Thread View: aus.computers.linux
23 messages
23 total messages
Started by Addinall
Thu, 04 Nov 2010 08:28
Hullo All
Author: Addinall
Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2010 08:28
Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2010 08:28
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Cross posted to aus.flame as that is where my mates live ;-) I haven't been in here for a few years, little busy, and lost some enthusiasm for Home Linux for a while. Those of you old enough to remember the name, will remember me as a Linux evangelist, from the first slackware through to the Fedora 7ish. Then something happened. We got a lot more distributions. Linux distros became MUCH larger. What would work on one Linux would core dump on another. What worked on version X of a distro, no longer worked on version X+1 (KDE is a GREAT example of this, I used to LOVE that interface to X, now I can't hear it without going SPIT!). All in all, Linux became hard to use. I thought that sad. Then a couple of years ago I got a pack in the mail from SuSe/IBM/Novel that contained a STACK of DVDs that purported to be Linux. It looked like all of the bad bits from zOS, Solaris, AIX, SMIT and Netware rolled up into a nasty package that seemed not to do anything at all except use disk space. At that point I pulled the pin. Still kept on supporting and installing Red Hat, Centos, Solaris at work, but a home, a copy of Windows XP was purchased for my laptop. Lo, it worked. The speakers spake, the movies played, my web cam worked. Without several hundred hours of shell scripting. gVim and the WAMP2 stack made development a doddle. So I stuck with XP for a few years. Last year it was time for a re-org on my now three lappies, so I thought "maybe Linux has settled" and gave a few distros a go. BLEH! Back to XP at home. Recently, the hard drive gave up on my old favourite workhorse, an Acer Aspire 9500 with a great 17" display. So, armed with $160, picked up a new 160GB drive. Microsoft would not come to the party and let me download an OS even though I quoted my purchase code, date of purchase, place of purchase etc. Fuck. They want several hundred dollars for an abortion called Vista, or a better, but bigger one, Windows 7. So I tried the Linux/UNIX offerings again. Red Hat - Fedora - Centos were just hopeless. Fedora wouldn't even boot. Free BSD reminded me of being in the 70s again. Open Solaris wouldn't boot. Vanilla Debian fired up, but was UGLY, and bloody hard to configure. Nearly gave up, and gave UBUNTU 10.10 a try. It worked! And not only that, worked well. I plugged in the Logitech USB speakers and they played Led Zep at me! Double click on my guitar lessons, and up popped my tutor on video teaching me how to play Blackbird, THROUGH the speakers as well! Thunderbird ACTUALLY managed to pick up my mail! My web cam flashed it's spotlight at me and started streaming my ugly mug! The thing connected to my wireless router without even telling me! So I am back in camp. Seriously, if anyone wants to see how a distro SHOULD be put together, this is the creme' de la creme' of distros for the desktop/Laptop. All the standard stuff works out of the box. apt-get made it easy to build a server/development environment under the pretty stuff. I was so impressed, I am now Windows free apart from a test machine (gotta have ONE). A very good experience. Mark Addinall.
Re: Hullo All
Author: atec77
Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2010 09:05
Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2010 09:05
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On 4/11/2010 6:28 PM, Addinall wrote: > > A very good experience. > > Mark Addinall. next time mephis > -- X-No-Archive: Yes
Re: Hullo All
Author: Addinall
Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2010 01:14
Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2010 01:14
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On Nov 4, 7:05 pm, atec77 <ate...@hotmail.com> wrote: > On 4/11/2010 6:28 PM, Addinall wrote: > > > A very good experience. > > > Mark Addinall. > > next time > mephis > Never seen that one. Good? Mark Addinall. > > > -- > X-No-Archive: Yes
Re: Hullo All
Author: atec77
Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2010 03:40
Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2010 03:40
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On 5/11/2010 11:14 AM, Addinall wrote: > On Nov 4, 7:05 pm, atec77<ate...@hotmail.com> wrote: >> On 4/11/2010 6:28 PM, Addinall wrote: >> >>> A very good experience. >>yes , and simple (I use it) >>> Mark Addinall. >> >> next time >> mephis >> > > Never seen that one. Good? > > Mark Addinall. > >> simple and works (I use it) lots of control stuff useful for ham radio -- X-No-Archive: Yes
Re: Hullo All
Author: Polly the Parrot
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 22:26
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 22:26
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On Thursday 04 November 2010 19:28, Addinall wrote: > Nearly gave up, and gave UBUNTU 10.10 a try. > > It worked! And not only that, worked well. Must be horses for courses. I can only get Ubuntu 10.04 to work, the upgrade to 10.10 does not recognise my video card at all - no idea why. Same as install for Fedora, Mint, etc. But I must say 10.04 runs nicely; sees my wireless card and Virgin Broadband modem.
Re: Hullo All
Author: David Maslen
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2011 00:31
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2011 00:31
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Polly the Parrot <flatulantdingo@deadspam.com> writes: > On Thursday 04 November 2010 19:28, Addinall wrote: > >> Nearly gave up, and gave UBUNTU 10.10 a try. >> >> It worked! And not only that, worked well. > > Must be horses for courses. > > I can only get Ubuntu 10.04 to work, the upgrade to 10.10 does not recognise > my video card at all - no idea why. > > Same as install for Fedora, Mint, etc. > > But I must say 10.04 runs nicely; sees my wireless card and Virgin > Broadband modem. My experience is that Ubuntu installs nicely, is well supported and seems to suit those new to linux. For example I was used to messing about with the xorg.conf file to set monitor resolution. Ubuntu had a drop down menu bar to do the same thing. Much nicer. The reason I use Debian rather than Ubuntu, is that I found upgrading Ubuntu, more problematic, whereas using Debian unstable, you constantly upgrade individual packages as they are released. This may have change in the last year or so (my last Ubuntu install). David..
Re: Hullo All
Author: Addinall
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 02:46
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 02:46
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On Feb 25, 8:26 am, Polly the Parrot <flatulantdi...@deadspam.com> wrote: > On Thursday 04 November 2010 19:28, Addinall wrote: > > > Nearly gave up, and gave UBUNTU 10.10 a try. > > > It worked! And not only that, worked well. > > Must be horses for courses. > > I can only get Ubuntu 10.04 to work, the upgrade to 10.10 does not recognise > my video card at all - no idea why. > > Same as install for Fedora, Mint, etc. It is getting pretty crappy. Ubuntu 10.10 was about the only thing that would run on this box. OpenSolaris fucked up, OpenSuse was a disaster, Fedora hasn't worked well for 3 years, vanilla Debian is crap.... I might try to find my old SCO install disks ;-) Mark Addinall. > > But I must say 10.04 runs nicely; sees my wireless card and Virgin > Broadband modem.
Re: Hullo All
Author: David Maslen
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 03:53
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 03:53
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Addinall <addinall@addinall.net> writes: > On Feb 25, 8:26 am, Polly the Parrot <flatulantdi...@deadspam.com> > wrote: >> On Thursday 04 November 2010 19:28, Addinall wrote: >> >> > Nearly gave up, and gave UBUNTU 10.10 a try. >> >> > It worked! And not only that, worked well. >> >> Must be horses for courses. >> >> I can only get Ubuntu 10.04 to work, the upgrade to 10.10 does not recognise >> my video card at all - no idea why. >> >> Same as install for Fedora, Mint, etc. > > It is getting pretty crappy. Ubuntu 10.10 was about the only thing > that would > run on this box. OpenSolaris fucked up, OpenSuse was a disaster, > Fedora hasn't worked well for 3 years, vanilla Debian is crap.... > > I might try to find my old SCO install disks ;-) > > Mark Addinall. > >> >> But I must say 10.04 runs nicely; sees my wireless card and Virgin >> Broadband modem. > What's your problem? Unrecognised hardware? If it were me I'd install using the Debian Squeeze netinst disk. http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ I agree that Debian default is fairly functional, the only reason you'd call it crap, is if you didn't understand it (which is entirely possible if you are new to linux). --
Re: Hullo All
Author: Polly the Parrot
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 04:47
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 04:47
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On Sunday 27 February 2011 14:53, David Maslen wrote: > I might try to find my old SCO install disks ;-) What about trying TRSDOS first?
Re: Hullo All
Author: David Maslen
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 07:23
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 07:23
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Polly the Parrot <flatulantdingo@deadspam.com> writes: > On Sunday 27 February 2011 14:53, David Maslen wrote: > >> I might try to find my old SCO install disks ;-) > > What about trying TRSDOS first? > For the record that isn't my quote. I don't have any old SCO disks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-DOS I had to look that up :) David --
Re: Hullo All
Author: Plain Jane
Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2011 06:12
Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2011 06:12
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On 04/11/10 19:28, Addinall wrote: <sniped stuff> > So I tried the Linux/UNIX offerings again. Red Hat - Fedora - Centos > were just hopeless. Fedora wouldn't even boot. Free BSD reminded > me of being in the 70s again. Open Solaris wouldn't boot. > Vanilla Debian fired up, but was UGLY, and bloody hard to configure. > Nearly gave up, and gave UBUNTU 10.10 a try. You could try Linux Mint Debian Edition. It is very eye candy! Plus it is a rolling distro so you never have to wait for release cycle to update. I've been using it since it came out of Beta and its been a very smooth experience on the whole. Except I just had issues with VLC. > It worked! And not only that, worked well. I plugged in the Logitech > USB speakers and they played Led Zep at me! Double click > on my guitar lessons, and up popped my tutor on video teaching > me how to play Blackbird, THROUGH the speakers as well! > Thunderbird ACTUALLY managed to pick up my mail! > My web cam flashed it's spotlight at me and started streaming > my ugly mug! The thing connected to my wireless router > without even telling me! I am a bit scared of Ubuntu now. The Unity desktop, while good on my Notebook, I am not sure if I like the idea of it for my Desktop PC. Also, depending on where you are reading, Ubuntu has a reputation of being stingy when it comes to commits ... I don't know whether its true or not, so maybe I should stop gossiping. > So I am back in camp. Yay! Welcome back Mark. > Seriously, if anyone wants to see how a distro SHOULD be put > together, this is the creme' de la creme' of distros for the > desktop/Laptop. All the standard stuff works out of the box. > apt-get made it easy to build a server/development environment > under the pretty stuff. Sorry ... I say Mint is better. It handled my WiFi better than Ubuntu did. But, this is my opinion and probably not worth too much any way. > I was so impressed, I am now Windows free apart from a test > machine (gotta have ONE). > > A very good experience. > > Mark Addinall. > Bye now! -- HTHs Plain Jane
Re: Hullo All
Author: Plain Jane
Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2011 06:15
Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2011 06:15
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On 27/02/11 13:46, Addinall wrote: > > I might try to find my old SCO install disks ;-) > You could auction them on E-Bay for the tech-urious! -- HTHs Plain Jane
Re: Hullo All
Author: Polly the Parrot
Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2011 03:08
Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2011 03:08
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On Tuesday 01 March 2011 17:15, Plain Jane wrote: > On 27/02/11 13:46, Addinall wrote: >> >> I might try to find my old SCO install disks ;-) >> > > You could auction them on E-Bay for the tech-urious! Only a few years ago I sold my old TRS Model III. Complete with TRS Dos etc etc. The guy who bought it for backup was using his for running a flying school at Bankstown Airport; saw no reason to upgrade. And the local vet - a couple of years ago he was still running CP/M, but now he has some sort of Windoze network. >
Re: Hullo All
Author: Plain Jane
Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2011 11:40
Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2011 11:40
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On 02/03/11 14:08, Polly the Parrot wrote: > On Tuesday 01 March 2011 17:15, Plain Jane wrote: > >> On 27/02/11 13:46, Addinall wrote: >>> >>> I might try to find my old SCO install disks ;-) >>> >> >> You could auction them on E-Bay for the tech-urious! > > Only a few years ago I sold my old TRS Model III. > > Complete with TRS Dos etc etc. > > The guy who bought it for backup was using his for running a flying school > at Bankstown Airport; saw no reason to upgrade. Jeez! I hope his planes are a bit more modern! > And the local vet - a couple of years ago he was still running CP/M, but now > he has some sort of Windoze network. -- HTHs Plain Jane
Re: Hullo All
Author: Plain Jane
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 07:16
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 07:16
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On 04/03/11 07:14, Blue Heeler wrote: > Plain Jane wrote: > >> >> Jeez! I hope his planes are a bit more modern! >> > > Possibly not, plenty of 70's era (and earlier) Cessna/Piper trainers > around that old or older.... > <shocked> With all the issues Qantas are having with their BRAND new planes, its a bit scary to think of 40 year old planes being able to still fly safely. I spose he really takes care of the maintenance. -- HTHs Plain Jane
Re: Hullo All
Author: Polly the Parrot
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:16
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:16
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On Wednesday 02 March 2011 22:40, Plain Jane wrote: >> The guy who bought it for backup was using his for running a flying >> school at Bankstown Airport; saw no reason to upgrade. > > Jeez! I hope his planes are a bit more modern! I was thinking the same at the time.
Re: Hullo All
Author: Polly the Parrot
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:17
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:17
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On Friday 04 March 2011 18:16, Plain Jane wrote: >> Possibly not, plenty of 70's era (and earlier) Cessna/Piper trainers >> around that old or older.... >> > > <shocked> With all the issues Qantas are having with their BRAND new > planes, its a bit scary to think of 40 year old planes being able to > still fly safely. There are still old wartime or shortly thereafter DC3 planes flying; apparently built like the proverbial brick outhouse. >
Re: Hullo All
Author: Plain Jane
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:34
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:34
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On 04/03/11 19:17, Polly the Parrot wrote: > On Friday 04 March 2011 18:16, Plain Jane wrote: > >>> Possibly not, plenty of 70's era (and earlier) Cessna/Piper trainers >>> around that old or older.... >>> >> >> <shocked> With all the issues Qantas are having with their BRAND new >> planes, its a bit scary to think of 40 year old planes being able to >> still fly safely. > > There are still old wartime or shortly thereafter DC3 planes flying; > apparently built like the proverbial brick outhouse. >> > YEAH! There was no such thing as inbuilt-obsolescense in the old days ... -- HTHs Plain Jane
Re: Hullo All
Author: Plain Jane
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:36
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:36
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On 04/03/11 19:16, Polly the Parrot wrote: > On Wednesday 02 March 2011 22:40, Plain Jane wrote: > >>> The guy who bought it for backup was using his for running a flying >>> school at Bankstown Airport; saw no reason to upgrade. >> >> Jeez! I hope his planes are a bit more modern! > > I was thinking the same at the time. > Blue Heeler says they built em to last back then. Plus, there would have been very little plastic employed in their production I reckon. So they are probably safe. -- HTHs Plain Jane
Re: Hullo All
Author: Polly the Parrot
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:46
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:46
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On Friday 04 March 2011 19:36, Plain Jane wrote: > On 04/03/11 19:16, Polly the Parrot wrote: >> On Wednesday 02 March 2011 22:40, Plain Jane wrote: >> >>>> The guy who bought it for backup was using his for running a flying >>>> school at Bankstown Airport; saw no reason to upgrade. >>> >>> Jeez! I hope his planes are a bit more modern! >> >> I was thinking the same at the time. >> > > Blue Heeler says they built em to last back then. Plus, there would have > been very little plastic employed in their production I reckon. So they > are probably safe. Really off topic now, but I wonder about the new Boeing "Dream Machine", built with composite materials - wouldn't there be a hell of a lot of toxic smoke if there is a major fire? >
Re: Hullo All
Author: Plain Jane
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:50
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:50
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On 04/03/11 19:46, Polly the Parrot wrote: > On Friday 04 March 2011 19:36, Plain Jane wrote: > >> On 04/03/11 19:16, Polly the Parrot wrote: >>> On Wednesday 02 March 2011 22:40, Plain Jane wrote: >>> >>>>> The guy who bought it for backup was using his for running a flying >>>>> school at Bankstown Airport; saw no reason to upgrade. >>>> >>>> Jeez! I hope his planes are a bit more modern! >>> >>> I was thinking the same at the time. >>> >> >> Blue Heeler says they built em to last back then. Plus, there would have >> been very little plastic employed in their production I reckon. So they >> are probably safe. > > Really off topic now, but I wonder about the new Boeing "Dream Machine", > built with composite materials - wouldn't there be a hell of a lot of toxic > smoke if there is a major fire? >> > Maybe! But, I'll stick to riding with my cat on the broom ... I'm closer to the ground that way. -- HTHs Plain Jane
Re: Hullo All
Author: atec77
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 12:16
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 12:16
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On 4/03/2011 5:16 PM, Plain Jane wrote: > On 04/03/11 07:14, Blue Heeler wrote: >> Plain Jane wrote: >> >>> >>> Jeez! I hope his planes are a bit more modern! >>> >> >> Possibly not, plenty of 70's era (and earlier) Cessna/Piper trainers >> around that old or older.... >> > > <shocked> With all the issues Qantas are having with their BRAND new > planes, its a bit scary to think of 40 year old planes being able to > still fly safely. > > I spose he really takes care of the maintenance. > Nah , a well made machine (including cars) will run for several lifetimes when maintained -- X-No-Archive: Yes
Re: Hullo All
Author: Plain Jane
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 13:05
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 13:05
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On 04/03/11 23:16, atec77 wrote: > On 4/03/2011 5:16 PM, Plain Jane wrote: >> On 04/03/11 07:14, Blue Heeler wrote: >>> Plain Jane wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> Jeez! I hope his planes are a bit more modern! >>>> >>> >>> Possibly not, plenty of 70's era (and earlier) Cessna/Piper trainers >>> around that old or older.... >>> >> >> <shocked> With all the issues Qantas are having with their BRAND new >> planes, its a bit scary to think of 40 year old planes being able to >> still fly safely. >> >> I spose he really takes care of the maintenance. >> > Nah , a well made machine (including cars) will run for several > lifetimes when maintained Yes, true! -- HTHs Plain Jane
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