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  • #2152102

    Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

    Locked

    by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

    I mean, it is free, right?

    Seriously… I’ve called Ubuntu on this before around here, and I always get the response,

    “Well, you have to…”

    Listen… that isn’t “It JUST works”. That is, “It WILL work, if YOU tweak with it”.

    XP “Just Works”. OS X actually “Just Works”.

    Ubuntu is Linux, and Linux doesn’t “Just Work”.

    Interestingly enough, again, this is a laptop where Ubuntu isn’t Just Working. It is actually a Netbook, a Eee PC 701 – and it is an install that is “customized” for the Eee PC 701. I’ll give it some props – it found and configured everything, although I had to mess around with wireless a bit (that didn’t JUST work, but the difficulty in making it Just Work was comparable to the kind of difficulty one might encounter with a Win32 install, so we’ll call it close enough).

    What didn’t Just Work was Network Browsing of a Win32 workgroup through the default Gimp Network Browsing app. The error I get and the symptoms I am seeing are well documented – there are various bug tickets opened AND closed with no solution on the Ubuntu bug forums. One of the forum moderators actually reopened a bug report with the comment, “This is a very large obstacle to “Just Working” for many users, and needs to be resolved”, but then someone else subsequently closed it again, with no solution. “If we ignore the issue, maybe it will just go away”.

    Now, using SMBw2k browser (I think that is it), a KDE app, I can make it work suitable for my needs – and so I’m going to leave Ubuntu on this machine. But there are a score of other trivial annoyances as well. The Codecs for Mp4 video are from the “Bad” codec set – and so to watch an iPod movie I have to deal with all kinds of nasty video artifacts.

    Best of all, is Ubuntu bloat. I could get a full install with no pre-install modifications of XP onto the SSD at just over 2gb. Ubuntu is pushing 3.4gb for a full install. That leaves me around 600mb free.

    If all other things were equal, and Win XP were FREE, it would be a no brainer – there would be NO reason to use Linux. It is more difficult to set up and support, there is more opportunity in my experience, for modifcations and changes to introduce new unwanted behavior into the system.

    I’m not sure what changed, but I’ve been having a much more difficult time getting Adobe Flash to work with Ubuntu lately. This is one of those things that should Just Work. Linux is already at a disadvantage against Win32 for feature rich web browsing. Having Flash be difficult or impossible to install just makes Linux that much less useful to the typical user.

    This is the link I used to install:
    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=611422

    It is amazing that you actually have to do so much post-install cleanup to get it working properly on an Eee PC.

    I hear that Ubuntu “Just Works”, but I haven’t yet had a machine yet where install went without a hitch and everything worked as satisfactory as it would have with an XP install. Not just one machine, but a half a dozen of them, from old Celeron 333mhz to modern core duo desktop machines.

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    • #2968224

      Post Deleted

      by .martin. ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      .

      • #2968211

        I think you’re getting a little too carried away with that spam button

        by ontheropes ·

        In reply to Post Deleted

        Looks like a pretty decent rant. Nothing more, nothing less. Brought up some good points too, if you ask me.

        • #2968207

          time for some public humilastion

          by jdclyde ·

          In reply to I think you’re getting a little too carried away with that spam button

          for people that don’t know what spam is?

          might be about time, i guess….. ;\

        • #2968193

          Hopefully

          by santeewelding ·

          In reply to I think you’re getting a little too carried away with that spam button

          In the person of one Tammy, human intervention will prevail.

          I read it closely and recognized like issues of my own. I did not notice the “has been reported” until I delved into the responses.

          Martin: Was this youthful, ass hole exuberance?

        • #2968164

          sure

          by .martin. ·

          In reply to Hopefully

          but I really hate Spam, to any extent.

          I’m (sorta) using Ubuntu right now, and sure it is not perfect (I still need to find a display driver so I can use the whole screen).

          but if he had not had included the this is were I downloaded it from, and the link, I would have been fine.

        • #2968146

          So what’s wrong with download links?

          by ontheropes ·

          In reply to sure

          People put download links in discussions, blogs and questions all the time. He’s not trying to sell you anything or promote his own website. I’ve even seen some shameless self promotion that I don’t consider spam. Can’t point out an example at the moment but maybe you just ought to ease off of that spam button a tad. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t make it spam.

          Of course, feel free to do whatever you want. I’m not the boss of you.

        • #2968121

          Credibility now 0 Points

          by the ‘g-man.’ ·

          In reply to sure

          .

        • #2979101

          DELETED

          by brian doe ·

          In reply to Credibility now 0 Points

          Post moved. Somehow ended up in the wrong place. me and my fat fingers! :O

      • #2968127

        How did that qualify as spam?

        by charliespencer ·

        In reply to Post Deleted

        I don’t think it even qualifies as a rant. dcolbert has been around a while and posts on a variety of topics. Just because a post includes a link to an outside site doesn’t make it spam. Spam doesn’t include a negative review of the product.

        The PTBs should let this post remain.

        • #2968105

          Rant was the wrong way to describe this discussion.

          by ontheropes ·

          In reply to How did that qualify as spam?

          It’s the first time I’ve made a mistake since the last time.

        • #2968080

          It was rant-like…

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to Rant was the wrong way to describe this discussion.

          I’d never deny being guilty of having a tendency to rant…

          FWIW, I quit smoking every night when I go to bed, and start again every morning when I wake up. I’ve spent more than half my life as a non-smoker, from this perspective.

        • #2968008

          Yep, me too!

          by tig2 ·

          In reply to It was rant-like…

          I claim partial success that way!

          Good rant though. You made some good points with good supporting information. I love a good rant!

      • #2968108

        A note on spam

        by michael jay ·

        In reply to Post Deleted

        This gentleman;
        http://techrepublic.com.com/5213-6257-0.html?id=2727770&redirectTo=%2f1320-22-20.html

        Once posted the following;

        Please report the following:
        1. Messages about buying products and services that are not relevant to the topic or to IT professionals
        2. Nonsensical strings of text “slkdjfksdjf”
        3. Messages that are obscene or racially-insensitive or contain links to content that is obscene or racially-insensitive
        4. Messages that allow you to access pirated software or other pirated content

        Please do NOT report the following:
        1. Messages suggesting a product or service that actually meets the needs of the original poster. For example, if someone is asking for the best AV app, it is not spam for someone to post a link to an anti-virus product, even if it is their own product.
        2. Messages that you just don’t like. We’re not going to take sides in arguments, so please don’t report something as spam when you just don’t agree.

      • #2968106

        .Martin. is getting carried away

        by boxfiddler ·

        In reply to Post Deleted

        with this grinch nonsense. Even if it were spam, you’d only get two points.

        • #2968078

          Unfortunately

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to .Martin. is getting carried away

          He has successfully derailed the original post, which he clearly marked as spam because of an ideological difference, not for any valid reason.

          But, that alone probably reinforces his tactics in his own mind. Better to ignore his decision to report my post as spam, and instead focus on what an idiot n00b MS-Fanboy I am. 🙂

        • #2968003

          Nah

          by tig2 ·

          In reply to Unfortunately

          There are people watching this thread. I may call you an “idiot n00b MS-Fanboy.” I have known you for awhile and you still refuse to toss your MS systems for the one true platform- CP/M! But I consider your other qualities and love you for them. I feel I can allow you to have an opinion… even if JD thinks it’s wrong.
          😀

          Seriously- people will drive past the spam marker and into the discussion. It’s a good one in light of the growing popularity of the ASUS box. To be honest, I had been thinking about getting one but that bug report thing you mentioned is giving me a rationale to reconsider.

        • #2973637

          I also want one, but the few

          by dumphrey ·

          In reply to Nah

          test models I have seen seemed very poorly built. Is this due to them being floor models with no guts? I guess I could start a new thread on this.

        • #2979669

          Eee PC quality (And netbooks in general)

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to I also want one, but the few

          Heh. I missed this branch of the thread.

          Dude, I’m going to tear out my Atom processor and put in a Z80 instead so I can go back to the true glory that is CP/M on the hardware it was inteded to run upon! Bring on the BDOS errors!

          Anyhow, all of the netbooks get a bad rap for quality of build. With their diminutive size, they feel VERY toylike. The EEE PC is probably one of the worst on initial impression. Yet, once you get used to it, the construction feels pretty solid. I’ve heard the Lenovo called cheap too, and I don’t really get that. Of the two, the fact that the Eee PC is non mechanical (no mechanical hard drive) makes me think it is probably the more solid of the two.

          I think it is really subjective, the opinion on the build quality of a product. This probably would be a good thread to discuss somewhere else. I really like both of the ones I have, and they seem…

          Here. I bought my daughter a low end core duo Acer notebook 15.4″ machine about a year ago. It seems far cheaper to me – for example, there is a lot of flex in the lid/screen area. My Lenovo ThinkPad and HP DV8000 notebooks seem far higher quality.

          My Lenovo feels a lot higher quality than the Acer overall. The Eee PC seems a little better quality, but not greatly… but that is just “quality of material” and “fit and finish”.

    • #2968203

      Sometimes just works sometimes not

      by j-mart ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      Most of the time would rather go to a bit more effot and install Debian. You can always see how it’s going to work for a particular set of hardware or task by seeing how it will work by running live off CD. No one is forcing anyone to use it if they don’t like it. You can at any time purchase your OS from Microsoft any time you want.

    • #2968167

      I tried to install Ubuntu on virtual machine…

      by jkameleon ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      … and it just worked. It made a pretty good impression on me. I know a couple of people who use Ubuntu for their small bussinesses (office, backoffice, web page), and they can’t praise it enough.

      I’m not using it, though, due to lack of fancy development tools like Visual Studio 2005/2008

    • #2968163

      That’s cause

      by jaqui ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      you used Ubuntu.

      PCLinuxOS is actually far better at hardware detection and configuration than Ubuntu.
      Wireless, it will not configure if there is a wired connection though. going into the DrakX control center and adding the wireless is a click, click, click … done procedure.
      [ windows is harder than PCLinuxOS for this. ]

      • #2968111

        Well…

        by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

        In reply to That’s cause

        Ok…

        In order:

        Spam… I didn’t realize that was what .martin had done to the post. Probably just as well…

        The reason I posted the link was so that the inevitable pro-Linux responders would be able to see my source for the install and be able to comment, well informed, on the reasons for my issues. I’m not interested in having a one sided, fanboy argument AGAINST Linux – if there are legitimate issues (Well, you are using Ubuntu 7, you should really be using 8, which addresses those issues), then I’m open to discussing them. I mean, I’d point it out if we had a Linux discussing which was comparing Ubuntu to Windows ME, after all.

        With that said, PCLinuxOS – haven’t tried this distro. The *problem* is that Ubuntu has the most industry buzz and market mind-share. Win32 guys who are going to decide to give *nix a try are MOST likely going to go with Ubuntu. And I’m having DISMAL luck on the “It Just Works” philosophy across a variety of machines. I cut my teeth on Debian Sarge and Potato, so I can see the tremendous progress that has been made. But unless a person likes to do a LOT of reading and tinkering, or has a friend who is a Linux guru, the average Win32 convert is going to go screaming back to Win32 in short order after fighting with Ubuntu “Just Working”.

        For my purposes, I really just want something that is easy to install that I don’t have to dink around with a bunch for my Netbook. I was using my Developers license to run a Dev XP on it, under the justification I was using it for developmental work related duties. But I stopped using it for that reason, so using the MSDN license seemed unethical. Linux was the obvious choice (being that the Xandros distro left me flat). Now, I did consider Debian, but obviously the EEE PC with 4gb of SSD presents some special circumstances. Rather than reinvent the wheel for myself (something that might be beyond my *nix skills, in this case, honestly), I figured I’d find something packaged more directly for the situation I face. The linked page I provided seems to fit the bill perfectly.

        And honestly, for FREE, I’m going to do my best to make it work for me. But that is exactly the point “making it work for me” is *not* the same as It Just Works. If I had a spare license for XP, it would be a much easier route to just install that, have it really Just Work, and be done with it.

        But I’ll look into PCLinuxOS. We’ve discussed this before, and my concern there is that ALL Linux distros are a series of compromise. I played with Xandros – and if I *just* wanted to surf the web and send e-mail (kind of the intended sweet spot of a Netbook), Xandros would probably be fine. But I want to do some media, too… and Xandros starts to fall apart there – in particular it looked like it was going to be a lot of effort to find a codec package and get it installed. On the other hand, I *knew* that the .deb package management of Ubuntu was great… it made it SUPER easy to install the crummy, horrible Codecs that are available in the Ubuntu distro. 🙂

        In much the same way, I wonder what will be the deal-breaker in PCLinuxOS. Difficult Package Management? Spotty hardware support? Lack of high quality codecs? Inability to easily install components to enable a rich web browsing experience? Broken SAMBA/CIFS?

        For a Netbook – I’d like to see an OS that does the following:

        * Supports wireless with no headaches.
        * Supports built in Ethernet
        * Recognizes the Audio
        * Recognizes and works with Media Readers and USB (and devices).
        * Recognizes and supports the video card with full features (desktop eye candy).
        * Has a nice e-mail client that works with web based e-mail and Exchange.
        * Integrates well with Win32 networks (with an emphasis on Workgroup integration over Domain integration)
        * Supports a web client that works with the largest variety of rich-content websites possible.
        * Supports the most popular and widely distributed media formats (Mp3, WMA, Mp4) for audio and video with applications that provide the same kind of features and functions that competitive products for other platforms offer.
        * Delivers all of this, hassle free, without requiring a high level of expertise or interaction “under the hood” with the OS in order to achieve these goals.

        I think this is a reasonable “bare minimum” to expect from an OS that positions itself to compete with either OS X or Win32. And in particular, *especially* one that has picked “It Just Works” as a motto. As far as I can tell, the other Linux distros aren’t making this particular claim. They may claim to be superior to either OS X or Win32 for any NUMBER of reasons – but not THIS particular reason.

        Again, Ubuntu does a remarkable job and has made significant progress toward achieving the list I outline above. But it isn’t there yet, and it misses the mark on some significant points that are likely to be deal breakers for the average Win32 user converting to *nix.

        And I know that one of the arguments is that some of these things (SAMBA, Firefox and 3rd party plugins) are outside of the direct control of the Ubuntu (or any other *nix distro) developers direct control. That is one of the unique problems and challenges for *nix. You’ve got an independent team designing things like Samba, that are critical to the foundation of *nix, and they design it in a generic manner that then gets picked up by any number of different distros and varients. I understand the reason, but that doesn’t make it any *better* that it breaks, over and over again.

        The thing I get from Linux in general, after years of playing with it, on and off again – is that it is like a tinkerer’s OS. The guys working on it tinker, and the guys who use it tinker. I’ve made the analogy to a mechanic’s car before. If you enjoy WORKING on the car as much or more than you enjoy actually DRIVING it, Linux is a great solution. If you just want a daily driver (which is what the MAJORITY of people want), then it isn’t so great.

        • #2968107

          If you give PCLOS a go

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to Well…

          I’d be interested to hear your thoughts in relation to ‘It just works’.

          I read with interest your opening post. I’ve been fiddling with Ubuntu on a desktop for awhile now, and Mint on a laptop. While they haven’t been a nightmare, and I’m relatively satisfied with them, they don’t ‘just work’ ‘out of the box’.

        • #2968074

          Reviews

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to If you give PCLOS a go

          I’ve been doing some research, and I like the LOOK of PCLinuxOS… but I’ve got a few concerns.

          One, it is based on KDE. My experience, KDE is the far more Win32 like Windows Manager of those that are popular today – and PCLinuxOS leverages that effectively – but, KDE apps are far worse in general than Gimp apps in *stability*. The most recently I’ve experienced this is with Kubuntu versus Ubuntu. I don’t like GIMP as far as asthetics, and I really don’t think it is laid out very well, either… but the stability of GIMP apps really trumps KDE’s prettier interface. Gimp, under Ubuntu, has improved considerably too. It used to look horrible and be difficult to use. Now it looks passably decent (outside of Ubuntu’s crap-brown default color schemes) and is laid out a lot more logically.

          The second is that I can only find reviews on the Mini-Me light distro – and having to manually set up networks and apps after a super light base install doesn’t sound like what I had in mind. My goal is LESS time spent doing this and more time being productive.

          But I just started digging into it. If I do give it a shot, I’ll let you know.

        • #2972563

          I think you are mixing names

          by craftamics ·

          In reply to Reviews

          dcolber:

          Ubuntu uses the Gnome desktop manager. Gimp [or GIMP, as it is usually listed] is the Gnu Image Manipulation Program, meant to be the Open Source answer to Adobe Photoshop.

          So, I think you meant to be comparing KDE to Gnome, not Gimp.

        • #2985125

          You are absolutely correct

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to I think you are mixing names

          And someone else caught me IRL doing that today and corrected me.

          I did, indeed mean Gnome, and not GIMP.

          I think it is because I keep seeing GIMP getting so much press as a viable Photoshop alternative lately that I got Gimp stuck in my head.

        • #2985084

          I’ve had good stability with KDE under Mandriva

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to Reviews

          I prefer to stick with 2008.1 for now rather than the newer 2009.0 though. Will PCLinuxOS not allow you to do a minimal install and add GNOME (GNOME and GIMP are the apps, GTK is what they are based on)? I’ve not looked at PCLinuxOS myself yet either so I don’t know how flexable it is. I know I can do a Mandriva custom install in a half hour including 20 minutes form DVD to first boot and ten more minutes letting urpmi install all the extras and updates after a minimal install. That’s just from using for so long that it’s dead simple to work with for me now perhaps though.

          Anyhow, if you do grab a few different liveCD or the Mandriva eeePC install let us know how it goes.

        • #2984876

          Problem with different distros

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to I’ve had good stability with KDE under Mandriva

          Is that I’m inclined to believe that they’re likely to only enhance my frustration. I’m a Debian guy, so Ubuntu should be a fairly comfortable extension of that. When I get into another Distro, I can get by, but it usually means even MORE research, reference, and “under the hood” tinkering.

          So, in that sense – my goal was to have a smooth install that didn’t require a lot of fine tuning. An “It Just Works” install.

          And that is my biggest COMPLAINT. Is that I’ve yet to have an “It Just Works” install of Linux, period.

          Once I popped the hood and got the tool-belt out, I now have Ubuntu humming along pretty nice on the eee PC (short of a few minor complaints, e.g., WPA2). Actually, Ubuntu is operating better on the eee PC than any other previous install I’ve attempted (Well, it might run pretty good on my Lenovo T61, but it dual boots and is my work PC, so I use it mostly in Win32 and I’m not sure if there are a lot of annoyances on the Ubuntu side).

          And, true to the words of the Ubuntu acolytes, I’ve learned a lot more about Ubuntu in this process – my guess is that I’ll be better able to quickly fix issues I encounter on future Ubuntu installs based on the key learning here.

          But I said this elsewhere…

          Ubuntu “It Just Works” Fail. 🙂

          The thing is, going to another distro that I’ve never dealt with before, I can’t imagine it would “Just Work” better, and I think it would be more difficult for me to find, figure out and implement the fixes on a distro I am unfamiliar with.

        • #2985658

          The hardware limits yoru goal also

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to Problem with different distros

          I started with Red Hat and went to Mandrake -> Mandriva so urpmi is very familiar. While I often take a look at various new distrubtion liveCD, digging into Debian like I do with Mandriva has been a recent thing for me. The conversion has not been hard so far though. the biggest stumble for me was installing KDE then figuring out that I had apt-get in xorg behind it. I have a few other things I’m learning to do the Debian way but it’s not been a show stopper.

          Granted, learning a different distro can be adding to your frustration but between Mandriva’s approach to user friendly and the eeePC specific version, it’s the one I’d recommend.

          If your rig is working and you can get through the install steps in under an hour though, your already all set.

        • #2964808

          Distro Juggle

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to Problem with different distros

          I’ll admit, I never got all the way to checking into any non-Debian/Ubuntu based distros, although I planned on it. I burnt all my time trying the various Deb-distros and working through hardware challenges.

          The real shame is that the Eee-PC specific Ubuntu distros all had significant problems. If any should be expected to “Just Work”, it should have been those. Ultimately, I ended up with 8.10 with a nice script to clean things up and unlock “broken” functions.

          But on 7.0.4 and 8.10, I can get either of them humming in under an hour on an EeePC now (and get them humming on a Lenovo S10 in even less time. Ubuntu 8.10 really JUST works on this particular machine).

          8.10, also resolves some of the outstanding operational issues… e.g., the codecs for MP4 video don’t have the weird green artifacts, from what I’ve seen so far.

          So ultimately, Ubuntu will be a very useful and practical OS for me on my netbooks, and I’ll probably just stick with it. The problem is that it DID take me a long time to get to that point – and THAT is going to prevent Ubuntu from achieving a goal of being a desktop OS alternative for the MASSES. That is my real point of debate here. I’ve come to the conclusion, Linux is not, and probably will not be a desktop OS alternative for the mass audience, and it probably shouldn’t be. It serves the role it serves well enough, and there is a lot of compromise involved in it becoming “that other thing”. In that sense, I think I can be a content Linux user without feeling a need to witness or promote Linux, especially to those who probably shouldn’t be using it. If anything, selling someone on Linux who SHOULDN’T be using it is only going to hurt the reputation of Linux.

          With the Lenovo becoming my workhorse netbook, the Eee PC will become my testing PC for playing with interesting distros or other “lab” type environments. To that end, I’ll probably blow off the Ubuntu on it now and play around with some of the other OSes in the future. I’d like to play around with Xandros with advanced desktop on, and with PCLinuxOS for Eee PC – and maybe some others. I’d really like to spend the time to get a working Hackintosh running on it at some time – just for the “Mac Air for under $300” value. 🙂

        • #2968100

          I went with SimplyMepis myself

          by tony hopkinson ·

          In reply to Well…

          Tht picked up my wireless no problem. Had to pick the host and do the security, but other than that it was OK.

          If did have problems for some reason with the install picking up the existing XP. Wouldn’t mount the NTFS device.
          Might have been because of other distros I’d tried or Lilo to Grub….

          Also having fun with samba to my vista box, which I keep picking at from time to time.

          All distros are indeed compromises, Ubuntu is not a compromise I favour. I literally refuse to try it. If I wanted something ‘so like windows I wouldn’t notice’, I’d use windows, saves messing about.

          Linux is a tinkerer’s OS, Ubuntu is not a tinkerers distro though. I want to tinker, so no Ubuntu.

          Your argument founders on one key point, the users Ubuntu aims at do not do installs, no more than they do windows, which can be just as much of a compromise and a pain as Ubuntu, though perhaps in other areas.

          After all running a mixed Vista and XP environment is vastly unamusing in places, no reason why throwing any linux distro into the mix is going to make things easier.

        • #2968070

          Samba and others

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to I went with SimplyMepis myself

          “All distros are indeed compromises, Ubuntu is not a compromise I favour. I literally refuse to try it. If I wanted something ‘so like windows I wouldn’t notice’, I’d use windows, saves messing about.”

          Well, then this conversation probably doesn’t have any value for you – because I’m approaching this from the perspective of people who are interested in a very Win32 like environment without the Win32 licensing or cost issues. No disrespect intended. Your conclusion is probably right, though. If you want a Win32 environment, Linux probably isn’t the right choice. It has already been done, it is called Windows. 🙂

          “Linux is a tinkerer’s OS, Ubuntu is not a tinkerers distro though. I want to tinker, so no Ubuntu.”

          Funny, because when I was into Debian, it was *the* tinkerer’s distro. I can’t imagine that Ubuntu isn’t. I mean, back in the day I used to have to always go into the Xfree.conf file and edit the PS3 mouse switch and the supported video resolutions and monitor type, had to install and configure TrueType fonts (or FreeType or…) recompile the kernal for your PCI wireless, audio, and countless other small things… Being that Ubuntu is Debian under the hood, I can’t see how it COULDN’T support this kind of tinkering under the hood if you were so inclined.

          “Your argument founders on one key point, the users Ubuntu aims at do not do installs, no more than they do windows, which can be just as much of a compromise and a pain as Ubuntu, though perhaps in other areas.”

          Not sure I understand this. Could you elaborate? They do not do installs? The OS, or Apps? I’ve got a feeling that you have a particular concept of what “doing an install” is that doesn’t mesh with the commonly accepted vision of “doing an install” in the industry.

          I also don’t feel that Win32 makes me accept compromises (other than PAYING for something that I would rather be free, and paying MORE for it than I think it should actually cost). As far as delivering what I want to do and doing it reliably and well, Win32 excels.

          “After all running a mixed Vista and XP environment is vastly unamusing in places, no reason why throwing any linux distro into the mix is going to make things easier.”

          Back around Potato and Sarge, Samba connectivity was excellent with a Win32 environment. Then XP, especially Home, and W2k AD really broke the NT4 LanMan model – and you’re right, it broke it between NT4 and XP/W2k machines as much as with *nix machines running SAMBA. Since then, it has been on again/off again for reliability and ease of configuration, but worse for Linux and FreeBSD than for anything else, including, for example, OS X.

          I don’t have these SAMBA/CIFS integration issues with OS X. Why?

        • #2968024

          Ubuntu like windows is for the off the shelf

          by tony hopkinson ·

          In reply to Samba and others

          market, well in my opinion anyway. The people it’s designed for are looking for someone like me or thee to have set it up for them.

          How can windows not be a compromise?. Even if they designed and set it up for you, they can’t have done it for me as well can they?

          My samba issues have all been with Vista, XP it works fine……

          Who broke what is an open question to me. I’ve been in the keep up with MS’s changes game software wise for a long time, and it’s a right PIA.

          But again, if you were ‘selling’ a distro to take the place of windows in a basic home user setting, why would samba be a concern?

          Can’t even be that important for me, seeing as I haven’t bothered to get it working yet.

          Perhaps you are still judging Ubuntu against a more (or perhaps less :p ) specialised need for that which it was designed.

          If you went into a retail outfit (given you could find one), and bought one already set up your impression of it’s effectiveness in that market might change. Pre-installed from retailers is a huge advantage for MS.

          I don’t think people like us are a good test for this sort of thing, you need to buy compliant hardware for the distro, set up and then give it to Aunty Em, see what she makes of it.

        • #2968004

          I see your points… but…

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to Ubuntu like windows is for the off the shelf

          Regarding compromise, it is in the nature of the compromise. I suppose that the compromise in Win32 is that it is not highly customizable at the Kernel level. Again, I’ll use the daily-driver grocery getter. The thing is, that compromise, the Grocery Getter, is “no effective compromise” for the vast majority of the people who want a car. In the same way, Win32 Grocery Getter design is “no compromise” for the vast majority of people who want an OS. It does all the basics that they want on a very competent level with very little hassle. Trojans and Malware aside. (Given that trojans and malware are probably the most common disruption of satisfaction with Win32).

          Well, who broke what isn’t really that important. Ultimately, Linux interfacing with Win32 networks on Win32’s terms is what is important. If Microsoft “breaks” it (which they do), but your Win32 machines and OS X machines still all talk to each other, but Linux won’t talk anymore, Linux *looks* responsible.

          Look at SAMBA speed right now, on FreeBSD 6.x in particular, I don’t know about FreeBSD 7, but also to a lesser extent with Linux. This is absolutely a SAMBA issue – because Win32 to Win32 is relatively fine Win32 to OS X and back is relatively fine (with OS X being SUPER efficient), but just about anything to Linux or FreeBSD via SAMBA/CIFS having a horrible hit. A quick search of the online forums or google will illustrate this. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter who has broken what, the fact that Linux and SAMBA have trouble playing well with Win32 only hurts Linux. (Issues become very noticable on gb networks and Intel Pro Set NICs seem to go a long way to compensating for the issue).

          Most homes have a workgroup network set up sharing a common broadband connection, these days. And most home users have shared printers and shared storage on the network. Most networks you’re going to encounter are going to be Win32 based. So SAMBA should absolutely be a concern for a “Win alternative contender”.

          I’m judging Ubuntu as a contender for Easy to Install and Use Desktop OS alternative for home and small office. It seems to me that this is what it is marketed towards. Maybe I’m wrong.

          Xandros and the other Netbook OSes are designed to be these OEM pre-installed solutions. They’re not working (See my other thread, 5 reasons why Linux is failing – re: 4:1 return ratios for Linux based netbooks versus WinXP netbooks). Linux has huge inherent disadvantages as a desktop alternative aimed at consumers.

          While Win32 certainly has a HCL that Microsoft Support will use against you if you have problems, the truth is that the majority of NON HCL hardware works fine with Win32. With Ubuntu, when they say “this is non compliant and may not work, or won’t work well, or won’t have certain features”, they *mean* it… and a LOT of *common* hardware is non Ubuntu HCL. It isn’t as bad as trying to build a custom PC to be a Hackintosh, but it is still pretty severe.

          Either way, Aunty Em has been getting OEM installed Linux Desktop OS netbooks, and she has been returning 4 of them for every 1 XP netbook that gets returned. So, I feel like we already have the numbers. As a matter of fact, the unsuitability of Xandros is what drove me to install Ubuntu on this Eee PC in the first place.

          I mean, just an alternative perspective on the points you bring up. This is certainly a “two-sided coin” kind of discussion.

        • #2968028

          Comes down to Hardware

          by j-mart ·

          In reply to Well…

          The “just works” comes down to wether or not your particular hardware has been intergrated into your particular choice of Linux distro. some manufacture’s provide required info, some good driver’s, some nothing. If the industry all followed well defined standards it may make intergration of new hardware much simpler

        • #2968001

          And to be fair

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to Comes down to Hardware

          Especially at the Win32 server level, the HCL starts to get more important…

          But the breadth of support for non HCL hardware in Win32 environments is something that Linux just seems hard pressed to compete with, in my experience. The closest that gap ever got was when Vista was first released and had poor hardware support, and even then, I bet Vista hardware support was still broader than the “best” Linux distros.

          If the industry all followed well defined standards, we would all own Macs. It is how well you handle non-standards. 🙂

          At least… well…

          OS X has a built in advantage (outside of the Hackintosh world. Oddly enough, though, you start using OS X like “any old OS” and it starts having more problems than EITHER Linux or Win32) in that the hardware and OS integration is tight and controlled with an iron fist.

          Linux tries to compete on an open architecture platform – and Win32 just has a giant lead there, and years of experience dealing with the difficulities introduced by such a model.

          Again, it may not be the FAULT of Linux, but it is what Linux has to compete with and against, in either case.

        • #2973644

          Linux has a huge list of supported hardware

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to And to be fair

          “the breadth of support for non HCL hardware in Win32 environments is something that Linux just seems hard pressed to compete with”

          This is a measure of how much hardware works with the OS not how well the newest hardware works with the OS though. In terms of how much hardware each supports, Windows pales in comparison. A quick look at the supported hardware in the kernel can confirm that for you.

          Each platform does somethings better than the other. Windows gets the newest hardware by virtue of the vendor providing drivers for it themselves. Linux gets the longer list of hardware though. How many processor architectures does Windows (kernel plus drivers) run on vs Linux (kernel alone)? Will the NT kernel still boot on a 286, it’s not hard to setup a Linux kernel and minimal user space on hardware that old.

          How is Vista doing for supporting older hardware? What was the last bit of hardware that Linux dropped support for? It’s just not as simple as all that to measure really.

        • #2985117

          Splitting hairs

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to Linux has a huge list of supported hardware

          Man, when we start talking, “I can run the latest Linux on a PC 5150 or a NEC V10” (go ahead, google it or head over to Wikipedia and search… 🙂 )

          Or that Linux supports ST, Mac 68k, Sparc and Amiga… (do they still, probably some variant does)…

          I mean… I’m all yawns. This isn’t *relevant*, especially in the terms of this discussion. I start thinking about under-employed, highly intelligent, dumpster diving and Goodwill prowling uber-nerds with a Sailor Moon fetish whenever the conversation goes this way.

          I mean, I can ALWAYS pull out DOS 5 and Win 3.11 for a 286 if we really want to go 20 years back in the development cycle. And you’re certainly not going to be running Ubuntu or Kubuntu with Compiz on the 286. You’re probably not even going to be running XWindows with a uber lite windows manager. You’re going to be running a CLI and maybe Lynx. This retort is a non-starter, Neon.

          I mean, just talking along these lines made me have a memory of riding my BMW down to Shakey’s Pizza to play Zaxxon in the arcade. Seriously – a *vivid* memory. How relevant IS that? (Wow… that was some sort of Freudian slip. I meant “riding my BMX down to Shakey’s”. Talk about being subconciously honest with yourself).

          For all intents and purposes, if we crawl all the way back to NT4, a 386 will run it, and that is as effective as installing a latest/greatest Linux on a 386. A 386 is about the farthest back I would consider a PC “modern” (assuming a 32 bit machine, at that… no 386SX). I mean, I’ve got a nice Windows smart phone, but even your basic FREE phone from Verizon has more computational power than a 386.

          Sorry to rant on this, but this one is just a fallacy – especially in the context of “Linux winning a bigger share of the Desktop OS market by being more friendly, i.e., It Just Works”.

        • #2968007

          to address each point

          by jaqui ·

          In reply to Well…

          Yup, Ubuntu has the buzz, and I have actually laughed when people ask me to help with Ubuntu systems, put PCLOS livecd in and their “problems” went away.

          For my own use, none of the prebuilt distros meets my needs, they are all bloated to heck.

          * Supports wireless with no headaches.

          a lot of this is there, with those chipsets that don’t have bins for the kernel. the ones that do you have to get and install the bins in /lib/firmware.

          * Supports built in Ethernet
          a gimme, I have yet to find built in wired network card not supported with any distro I’ve looked at.

          * Recognizes the Audio
          driver conflict with this one, multiple driver options for sound cards make it hard to support sound properly. Though most distros do default to the best driver for any particular card.

          * Recognizes and works with Media Readers and USB (and devices).
          work at the very least as mass storage devices

          * Recognizes and supports the video card with full features (desktop eye candy).

          yup, PCLOS installs the bloatware eye candy stuff by default.

          * Has a nice e-mail client that works with web based e-mail and Exchange.

          Thunderbird.

          * Integrates well with Win32 networks (with an emphasis on Workgroup integration over Domain integration)

          trick: install samba server, configured for standalone use and add yourself to samba users. do not have samba server start at boot unless you want to share a folder on the system.

          * Supports a web client that works with the largest variety of rich-content websites possible.

          the bloated firefox fits that bill.

          * Supports the most popular and widely distributed media formats (Mp3, WMA, Mp4) for audio and video with applications that provide the same kind of features and functions that competitive products for other platforms offer.

          yup, PCLOS does that.

          * Delivers all of this, hassle free, without requiring a high level of expertise or interaction “under the hood” with the OS in order to achieve these goals.

          Yeah, Mandriva’s DrakX tools give you a windows-like control panel that makes it possible to reach this.

          While PCLinusOS is based on Mandriva, they put Synaptic in for the package manager, so it’s the more familiar apt-get system .. with rpms. :/

          look for the mini me iso for pclos, it’s the smallest footprint system, may actually fit on the netbook.

        • #2967995

          An excellent point so I’m going to highlight it

          by tig2 ·

          In reply to Well…

          Quote from dcolbert:

          The *problem* is that Ubuntu has the most industry buzz and market mind-share. Win32 guys who are going to decide to give *nix a try are MOST likely going to go with Ubuntu. And I’m having DISMAL luck on the “It Just Works” philosophy across a variety of machines. I cut my teeth on Debian Sarge and Potato, so I can see the tremendous progress that has been made. But unless a person likes to do a LOT of reading and tinkering, or has a friend who is a Linux guru, the average Win32 convert is going to go screaming back to Win32 in short order after fighting with Ubuntu “Just Working”.

          End quote.

          The statement that I really think is important is about Win32 guys and the tolerance for pain in working with an unfamiliar OS. if there is even a remote dream that Linux will see wider adoption, we have to move to close the rift between the hard core MS users and the hard core Linux users. I know a bunch of support guys that are using both and teaching themselves new stuff. I think that it is important to hear them out when they say that such and such is more support than I care to do or I can’t get satisfactory information when I go to the various boards.

          Open source proponents need to quit hearing “Long Live Microsoft” every time a support guy with long years supporting an MS network says he is frustrated and struggling with Linux. The fact that he’s trying says everything.

          The future of computing is likely to be more OS agnostic. I think there is a good chance that we will see more Linux in the corporate environment- cost being a key factor if this recession goes as some think. Better to learn now and be ready for anything.

          Edit- extra word

        • #2967989

          Wow…

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to An excellent point so I’m going to highlight it

          Exactly.

          Seriously. My entire point. You nailed it.

          “RTFM Noob” doesn’t cut it. Listen to them and close the gap and make it better. The Linux community *has*, in all honesty, but you’ve got a ways to go still.

          But yeah, that is absolutely my point here.

          I want to use Linux, I keep trying to use Linux, and I make an extra effort that most of my peers would NEVER try – and *I* end up frustrated and often go with Win32 instead.

          If that doesn’t change, *nix is always going to be a fringe player.

          Which may be fine, actually. But, I’d certainly like to see it go the other way, and actually make a significant impact on the market.

        • #2967979

          I see change coming

          by tig2 ·

          In reply to Wow…

          You made a point in another post that spoke to why. Companies need to save money. Near as I can tell, nothing is off the table, every possibility will be considered. If the company is paying a yearly fee to MS for the OS and they can deploy a solution enterprise wide or even mostly enterprise wide that costs less, they will look at that really hard.

          This is a place where the Open Source folks need to wake up a bit. Yes, there is a corporate Red Hat out there that is significantly less to license. The license, I believe, pays for support.

          The hinge point will always be Total Cost of Ownership. If I have to hire additional support staff because calls take so much longer to resolve that my end user’s productivity is harmed, then I have to consider how expensive “free” is.

          Closing the gap is really the issue.

          Good on you for being proactive with Linux. I think it will pay off for you.

        • #2964747

          agreed

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to I see change coming

          I think it is more likely that Linux popularity in business will fall on it’s face competely because users will be too concerned with job security and other problems, to be able to learn a new opperating system. And any change that big costs a lot of money, not to mention any windows software that is almost guranteed not to work on Linux.

          However, homeuser usage may spike because people don’t want to dish out money to MS for the OS. Also when Windows 7 is released and flops out and anouys people, there will be yet another spike.

          Basically I see business use flatlining, and home uses going up in the future. (linux will always be the prefered choice for web servers, so no worries there)

        • #2973640

          hehe.. true, Ubuntu is the popular kid but not the best kid

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to An excellent point so I’m going to highlight it

          It works towards it’s project goals and is evolving quickly but there are other distributions that have been at it longer and do a better job of it. Ubuntu is just another example of the power of marketing.

        • #2973629

          But at least its getting some marketing out there.

          by dumphrey ·

          In reply to hehe.. true, Ubuntu is the popular kid but not the best kid

          while not perfect, at least people may try it, and maybe try another distro until they find their favorite. But most dedicated win users will probably not want to make the switch if they have to learn/re-learn too much.

          I think Linux needs to do a lot of work on standardizing on a package type and management system other then compile from code if it really wants to saturate the win32 market. As well as standardizing where files are located (example apache root dir across all distros).
          But, overall, as smooth as Linux has become, it has a long way to go to reach the plug and play of win. (There are exceptions to all rules, so no flames here plz). Worth considering, is the learning curve on Linux can also lead to a more informed and educated computer user, and hopefully, a safer user on the internet, no matter what platform they use, through a general computing skill bleed-over and security awareness. (major improvements in SELinux usability would be a huge plus as well…)

        • #2972818

          absolutely, it’s great that the platform family is getting out there

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to But at least its getting some marketing out there.

          Connonical has also done a lot so far outside of advertising like the media codec deal.

          But saturating the win32 market is not the goal of all platforms based on Linux either. The distributions that do persue that goal will keep evolving while other distributions will fit there own goals and user needs.

        • #2964805

          Sorry its taken so long to get back…

          by dumphrey ·

          In reply to absolutely, it’s great that the platform family is getting out there

          And you are right about each OS needing to play to its strength and evolve in their own direction (SPARC, PPC, Alpha, what have you). But some saturation is needed to get Linux into the mainstream of acceptance. Like it or not, the win32 desktop (it SHOULD be win64 by now, ) is the dominate force. I would like to go to a computer shop and be asked “Win, Lin, or Mac on that sir?”
          Overall, having more users aware of viable alternatives is not really a bad thing. As long as those users are not being sold a Win Clone… but are aware that its a different OS and what that entails.

        • #2964771

          Speaks to my basic frustration –

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to absolutely, it’s great that the platform family is getting out there

          I think the problem that I sumbled onto while I was trying different distros is the lack of centralized organization in the *nix/tux community.

          By that I mean, Microsoft has a strong organizational structure, so does Apple, saying, “THIS is the direction we are headed in”, and that is more or less reflected throughout these organizations. The strength in this is that everyone is working toward a common direction and goal.

          The Linux community is anarchy. A good project may wither on the vine simply because the guy heading it had a kid or is going through a divorce. Another project in competition may not be as good, but may become dominant just because it has more support behind it, for whatever random reason. Finding a trustworthy opinion on which way to go is also a crapshoot – You may get horrible advice from a well-meaning idiot who SOUNDS credible, or you may just not google across the GREAT advice and assistance from a true guru.

          THAT model will never work for a general consumption OS. It may have a lot of subtle advantages – but being easily applicable to a general audience of home/small office desktop users isn’t one of them. And if I were a vendor or builder, the support headaches associated with that would ALWAYS make me shy away from offering Linux. I might offer BARE systems that you can install whatever you WANT (unsupported), on – but even then, from a small retail perspective, there are a ton of headaches with that. e.g., “My Wireless doesn’t work, and I want a hardware warranty repair on my machine” – turns out that you end up having a tech spend hours to determine that the consumer’s version of Linux doesn’t support the wireless chipset he bought. Who is responsible for that? What does it matter if at the end you have a dissatisfied customer bad-mouthing your sales and service because they picked the wrong machine and put the wrong OS on it?

        • #2964728

          FOSS is darwinism

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to absolutely, it’s great that the platform family is getting out there

          A good project that attracts developers will grow and evolve until a project better at those functions succeeds it. The Linux kernel could be dropped if something better came along fitting into that function (maybe HURD will get a billion dollar grant with no strings attached).

          OpenOffice seems to be loosing steam so we’ll see if a fork of OOo or another suite entirely replaces it.

          The anarchy across the entire community is probably not much worse than the anarchy across the entire win32 or Apple community. Those later two have there own central authorities that keep the os development on track but each is only concerned with a single OS or group of OS versions. In the same way, Red Hat and the other distribution developers keep there own OS on it’s own track. The fact that development goals differ from distribution to distribution is not an issue since each is a separate entity. As for the individual distro goals. Debian Stable speaks for itself. Ubuntu continued to evolve towards an unscary different for regular users though installing by hand is always going to present issues that a preinstalled OS won’t. Mandriva’s EEE version would be interesting to try after Xandros and PCLinuxOS though in the case of PCL your getting .deb back end with mandriva’s draketools on top.

          Overselling is definately a risk though. Just as many people have been sold 2000k gaming rigs and a 500$ OS for checking there email, I’m sure more than a few EEE consumers have been rushed to the checkout before finding out if they need a notebook with embedded OS or platform for a specific application or game. Bumping sales figures by pushing units out the door without considering the consumer needs helps no one.

        • #2964672

          Problems with Software Darwinism

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to absolutely, it’s great that the platform family is getting out there

          As it relates to Linux, anyhow, is development cycle is too erratic and slow – no capital incentive. A labor of love is often neglected, labor for wage is tied to quality of life.

          MythTV would be a great example. I’ve been an avid BeyondTV Win32 proponent after months of trying to wait for MythTV to mature, years ago. It didn’t develop fast enough and I needed something stable, reliable, and intuitive THEN. I’ve heard great things about MythTV now, and I know BeyondTV faltered at one point. Difference is, BeyondTV corrected *quickly* because sales were tied to perception of quality. MythTV has a casual, laid back development cycle. That doesn’t work for me for my application of a PVR/DVR.

          Open Office has *never* seemed to have much promise to me. When I first played with it, it was, frankly, horrible. Hopping from distro-site to distro-site in South America, from month to month. Sun never really seemed interested in actually growing it, once they had acquired it.

          The problems that plague Ubuntu right now or recently – including ATI graphics issues, wireless issues, broken Flash plug-ins… they are all issues that would get top priority in the Win32 or OS X world, but they kind of languish on Linux. At least, that has been my perception. Apple releases a broken iTunes, and the buzz gets loud, and it is fixed QUICKLY.

          The Samba/CIFS issue with FreeBSD on gb Nics has been public knowledge for months and months, and I haven’t seen a lot of incentive displayed to correct it.

          It is just different. If all three evolve, Linux evolves like a shark or turtle.

          🙂

        • #2978872

          I’d love to see hardware interface specs open to all major platforms

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to absolutely, it’s great that the platform family is getting out there

          self motivation can be powerful than wage slavery.

          I?m sure it?s not true in all cases but I?d put my money on the self motivated developers who choose to work on projects of interest over the one?s assigned a project and a deadline to reach a pay cheque. I?d much rather a project I happen to get paid for versus an assignment motivated only by the pay; I?ve tried both. Even if the developers are passionate about the project, they still have a deadline, limited time and limited resources on a wage gig. The projects that interest bug money get attention from paid resources also; the kernel being a good example still.

          It does mean that projects less interesting to developers get left out like MythTV. I?d like to see more development in the area of tv tuners and apps myself. In the case of BeyondTV, users would be out of luck had they not self corrected. Us Longbow2 game lovers are in that very position, the original developer is long gone though the game is far from dead. With a custom built rig or some hacks, one can get the game running but there is still interest. Heck, if I could afford to by the source and release it that?s probably the one program I?d choose.

          OpenOffice seems to be having a number of problems recently. The majority seem Sun induced by holding development back and alienating any developers that do take interest in the project. Jack has an article about it out in the last few days.

          The SSH issue got a lot of attention from Debian developers once discovered but it has a lot more important for the platform than CIFS support. That would be my guess anyhow. Microsoft would be all over a CIFS issue like the Vista one that potentially ate files in transfer but they?re still tip-toeing around security design issues. Linux supported USB and Bluetooth standards faster, MS and Apple support other hardware bits faster. In some areas it balances out. In some areas it still out of whack (GPU support, ATI specs are finaly open but the module is playing catchup. I still need ndsiwrapper for my Linksys wrt54G pcmcia but the tinkpad NIC is supported natively.)

          I?d really like to see what the three OS could do with published interface specs. Apple supports it?s hardware plus the BSD list. Microsoft get?s bleeding edge drivers from vendors for gaming hardware. Linux supports the hardware it knows about and reverse-engineer?s support for hostile hardware as best it can. What if all three gained equal access to the info to write drivers?

        • #2973736

          Have you tried XUbuntu?

          by twindragon99 ·

          In reply to Well…

          I started out running the G on Ubuntu but then I installed X on an old IBM think pad for my wife who is practically illiterate when it comes to computers and she loves it, I had no issues with flash and all drivers including the third party no name wireless card was auto installed for me, the only thing i did after the install was to install media codecs as you mentioned as well.

          At the end of it all you are right to say that “just works” really doesn’t fit as there is still no perfect install, but I still run into XP setups on “supported hardware” that force me to download up to 20 different drivers before I can use it. so XP it seems doesn’t “just work” either though I guess Bill never made that claim 🙂

        • #2964766

          Did try Xubuntu

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to Have you tried XUbuntu?

          Actually, an EEE specific Xubuntu, I believe. And it did install well, but no wireless. The PC701 wireless seems to be one of the more challenging wireless NICs for Ubuntu (although Wireless in general seems to be a bit of a challenge for Ubuntu across the board – much like ATI chipset GPUs are a monkey-wrench for Ubuntu).

          I’m not a fan of the Xfce Windows Manager. Actually, it LOOKED pretty nice on the eee PC as a Win32 look alike interface.

          There was some major “dealbreaker” for me beyond the wireless and the Xfce interface, though – I just can’t remember what it was.

          I installed 5 or 6 different distros about a dozen times total in the last 5 days during Christmas vacation. So I can’t remember all the details of those candidates that didn’t make the grade. 🙂

    • #2968055

      I’ve had a positive experience with Ubuntu.

      by the_fixer ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      I am a Windows admin and I have used Windows almost exclusively in a business environment and I had always had the believe that *nix desktops would not catch on. I had played around with multiple distributions but I cannot say that I have ever really achieved any real level of comfort. Well, like most every other business, we are feeling the pinch of the economic downturn and my department has begun to look for alternatives to save some money. We have already implemented a VM solution on the server side. I have read some reviews on this site regarding the Ubuntu distro and I decided to give it a try. I have to say that I have been impressed. Now granted, I am running this on older hardware (Dell D505 laptop) but I had no issues with hardware detection and configuration even with the network browser and wireless. It was easy to configure and setup even for a self admitted Linux novice like me.

      I will give the PCLinuxOS a try as well as per Jaqui’s recommendation.

      We have begun to look at a possible desktop replacement for our programmers and providing them with a virtual Windows desktop so that they can continue to use .NET for their programming.

      I hope to have a pilot program in place by the second quarter of 2009.

      • #2968005

        .net

        by jaqui ·

        In reply to I’ve had a positive experience with Ubuntu.

        is criminal you know. :p

        actually, openSuse and Mandriva both include Mono, the open source version of .net.

        you can write your bloatware even in Linux with Mono.
        [ just don’t expect me to use it, the .net framework is grounds to ignore any app. ]

        • #2964668

          agreed, .net = fail

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to .net

          I won’t even touch an application that requires .net to be installed, I keep that junk off my computer. .net is just another bloated layer for micrsoft programs to be coded on and it prevents apps from being run on different OS’s, even different Windows OS’s.

          We actually have clients running Windows 95, so no .net for them, we code in VB6 for them.

          Also for many of my projects, I needed an EXE to run to actually install .net, I chose VB6 for this again as its requirements come built into XP. It’s kind of like the perfect solution, use VB6 for all your windows programming needs and ditch .net, yes its not object oriented, but you can code in an object oriented way if you actually want to, VB6 just doesn’t enforce it on you. Also form quirks are pretty irritating (like if you check if a form is loaded, the check itself will actually load the form).

          Actually for anything non visual, we use VBS :).

        • #2770123

          .NET = Brilliant

          by iposner ·

          In reply to agreed, .net = fail

          So you’re running Win95 and coding in VB6 in 2008? This is the posting of a dinosaur – the surprising thing is that (from reading your profile) you’re quite inexperienced, but jaded already. Not a good trait in our business.

          Firstly, .NET is not “bloat” – it offers a range of functionality and deployment options that could only be dreamed of in VB, so you’re not comparing apples-with-apples. And since .NET is broken down into many DLLs, you don’t have to load the whole CLR in order to run an app (as if…)

          Secondly, if you actually had some serious real-world .NET experience, you’d find that the strong typing combined with the rich CLR API would slash your development time and associated costs. And these savings alone would pay for you to upgrade quite a few workstations to Vista-grade machines.

          Since you only graduated in 2007, I’ll give you some extremely useful advice — go get a job with a company that has budget to use today’s technology, not that of yesteryear. Otherwise you’ll be stuck in Win95 world for longer than you might imagine.

        • #2978728

          man, jaqui

          by jck ·

          In reply to .net

          i wish i lived up there. i’d love to pick your brain on weekends.

          i am gonna get openSUSE and try that, since I have been MS oriented for 15 years.

          I am moving into Java/JS/XML tho, so I am seeing the light! Now all I gotta do is learn a Linux-based GUI well enough to write code for Linux lol

      • #2968000

        Ubuntu

        by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

        In reply to I’ve had a positive experience with Ubuntu.

        I explored this as well, and found too many issues where Ubuntu was a non-starter.

        It was close, far better than it has been in the past – but there were JUST enough deal-breakers that popped up that we killed the project early.

        I’d love to have the OPTION of an open license alternative that met all my corporate needs. But it isn’t there, yet.

      • #2989594

        Why .NET?

        by brian doe ·

        In reply to I’ve had a positive experience with Ubuntu.

        “We have begun to look at a possible desktop replacement for our programmers and providing them with a virtual Windows desktop so that they can continue to use .NET for their programming.”

        Please forgive my ignorance; I am still relatively new to the programming scene (currently taking a Java course in college); but, why .NET? Why not a cross-platform solution like Java or Mono? Are there any particular advantages to .NET that a more open language doesn’t have?

    • #2968012

      Must be just you ;)

      by linuxcanuck1 ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      I have installed Ubuntu many times on desktops and my eeePC. Every version of Ubuntu from 7.04 to 8.10 has installed flawlessly. On my eeePC 900 the wireless just works. So does the camera.

      In Ubuntu, I have never had to hunt for a driver. When I install Ubuntu, I am done in 20 minutes. When I install XP, it takes an hour and then I have to spend hours shovelling in CDs and driver disks.

      Do people have problems with Ubuntu or any other distribution? Sure. They do in XP and Vista, too. As for the Mac, it is a closed system. Proprietary everything. When you control all of the variables, then it would be surprising if things did not work.

      It is a continuum. On one end you have free (as in liberty) software and open architecture and on the other extreme you have DRM and closed everything (Apple). Microsoft is somewhere in between, but things work better only because of their cozy relationship with OEMs. It all depends on what you want in an operating system.

      In my experience, Ubuntu is no better and no worse than most up-to-date operating systems. If you are trying to get old equipment to work then you will have problems in any OS. You need the original disks in Windows or you have to hunt for drivers and good luck if it is hard to find. Linux may or not support it if it is old. The Mac OS certainly won’t install on anything but Apple equipment (legally anyway) in the first place so it is therefore likely that peripherals will work if it came with an Apple computer. If it is really new then you will need the latest driver disk for Vista or you may be out of luck. In Linux you may have to wait till the next kernel is released. C’est la vie.

      BTW, have you heard of the class action lawsuit against Microsoft for its Vista capable programme?

      You are comparing apples to oranges.

      • #2967991

        Apples to Oranges

        by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

        In reply to Must be just you ;)

        I admit the “Apple Advantage” elsewhere in this thread.

        The EEE PC 701 isn’t exactly ancient. Do your F keys work – disabling WiFi? Did you always have the MadWIFI drivers or did you use the ndiswrapper for the WiFi at some point? These little issues, that I *know* about them and *have* to know about them to get things working as they should, are a bother – a bother that you don’t have to concern yourself with in Win32.

        I think this is where there is a disconnect though – your perspective is probably based in (possibly large) part on ideology and philosophy. Mine isn’t. Mine is based on efficiency and peak effectiveness. When people start talking about “Free as in Liberty” software, there is an implied set of ideals, of morals and ethics that defines all the other choices that an individual makes from that core belief system.

        Most people don’t give an eff about that. They just want their powerpoint slides to work.

        Now, the way I see it, The Win32 people never made this a war over “who is best and who will steal market share from who”. That all came from the Linux side of the argument. Win32 was never concerned about stealing market share from Linux, making inroads into Linux dominated segments of the industry. You’ve never seen an article, “Will Win32 upset the Linux dominance of the Desktop” or “When do you plan on migrating from Linux to Win32”.

        So if I’m comparing apples to oranges, I’m only following a well established tradition started by Linux advocates.

        Which I’ve mentioned before – the Linux advocates seem perfectly content to argue how Linux is superior to Win32, from the earliest days…

        But when you start making comparissons back that find Linux unfavorably positioned, they OFTEN trot out this “You can’t compare them, they’re different”.

        Well… which is it? I’m puzzled. Can you compare them, or can’t you? If you can’t, I expect the Linux community to immediately STOP comparing itself to Win32. Apples and Oranges, after all.

        😀

        • #2973638

          I don’t know who fired the first shot

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to Apples to Oranges

          It’s kind of hard not be get defensive with Balmer denouncing FOSS as a cancer or the enevitable fanboys that break in to Linux discussions to proclaim how wonderful there personal choice is. Same goes the other way too, Windows discussions enevitably get crashed by zealotry that only want to hear themselves repeat there prefered choice over and over. Lest we forget Cult of Mac.. they turn up too.

          The X vs Y has been going on forever though. Before Microsoft was a twinkle in the Gates dormroom, it was CP/M vs something else. vi vs Emacs. Windows vs Apple.. there is always something.

    • #2968011

      I’ve previously used Red Hat

      by jiminpa ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      I tried Ubuntu once, I found that as long as you just want to load it up and use it as is it works ok. Any customization I attempted was an exercise in extreme frustration.

      Red Hat is a little less user friendly to the non-techie user but it works so much better.

    • #2967985

      It just works?

      by andrewchristiandc ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      You definitely have a point about Ubuntu. Sometimes it requires quite a lot of configuration to get features to work and I agree with what you’re saying, in principle.

      But in practice try building a custom server out of an XP installation and then try building one out of an ubuntu installation.

      Then tell me which one just works?

      • #3036859

        I think some people just want to hear themselves rant.

        by n-line computers ·

        In reply to It just works?

        I’ve used Xp and I’ve used several Linux distros. They all have issues. But I find Ubuntu or Mint to be the easiest to use and keep running.

        Yes the OP is correct that it doesn’t work “Out of the Box.” I’ve yet to find anything that does. My last Xp install took 6 hours with updates, antimalware software, patches, applications, etc.

        Ubuntu has it’s issues but the once the installation bumps are past I find Ubuntu more stable, faster, and less hassle to use then Xp or any other flavor of Windows.

        I like not having to reboot after every small configuration change. I like not to have to worry with virus issues. I like not have my computer slow down for no reason other then registry bloat. The famed WinRot and all Windows workstations seem doomed to get. I like that my duel boot Vista/Mint laptop boots faster in Mint then Vista and has most of the same functions and even desktop gadgets.

        Ubuntu is not perfect but it is for the most part better then Windows.

        Got Troll?
        (Edit: Note this all applies to the OP of this topic. Not the guy I replied to. I thought this was at root of the thread.

        Ha ha I made a root joke in a Linux thread. I kill me.)

    • #2967983

      Good list of complaints….

      by —tk— ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      I’m not really going to argue with any of them, they are legit reasons… But I am a Ubuntu and PCLOS fan, I find that tweaking it just right is all part of the fun… I get bored with installing, and everything works off the bat… I enjoy a good challenge, lol but that might be why I am going gray at such an early age. Every now and then linux makes me want to rip my hair out, and scream…. but I find that its worth it in the long run…

      • #2967966

        LOL — Ghost 10

        by the scummy one ·

        In reply to Good list of complaints….

        made me want to rip my hair out and scream.

        My XP hdd started making noise, so I piced up a new drive. Started cloning it (few problems with earlier versions of ghost).

        2 hours later I went by to check status, and found that it had 9 hours remaining :0
        after the nin hours it hung on 1 sec remaining — all friggin night. tonight I am going to use a live distro and dd it so that I can use my friggin system some time this week.
        funny thing — after trying to ghost it, the hdd seems to have stopped making noise, and seems to be fine. however, I think I have lost all the confidence in ghost now — and am moving it all over to linux. Symantec products just keep getting worse and worse in my opinion (well, same with Roxio, becoming too much a hassle to bother with)

        • #2967963

          Ouch!!

          by —tk— ·

          In reply to LOL — Ghost 10

          One second remaining… thats a total kick in the junk! I still use Ghost 8, it has yet to fail me. knock on wood… lol over the weekend I used it 5 times on my system. I really would have been angry if that happened!

        • #2967962

          yes,

          by the scummy one ·

          In reply to Ouch!!

          it keeps Windows running instead of rebooting it to gain exclusive access. this morning about 22 hours into the clone, it was working on the mft entries.

          The last ver. I used was ’03 — it rebooted the system to clone the drives, and could be run from cd. in Ghost 10, it will not clone the drives from cd boot, it will nly get to backup points (non boot drive). WTF is that? I can access the second or non boot drives in a number of ways with or without the OS to gather data.

          Nope, I lost all respect for Symantec

        • #2967955

          what about…..

          by —tk— ·

          In reply to yes,

          http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

          I have had a few friends say it works really good, and I have scene a few people on here talk about it… plus its free :)….

          I gave up on Symantec back in 2003… I purchased their “Package (AV/firewall)” bla bla bla. lol the second day I tried to uninstall it, and it wouldn’t… I tried all their “fixes” that didn’t work, researched the hell out of it… I ended up blowing it all away… I was totally heated about it…

        • #2967953

          Actually, I have grown proficient using dd

          by the scummy one ·

          In reply to what about…..

          from Linux. The best points about it as well, it is a bit by bit clone, therefore it can cross partitions to clone the entire drive, not just a partition. However, it can be used to copy by partition as well.

          About the only things I use from Symantec (except at work) anymore was the ghost (used for backup of my data drive) and Partition Magic (havent needed it in a while at home).

        • #2973832

          nice…..

          by —tk— ·

          In reply to Actually, I have grown proficient using dd

          .

        • #2973631

          dd if=/dev/cdrom of=~/disk.iso

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to Actually, I have grown proficient using dd

          I liked DD back when using it to create boot disks but the simplicity of dropping a CD to an ISO file with it really sold me. Fantastic tool. I’m tempted to look for a win32 compile of it.

        • #2972837

          I havent done that.

          by the scummy one ·

          In reply to Actually, I have grown proficient using dd

          I wonder now, if that can be used to create an image file from a full HDD?
          how would the extraction work from dd?

        • #2972815

          yes

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to Actually, I have grown proficient using dd

          That’s my guess anyhow. I needed to iso a distro install cd and was completely stunned at the simplicity after years of needing some third party app under Windows.

          I now ISO flashdrives that are showing signs of dying. I can then dig through the ISO with recovery tools or a loopback mount.

          I don’t see why you couldn’t dd a hard drive over to a .img or .iso

        • #2973623

          I bought Ghost 10

          by dumphrey ·

          In reply to yes,

          only because at the time it came with a ghost 2003 cd as well… my previous cd had a scrath in it that made it unreliable. I tried ghost 10 for about 2 days before realizing it was just a dressed up version of NTbackup (with bare metal restore admittedly).

        • #2972834

          yeah, I wasnt impressed,

          by the scummy one ·

          In reply to I bought Ghost 10

          and I always got errors since I installed it that there was not enough resources to complete the api.
          Even after telling it to remove old files (keep 4 versions) and having it on a 250GB HDD to backup 50 GB. I just dealt with the error, it seemed to backup. However this was the first restore attempt, and I was hardly impressed. I first tried booting to the restore disk, after a 5 min. load time, no operational mouse, I found that there was no option to clone a disk, only recover data FROM one of the backup points.
          I thought, WTF is this and pulled out the book only to find out it was true.
          nothing about the SW was thrilling at all, just an expensive POS of a utility that once was good.

        • #2964803

          And thus

          by dumphrey ·

          In reply to yeah, I wasnt impressed,

          do we preside over the grave of a giant, laid to rest by corporate morons.

        • #2973633

          I downloaded the Clonezilla liveCD yesterday finally

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to LOL — Ghost 10

          It’s been on my todo list to look at for a while but I finally had a valid need to do so. It’s a rather nice tool to keep around; the disk is already in my bag beside system recovery and various other liveCDs.

        • #2973622

          Its is a good tool.

          by dumphrey ·

          In reply to I downloaded the Clonezilla liveCD yesterday finally

          How do you find its copy speeds? Its been a while since I tried a new version, the one I have is over a year old now I think.

        • #2972813

          I’m still digging into it

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to Its is a good tool.

          I’m doing drive image to ssh mount so that slows the speed down. If I do a machine drive upgrade in the near future, I may be able to test the drive to drive speed.

        • #2964798

          I like it alot, and I think

          by dumphrey ·

          In reply to I’m still digging into it

          part of the speed issue I was having was sending the image across a usb connection. But, slow or not, it did the job when several other products crapped out (including my venerable ghost 2003). It was able to do a bit lvl copy of a 2.5 ide disk with many bad sectors and noticeable, audible clicking (another reason for slow speed). I really didn’t have lots of time to keep trying stuff out. After transferring the image to a new HD, I needed to do a repair install of the OS, and 90% of the data was recoverable and usable. If I had started with it, I probably would have been able to save all the data.

          I have run a disk to disk copy on a single machine, and while slower then ghost, it was acceptable. But ghost skips copying blank space, and im pretty sure clonezilla copies the blank space too.

        • #2964727

          if it’s a binary copy then you’ll be getting the 000 spaces

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to I like it alot, and I think

          I could guess it brings over all the blank spaces if it’s just doing a binary copy. I noticed that it makes use of dd so that would do it.

          runs of a liveCD and can place itself in ram freeing up the disk writer.. I’ll take slow for that.

        • #2972845

          Scummy, I’ve seen Ghost do that twice, but

          by charliespencer ·

          In reply to LOL — Ghost 10

          in both cases the hard drive failed soon after. I attributed the slow speed more to the impending drive failure than to Ghost. As you noted, the drive was making noises before you started.

        • #2972833

          Well, I would assume that you were right

          by the scummy one ·

          In reply to Scummy, I’ve seen Ghost do that twice, but

          however, after cancelling the operation the system was fine. The noise was there until I removed the cover to verify which drive it was. After another reboot, the noise stopped.
          Never BSOD’d or anything, used it for a while last nigh, verifying directories and everything.

          I think it had to do with trying to clone the boot (Win) drive with Win still running.

          oh, and the long time that it was planning to take is likely due to the HDD size (250GB partition). I would think that an average of 10GB/hr it would take more than the original 9 hours to complete (noted completion time by ghost). Right now it is going on 7 hours, but dd does not give a progress bar. I will check it tomorrow sometime.

        • #2972641

          As an update

          by the scummy one ·

          In reply to Scummy, I’ve seen Ghost do that twice, but

          it wasnt the disk 🙂
          dd worked flawlessly, it finished up sometime between last night at 5:pm and this morning at 8AM.
          So, if it finished right before I got in this morning, it only took 22 hours.
          Personally, I think it finished much sooner than that, likely it was done within a couple of hours of leaving last night.

          XP and Vista can read the drive fine, now I just got to put it in my system and boot tonight.
          If I am on TR tonight, then it worked 🙂
          of course, I have no doubts about that anyway — things just seem to work when using linux :^0

        • #2964781

          G4L

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to LOL — Ghost 10

          I recently used Ghost 4 Linux to make an image of the eee PC. During my distro tests, I accidently fubared Grub at one point, and was able to easily reinstall using the G4L image I had made.

          My results weren’t so good with an XP image I made using G4L for my Lenovo. Ended up having to restore that image using the bundled XP 1-Touch restore.

          G4L has a funky interface with confusing and inconsistent terminology, and it doesn’t seem to make a single raw image… it breaks the image up into chunks and it seems like it is a file image of the complete drive contents (so you need to partition and format your destination appropriately prior to a restore). But, for an open source alternative, it is worth a look.

    • #2967981

      So, then

      by the scummy one ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      the base OS and built in apps worked fine, but other apps didnt?
      Ok, the wireless wasnt as easy as it could have been (my PCLOS box worked fine with wireless on several HP notebooks).

      The point about the networking is valid though. Many people trying to move from Windows would have a small home network already. I think the installation should ask if the system will connect to a Windows network, and then go from there. However, in my experiences, Linux does ‘just work’ until you need to config something or add cr@p from another source (3rd party) — then it is touch and go (like Win).
      Flash was a pain to get setup on my last XP box, it worked fine for a while then suddenly I had to upgrade. After the upgrade I couldnt get it working at all in either FF or IE. Had similar exp. in Vista as well.

      So, from your rantings, I would have to say that 3rd party apps dont ‘just work’ as easily as Windows. And I would have to agree. There are some things that I gave up on trying to do.
      However, is it worth $400 + to more easily deal with your mp4’s?

    • #2973861

      I have had similar experience with Linux SUSE

      by jlabadessa ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      I have been running VMware Server on my laptop for a while to play with various OS. I decided to download a free & current version of SUSE and installed into VMware. Install was smooth & SUSE works well for basic web browsing, email & daily applications. However, when I started to get into other applications, my frustrations began. I found some steps to install PPTP VPN service & attempted to get this to work, but after spending hours trying to sort this out I gave up…for now. I have setup hundreds of VPN connections on Windows computers & this has always been a very easy task.

      The fact that SUSE is a very slick operating system & FREE makes it very attractive. But my question is WHY do you have to go through so many HOOPS to install software or other services?? Seems like VPN client should be part of base install along with a multitude of tech applications. Why is Linux lacking a common installer so we can download & install apps??

      I admit that I am a Linux newbie & am learning more as I play with it. I have always envisioned replacing all Windows computers in one of my smaller customer environments with a FREE version of SUSE or other Linux OS. My fear is that users are not ready and learning curve is too great.

      As Linux evolves & becomes MUCH more intuitive, I can see the day where I can setup a complete Linux client/server environment. Microsoft licensing costs are out of control…I just hope the Linux community continues to work towards an OS that rivals Windows.

      Just my 2 cents.

      • #2973753

        To show how much of a “Linux newbie” you are

        by jdclyde ·

        In reply to I have had similar experience with Linux SUSE

        it is SuSE linux, not linux SuSE…. 😀

        As for learning curve, did you have a learning curve to start with Windows? Have you subjected yourself to the learning curve of Vista and the latest/blotiest version of Office? ;\

        Cheers.

        jd

      • #2972841

        “common installer”

        by charliespencer ·

        In reply to I have had similar experience with Linux SUSE

        I’m responding to bump this up. I’m sure someone will respond with a description of the software installer for Suse. (Sorry, jd, but it isn’t an acronym and I refuse to capitalize letters after the first one; see also: Powerpoint) Until then, you may want to Google the terms ‘yast’ and ‘Zenworks’. While Zenworks is Suse-specific, yast is an application management tool common to many Linux distributions.

      • #2972808

        Get a copy of Mandriva and toss it on a VM

        by neon samurai ·

        In reply to I have had similar experience with Linux SUSE

        Within Xwindows, you’ll find the package manager under the draketools “configure my computer”. Add the repositories if they are not there already with the [add] button.

        Alternatively, from the command line, “urpmq partial-name” gives you a search for a string. (eg. urpmq firefox returns all package names including the text “firefox”)

        Debian has it’s own repositories and used the deb package manager. I believe the GUI package manager is Synaptec.

        The GUI package managers are actually easier to use than Windows Update. Basically, Windows Update with a full library to download from.

        Did you try using the Suse GUI package manager?

    • #2972803

      Accuse me of Spam again, but…. (Solution)

      by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      After a complete reinstall of Ubuntu, I still had trouble with the WiFi as described in the document I originally linked to.

      So I searched, and found:

      http://madwifi-project.org/wiki/UserDocs/FirstTimeHowTo

      (I link, by the way, out of courtesy, to anyone here reading who may have similar problems, or to anyone who found this thread seeking answers for similar problems).

      And now I have working MadWiFi (non ndiswrapper) wireless drivers set up and working on my EeePC.

      And this, ladies and gentlemen, is NOT the hallmark of an OS that “Just Works” – especially not one that aspires to “replace Win32” on the home user/office user desktop.

      If I’m downloading .gz-ed tarballs, unextracting them, running make, makeinstall and doing mod probes from the terminal to get my wireless working – there is a problem. I spent several days troubleshooting and resolving this issue. Normal, non-technically inclined users are not going to put up with this. They’re used to installing a driver disk, installing their device, and GENERALLY having it work.

      Oh… and I spoke to soon, I actually had the wired ethernet still connected when I claimed victory and thought I had a connection via wireless. After a failed reboot that required a fsck to correct, I’m back up and in and wireless is working.

      Linux, it isn’t a desktop OS… it is the world’s ultimate puzzle game.

      • #2972761

        ~eg~

        by jaqui ·

        In reply to Accuse me of Spam again, but…. (Solution)

        and both Mandriva and PCLinuxOS include madwifi by default if there is an Atheros chipset wireless card on the system.

        :p

        go figger, the much touted distro fails where the often maligned ones succeed. 😉

      • #2972703

        “Linux” or Ubuntu?

        by neon samurai ·

        In reply to Accuse me of Spam again, but…. (Solution)

        It may be more accurate to specify the distribution you are working with rather than the blanket term “Linux” meaning more than the kernel itself. Ubuntu may have given you grief where other distributions give you perfect support. Maybe the Mandriva for eeePC would have been worth trying?

        • #2972690

          Well…

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to “Linux” or Ubuntu?

          By the end of it, I was convinced that the best route is to simply go Xandros, which is a Debian variant with an EeePC friendly KDE interface, and do the “Enable Advanced Desktop” hack.

          You’re right, my complaint here *is* Ubuntu. And the marketing *is* the problem. The “It Just Works” mantra is misleading – especially for a distro that aims to be a desktop OS alternative for Win32 users. But the fact that I give Linux a blanket condemnation for Ubuntu’s failures should be an indication. Almost anyone else who goes Ubuntu and discovers the same issues is likely to do the same.

          And we’ve had this discussion before. While I may be willing to go through several distros (after all, I’ve got a Lenovo S10 IdeaPad, a HP DV8005 17″ notebook, and a couple of desktops, all running XP or Vista) the Eee PC is just to tinker with at this point), to find one that is well suited to my network and to the machine I need it for, I think the majority of people out there would rather go to Best Buy, plunk down a couple hundred dollars for an OS, and be done with it. Many of them have no choice – they just don’t have the expertise to do otherwise.

          And that is the Linux gap – as a community, all that “choice” is a liability. It is the difference between the way Japanese car packages are modeled and American car packages are modeled. Compare a Nissan Titan to a Ford F150 some time. Nissan has 3 trim levels, and I think 3 packages. Ford has about 6 trim levels, and literally hundreds of different packages and thousands of options.

          Sounds great, right? But Nissan isn’t begging Tokyo for a bailout.

          Linux needs to bring it together and get all their features in one distro. I don’t know if the “chaos structure” of the Linux community can ever support that, though.

          FWIW, I’m having trouble with the wireless again. It looks like it is a WPA/WPA2 issue. Connecting to my network at home which has a WEP hex key, it works fine. The interface for Network Settings doesn’t give enough details compared to a Win32 interface. I see I’m “associated” – but I’m not getting any real feedback on signal strength, on if I am being assigned an IP address, if the WPA authentication is being accepted. I know I can open up a terminal session and drill down to find that info… but, isn’t NOT having to do that the point?

          The more I play with Ubuntu, the more I am convinced that they are setting the “Linux on the desktop” cause BACK, not forward.

          They really should change the motto to “It ALMOST just works”.

        • #2972553

          A good “timesaver”

          by j-mart ·

          In reply to Well…

          I keep a collection of “Live CD’s” If I have some old hardware lying about that I have a use for, it’s simple enough to try a few to find the best start point before putting in time to set up a system. Ubuntu is not my favorite but sometimes easiest solution for task in hand, sometimes not, sometimes its PCLinuxos, sometimes something else.

        • #2985111

          Live CDs

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to A good “timesaver”

          But I find that you know, I can get the iDeneb hackintosh live CD to run on almost anything, but I can’t get the install to actually WORK. 🙂

          I’d love to be running OS X on the eee PC, and evidently lots of folks are – but it sounds like more work than any Linux variant. So Ubuntu it was…

          Although granted, I don’t think in the LiveCD paradigm as it is, in my experience, a relatively recent *nix development (and Win32 and OS X development, too, really). I mean, the saturation of live CD OSes that do an install is really a pretty recent thing. It wouldn’t hurt to make a collection of Live CDs and try what you advise, anyhow.

        • #2985113

          Actually Ford isnt begging for a bailout

          by the scummy one ·

          In reply to Well…

          GM is. Ford wants a loan and has stated that even if they dont get it they are doing fine for now.

        • #2984874

          Well…

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to Actually Ford isnt begging for a bailout

          They’ve still got their hand out and they’re a multi-billion dollar global corporation.

          Although if you can paint Ford’s situation as rosy, you’re clearly a “The Glass if Half Full” kind of guy, and that might explain having faith in the Linux desktop, as well…

          😀

        • #2985645

          LOL — I didnt paint that picture

          by the scummy one ·

          In reply to Well…

          you may have interpreted it that way.

          This was an announcement by Ford themselves. They said that at the moment they are not hurting, however if sales do not pick up, they will be hurting by mid 09.

          They also stated that they never asked for a bailout, however they would except a loan from the bailout package IF the government wanted to loan the money, to be used to re-tool some plants.

          yes, they got their hand out IF the government offers, otherwise, they do not seem to be worried yet.

          and yes, I have faith in the Linux desktop (except KDE4 — it s*cks) 🙂

        • #2985107

          More status

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to Well…

          Ok – so…

          It took a lot more “under the hood” work than I thought I was willing to do…

          But I’ve actually got wireless working EXCEPT for WPA… mostly. It seems to lose connection and require a reboot from time to time, nothing else will get the connection back…

          But… for the FIRST time, I’ve gotten the Compiz cube up and running like it looks in all those pretty screen shots, as well as enabling all the other Compiz functions…

          And… Ubuntu supports higher resolution on an external monitor than the Win XP Eee PC (or even Intel) video drivers will do. I don’t know or understand why, But it seemed like it was a 1240×1024 screen I was seeing on the external LCD. It was way bigger than the 800×420 or whatever the LCD does. On XP, the 7″ resolution is what you get on an external monitor. 1 point for Ubuntu.

          Unfortunately, the F keys don’t work (for turning off wireless, switching to external monitor, etc). I see that there are hacks and tweaks to make this work, but I’m kind of done, at least for now.

          Ultimately, it is an Ubuntu Fail – as far as Ubuntu is marketed….

          But I’ll give it an Ubuntu Pass, in as much as it seems I’ll be able to use it effectively for the things I want to do.

          For free, I guess I can live with that.

          I *certainly* wouldn’t want to support Ubuntu as a business desktop alternative for my 100+ users.

        • #2985097

          Thats Easy :)

          by the scummy one ·

          In reply to More status

          setup a self support page for everyone — have it redirect to Ubuntu support line for ‘escalations’ :^0

        • #2985066

          For a business, I’d look at other distros as well

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to More status

          Suse and Red Hat would be the obvious picks since you can also get SLA from Novel, Red Hat and various hardware vendors like HP. Debian could be a good choice though you don’t have the SLA to fall back on. Mandriva also supports it’s distributions through SLA. I’d have to be made happy in a few meetings with Connonical before I’d consider *buntu for an office wide workstation though.

        • #2985074

          more hardware vendor support would be welcome

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to Well…

          I’ve been tempted a few times to get an eee just to play with the different eee specific distributions becoming available. At the time, budget went to my N810 and I’ve not found justificaiton beyond hobby curiousity for the eee. If Xandors works best for you with least amount of adjustment though then that’s the way to go.

          The confusion of “Linux” being a blanket name for any and all distros that happen to choose that kernel is one reason I’ve taken to specifying the distribution name I’m talking about. Ubuntu is very different from PCLinuxOS, Mandriva or even Debian thow it is closest to the last. But yeah, the marketing is very much the problem; for and against too. Ubuntu would not be my first choice of a distribution though it’s become the one most start with these days. It’s unfortunate that the failings of one distribution become attributed to any distribution though. In the same way, a failing in Windows does not usualy account for 98, NT or XP though Vista’s branding seporates it from the rest of the family (I’m still hearing “windows 2007” from my users at work when meaning the new office but what can you do).

          Like any OS, if it is preinstalled, it’s probalby going to work just fine since the vendor has already provided the hardware support not included in the kernel. Some distros are more flexible than others though. On my N810, it has a very specialized distribution with flexability limited in some ways (still blows PalmOS or winCE out of the water for my needs though). I could also get Debian on too it or Android if so inclined.

          Yes, since the specific machine your looking at is the Eee, you have a shorter list to choose from and unfortunately, I don’t belive there is a liveCD method of testing either. Booo.

          “I think the majority of people out there would rather go to Best Buy, plunk down a couple hundred dollars”

          Very true, not everyone is a computer type. This is where preinstalled selections becomes more important along with sales staff that actually try to fit the device to the person and manage expectations not inflate commissions or sales counts. Consumers getting home with mislead expectations does not help anyone.

          The real difference is that it’s not hundreds of packages to choose from. The selection can be narrowed down very quickly with ten or less questions. You see a dealer and ask questions about the car your interested in, why do people blindly throw money at a computer without any questions?

          The other thing is that the various OS based around the Linux kernel are for a veriety of different uses. The distributions developed for use in science labs could be used for a desktop but are not ideally suited outside of the intended use. Multimedia focussed distributions are the same way. SystemRescue is a very small distro with a specific use as is Backtrack. If we go back to the well over used auto analogy; I don’t buy a VW Bug to pull my camping trailer any more than I’d buy an F150 for driving the local quarter mile on Sundays. On the other side of the fense, Windows tries to do everything good’ish but nothing exceedingly well except generate profit margins; that’s it’s primary intended goal. If I need a lean and solid server, I’m not going to choose Windows where it is still the prefered choice for a gaming rig.

          I feel your wireless pain. Mandriva picks up my NIC and attaches to WPA2 in under five mouse clicks. I get signal strength, IP issued and the rest of the info. I can drop to cli with ifconfig/iwconfig too in the same way that I often drop to cli for ipconfig on windows machines.

          With Backtrack, I can attach to WPA but no wpa2_supplicant is included yet. It’s not a bleeding edge distro updated weekly either though. Debian Stable is the same way, not ideal for the latest hostile hardware like wifi. Better support from the hardware vendors like broadcom would be very welcome as the software would quickly make it usable for us end users. Between Mandriva on desktops and Debian on my servers, I’ve not had reason to look at other distros outside of curiousity in VMs though either.

          Preinstalled, it should work fine but like Windows, a self install is going to cause you extra steps. Have you been into the Ubuntu forums or posted bug reports for hte issues your having?

    • #2984674

      And today the eee PC

      by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      Is connected via the WPA connection to my public wireless network at the office. No updates applied, no driver changes, nothing has changed. I spent all last week troubleshooting this darned thing and got nowhere – and today it just starts working.

      And I am hesitant to turn it off, because next time, I don’t have faith that it will work again.

      Wireless is still pretty crude on Ubuntu. They’ve got a way to go. I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth. I’m glad it is connected now. And I am actually connected on the eee PC right now. But I really wish I had faith it would be consistent.

      • #2979312

        Spent Christmas Playing with Distros

        by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

        In reply to And today the eee PC

        And installing various places on the eee PC 701. SD Ram, SSD drive, via USB pendrive and external CD…

        Tried Xubuntu, EEE-Ubuntu and Ubuntu-Eee.

        Xubuntu worked the best of the three, but was still pretty crippled on install. I can’t remember which one, eee-ubuntu or ubuntu-eee, had built in support for the F-keys via the Xandros drives (with on screen display when toggled), but the wireless didn’t work. Finally, I stumbled onto a script from a guy in the UK… riceeey tweak should do it if you google it. I was able to install a full ubuntu 8.10 to the SD ram (bypassing the SSD drive altogether). Wireless worked fine after his script, it resizes windows and fonts intelligently for the eee PC screen, and the Fkeys work. So far, it has been the nicest install of Ubuntu I’ve achieved. It is too bad it took me so long to hunt it down. That is part of the problem with *nix – so many people repeating the same effort with various degrees of success, and no real central place that is authoritative to say, “This is the way to go”. But anyhow, if you’re looking for an alternative OS for the Eee PC 701, this looks like the best bet at the moment. I still haven’t tried setting up Flash. I saw a “Installing Flash with Ubuntu 8.10” walkthrough somewhere, discussing the challenges right now – and I’m going to find that and do it their way before just trying to install the Adobe package *or* the official repository supporte flash (both of which seem broken right now in Ubuntu). anybody who is using an Eee PC and has any questions can feel free to contact me. I’ll try to help any way I can.

        • #2964844

          I’m tempted to go buy an eee

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to Spent Christmas Playing with Distros

          Still don’t have the budge for a hobby box right now since it went to the N810 at the time. Getting my own to take home and make all hacky is very tempting though.

        • #2964786

          Eee PC 701

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to I’m tempted to go buy an eee

          I traded for my Eee PC 701, just to see if I would like a netbook. I was headed to Spain, had a short time frame after I made the decision, and didn’t want to jump in at the $400 range for something I wasn’t sure I would like – but I didn’t want to lug my 17″ HP Multimedia notebook all over Europe.

          I traded an old Dual Xeon 400 Netfinity 5000 server with a 70GB raid 5, an Ipaq, and a cheap Aiptek SD digicam for it. So I got rid of a bunch of clutter and got a nice small testbed machine in the trade.

          But with the 701 coming down so far in NEW retail price, I’d suspect you could get a used one for around $100-150 if you shop carefully and look for someone with reasonable expectations.

          What I *hate* right now is that people buy something for $250, the retail price drops to $199 during the 6 months to a year that they use it, and they go to sell it and think $175 is a fair price. For $25 more, I’ll just buy new… Fair retail for a used eeePC701 with no significant upgrades (512MB ram, one battery, case, 4gb SDD) should be $100.

        • #2964725

          isn’t that the truth

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to Eee PC 701

          I’ve had a couple of purchases that couldn’t go back to the store. Not broken but opened packaging or missing receipt and it’s off to Ebay. Nothing like paying 120$ so you can sell it off at a third that cost. On the buying side though, I’ve got some good deals at other’s resale expense.

          I’d be tempted to go with the 900 series though it becomes a tossup between it or a full notebook at that point.

          On the up side, Maemo 5 is going to be completely open source code so the few personality traits in my N810 will be fixed (mm.. yummy true NIC support for monitoring mode).

        • #2964683

          Here is the problem:

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to isn’t that the truth

          The entry level netbooks all have very small SSD HDs and smaller screen sizes.

          When you step up to the bigger screens and large physical hard drives, you open up a can of worms…

          MSI Wind with a 160gb hd? Acer or ASUS… or Lenovo. All offer very formidable netbooks in this category, and they all offer a balance of attractive features and a few significant disadvantages, for right around the same $350-$499 price range. Which also puts them frighteningly close to low-end full fledged notebook prices from makers like Acer.

          So, having bought a Acer dual core 15.4″ laptop for my daughter for the Christmas before this most recent Christmas, for $450… with 2gb of RAM, Vista Home Premium, and 240gb hard drive… It was hard to decide to drop $400 for a Netbook and add another $120 for a 500gb hard drive.

          But it was about form-factor and requirements. I’ve got the 17″ notebook for full fledged PC requirements. I wanted something like a LOADED iPod – is the best way I could describe it. The netbooks are more like computing appliances than COMPUTERS, and that was part of the allure. I take the netbook with me along with my work notebook to work. I take it with me to class. I keep it around at all times. A NOTEBOOK is… a notebook. That extra 5.4″ of screen makes a big footprint difference.

          I went with Lenovo because when I weighed everything else, it was all very close, with MSI probably second… and so I gave Lenovo points for name brand and for my experience with Thinkpads throughout the years. Totally arbitrary and gut-feeling. MSI, I’ve had a lot of experience with, too, and to be honest, ACER, ASUS and MSI are all top-tier “2nd shelf” DIY brands. They’re not ECS or Shuttle, but they’re not HP or Lenovo, either. And MSI and Acer are both brands that are marginal in their niche. Lots of good stuff, every now and then a turkey. The HP and Dell netbooks were never in the running for me, for a variety of reasons.

          But ultimately, whatever you decide, once you move away from the almost toylike nature of the Eee PC 701, it becomes a real tough decision that absolutely starts to bump against that “cheap notebook” ceiling.

        • #2964840

          Any luck with VPN Client?

          by jlabadessa ·

          In reply to Spent Christmas Playing with Distros

          DColbert, thanks for posting your experiences with various distros…it has helped me to stay away from a few.

          I have been playing with SUSE Linux within VMWare & the only thing that I continue to fight with is VPN connections. I have a need to establish VPN to various locations for support purposes & have NOT found an easy solution for SUSE.

          I have followed steps to rpm VPN client packages, but no luck in connecting. I don’t think packages are installing correctly but also not sure how to tell.

          As you know, this setup takes about 30 seconds with any Windows version after say…WIN95!!

          These days, I would rather put my keys in the car & go!

        • #2964761

          Haven’t tried

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to Any luck with VPN Client?

          But…

          I did assign one of my desktop support engineers to look into Ubuntu awhile back as an alternative OS. I don’t want to give out any proprietary information – but we use a VPN client from a company who has a logo closely associated with a famous bridge… 🙂

          Anyhow, that company has a linux VPN client available I believe. Either that or there is a built in package in Ubuntu. He and I installed and played around with that, as well as with the Citrix client for Linux through VPN, and had pretty good results. He spent more time on this than I did, I just remember getting the package installed, configuring the VPN client, and being able to connect and “do (most of) those VPN things” I might want to do.

          What are the specifics of the VPN you are trying to set up? If I can’t help you, I bet there are a bunch of people here who can.

        • #2979815

          PPTP VPN

          by jlabadessa ·

          In reply to Haven’t tried

          I have a need to run a variety of VPN clients to establish connections to several different Firewall/VPN appliances.

          For the time being, I am testing a basic VPN PPTP client session to a an appliance that supports PPTP. Very easy to configure this in Windows via the built-in VPN client.

          If I have success with PPTP, then I will investigate which firewall/vpn appliance vendors offer VPN client software for Linux. I would imagine most do, but have not gone down that path yet. Starting with PPTP & going from there…”walk before you run” approach.

          Your success with Ubuntu has peaked my interest & I am going install that OS into VMWare Server…this is a great FREE tool that makes life alot easier when experimenting with various OS. Recommend it to anyone setting up test environments.

          I will keep plugging away. Thanks & best of luck in 2009!!

        • #2979661

          Limited corporate *nix experience

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to PPTP VPN

          Probably prevents me from having the right answers for you. I would imagine that this is something that *nix supports “out of the box” – but that configuration may be a little more obscure and difficult for someone used to a Win32 environment.

          There should be good information out there, though. One thing to learn sooner than later about Linux is that doing a google search with the words “HowTo” is generally the best first place to start. In your case, I would google for “Linux Ubuntu VPN PPTP HowTo” and see what kind of hits I get and refine the search from there.

          I used to use VMWare quite a bit, but I’ve been out of the loop on the VMWare front for quite awhile. It is a great tool for scratchbox environments. With Ubuntu, check out Wubi, which is a great way to install a full fledged Linux on a Win32 box without being disruptive at all to your Win32 environment. Uninstall is as easy as “remove application” from the Win32 control panel.

    • #2964759

      Which distro should I use?

      by slayer_ ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      -Note, I had my Ubuntu Experience 5 months ago, so allow for version changes that may have fixed bugs in what I am going to say.

      As to the topic poster, I had 99% of the problems you had at first install on my machine, plus a few more, and I never could actually get the printer to work nor my sound card. Both were compeltely incompatible. They work with every Windows system, 3.1 and up, but not with Ubuntu.

      So what is the proper Linux choice.

      Here is my specs

      200 mhz machine, P2 with MMX
      256 RAM (SD Ram)
      33 gig HDD (Would like at least 25 gigs free after OS install and all needed apps)
      Soundblaster 16 AWE64 sound card (ISA Card)
      ATI Xpert@play video card (4mb, PCI card)
      Cannon BJC4300 Printer on a serial port (non USB)
      Not sure what the network card is, install for it is on floppy disk. It is PCI however.

      AT the moment this system is running Windows 95 and is my web/FTP/File server at home. As you can imagine, its fairly unstable. I had ubuntu doing the server parts (after a month of tweeking) but the printer never did work, over a network or locally (thus the demise of Ubuntu cause I had lots of legal documents that needed printing).

      So what is a good Linux for me that can install Apache, an FTP server (don’t care which), Database server (mysql preferably), PHP and all that web stuff :).
      I also want a GUI interface, one that is intuitive becauce I am a Windows wizkid, not Linux, I have tinkered in Linux, done some Linux courses, but it still baffles me and I want to spend as little time as possible trying to configure it, and I want it still useable as a workstation as well, word documents, etc. The occasionaly ancient Windows game like X-com series. I don’t require a GUI to configure apache (i’ve messed with it enough to know it fairly well) but the FTP servers, it would be nice to have a GUI for it, same with MYSQL (I found GUI’s for both of these on my last Ubuntu attempt so I would asume they still work).
      Lastly, the machine cannot crawl, on Ubuntu, loading a sudo session of the file explorer honest to god, took 10 minutes, I would enter the command, then walk away, it wouldn’t even change the mouse curser or anything to show it was working, I just had a timer to go off after 10 minutes and I would walk back and maybe it would have finished loading. That is completely unacceptable. (I tried two different GUI’s, the first one was the default one, the second wa ssome blue one that I don’t know the name of)

      Now this should be possible, if Linux is so great as people say it is, it should be able to do what Windows 95 can do (At the very least).

      So please, advice would be appreciated, as I really don’t want to install XP on such an old machine.

      • #2964750

        try

        by jaqui ·

        In reply to Which distro should I use?

        Mandriva 2008 Spring.

        http://mandriva.com/en/download/free

        pick a mirror site, register if you want to.
        then browse to the 2008.1 folder on the mirror.

        • #2964745

          Ummm, they are all 2009

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to try

          Sorry, consider me a nub, I see 3 options, Mandriva one, option KDE or GNOME (I know these are GUI’s but I don’t know the difference) and then below those it says Madriva Linux free 2009.

          Which should I choose? And to verify, Mandriva will meet my needs, because it is a pretty big hassle to install a new OS (after backup the server etc.) get everything set up, to find out it doesn’t work as I need to too and require me to go back to Windows 95 and go thru the painful process of setting up that again (Just use your imagination on how difficult it would be to make a Win95 machine into a functional webserver, requires about 4 hours worth of solid effort)

          And thank you for the response.

        • #2964741

          yup, but

          by jaqui ·

          In reply to Ummm, they are all 2009

          on the ftp mirror you can browser the folders to get 2008.1

          the 2009 wants 512 mb ram so is useless for you.
          [ newer GNOME and KDE desktops are windows vista, tons of resources needed for f*ck all in functionality addition, only tons of eye candy ]

        • #2964738

          I’m going back to 2008.1 for my liveCD of choice

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to yup, but

          I had cut a 2009.0 liveCD for my quick and dirty desktop needs but found a notebook on the weekend it couldn’t boot on; chewed itself trying to load KDE4.1’s desktop.

          I’m going to recut my 2008.1 liveCD for adhoc needs.

          On the desktop, I hadn’t yet found reason to upgrade to 2009.0 so it’s happily chugging along on 2008.1 Free still.

        • #2964736

          no kde4 for me. ever

          by jaqui ·

          In reply to I’m going back to 2008.1 for my liveCD of choice

          it’s bloated into uselessness as far as I’m concerned.
          and dolphin is another stupid mistake the kde team made.

        • #2964737

          Oh,

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to yup, but

          I was selecting canada as country so it wasn’t showing a mirrior for it, I’m in now ftp://ftp.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/mandrake/official/iso/2008.1/

          Which file do I want?

        • #2964734

          you want

          by jaqui ·

          In reply to Oh,

          mandriva-linux-free-2008-spring-cd1-i586.iso
          mandriva-linux-free-2008-spring-cd2-i586.iso
          mandriva-linux-free-2008-spring-cd3-i586.iso

          all 3, less download of packages after install for what you want to have the system for.

          and the wizards in the DrakXtools [ Mandrake Control Center ] will get apache, mysql and php working just fine. same as proftpd.

          addendum:

          Mandriva 2008.1 runs fine on an old Dell Inspiron laptop, 266MHz cpu with 128 MB sdram. it will work fine on your system.

          it will take a custom install to have it install everything at once, the desktop install won’t install apache, mysql or proftp

        • #2964731

          Does that include a GUI interface?

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to you want

          Does that requirement include a GUI?

          Also if it has something similar to the package manager in Ubuntu I’m sure I can figure that much out :).

          What will be the HDD space requirements when this is done?

          Also is this for sure going to allow the use of a serial port printer and ISA card for sound? (The two main problems with Ubuntu I had)

        • #2964718

          custom install is the way to go

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to you want

          For a quick test, the liveCD One is fine but it stamps everything to the physical drive when you install from it.

          Mandriva Free with a custom install is the way to go. Install only what you need and the dependencies are modest; no everything KDE is a dependency for anything KDE.

          I do a minimal install to get past the first boot then add the rest through urpmi so I get just what I want. If you go this route you can get X and draketools up quickly or pick them during the custom package selection. As long as you have draketools and rpmdrake selected, your pretty much set to do the rest by GUI after that.

          Like Jaqui says though, you can do your full package selection by browsing the custom install (check “choose individual packages”) or select by package types (don’t check “choose individual packages”).

        • #2964715

          printer depends on CUPS, what audio card do you have?

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to you want

          Once you get past the first boot and into a GUI with draketools, dig around in “configure my computer” until you find the hardware tool (under “system”?). It will automatically scan your system and try to install anything that is missing.

          If that does not detect and configure your audio then try sndconfig (soundcfg maybe?) it was the old terminal based wizard for detecting and configuring ISA audio. It favours soundblaster but if it works you’ll get an audio file played to confirm right away.

          The printer will depend on CUPS supporting it unless the vendor has a Linux/CUPS driver available for download.

          8 gig is probably more than enough for the root partition though you’ll want to put /home on a separate partition with as much space as you plan on storing under your user. If your going to do http and ftp then you may want a separate partition for /var also (/var/www and /var/ftp separate instead for industrial web and ftp uses).

          If your not sure and you just want to do a test install, dump it all on one partition or only cut a seporate /home that you can zip up. You can see how much space the different areas will need then decide how to partition if desired.

          note: a separate /home means I can reinstall the OS and have my config in /home/user ready and waiting after the reinstall.

        • #2964714

          is there a good manual for it?

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to you want

          Is there a good step by step I can read to get a light weight custom install as you describe? (I haven’t seen the installer yet so I do not know what to expect)

        • #2964712

          response to audio card query

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to you want

          Soundblaster 16 AWE64 ISA With IDE CD support.

          Also I had tried sound config command line in Ubuntu and it did not work (I don’t remember why not). The closest I got was editing some file and it made the card produce static instead of sounds.

          And as for printer, as far as I know there is no linux drivers for it other than what are built into it. Which were apperently the USB drivers. The drivers it had would turn the printer on, but would not print.

        • #2964711

          draketools should detect it.. SB16 was a pretty major card

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to you want

          If not, I never had a problem with sndconfig (soundcfg?) detecting it but that was a while back also.

          The installer is very graphic and easy to work with. I still go half way through the install wizard just to use the partition tool before pulling the CD out and installing whatever OS I’m actually putting on a machine.

          Try “pefect mandriva desktop” or “perfect mandriva 2008.1 desktop” and you should get a few links to howtoforge with lots of pictures. I don’t know if they walk through a custom install though.

          If possible, you can always install a few times on a VM if this is your primary machine your using to test with. Then you see the installer all the way through to your desired desktop before formatting a physical drive.

        • #2964708

          Will MSVM work?

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to you want

          I use the micrsoft virtual machine program on my monster machine all the time for running Vista VM’s and XP VM’s. Will it understand a Linux install? (I tradtionally have issues because my CD drives on that machine are both attached to a RAID controller)

          And for the sound, it was apperently the ISA that killed it (from what I gathered from the responses to my help requerst on the Ubuntu forums), and apperently the AWE64 was a driver enchancement or something for MIDI files that doesn’t exist for Linux 🙁

        • #2964699

          I went awe64, audigy2, onboard

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to you want

          both my awe64 and audigy2 worked fine for audio but an audiotech working in midi may notice differences I didn’t. audigy2 was detected by draketools where the awe64 was old enough that I had to use the sound config script. My only complaint about the onboard audio I’m using now is that it’s 5.1 and I’m not sure I’m getting all five channels out of it. No issues really though.

          VirtualPC may be worth a try. I think Microsoft has it playing nice with Suse now so it should accept other distributions well enough provided it’s VM bios includes “boot from cdrom”. VMware Server is an easy install also and has support for a longer list of OS but that would mean installing another chunk of software; you’d have to decide if VMs are worth it for your needs along wit migrating your existing VirtualPC images.

        • #2964692

          VM usage

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to you want

          I mostly just use VM’s as a backup server (for when 95 fails me) and as test machines, or for visiting naughty websites safely :).

          And the occasional time I’ll boot up a 95 or 98 VM (Which interestingly won’t work if you use hardware virutalization…?) for when I want to test software compatibilty, or I want to work on one of my really old programs that require the older libraries of Windows 95. (Such as TMM, http://www.download.com/Trevor-s-Music-Mixer/3000-2139_4-10532051.html)

    • #2964703

      Just installed…

      by lathan_devers ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      Umbuntu 8.10. No problems. Worked great until I applied updates from the internet. It then killed the network card. So had to do some research on my XP computer to find solutions. There is a lot of good help from Linux users. The OS was very good in my opinion but as was stated earlier, you have to be willing to tweak.

      • #2964634

        Dead WiFi on Upgrade

        by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

        In reply to Just installed…

        Yeah, that is a pretty common experience, across a lot of different hardware.

        And that is one of my complaints. I know Windows Update often causes problems across a wide variety of hardware – in any large IT shop auto updates are regarded with a tremendous amount of suspicion for this very reason. “Regression test first before going into production”. But the few times I’ve had relatively minor issues with a Windows Update *personally* –

        1) The issue is addressed *quickly*. Not quickly as in “free-beer we’ll get to it eventually” quickly, but quickly as in, a few days generally, a week occasionally, and rarely if ever longer than two weeks.

        2) Doing a rollback to an auto-checkpoint almost always resolves the issue caused by the update, immediately. So often it is generally my first, no-brainer troubleshooting approach when I encounter a machine acting “differently” shortly after an auto update rolls out.

        This, to me, is another example of where an OS that has the motto “It just works”, should be going to pains to make certain it is living up to that claim. “It just breaks and is relatively difficult to research and resolve and might take awhile for an actual fix to be released”… just doesn’t have the same ring to it, no?

        And something like wireless is critical and significant today. It it was just breaking parallel and com ports, that wouldn’t be such a big deal. If it was just making USB2.0 run at 1.0 speeds that would be something you could live with. But having WiFi iffy from the get go, with erratic results with WPA and WPA2 reported across the board, and having updates BREAK even that little bit of functioning WiFi…

        Seems bad. Seems like something that you would want a team working on day and night for as long as it takes to solve the problem.

        But you’re not going to get that out of people who have day jobs and do what they do out of passion. Hard to follow your passion when you’ve lost your day job and can’t pay the bills.

        Not to be critical. It is just the catch-22 that I see Linux caught in. I mean, I assume Canonical has some full time developers working on the OS and these issues, much like RedHat or the other distros with major financial backing – but I can’t imagine it is anything like the resources Apple or Microsoft can bring to bear.

        Speaking of which, the only auto update I’ve ever had trouble with from Apple was an iTunes Win32 market issue – and that was fixed a few days later.

        Which is really my point. It is a shame, but t seems to be the reality of the situation, from where I stand.

        • #2964545

          You’d have to count active kernel dev plus connonical

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to Dead WiFi on Upgrade

          When your talking about hardware support that’s a kernel topic so you’d have to count both canonical and the active kernel developers that contribute to the Linux project. With hardware specifically you also have to consider how open the manufacturer is with drivers, source or interface specs.

          Microsoft and Apple both have resources but it becomes a matter of how much budget and kernel development team members your willing to dedicate for how long. Would they have more than a few hundred developers each for Darwin’s or the NT kernel?

          Microsoft has the advantage of not providing the hardware modules (we get to download them separately from driver support sites). Apple has the advantage of a small hardware library and very control appliance.

          I’d like to see what would happen in kernel development if more hardware manufacturer’s took the Linux kernel developers up on the offer to write drivers for them. They provide the hardware interface specs and support across all BSD and Linux will appear.

          In your case, I’d have to look at what support the wifi chip maker provides. Broadcom has a few NIC that require using the Window driver inside a wrapper.

        • #2978836

          What would happen if games worked

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to You’d have to count active kernel dev plus connonical

          I wonder what would happen if the modern latest and greatest games worked on Linux without a hitch or the need for emulators or anything. And Linux could be used by hardcore gamers.

          Oh how I would love to see that happen.

        • #2978749

          That was another stumbling block

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to What would happen if games worked

          When I was younger. But now I almost exclusively play console games, so I don’t care as much. I suppose there are still a lot of PC gamers out there that this is relevent to, though.

          They tried with Quake III Arena… it was available release day on Linux.

          Too many problems, not enough demand.

          Of course, Linux still wasn’t very mature at that time. I think they were counting on the Linux community being more technically inclined to support the application, and that didn’t happen with people who had Linux and bought the retail boxed game.

        • #2978716

          I bet if properly done

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to That was another stumbling block

          Linux would completely destroy windows in gaming performance. If linux has the ability to unload its visual components and any memory wasters, and free up all possible resources for the game running, I bet it would run sweet.

          But I supose the question is, is it up to game producers to make Linux versions, or is it up to Linux to work for Windows games?

          I am honestly not sure what needs to be done to make a Windows game work on Linux, I don’t think worrying about the different folders would matter, just install to home directories??? I supose DirectX API’s would be broken, so perhaps all games should be coded in OpenGL (I asume Linux supports OpenGL).

          Permissions shouldn’t be a problem if everything is saved to a home directory.

          If more than one user was to want the game, then I am not sure. Also somethign to function like the system registry would be needed (I am not familure enough with Linux to know if something similar already exists)

        • #2978656

          John Carmack

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to I bet if properly done

          Evidently a dude I worked with at Intel was a room mate with Carmack for quite awhile in college.

          From everything I’ve picked up, Carmack hates DirectX and working with the Microsoft graphic engine.

          If I recall correctly, Quake III Arena for Linux was an attempt by ID to explore the viability of breaking away from having to deal with Microsoft specifications for graphics in relation to coding.

          My direction here is that I think someone like Carmack is probably very receptive intellectually to making his applications available for Linux. The fact that Quake III Arena seems to have really been the first and last attempt to co-release a major title for Win32 and Linux at the same time illustrates that for some reason, there was an obstacle to pursuing this commercially.

          One of my gut feelings is that people looking to cut corners on the cost of their OS generally aren’t looking to PAY for their video game entertainment. But there are probably a lot of other reasons, too.

        • #2978644

          PC gaming is dying off

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to I bet if properly done

          PC gaming is generally dying off. There are very few good games out there, except for online games, where PC’s still rule. Online games SHOULD be made to work on Linux

        • #2978567

          PC gaming; dieing off and has been for thirty years

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to I bet if properly done

          The consoles have take a chunk of the gaming market but PC gaming is far from dead. We’re also still seeing the latest gaming hardware released for PCs due to the modular design. Use the PC to see what technology can really do then shrink-wrap it into a console to stagnate a few years before taking the latest gen hardware to shrink-wrap the next generation of consols.. and so the hopscotch game continues.

          Granted, the library selection of PC games is not the long list of genera and titles that it once was.

          regarding DCol’s comment, I though ID Software was still releasing everything across platforms. It was one of the few game development houses that didn’t pander to the single DX platform. Have they stopped releasing across platforms?

          While non-MS will always lack directX, there are some very nice benefits to native non-directX development. installing flightgear was a total of checking the box beside it in the package selector. Adding my unlisted flightstick to the game was nothing more than copying an existing config file. On my win32 gaming box, I still can’t get sound out of Assassin’s Creed and copying a device config file is not an option there.

          MS has done a lot of work to get the game industry addicted to directX though. For now that means a gaming win32 boot and a *nix production boot.

        • #2978565

          WOW runs better on Linux

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to I bet if properly done

          That’s the reports I’ve heard anyhow. Even with having to WINE in the WOW client, it tends to work better on top of linux. Think what would happen if the mmorg’s wrote more than the server deamon with native *nix support.

          Problem is they usually do a half arsed attempt at the secondary platforms. There was a native game engine for Neverwinter under Linux but no installer. The people who where really interested had to install it manually then copy over the game content from an existing win32 partition. I commend the developer for providing a native client for the game, I just wish it hadn’t been such a second class citizen handout. The non-MS folks are ready and willing to pay for quality native games.

        • #2980063

          Assasins creed problems?

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to I bet if properly done

          I personally had no issues with the game, and I was actually impressed with how well it ran, my 9600 GT is well outperforming the PS3 in that game, even with max graphics and highest res, xfire shows 40 fps in desne population areas. The game takes very good advantage of having duel core processors.

          No sound? I have to question what you are using for sound, I am guessing that AC97 garbage that used to come as onboards.

          I didn’t know NWN was on Linux, that was such an awesome game, but yes that is extremely lazy to not even make an Installer for it. Though what, 5 years ago, on Linux the best you could get was RPM’s that required you to search the internet for dependencies, and each dependency would have 10 more dependancies until you were pulling your hair out in frustration. Perhaps this is why making installers and such was just too much work for them. Though these days I do not see the excuse. If game developers starting making Linux versions, that hardware manu’s would start making Linux drivers and Linux would really take off for home users.

          I’ve always believed the gaming industry is what drives the computer industry. Why else would we only have duel core processors at 3ghz each, and yet have video cards with 140 processors at 1ghz each?

        • #2979993

          Reports of the death of PC gaming…

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to I bet if properly done

          Are greatly exaggerated.

          There was a point, in the 80s, after the console crash, where PC gaming dominated. The Commodore 64 alone was probably the most responsible for this trend. And it lasted for a long time, carried by the development of the 386, 486, and Pentium and the arrival of VGA, advanced sound cards, and eventually 3D graphic GPUs. Titles like Wolfenstien 3D, Doom, Duke Nuke ‘Em, Quake and the Wing Commander series were clearly superior to anything possible on a console at the time. The CFRP genre also arrived in force during this period of time. Power and modular upgradability were important factors in this PC dominance of gaming, but additionally, the I/O of these games led themselves to non-tradition (read, no dpad, no joystick) input devices. Most of these games played best with a mouse and a keyboard. Not the strong suit of console gaming. The NES, Genesis, SNES, all of these lived in the shadow of PC gaming dominance, and during this period, a lot of people were saying that console gaming was dead.

          Then the PS-1 arrived, with addictive gameplay and incredible graphics and gameplay that was more dependent on a quality d-pad. PC gaming could not as easily accomodate this model, and the graphics and processing speed was pretty impressive. The tide started to turn.

          In turn, rampant cheating on online multiplayer FPSs on the free for all internet kind of destroyed the communities that surrounded these games – and people just started getting tired of this genre of game.

          Consoles have advantages that PC gaming will always struggle to achieve. You know the guy on the other end doesn’t have a better graphic card, more memory, or a better processor. You know the game is *going* to work, with all the features, on your console – just the same as it will for anyone else with the same console. you’ve got a standard interface and don’t have to deal with the weird calibration issues that still seem to trouble PC gaming devices. (Why does my USB d-pad eventually start pulling to the right, just like my old d-pad that plugged into the game port of my sound card? Why can’t they fix this on PC gaming?)

          On the other hand, with a PC, you don’t have a limited lifespan on the entire unit. You can upgrade the modular components. If you’re younger and on a tight budget, you don’t have to worry about expensive and dangerous mods to get around certain “issues”. I mean face it, that has been a traditional appeal of PC gaming for a lot of PC gamers. Backwards compatibility issues aren’t as much of a problem for PC gaming. There is a lot more freedom in every way, with PC gaming.

          I’d say it follows cycles, and right now some real powerful consoles are dominating the market, and the youth demographic is more oriented toward all things that the console market delivers on. This same broad youth market is kind of pushed away from PC gaming for many of the same reasons. The whole “tech knowledge” factor is higher for PC gaming, and it seems a lot more of the younger gamers are more interested in the gaming than in getting the game to work.

          In the middle of that you’ve got the Wii really mixing things up…

          But, if something innovative and unique that gets a huge mindshare arises on the PC platform, that could reverse.

          Just follow the titles, from those above, through the GTA series and the rise of the rhythm guitar games, and you can see the clear evolution to today’s console dominance. Get some kind of Guitar Hero killer app going that is better suited to PC gaming, and it may be a complete reversal. It has happened before, I have no doubt it will happen again.

        • #2979976

          I meant its dying because

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to I bet if properly done

          There are fewer games being produced, even those that were traditionally PC are coming out on consoles. About the only game types that haven’t made a move are MMORPG’s and Click and move RTS games.

          The SNES actually had a mouse…

          Also game developers have gotten lazy, turn back the clock 10 years or so, and 3D games were made to support DirectX, DirectDraw, OpenGL, 3dFX, any anything else that was populour, they also usually had “Software mode” that was always guaranteed to work, it would just look nasty.

        • #2979967

          Even that has a precedent

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to I bet if properly done

          There are economic factors at play as well.

          Games are as big budget as movies, now, and often employ the same talent pool as far as voice actors and such (some famous actors have even been 3D modeled into games as character actors).

          That puts a lot more pressure on the industry.

          Along with that, you’ve got this influx of titles of various degrees of quality – that kind of mirrors the Pre 83/84 crash oversaturation of the consoles that killed the Atari 8 bit era.

          There will probably be another video-game crash and shakeout, and it’ll probably go dormant for a few years, and then someone will come out with something new and must-have and it’ll spread again.

          I think we’re also at a convergence point. Playing Fallout 3 (and a couple of other immersive, cinematic tiltes) kind of brought this home to me, but the Wii and iPhone also seem to point to a possible direction. Gaming is going to change in some significant ways in the next 10 years. We’re getting to the point of very immersive I/O and graphics approaching practical virtual reality. Not quite there yet, but I think it’ll be coming. At the end, consoles and PCs may be replaced by soome new model of content delivery for electronic gaming.

          And really, what we are doing now isn’t VIDEO gaming in the retro sense that I grew up with. Those games were like digital boardgames. Today’s games are interactive cinema. Like digital “Create Your Own Ending” books in a visual format. Calling them “video games” anymore is really something of a misnomer.

        • #2979950

          I’ve always prefered PC gaming

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to I bet if properly done

          For the simple matter of options and hacks.

          Example, Need for Speed Most Wanted, the Motion blur is painful, but a quick hack turns it off, can’t do that on a console.

          Change graphics qualities, fix slowdowns (slowdowns on consoles are painful).

          And of course, online abilities, keyboards rule!

        • #2980836

          gaming drives hardware

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to I bet if properly done

          I’ve often said that gaming pushes hardware design while porn pushes networking and multimedia. Gaming is the older of the two for computers though.

          triple sli graphics cards, multiple cores, fast storage including sata and raid on every motherboard today.. yeah.. gaming has always driven the hardware forward.

          As for Assassin’s Creed; the game engine is fantastic and story seems well done. I got no audio during the cut scenes and about half audio from the in game engine.

          win32 + dx9 latest
          asus striker 2 formula, included audio daughterboard, 4 gig ram, quad core and a single nvidia 880 gpu. audio is 5.1 flowing to 5.1 speakers. All hardware driver latest versions from asus installed.

          Now, making a refined dos boot disk tuned to a specific game is a non-issue and tweaks for a game since have never been a problem (LB2, crippled but flyable still). If it’s just some odd adjustment then I’d sure like to find the howto discussing it.

          Full audio in every other game I’ve tried.. broken in Assassin’s Creed. I’m nearly ready to rent it for my console just to see the story outside of the game engine.

        • #2979713

          strange possible solution

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to I bet if properly done

          This is going to sound strange, but try changing your Audio drivers to a generic one provided by Windows. I am not sure which.

          Otherwise, I can say the surround sound in it isn’t to spectacular, the voices always sound distant except when you kill someone, then it is crazy loud. I run a 4.1 Wide setup, it understood my wide setup just fine but that is the issue I had, ignorable thats for sure, but it certainly scares you the first couple times. I am running a soundblaster Live 24 card however. So of course I never have compatibility problems :).

        • #2979207

          I was hopeful for the Asus driver update

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to I bet if properly done

          I have latest audio drivers on my desktop and managed to get them in. (another company that doesn’t believe in a well written upgrade script but anyhow.. update done).

          My current theory was that the game worked perfectly with DX10 but audio was broken under DX9. I’ll try the generic audio drivers though and see if they are any better.

          I do get the distant voices effect with headphones under NeverWinter. The audio is full through the speakers but with headphones, I need to keep the plug out one “click” to get proper audio. I’m guessing the headphone jack on the 5.1 speakers is also 5.1. I think I’m going to confirm that with some good gaming headphones. It still doesn’t explain why Assassin’s Creed is broken through the speakers as well.

          Bah.. what can you do..

        • #2979203

          Bah.. what can you do..

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to I bet if properly done

          You can enjoy really loud sounds of peoples agonizing deaths. It’s Carmageddon all over again. The perfect stress reliever.

          I love when games store their SFX in WAVE files so you can simply open em up, and increase/decrease volume as needed.

    • #2980778

      Pretty insightful

      by kmdennis ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      Send me your address and I will send you a harddrive. I cannot believe you ruined what would have been a useful post, by talking about a 4GB HD! >>> Ubuntu is pushing 3.4gb for a full install. That leaves me around 600mb free.<<<< I will buy it an send it to you for free! HD is so cheep these days, it is not like VISTA and all, which will end up about 10GB after Office 07 and a few updates. C'mon now, you seem like a wiz, so lets keep that belief going.

      • #2979848

        The first rule of acting arrogant online

        by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

        In reply to Pretty insightful

        Is actually *know* what you’re talking about and understand the technology on the table.

        The EEE PC has a 4gb SSD non-mechanical “hard drive”. The same kind of cutting edge drives that are in the Mac Airbook and other ultra light and ultra portable notebooks.

        They don’t *have* a traditional HD, generally, and do not support a traditional hard drive. In that sense, Linux is supposed to be very well suited to these devices, precisely *because* of their limited storage capacity.

        In fact, the SSD drive in the EEE PC is hard wired and non replaceable, and has a limited write life cycle. To that end, I’ve actually gone ahead and installed Linux on that particular machine to an external 8gb SD card.

        But my guess is that this entire post is going to be over your head.

        FWIW, one of my first upgrades on my Lenovo netbook was to replace the meager 80gb hard drive with a 500gb hard drive. That is over twice as much storage as on my 17″ multi-media notebook.

        • #2979710

          4 gigs, yikes!

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to The first rule of acting arrogant online

          Thats like what we used 10 years ago, running Windows 95/98.
          95 was a 200 meg install, 98 is 500 megs, far better solutions for netbooks :).

          XP seems to be a gig that bloats to about 3 gigs by the time its booted up twice and has patched up lol.

          Linux sounds like a great solution, use a live CD lol.

          I don’t know if this matters, but the best Linux LiveCD I’ve ever run is Knoppix, instantly compatiable with all my computers, and I could actually burn CD’s with it (Love having two disc drives :)). Why can’t all distros be this awesome?

        • #2979641

          Limited size of SSD

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to 4 gigs, yikes!

          Yeah, but you’ve got to think about what these things are designed for. 4gb is actually pretty reasonable with a fairly tight “ceiling” for just about any current OS. These devices are loaded up with USB and memory card slots, and THAT is what they intend you use for content storage (thumb drives and SSD cards).

          So, for example, the Eee PC made me realize I wanted a large thumbdrive. I got a 32gb thumb drive for Christmas, and 64gb drives are available (and occasionally dirt cheap). So, you’re talking about 36gb of solid state, non-mechanical storage that is also in a VERY small form factor. The advantage is that the “data” parition is easily portable from one device to another. Right now, on an Eee PC 701, if you really wanted to max things out… I think SDHD cards are up to 32gb. So, 4gb on board, a 64gb thumb drive, and another 32gb in the SD card slot, and you’re talking about 100GB total, and not a single mechanical hard drive anywhere in the unit. That is pretty impressive.

          Now… the PROBLEM that arises is, for example, when an OS insists on installing something into a directory on the system drive. For example, large portions of Microsoft Office want to be in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office and in other areas on C:. In Ubuntu, unless you jump through some hoops, everything ends up in one of the default directories under /.

          With 4gb for your root partition/system disk, you can accidently hit the ceiling pretty easy by adding a simple app. In my case, with Debian, Wine caused me some grief.

          XP is smaller than Ubuntu on a default install – especially being that some things like Open Office, Pidgen and Gimp are “default system install” apps that “can’t” be uninstalled (using the add/remove app). Even after the couple of patches – although you’re right, XP starts up around 1gb and quickly grows to about 2.5gb.

          It is actually easier to pare down XP and get rid or redirect some things than it is to do the same with Ubuntu, as well. The EEE PC comes with basic instructions on this, and there are a ton of sites on the web that expand on it.

        • #2979626

          I read somewhere here

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to Limited size of SSD

          How to move where program files is stored in Windows, so that you could move it to a thumb drive or SD card, down side is dont forget your card or chances are your system won’t boot.

          4 gigs still seems a bit small, I would like to see 10 gig drives, that would be perfect (for XP, Vista is another story)

          When XP has used up its 2.5 gigs of Memory for itself, then page file. Which at 128 megs of RAM should be 192 megs, not too bad but will need to be increased probably to at least 512, so that is 3 gigs used, if you use hibernation that is even more memory lost. And we haven’t even installed anything yet… Upgrade to IE7 and you lose more space.
          4 gigs is just too small.

          My Windows DIR at work here is 4.67 gigs, thats just the Windows folder, thats already too big for that computer.

        • #2979576

          Eee PC has 512mb RAM minimum

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to I read somewhere here

          And mine actually has 2.5gb.

          But no pagefile. Same with Linux – no swap.

          The modifications made, to Linux, Win32 or OS X are to move away from journaling filesystems (Ext3) and to disable swap/pagefile space – again, because the SSD has a limited write cycle lifespan.

          But there are also creative work-arounds to use the external memory (usb drive or SD card). On my EEE PC, I’m now running Ubuntu 8.10 booting from an 8gb SD card.

          Worth noting, that SSD drives are available up to about 64GB currently. The EEE PC SSD drive is non-replacable and hard soldered, so it isn’t an option, and a 64gb SSD drive is expensive, so it isn’t really that great of an option. Part of the allure of these little rigs is that they’re relatively cheap.

          But like I said… I’ve got 44gb total storage on my EEE PC, including the SD card, thumb drive, and built in SSD – which isn’t really that bad.

        • #2979559

          Doesnt vista have the ability to use Flash drives as pagefile

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to Eee PC has 512mb RAM minimum

          Or was this just a myth? Because that sounds like the perfect solution for netbooks.
          I suppose page file isn’t that important if you have 512 megs if RAM under XP, XP tends to only chew 360 megs of RAM when let loose. Thats plenty left over for web browsing and email. Forget a virus scanner though, accept for maybe Avira??? Your 2.5 is plenty for anything however. What are you running virtual machines on that thing??? lol

          But 2.5 gigs, thats 3.75 gig page file from default windows install, basically after installing Windows, until you adjusted this to be off you would have no SSD space.
          How does that work out? Or did it go off by default?

        • #2979209

          The USB swaping is not all it was marketed as

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to Eee PC has 512mb RAM minimum

          Vista has a function to use unused flashdrive space as ram/swap but it means your data is moving at the transfer rate of the USB bus. Since usb is still slower than hard drives, your just slowing your machine down or no noticable gain.

          With an Eee, I’d be looking at write limits of the SD also. having a swap file constantly read and rewriten may reduce the lifespan of the SD.

          With Linux based OS you want to stick with ext2 or the distro default. Journalled file systems like ext3 and RieserFS are going to eat the SD’s write limit with constant journal entries.

          On my N810, I have the same problem. The internal storage is inaddequate for my full prefered install. The internal ram is enough to not upgradable. Of two SD possitions, one is a non-replacable 2 gig flash chip so everything beyond that is left to the removable SD slot.

          – I do a simple clean build on the internal flash storage
          – I leave the GPS maps and swap file on the non-removable SD
          – I partition the 8 gig removable SD with an OS partition (ext2) and the default expected storage partition (fat32)
          – I close the clean OS to the SD OS partition then install the rest of my application list

          ext2 means I get natively supported partition file types for Maemo Linux to run from. ext2 is not journalled so my filesystem does not eat the flash chip’s write limit.

          booted OS on a partitioned SD means I always have the clean OS on internal flash as a system rescue. I can replace the SD card with a new or bigger drive if the OS hits the storage write limit. I can install more than 512 meg of stuff (that’s right, my PDA OS install tops out at 800 meg right now B) ).

          All the other benefits of a good OS/Data separated system apply just like a Windows box with C: and D: drives.

          Things like the SD write limit may apply to the Eee also. I’m not sure how boot loaders are for it but you could run from an SD or external hard drive from the sounds of it; the only speed restriction would be the usb bus.

        • #2979200

          Plus for swapfile on external drive

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to Eee PC has 512mb RAM minimum

          It should wear out first instead of your SSD.

          Replacing an SD card? I just bought a 512 meg SD card for 3 bucks. I’d say its worth it :).

          USB however doesn’t sound that handy.

        • #2979198

          SS, look for a utility called “Change of Address”, or COA

          by charliespencer ·

          In reply to I read somewhere here

          Copy the program directory from C:\Prog Files\WhateverApp to wherever. Run COA, specify the original directory path, and the new path. It changes the registry, .ini files, etc.

          Warning: as always, back up your registry before starting.

        • #2979188

          this sounds handy

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to SS, look for a utility called “Change of Address”, or COA

          Thanks,
          dumb question but how do you backup the registry in a way that it can be reversed? I tried export but I noticed I can never reimport (or perhaps I just did it totally wrong).

          I could definitly use this to shuffle some of my files around on my drives.

    • #2979178

      just the opposite experience

      by jack wallen ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      on any given day i can throw Ubuntu at a machine and it will install without a hitch. XP or Vista on the same machine and I am spending far too much time tracking down drivers installation CDs.

      everyone always says how easy XP is to install, but have you ever installed XP when it DIDN’T detect all of your hardware and you DIDN’T have drivers for everything and you DID have to spend far too much time tracking down drivers?

      sure there are pieces of hardware that Ubuntu might not support but that list is growing smaller and smaller every day. and here’s a little trick for you to try. instead of downloading just Ubuntu, download Ubuntu, Mandriva, Fedora, SuSE, and PCLinuxOS. one of those distributions will work.

      • #2979096

        Been there, done that…

        by brian doe ·

        In reply to just the opposite experience

        …burned the t-shirt!

        Most notorious of these for me were flashcard readers and sound chips (especially Realtek). Even Vista failed to find drivers for the Creative sound card in one of my computers! And who can forget that wireless card support for XP was essentially broken until the release of SP2 (and even Vista struggles with wireless connectivity)?

    • #2979100

      Good Experience with Ubuntu

      by brian doe ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      (Reposted because I somehow sent it to the wrong branch)

      You make a lot of good points in your post and, overall, you are correct that Linux (including Ubuntu) is not ready for the “It just works” distinction. However, you failed to mention the real reason it doesn’t “just work” for a large majority of the users reporting problems.

      The single biggest reason Ubuntu doesn’t always “just work” is not Ubuntu’s fault. It is the unwillingness of many major hardware manufacturers to develop drivers for Linux and to open their source code for third-party development. It is also the unwillingness of the providers of many major multimedia codecs (such as Adobe’s Flash, Apple’s Quicktime, and others) to allow unrestricted distribution of their codecs. These mean that Canonical (and other Linux distro providers) are unable to include them with their installers.

      However, the situation is getting better. Ubuntu 8.10 supports a lot of new hardware not previously supported, and Canonical has gone to every extent legally possible to connect its users with required drivers and codecs.

      When I first installed Linux (Ubuntu 7.04) about a year and a half ago on an older laptop, I ended up becoming more intimately familiar with the inner workings of xorg, vim, and ndiswrapper than is healthy; however, when I installed Ubuntu 8.04 (and later 8.10) on my new HP Pavilion laptop, it very nearly literally “just worked”. Just 20 minutes after I booted off the install CD, I was able to log onto my fresh, new Ubuntu desktop and even access the internet through my Intel wireless card. Within seconds, Ubuntu notified me that the nVidia restricted driver was available and, two mouse clicks later, it was installed. The first time I attempted to play some of my media files, Ubuntu offered to download and install the required codecs for me. Same for the first time I visited a Flash-enabled website.

      Yes, there were a few hiccups. For example, I had to manually install a few files so that I could access my cifs network shares (which, ironically, were hosted on a server also running Ubuntu). And then there was the infamous SUDO bug with Ubuntu 8.04.

      Until hardware and media codec providers open up and give the Linux community more sincere support, Linux (including Ubuntu) will never be able to earn the “it just runs” distinction. But it’s mighty damned close.

      • #2979065

        agreed

        by slayer_ ·

        In reply to Good Experience with Ubuntu

        Too bad no one is able to make an automated driver converter to convert windows drivers to linux drivers.

        • #2989605

          ndiswrapper

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to agreed

          ndiswrapper is a Linux module that wraps itself around a windows network driver so it can be used by a Linux based OS.

          In the short term, there are some places I’d like to see wrappers developed but ideally, they shouldn’t be needed as they are just a work around for a non-technical problem.

        • #2989290

          ndiswrapper

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to ndiswrapper

          Was so clearly inferior to using the MadWIFI native drivers on Ubuntu with the EeePC 701 atheron drivers… it makes me wonder how limited it is in the other cases where ndiswrapper has been suggested to me.

          I mean, I guess if nothing else were available, ndiswrapper and limited functioning wifi is better than *nothing at all*, but it points out another strategic limitation for *nix in competition with Win32. If the best that *nix can do is manage to implement a crippled version of the available Win32 drivers, Win32 is going to have the advantage on delivering the full features of that particular device. I mean, that is a no brainer. At that point, you’ve got to ask yourself, “What is the advantage I get out of running the crippled function available through Linux versus just running Win32 and getting the full feature set available?” I suppose for some people on a tight budget, or with other things to spend their money on, the idea of being able to save that money on the licensing cost is good enough. For a lot of other people, having the reliable, consistent ability to connect to a variety of hotspots with a mature set of applications and utilities to view, edit and manage those connections is going to be worth the licensing cost of Win XP or Vista.

          I’m using Ubuntu fairly frequently and finding it useful. I just don’t see it replacing my primary OS on my primary machine, at this stage of OS maturity. It still lacks too much.

        • #2986810

          If you have native kernel modules, a wrapper sucks

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to ndiswrapper

          I think my old wrt54 pcmcia card may still need ndiswrapper unless that broadcom chip is covered in the newer kernels finally. If there is a native driver rather than a wrapper that’s usually the far better way to go though. ndiswrapper is only giving you part functionality of the wifi card’s Windows driver; modes are limited, signal strength measurement or changes are limited. The wrapper is enough to get it connecting if not supported natively.

        • #2984459

          Broadcom support

          by brian doe ·

          In reply to If you have native kernel modules, a wrapper sucks

          This is another example of where corporate greed (or fear, or God-knows-what) causes trouble for Linux users. The latest Linux kernels support nearly all of the Broadcom chips out there. The devil in the details, however, is that Broadcom chips require firmware that must be loaded each time the card is initialized – and, of course, this firmware is proprietary and closed-source, so no Linux distro can legally include it, and the open-source community can’t touch it.

          Despite that, Canonical has tried to make life as easy as possible for those afflicted with Broadcom cards and have an alternate means of connecting to the internet. Ubuntu will basically download the Windows driver, then use fwcutter to extract the firmware from it. For those without an alternate means of connecting to the internet, it gets a lot more dicey; but when you have hardware from manufacturers who refuse to work with the Linux community, you have to expect such complications.

    • #2989599

      I can’t get Flash to work on Ubuntu either.

      by boxfiddler ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      Screw it. I have to have Windows for work, so if I’m know I’m going to want Flash for something I just boot to Windows.

      Outside of that, I’ve had no trouble out of Ubuntu. Installed first to an old HP laptop, then to a desktop I built back in ’02, that I dual boot with XP. ‘buntu suits me quite nicely outside the pita that is getting Flash to work/notwork/work/notwork.

      Linux is getting easier to deal with all the time, but it doesn’t ‘just work’ out of the box. I’m a gonna keep playin’, anyway. 😀

      • #2989597

        Flash 10 works just fine on Ubuntu with Firefox 3

        by brian doe ·

        In reply to I can’t get Flash to work on Ubuntu either.

        Just go into Synaptic and search “adobe-flashplugin”, select it for install, and click “Apply”. It should remove the buggy Adobe Flash 9, and the even buggier libflash-plugin packages.

        • #2989595

          Cool. Thanks.

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to Flash 10 works just fine on Ubuntu with Firefox 3

          Haven’t even bothered with it for quite awhile now. Will check it out.

        • #2989288

          Did you try his suggestion?

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to Cool. Thanks.

          My problem is… well -was-, that I had first installed 7.04 on the EEE PC. I guess now I’ve reinstalled 8.10 on both the SD (7.04 remains on the SSD) card in the EEE PC and as a Wubi partition on the Lenovo S10. I’m not sure his suggestion works for 7.04. I also find that some of the difficulties may be related to what version of Flash a particular site wants (Flash 8 and 10 seem to be what sites call for). It seems like I have no backwards compatibility issues in Win32 with Flash, but I’m not certain on *nix.

          I’ve been using the toy site “spinmaster.com” as a benchmark, simply because it is the site that first brought my attention to this problem, although I think CNN video also requires Flash and has been a problem for me. Seems like it TRIES, but I never see the video, or I see the first frame, but it won’t play.

          I’m going to do some testing right now, try his fix, and see how far I get.

        • #2989286

          Well

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to Did you try his suggestion?

          On the Lenovo with 8.10, it looks like I got Flash 10 installed and working fine at the sites I mentioned above. Unfortunately, whereas 7.04 with MadWIFI started working (consistently) with WPA/WPA2 on my wireless network here at the office (for no known reason), 8.10 is having the same problem with failed authentication.

          Seems like I traded one set of annoying minor little issues for another.

        • #2986859

          Boo ubuntu!

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to Well

          Since the hardware is 32bit your not crippled by Adobe’s choice to still not compile the 64bit Linux flash player. That flakey networking isn’t helping anyone though.

        • #2986597

          Solution

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to Boo ubuntu!

          You’ve got to download the Broadcom source from Broadcom’s site, compile, make install, and run a couple of scripts.

          Otherwise, it seems to be a well documented issue that there can be issues with WPA/WPA2. Especially with Netopia setups, for some odd reason. Although I’m also having problems connecting to a WEP 128b with SID broadcast disabled at the same location.

          But I can get into my secured network at home, and I can get into any open network – so, it isn’t worth messing with to me. Being that I have it dual-bootable, I can always just go into Win32 if I’m in a location that requires WPA2 or has AP broadcast disabled.

          I suppose I *could* look at NDISWrapper with the Win32 driver as an alternative to the native Broadcom driver.

          But it is just such a hassle, and the worst thing is, it means that to do EVERYTHING I want, I need to rely on Win32 at this point. That defeats the purpose, speaking from a purely academic perspective. The Wireless networking in Ubuntu in particular does seem to be fairly poorly implemented. But, it was always real difficult in Debian too. In all fairness, in Debian I usually had to end up doing a LOT more gruntwork to have a chance of getting wireless running right.

        • #2987580

          I get that grief with backtrack

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to Boo ubuntu!

          I use backtrack as a liveCD around home but it doesn’t have a simple wireless connection manager nor does it provide very good support for WPA2. I can get connected with little grief on WPA but not version 2. As a result, I just stick with Mandriva 2008.1 liveCD unless I need a bt tool.

          It would be nice if broadcom would just get the hardware supported in the kernel but I’m guessing it relies on a firmware that broadcom is not willing to provide open specs and source for. That seems to be one easy way to be kept out of the kernel tree anyhow.

        • #2984456

          Network Manager

          by brian doe ·

          In reply to Well

          Unless you have a specific need for it (accessing 3G networks, for example), I recommend replacing the default Network Manager with WICD. Network Manager has gotten better over the last few versions, but still leaves a lot to be desired (including problems remembering your network’s passkey). WICD is extremely versatile. For example, you can store profiles for every wireless network you come into contact with, including passkeys, DNS info, and even whether or not to use DHCP. I can use a static IP here at home, use a different static IP on another network, and a dynamic address on a local hotspot, for example. Even Windows can’t manage that sort of thing well!

    • #2770099

      Yet another pointless bleat about Ubuntu

      by j-mart ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      It doesn’t cost a vast sum of money ( free basically ) so if you don’t like it nobody is forcing you to use it. My take on Linux distro’s is as you get them for the cost of downloading and burning them to a disc try them they will mostly perform useful tasks each distro will have strengths and weaknesses and often if you have a particular task picking the right distro for that task can make a difference. Those who have the skill can always “roll their own” to get a system that will do what they want.

      Linux is great value for the money. I purchased Mandrake 9.2 boxed Power Pack edition a few years back and used it as my only home OS for several years, much cheaper than XP ( Mandrake 9.2 came out in 2003) the boxed set had the advantages of being a bit more polished and as part of the cost covers licensing BS proprietary codecs, flash-player already set up, my home computing needs, not into gaming, good quality home office tools, much better security, a license that allowed me to install on all of my machines, not just one machine, I only have Mandrake 9.2 on one older machine at home now with my newer machines running 64 bit Linux OS’s. I have always found the Linux OS to be much better “value for money” than anything I have purchased from Microsoft over the years which in spite of “premium” price is a far from trouble free OS requiring add on anti virus software constantly updated to keep it functioning. I have Ubuntu working very well on one of my machines 8.04, a special version with an NC machine controller EMC2 it comes on one disc.with a low latency kernel works great. Sometimes a bit of work and research is needed to work around problems and selection of the hardware used in a machine is a big part of keeping things simple this is the “cost” of using Linux, and in my view Linux for my uses is the best value going.

    • #2942461

      Comparing OEM bundled Windows to Generic Linux ?

      by joe233 ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      Well if your using the OEM bundled version of XP for your Eee PC 701 of course it just works. I think normally XP SP2 is over a 4 GB install so you wouldn’t have much space other wise. I have an EEPC with an OEM bundled linux install and it dose just work also. If I tried to pop retail XP on there I’m sure I’d be pulling my hair out.Have you tried installing Vista on your eepc ? (just kidding that was a joke) 🙂

      True Linux doesn’t just work. but Windows doesn’t necessarily either on the various hardware combos. Most people get Windows OEM from the PC manufacturer though with tailored, pre-configured and tested driver installs. OSX just works because of the 100% confirmed Hardware software compatibility.Theres a trade off in supported devices and proprietary pricing here of course. Comparing an OEM version to a general release is kind of apples to oranges though. If you bought an OEM bundled Linux PC I think it would be far more likely to just work.

    • #2835068

      Ubuntu 9.10

      by dkeith45 ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      I am just toying with Ubuntu this week. I downloaded version 9.10 (700 mb) and installed it on an old 20 gig drive.

      I must say… the installation went flawlessly. I was surprised that it detected my LAN and just about everything very nicely… except for one major thing. My display. It was set to an unacceptable 800X600, which sucks on my 21″ monitor. I tried the built in software update tool, and allowed it to install the Nvidia driver for my GeforceFX5200 card… only to find upon reboot, that my display was now maxed at 640X480! Arg. I then downloaded the driver myself from Nvidias website, but can’t figure out how to install it… but don’t know if that would make any difference anyway.

      What is most frustrating, is despite much searching on Ubuntu’s website and help forums, I can’t find any info on how to install a hardware driver independent from their built-in method. I’ve also asked on the forums for help, and after three days, no answers.

      This is a bummer because otherwise Ubuntu looks great. I sure wish there was a way to fix the display problem. Is it just Ubuntu that is at fault? Maybe another version of Linux would do better? Or maybe I just need to add a different video card?

      • #3035057

        Display fix -sort of-

        by dkeith45 ·

        In reply to Ubuntu 9.10

        I just discovered something quite by accident yesterday. A client called and said her WinXP system was displaying everything way too large for some reason. I logged in and sure enough… her display settings were fine, but everything was way too large. I poked around a little and discovered the “Zoom” setting. It had been set to 400%. Once put back down to 100% everything was fine again. I then pulled out the old Ubuntu 9.10 drive for my system and sure enough, there is a ZOOM setting there too. Although I can’t find a way to force it to stay at 100% like I can in WinXP, and have to Zoom out several clicks every time I open a new browser link, at least I can now see what is going on LOL. So it’s a fix of sorts.

    • #2898301

      Windows & Linux

      by old ben knobi ·

      In reply to Ubuntu Linux – It Just Works… well, except for that…. and that… and..

      I find this debate surprising; with people saying that they can’t get Ubuntu or Linux Mint to work and that they’ll stick with Windows.

      I managed an IT support company for over 20 years, from MS-DOS to Windows Vista and I can truly say that Windows in all its form was our biggest curse. Hardware was mostly fine: we had an audited hardware failure rate of less than 3% from 1998-2004; if there were problems requiring customer support they were mostly Windows related. Driver installs to connect devices, viruses, blue-screens, unexplained crashes, applications that failed to load, you name it, we had it. After I retired I still supported friends and family on a pro-bono basis; there were fewer setup problems ‘cos users changed their kit less often than businesses, but viruses and malware were frequent and problems caused by automatic updates, usually Windows, Java and AV products, were a recurring frustration. I spent many more hours on support than I wished to and there was no escaping the commitments.

      In 2008, unable to cure a nasty virus infection, I moved a relative to Ubuntu as an experiment, still using Firefox & Thunderbird as in Windows. Since then I have moved 32 users to Linux, either Ubuntu or Linux Mint; they are friends and family and range from 13 to 80+ years old; I have NO support overhead. Let me repeat that: I now have NO support overhead. Yes, I have had to learn about Linux but it was much easier than the same with Windows. Yes, there have been some setup problems but they have been mostly easy to solve via the support sites and forums. Yes, a few were difficult but none so bad as the worst Windows problems and all, still, much quicker to research and resolve.

      The experiences for my users were similar and, for them, astounding because of the new life which their PCs developed. Six year-old laptops booting to a ready desktop in 30 seconds, not 3 minutes; closedown in 10 seconds, not 40 or 50 or more; lots of applications running at the same time without crashes, etc. And all without any cost for the software. It also meant that they did not buy new laptops to cure the lethargy of their computers with Windows. The even got a choice of operating environments.

      My conclusion is that Linux does work; it works well, it gets better and slicker each year and is a brilliant performer, extending the life of peoples computers. No wonder the computer industry, and especially Microsoft, are afraid of Linux. It’s good and it’s free of cost; if the public ever gets wise to Linux then Microsoft, and even Apple, will have problem.

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