way you’re used to. They take some getting used to and hence cause frustration.

I’ve been using linux in one capacity or another as my chief desktop OS for several years now. The newer Ubuntu and Fedora releases are both totally usable on desktop systems, even to the average user. I got my 87 year old grandmother, who’d never used a computer before in her life, up and running on my ubuntu box pretty easily. At least as easy as it would have been to get her on Windo$e or Mac OS.

Admittedly, all she wanted to do was send/receive email and play solitaire, but nonetheless…

Jay[/quote]

I have been a fairly devoted Linux user for about 6 or 7 years. What I’m talking about isn’t necessarily the difficulty of using any platform, but rather the immaturity of a lot of the applications.

For example, if I use gentoo (my favorite flavor of Linux), I can super customize everything, and eventually I get everything to work exactly as I like it. The exception is wireless on my laptop.

For my laptop, I am running Ubuntu Feisty Fawn, which is WAY easier to set up than gentoo, and my wireless Just Works ™. However, now several of my favorite applications, such as Amarok, don’t work :frowning: It’s not that I can’t install them, but rather that they crash, or don’t work properly once running.

Anyway, you don’t have to convince me to prefer Linux - I’m usually trying to convince others :slight_smile:

32

[quote]graphicsMan wrote:

I have been a fairly devoted Linux user for about 6 or 7 years. What I’m talking about isn’t necessarily the difficulty of using any platform, but rather the immaturity of a lot of the applications.

For example, if I use gentoo (my favorite flavor of Linux), I can super customize everything, and eventually I get everything to work exactly as I like it. The exception is wireless on my laptop.

For my laptop, I am running Ubuntu Feisty Fawn, which is WAY easier to set up than gentoo, and my wireless Just Works ™. However, now several of my favorite applications, such as Amarok, don’t work :frowning: It’s not that I can’t install them, but rather that they crash, or don’t work properly once running.

Anyway, you don’t have to convince me to prefer Linux - I’m usually trying to convince others :)[/quote]

I don’t know that I’d call it immaturity. Windows and mac apps are developed for just that, windows or mac. Linux, due to the differences between distros and window managers among other things, is a much broader OS to develop for.

To use your example, amarok, it was originally developed for use on KDE and hence depends on having KDELibs installed. If you’re trying to run it under Gnome on ubuntu you may need to insall KDElibs. But that’s not really amarok’s fault. That’s like trying to run winamp on mac OS and having problems.

Try using rythmbox, banshee, or exaile (which is supposedly a great replacement for amarok). Or, you could run kubuntu instead of ubuntu (although I wouldn’t, but I just prefer Gnome). Either way, that just goes to further demonstrate my point. You don’t like ubuntu as much as gentoo because you can’t use amarok, which is something you’re familiar with. Having to do something a different way than you’re used to is frustrating.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel the same way about a lot of things. I use winamp for music on my windows machines, have for years, so when I’m on a linux box I use XMMS, the closest thing to winamp. But it’s still just different enough that it frustrates the hell out of me sometimes. But it can’t be blamed on xmms, it’s not winamp, just very similar.

Cheers,
Jay

p.s. I totally agree with you about gentoo by the way. I was a diehard gentoo fan for years. In fact I’m still pretty proud of the fact that I’ve actually sat down and performed a stage one gentoo install on more than one occasion (and never will again).

But when gentoo 2006 came out with the gui installer I had some problems (i.e. the installer crashed while resizing my windows partition and destroyed it.). Since then I’ve been a pretty solid supporter of Ubuntu, though I occasionally consider going back to slackware, where I started.

33

[quote]Kuz wrote:
I know there are a few Linux-y types on here and I was curious to what extent do you use it. Has anyone dropped everything MS or Mac to go full-time Linux? If so, what have been some of your biggest issues? And my favorite question… do you think Linux can ever make the jump to a true mainstream OS?[/quote]

Linux has a very steep learning curve (less these days, but still steep)
lots of support, decent array of freeware apps.

windows had a much less learning curve.
TONS AND TONS AND TONS of apps.
and is in much of the work place, homes and schools.

Windows USED to have stability issues.
Linux’s big bonus was that it was very stable and not prone to things like virus attacks.

over the years, windows has looked to be more stable.
and linux has looked to be easier to use.

both have succeeded.
with things like ubuntu KDE and similar apps, linux is much more user friendly.

Windows XP and windows Vista are considerably more stable than 95/98/ME

here’s were MS wins…
they have the application support…
MOST people would pay for an app with support and updates that everyone else uses, rather than to down load some freeware apps that may or may not get support, and may or may not continue to see development.

and due to the nature of open source, IMO linux is much more prone to attacks.

so no i dont think linux will reach mainstream usage any time soon.
it may increase on the server side, but not on the desktop.

and to me the other reason people choose windows/mac.
if you want to compile and run an application you sometimes have to type 80 billion things.
in windows you just click a button.

package managers make that less of a problem these days, but still is an issue in some cases.