Did you switch from Windows to Linux? How did you find the process?
RodMcKay
to WinXP a couple of years ago. But I haven't made the switch for
various reasons, one of them being the sheer numbers of Windows
programs I use. I'm ready to see how to do the switch anyway and see
how Wine works. But that seems to defeat the purpose.
So thought I'd ask for any comments from anyone who has already made
the switch. I mean, anything has practically got to be better than
Windows, but just curious as to what the major adjustments might have
been for other Windows users. thx.
MarcB
I made the change when vista came out.
At first I dual booted windows & linux, after knowing linux a little
better, I erased windows from my hard drive in order to have more space
for films.
On my site, I described the process, and wrote down some settings as a
memory aid.
https://sites.google.com/site/marcshomesite/Home
--
MarcB
philo
I switched over at the beginning of the year and though I had been using
Linux at least part time...once in a while need to get used to some of
the differences.
After I ended up getting a root kit on my XP machine...
I will never use Windows again to perform on-line financial transactions.
For the most part I've found a good Linux application to replace what I
had been using on Windows...and for some of the Windows applications I
still use...I've found that in Wine they will run without any problems.
However...I still need to use XP on occasion...
when I work from home, my company uses video conferencing software that
only runs on Windows
philo
Good info
I did a test install of Vista and there were no drivers for my very
common sound card and SCSI card.
Even with all the updates and the system tweaked for best performance...
it ran terribly.
I installed Linux and was very happy to see that *all* my hardware was
detected just fine. As someone who has been using Linux on a part time
basis for many years...this was the year I made the transition to it
being my main OS.
Since my machine has removable drive kits...I can compare different
operating systems on the same H/W
My main machine is a dual core XP-2800+ with three gigs of RAM
The speed test I ran was simply copy an entire CD to the harddrive,
then delete it.
Using either Linux or XP...the time was about the same...
however from Vista...it took *twice* as long
Though Microsoft has now lost me as a customer...
I suppose I should give Win7 a try...
but I will not be using it other than for evaluation
Bit Twister
> I've been fed up with Windows ever since I switched from a Win98SE box
> to WinXP a couple of years ago. But I haven't made the switch for
> various reasons, one of them being the sheer numbers of Windows
> programs I use.
Well, here are various cross reference doze/linux you might look at to
see what you might use under linux. In no order of importance:
http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20070701111340544/Equivalents.html
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsApplicationsEquivalents
http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Linux_software_equivalent_to_Windows_software
http://polishlinux.org/first-steps/popular-apps/
http://www.libervis.com/wiki/index.php?title=Table_of_Equivalent_Software
http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/Application_Crossover_Chart
http://www.linuxrsp.ru/win-lin-soft/table-eng.html
> I'm ready to see how to do the switch anyway and see
> how Wine works.
Which might lead to possible malware problems. :(
99% which would not run.
> So thought I'd ask for any comments from anyone who has already made
> the switch. I mean, anything has practically got to be better than
> Windows, but just curious as to what the major adjustments might have
> been for other Windows users.
First major adjustment will be to accept the fact the programs cannot
not have the same look/feel as doze because Micro$not would be
dragging people into court. Put your doze in the safe mode, defrag the
drive and free up ~15 gig of space for linux install and you can run
dual boot. Be sure to leave ~20 gig of free space for windows updates.
If you get a KDE desktop manager you should have no problem figuring
out what to do to get going. Mandriva or Suse should be easy starter
Linux to play with.
If you consider yourself a power user, then get the Mandriva Linux
-free- dvd. Here, check out the install screen shots. Page 2 has the
Custom package selections you can choose from.
http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect-server-mandriva-2009.0-i386
I pick/install all package groups except LSB and Other Graphical Desktop.
That install would give you a Firewall and KDE and Gnome desktop
managers to choose from/play with. Not to mention compiler/linker
which might be needed for any third party driver generation.
http://distrowatch.com/ has other possible Linux selections.
J.O. Aho
> So thought I'd ask for any comments from anyone who has already made
> the switch. I mean, anything has practically got to be better than
> Windows, but just curious as to what the major adjustments might have
> been for other Windows users. thx.
I have only used microsoft for a short time, if excluding AmigaOS, I can't say
I do miss anything of what I had for microsoft, OpenOffice is far better than
micorsoft office, gimp work more than well for me so don't miss photoshop,
mplayer beats all video players for microsoft.
The only thing you may miss is the games, but better to get a proper game
console for that instead of using a crashing operating system.
--
//Aho
Rikishi42
It's difficult to give such advice wihtout knowing what programs you use in
Windows.
But look at it from another angle. Instead of wondering what programs'
equivalent exists, try to figure out if you're using a generic/open/portable
format of file or protocol.
I mean, you don't wonder if there's going to be an equivalent to IE. You
expect the to be a web browser.
(Konqueror, Firefox, Opera, SeaMonkey, ...)
You don't wonder if there is Photoshop or Paintshop. Your images are JPG,
PNG, Tiff, Gif. You need a picture editor/viewer that supports those
formats.
(GIMP, xv, GwenView, digiKam, ...)
You use MSN, ICQ or IRC. Is there a chat software that will connect with
those protocols?
(Kopete, Konversation, ...)
On the other hand: you use Autocad. Is there a program that reads DWG
drawings? Not likely. There are to few users that use CAD, so you'll need
some luck there. There are drawing softs, but wether you can exchage designs
with someone else ?
In between: you type your documents in Word. There is such a need to open
the MS Office documentsn, that OpenOffice included support for them. But
it's a better idea to use an open format. Even MS is being pushed into
supporting such a format in Word.
--
Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked
something.
John Hasler
> On the other hand: you use Autocad. Is there a program that reads DWG
> drawings? Not likely. There are to few users that use CAD, so you'll need
> some luck there.
There are plenty of users. The problem is Autodesk.
--
John Hasler
jha...@newsguy.com
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA
TJ
even have to get rid of your Windows installation if you don't want to.
(assuming you have enough free hard drive space)
I first tried Linux in 2002, with a Mandrake (now known as Mandriva)
distro. I was using Windows 98SE at the time, and put both on the same
computer in a dual-boot situation. I used both for a while, but quickly
became more and more comfortable with Linux. I had never cared for
Windows, having come there from the Atari ST - a much friendlier OS - so
it didn't take much to convert me. While I still have one machine that
dual-boots with Windows 98SE for the few Windows-only programs I still
use, nearly 99% of my computing time is spent with Linux.
If you've been a Windows user for a long time, the biggest thing you'll
probably have to get used to will not needing to update your
anti-malware programs on a daily basis.
TJ
RodMcKay
wrote:
Thanks for everyone's input. I am just so darned tired of Windoze
that I've been ready to give it up forever. The trouble is how I must
keep up with Windows and apps for work and the fact that there are
some windows apps that I absolutely need to be able to keep using.
But I've narrowed the list of the latter right down and with regards
to work, well, I think I'll try to figure out how to struggle to keep
up with everything even though I might not ever use Windoze again at
home.
Now what remains, I guess, is to take the plunge again. I was started
down this path when a colleague gifted me with a Linux CD a couple of
years back and I was amazed at how wonderful it was. I have always
missed the power of having DOS so easily accessible as in Win98SE and
the Linux version he gave me felt similar. He gave me two discs with
two "distros" as they're called, but I couldn't grasp the other one
very well. But the Linux distro I did manage to use felt similar in
some respects. What I also like about it is how Linux is a whole lot
less vulnerable than Windows, like MACs are. But a MAC would mean
getting a whole new computer, etc. Linux is much more desirable on so
many levels. I was also concerned about the FAT32 / NTFS issues.
These are what I know. But I gather from my other thread that large
drives are not a problem. And I don't care what it's called, FAT32
and NTFS are the names I know and that FAT32 cannot handle drives
larger than about 30gigs. But whatever is the equivalent to NTFS
allowing us to use very large drives, then that's all that matters.
That's one of the only reasons I went to XP to begin with. I didn't
give up Win98SE willingly at all.
So my next concern will be starting and then figuring out how to
switch all my files and systems over. Whatever I can't switch over
I'll have to find alternatives for. But this thread has made me
decide to try it, to begin afresh with Linux. For those special apps
that might not exist in Linux because of their obscurity/uniqueness,
I'll try them in Wine till I figure out a Linux equivalent.
Thanks once again. I'll check out your info, MarcB, that sounds like
the type of good place to start...
>On my site, I described the process, and wrote down some settings as a
>memory aid.
>
>https://sites.google.com/site/marcshomesite/Home
>
>--
>MarcB
Thanks everyone! :oD
RodMcKay
That sounds ideal to me. I'd very _very_ happy to have Win98SE
available for whatever situation happens to come up where I need to
absolutely do something in Windows. Fortunately, no matter what
system upgrades they do, usually old versions of documents like Word
2000, still accepted. In those cases where my resume absolutely _has_
to be sent in Word, I could do that. Doubtful I could get them to
accept PDF so there may be no choice there, but knowing that I can
dual-boot to Win98SE might make this all easier. I've always looked
for apps that generally can be used in older OS and not need any of
that stupid .NET stuff, so maybe that practice will pay off even more
now!
So my resume and some obscure puzzle-building apps may be only thing
holding me back. That and Outlook. I'm a huge fan because of how
much I use the power of MS Outlook for mail. I've tried, literally,
about 40-50 other email programs and none come close. Does Linux have
anything as powerful as Outlook, by any chance? Probably a stupid
question but I do love the ease of use, rules, calendar, tasks, notes
power and even look of Outlook 2000. I do also prefer Excel. I have
used the OO one but it doesn't do all that Excel does. But I can live
with the limitations, I believe. But Outlook no. It handles my
rather large email needs like no other. However, wouldn't like to run
it under Wine, I definitely would prefer to find a Linux "equivalent"
to.
Well, looks like I have my work cut out for me.
And, YES, I definitely like all those things that Linux provides:
- no need to update virus/malware definitions so often
- no need to repeatedly wipe the drive and reinstall!!! That I've
always loved the idea of.
- no need to worry about keeping the registry as clean as one can!
etc. etc. etc. <g>
Thanks.
TJ
OpenOffice will output in both new and old Word formats, though it's a
bit better at the older ones. For most functions, OO is just as powerful
as Word. Some of the automated stuff won't work the same, but unless
you're a MS Office power user, you probably won't miss them. And in some
cases, OO is better than Word. A friend of mine was once working on a
very long Word document, using OpenOffice. He happened to save
intermediate copies using OO's native format, and the resulting file was
nearly half the size of the equivalent MS Office file.
> So my resume and some obscure puzzle-building apps may be only thing
> holding me back. That and Outlook. I'm a huge fan because of how
> much I use the power of MS Outlook for mail. I've tried, literally,
> about 40-50 other email programs and none come close. Does Linux have
> anything as powerful as Outlook, by any chance? Probably a stupid
> question but I do love the ease of use, rules, calendar, tasks, notes
> power and even look of Outlook 2000. I do also prefer Excel. I have
> used the OO one but it doesn't do all that Excel does. But I can live
> with the limitations, I believe. But Outlook no. It handles my
> rather large email needs like no other. However, wouldn't like to run
> it under Wine, I definitely would prefer to find a Linux "equivalent"
> to.
>
Well, I hate to give you too good of a crutch, because it would be
better for you to eventually throw them all away - but for what it's
worth there IS a program called Crossover that facilitates the use of
certain Windows programs with WINE. It's not free - what you pay for is
the work they do at getting these programs to work, not the program
itself. And it doesn't work with a *lot* of Windows programs - though
Office programs have received particular attention from them. It may
help you, if you simply must have Outlook. (And Word. And Excel.) Find
more information at
http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxlinux/
> Well, looks like I have my work cut out for me.
>
> And, YES, I definitely like all those things that Linux provides:
> - no need to update virus/malware definitions so often
> - no need to repeatedly wipe the drive and reinstall!!! That I've
> always loved the idea of.
> - no need to worry about keeping the registry as clean as one can!
> etc. etc. etc. <g>
>
> Thanks.
>
You're welcome.
TJ
Aragorn
as RodMcKay wrote...
> [...] I'd very _very_ happy to have Win98SE available for whatever
> situation happens to come up where I need to absolutely do something
> in Windows. Fortunately, no matter what system upgrades they do,
> usually old versions of documents like Word 2000, still accepted. In
> those cases where my resume absolutely _has_ to be sent in Word, I
> could do that. Doubtful I could get them to accept PDF so there may
> be no choice there, but knowing that I can dual-boot to Win98SE might
> make this all easier.
OpenOffice can import from and save to MICROS~1 formats. (And to PDF as
well.)
> [...]
> So my resume and some obscure puzzle-building apps may be only thing
> holding me back. That and Outlook. I'm a huge fan because of how
> much I use the power of MS Outlook for mail. I've tried, literally,
> about 40-50 other email programs and none come close. Does Linux have
> anything as powerful as Outlook, by any chance?
I have no experience with Outlook because I don't do Windows, but KDE
has KMail, which can be used as a standalone application or integrated
with Kontact - which also has a calendar, an integrated newsreader
which can also be used separately (as I am doing right now), an RSS
reader, and much more.
Gnome users will most likely be most familiar with Evolution, which as I
am told would be very similar to Outlook. I also know that an Outlook
clone has been written in Java, and as such it works on any GNU/Linux
system with a Java Runtime Environment installed.
> Probably a stupid question but I do love the ease of use, rules,
> calendar, tasks, notes power and even look of Outlook 2000. I do also
> prefer Excel. I have used the OO one but it doesn't do all that Excel
> does.
Next to OpenOffice, there is also the KDE application suite KOffice.
Perhaps you can check that out.
> But I can live with the limitations, I believe. But Outlook no. It
> handles my rather large email needs like no other. However, wouldn't
> like to run it under Wine, I definitely would prefer to find a
> Linux "equivalent" to.
You could try that Java Outlook clone - unfortunately I do not know what
it's called, but Google should be able to provide for some clues.
> Well, looks like I have my work cut out for me.
>
> And, YES, I definitely like all those things that Linux provides:
> - no need to update virus/malware definitions so often
"So often"? How about "never"? ;-) There are no viruses for GNU/Linux
in the wild. Attempts have been made in controlled environments as
a "proof of concept" that an ELF executable could be appended with
virus code, but this in itself proves nothing, really.
In order for a virus to work in a UNIX operating system, the virus has
to be downloaded, it has to be given ownership by the root user, it has
to be given execute permission in the filesystem layer and it then has
to be manually started. All of those require conscious actions from
the root user. In Windows, "open" equals "execute", and files are
considered executable depending on the last three characters of the
filename - as was the case in DOS and OS/2 - while in UNIX, a file is
executable only if it has execute permission for your user account -
either directly, as in "you own the file and it has execute permission
for you", or indirectly, as in "you are a member of a group of users
who have execute permission", or "you are not a member of the group of
users the owner belongs to, but the file has execute permission for
everyone else".
> - no need to repeatedly wipe the drive and reinstall!!! That I've
> always loved the idea of.
Actually, that is how a computer should be used. All of the quirks of
regualarly rebooting, running antivirus software and a tight firewall,
periodically defragmenting the filesystem, periodically reinstalling
the operating system, periodic crashes et al, are all MICROS~1'isms.
Real computers don't do that. MICROS~1 has built its entire career
around turning a computer into a kitchen sink appliane with a perverse
sense of humor. That's an awful waste of a perfectly good computer.
UNIX systems are secure, stable, portable, flexible, scalable,
versatile, powerful multi-user platforms and always have been. It's
the core design of UNIX, which was developed on a multi-user
minicomputer. UNIX is designed for 24/7 uptime - one does not just go
and reboot a mission-critical minicomputer, supercomputer or mainframe,
and an operating system crash on such a system is intolerable as well,
given the responsibilities towards the paying customers and the
financial implications of failing to live up to those responsibilities.
As for the learning curve, *everything* has one, but many people hide
behind that term "learning curve" simply because they can't let go of a
Windows addiction and habituation. This is not a flaw in GNU/Linux but
a flaw in the biological unit between the keyboard and the chair. ;-)
--
*Aragorn*
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)
Stefan Patric
> On Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:13:29 -0500, RodMcKay <NoJun...@No.com> wrote:
>
>>I've been fed up with Windows ever since I switched from a Win98SE box
>>to WinXP a couple of years ago. But I haven't made the switch for
>>[snip]
>
> Thanks for everyone's input. I am just so darned tired of Windoze that
> I've been ready to give it up forever. The trouble is how I must keep
> up with Windows and apps for work and the fact that there are some
> windows apps that I absolutely need to be able to keep using. But I've
> narrowed the list of the latter right down and with regards to work,
> well, I think I'll try to figure out how to struggle to keep up with
> everything even though I might not ever use Windoze again at home.
>
> Now what remains, I guess, is to take the plunge again. I was started
> down this path when a colleague gifted me with a Linux CD a couple of
I suggest doing a little reading before installing. The best reference
for the Linux beginner I've found is RUNNING LINUX by O'Reilly
Publishers. It's pricey. Around $50 US, but worth it. Explains Linux
in detail with lots of examples. I think the latest edition is five. I
have the 3rd Edition which is 10 years old, and still use it.
> levels. I was also concerned about the FAT32 / NTFS issues. These are
> [snip]
Linux can read and write a multitude of filesystems including FAT32 and
NTFS, but for the Linux system itself use one of the many native Linux
filesystems. Any are better than anything Microsoft has ever come up
with. For general user stuff, ext3 is the default. Although, the new
and improved ext4 is available, too, but I've yet to try it.
> So my next concern will be starting and then figuring out how to switch
> all my files and systems over. Whatever I can't switch over I'll have
> to find alternatives for. But this thread has made me decide to try it,
> to begin afresh with Linux. For those special apps that might not exist
> in Linux because of their obscurity/uniqueness, I'll try them in Wine
> till I figure out a Linux equivalent.
Also, take a look at Crossover (http://www.codeweavers.com/) by the same
people who developed WINE. You have to pay for it, but if you need to
run some Windows apps on a regular basis without running Windows, it's
worth it. Or . . .
You could run a virtual machine like VirtualBox (http://
www.virtualbox.org/) under Linux, and run Windows simultaneously with
Linux. This is what I do.
Also, for your first distro, take a look at PCLinuxOS 2009 (http://
www.pclinuxos.com/). Designed for the Windows user. Very low learning
curve. And it pretty much comes pre-configured with all the stuff you'll
need for general computing. No tweaks required.
Stef
J.O. Aho
> On the other hand: you use Autocad. Is there a program that reads DWG
> drawings? Not likely. There are to few users that use CAD, so you'll need
> some luck there. There are drawing softs, but wether you can exchage designs
> with someone else ?
LinuxCAD can import DXF, so you can export your AutoCAD projects.
For GPL versions you have QCad which also supports impot from DXF.
--
//Aho
J.O. Aho
> RodMcKay wrote:
>> That sounds ideal to me. I'd very _very_ happy to have Win98SE
>> available for whatever situation happens to come up where I need to
>> absolutely do something in Windows. Fortunately, no matter what
>> system upgrades they do, usually old versions of documents like Word
>> 2000, still accepted. In those cases where my resume absolutely _has_
>> to be sent in Word, I could do that. Doubtful I could get them to
>> accept PDF so there may be no choice there, but knowing that I can
>> dual-boot to Win98SE might make this all easier. I've always looked
>> for apps that generally can be used in older OS and not need any of
>> that stupid .NET stuff, so maybe that practice will pay off even more
>> now!
>>
> OpenOffice will output in both new and old Word formats, though it's a
> bit better at the older ones. For most functions, OO is just as powerful
> as Word. Some of the automated stuff won't work the same, but unless
> you're a MS Office power user, you probably won't miss them. And in some
> cases, OO is better than Word. A friend of mine was once working on a
> very long Word document, using OpenOffice. He happened to save
> intermediate copies using OO's native format, and the resulting file was
> nearly half the size of the equivalent MS Office file.
Load a ms-office document into OO and store it with the same format as it had
before, but with a different name, you will see files up to 50% smaller.
Don't forget that OO can save PDF files and has the ability to edit PDF files
natively.
--
//Aho
Rikishi42
>
>
> Rikishi42 writes:
>> On the other hand: you use Autocad. Is there a program that reads DWG
>> drawings? Not likely. There are to few users that use CAD, so you'll need
>> some luck there.
>
> There are plenty of users. The problem is Autodesk.
Yes, but that is true for all vendors.
Bentley actually had a Linux version of their MicroStation, back in the days
of SuSE 6.x or early 7.x. But they dropped it, as they did the releases for
MacOS.
Trouble is, they won't be going back to being multi-platform. Once they only
had to deal with Windows, they could use things like VB, .Net and such, to
replace their own porgramming languages. Saves them development/maintenance
time. Going back to supporting their own Basic and their MKL language for
each platform, is simply not going to happen. Sadly.
Rikishi42
I know, it was an example. And unfortunately, you can loose a lot of
information in DXF. Depends on the version implemented, of course.
TJ
> Well, looks like I have my work cut out for me.
>
> And, YES, I definitely like all those things that Linux provides:
> - no need to update virus/malware definitions so often
As Aragorn said, "never" is more correct than "so often." Linux is
completely immune to Windows malware. There are Linux anti-virus
programs in existence, but their function is to trap viruses to keep
them from being innocently spread to OSes with less-able immune systems.
Be aware though, that you will still be as susceptible to "phishing"
attempts as you are with Windows. That sort of thing is OS-independent.
> - no need to repeatedly wipe the drive and reinstall!!! That I've
> always loved the idea of.
Nothing's perfect. Any OS worth working with will have periodic bugfixes
and security upgrades, but these are usually much harder to exploit and
much more quickly found and patched with Linux than with Windows. The
process varies with the distro, but they all have it.
Also, most distros have new releases on a periodic basis, for version
updates and the like. Mandriva, the one I use, makes a new release twice
a year. But unlike Windows, a complete install takes a couple of hours,
at worst. That's with an old, slow machine - something else Linux
handles much better than the new Windows versions. And the install
doesn't stop with just the OS. Most distros include all the most popular
apps in their installs - no need to spend hours re-installing and
updating things.
TJ
Maurice Batey
> PCLinuxOS 2009
A very good distribution, based on Mandriva.
--
/\/\aurice
(Retired in Surrey, UK) Registered Linux User #487649
Linux Mandriva 2009.1 32-bit PowerPack (i686 kernel)
KDE 4.2.4 Virtualbox 3.0.4 Firefox 3.0.15
(Replace "nomail.afraid" by "bcs" to reply by email)
RodMcKay
Yes, that's the beauty of it. What boggled my mind a year and a half
ago is that I ran one of the two GUIs (hey, I managed to do some
research today at work for a few minutes! I now know that all these
distros are just different GUIs, kewl!) off of a CD (DVD?) and was
impressed at how quickly everything loaded up.
The trouble with running off the CD was that anything I created there
in terms of files and folders disappeared once I removed it and I've
have to re-do it next time I loaded up. So next step is to figure out
how to "install" Linux and work with it slowly. Trouble there is ...
where????!!! I'm getting pretty full up in my combined 700gigs of
space available, believe it or not! <g> All the stuff I've
accumulated off the PVR! I record to DVD-RW and transfer to hdd and
then convert to AVI.
Oh, darn, shoot! Now to also find as great a DVD authoring program as
Womble!!!! This is the biggest hurdle, I think, finding the apps to
do what I've come to take for granted on Windows <lol>. The apps were
never the problem, it was stupid Windows that is! <g>
Well, pulling up those bootstraps! <g>
RodMcKay
>RodMcKay wrote:
>> On Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:18:16 -0500, TJ <T...@noneofyour.business> wrote:
>>
>
>>> You don't have to "switch" all at once. With most distros, you don't
>>> even have to get rid of your Windows installation if you don't want to.
>>> (assuming you have enough free hard drive space)
[snip]
>OpenOffice will output in both new and old Word formats, though it's a
>bit better at the older ones. For most functions, OO is just as powerful
>as Word. Some of the automated stuff won't work the same, but unless
>you're a MS Office power user, you probably won't miss them. And in some
>cases, OO is better than Word. A friend of mine was once working on a
>very long Word document, using OpenOffice. He happened to save
>intermediate copies using OO's native format, and the resulting file was
>nearly half the size of the equivalent MS Office file.
That's the trouble. I _am_ a power user and have learned VB in both
Word and Excel and converted copies of some of my Excel spreadsheets
have lost tons of functionality in their OO equivalents <sigh>. I'm
guessing I'm just going to have to live with the huge losses ... <g>
>> So my resume and some obscure puzzle-building apps may be only thing
>> holding me back. That and Outlook. I'm a huge fan because of how
>> much I use the power of MS Outlook for mail. I've tried, literally,
>> about 40-50 other email programs and none come close. Does Linux have
>> anything as powerful as Outlook, by any chance? Probably a stupid
>> question but I do love the ease of use, rules, calendar, tasks, notes
>> power and even look of Outlook 2000. I do also prefer Excel. I have
>> used the OO one but it doesn't do all that Excel does. But I can live
>> with the limitations, I believe. But Outlook no. It handles my
>> rather large email needs like no other. However, wouldn't like to run
>> it under Wine, I definitely would prefer to find a Linux "equivalent"
>> to.
>>
>Well, I hate to give you too good of a crutch, because it would be
>better for you to eventually throw them all away - but for what it's
>worth there IS a program called Crossover that facilitates the use of
>certain Windows programs with WINE. It's not free - what you pay for is
>the work they do at getting these programs to work, not the program
>itself. And it doesn't work with a *lot* of Windows programs - though
>Office programs have received particular attention from them. It may
>help you, if you simply must have Outlook. (And Word. And Excel.) Find
>more information at
>
>http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxlinux/
Yeah, I stumbled upon Crossover today. I didn't have much downtime at
work but I took a quick peek and that happened to come up.
I'm finding that in the year and a half since I looked at Linux that
things have escalated. I found a lot more references to Windows users
looking for programs emulating some of the great Windows software we
can't do without (i.e., Evolution for old Outlook users, etc.).
I'm more inclined in personality to want to make a complete switch, I
have to admit. I'm hoping that it'll be really only a very small
handful of apps that I actually will need to run on WINE, if indeed I
don't find anything to equal the Windows versions. Time will tell.
[snip]
:oD
RodMcKay
wrote:
True but the difficulty is sharing. I understand about converting to
everything to OO, I've in fact done that. The problem is converting
back. I may have to run MS Word off WINE for my resume which I must
give a copy of to my employment agencies whenever I'm looking for
work. There may not be any way around this issue. I've converted
docts to OO files but then they just don't convert back properly.
And PDF is no go so far in this case.
Well, at least there's WINE for these few cases. <g>
RodMcKay
<ara...@chatfactory.invalid> wrote:
>On Friday 13 November 2009 00:38 in alt.os.linux, somebody identifying
>as RodMcKay wrote...
>
[snip]
>Next to OpenOffice, there is also the KDE application suite KOffice.
>Perhaps you can check that out.
Will definitely do so. <g>
>> But I can live with the limitations, I believe. But Outlook no. It
>> handles my rather large email needs like no other. However, wouldn't
>> like to run it under Wine, I definitely would prefer to find a
>> Linux "equivalent" to.
>
>You could try that Java Outlook clone - unfortunately I do not know what
>it's called, but Google should be able to provide for some clues.
Wow, sounds interesting. Definitely something to look for. It's not
just how Outlook looks and its structure, it's the power it has which
I've enhanced with VB scripts.
>> And, YES, I definitely like all those things that Linux provides:
>> - no need to update virus/malware definitions so often
>
>"So often"? How about "never"? ;-) There are no viruses for GNU/Linux
>in the wild. Attempts have been made in controlled environments as
>a "proof of concept" that an ELF executable could be appended with
>virus code, but this in itself proves nothing, really.
So, as I hoped, it's like a MAC in that way! Excellent!
>In order for a virus to work in a UNIX operating system, the virus has
>to be downloaded, it has to be given ownership by the root user, it has
>to be given execute permission in the filesystem layer and it then has
>to be manually started. All of those require conscious actions from
>the root user. In Windows, "open" equals "execute", and files are
>considered executable depending on the last three characters of the
>filename - as was the case in DOS and OS/2 - while in UNIX, a file is
>executable only if it has execute permission for your user account -
>either directly, as in "you own the file and it has execute permission
>for you", or indirectly, as in "you are a member of a group of users
>who have execute permission", or "you are not a member of the group of
>users the owner belongs to, but the file has execute permission for
>everyone else".
Very good. That's what I've always envied for MAC users. But MACs
are an impossible situation since there's nothing like WINE for those
apps we absolutely cannot find a native replacement for. Linux seems
to be the best of both worlds!
>> - no need to repeatedly wipe the drive and reinstall!!! That I've
>> always loved the idea of.
>
>Actually, that is how a computer should be used. All of the quirks of
>regualarly rebooting, running antivirus software and a tight firewall,
>periodically defragmenting the filesystem, periodically reinstalling
>the operating system, periodic crashes et al, are all MICROS~1'isms.
>Real computers don't do that. MICROS~1 has built its entire career
>around turning a computer into a kitchen sink appliane with a perverse
>sense of humor. That's an awful waste of a perfectly good computer.
You know, it's been said by others but I remember thinking early on
how clever a plot Micro$oft had in keeping all the Windows
vulnerabilities it has! And time has proven this sentiment correct!
The anti-malware industry earns big bucks for so many companies! I
want out of that!! It's things like have my computer slow down each
night while it takes several hours to run through my 200gig hdd that
feels so unnecessary! So glad that it's been confirmed that Linux
won't need that. What a relief!
>UNIX systems are secure, stable, portable, flexible, scalable,
>versatile, powerful multi-user platforms and always have been. It's
>the core design of UNIX, which was developed on a multi-user
>minicomputer. UNIX is designed for 24/7 uptime - one does not just go
>and reboot a mission-critical minicomputer, supercomputer or mainframe,
>and an operating system crash on such a system is intolerable as well,
>given the responsibilities towards the paying customers and the
>financial implications of failing to live up to those responsibilities.
Wow, thanks for the education. Makes infinite sense to me. But,
then, I've never equated Micro$oft with sense ... at any moment!
>As for the learning curve, *everything* has one, but many people hide
>behind that term "learning curve" simply because they can't let go of a
>Windows addiction and habituation. This is not a flaw in GNU/Linux but
>a flaw in the biological unit between the keyboard and the chair. ;-)
I hear you. I've had other obstacles, too. But I've taught myself
everything I know. From DOS to Windows 3.1/3.11 to Win95, Win98SE to
WinXP ... and I was running Win3.x at the end with a Win95 GUI called
Calmira so with all these experiences, have had to deal with steep
learning curves before. As long as I can eventually run at the same
speed on my end with none of the Windows hassles, that's all I care
about. One of the two biggest obstacles seemed the file system one.
But I should have known that Linux wouldn't have a FAT32 size
limitation problem and that there was a way around that.
Anyway, thanks again everyone. It's my hope that other newbie
Windows-to-Linux users will find some/any/all of this as helpful as I
have. There's so much info on the net that this thread and this ng
have been of enormous help even with just this initial foray.
Thanks and cheers. :oD
RodMcKay
Oh, lord, yes! I've cut down a lot on my Windows time by either
making apps "portable" and storing them on a partition and just
updating shortcuts after a new install but it still takes me a couple
of hours to get up to about 75% functionality, with a couple of weeks
to get 100%, working several sessions on installing the stuff that
doesn't work as a standalone. But it's still labour-intensive!
Looking forward to this.
Thanks for the heads-up re phishing.
RodMcKay
wrote:
And that's another Windows gripe I have (I'll try to keep it
short!!!l) ... install Windows and what do you have????? Practically
nothing! I was seriously impressed with the distro my colleague gave
me. Much beyond basic stuff and you're up and running so quickly!
Way to go .... <g>
J.O. Aho
> On Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:51:54 +0100, "J.O. Aho" <us...@example.net>
> wrote:
>> TJ wrote:
>>> RodMcKay wrote:
>>> OpenOffice will output in both new and old Word formats, though it's a
>>> bit better at the older ones. For most functions, OO is just as powerful
>>> as Word. Some of the automated stuff won't work the same, but unless
>>> you're a MS Office power user, you probably won't miss them. And in some
>>> cases, OO is better than Word. A friend of mine was once working on a
>>> very long Word document, using OpenOffice. He happened to save
>>> intermediate copies using OO's native format, and the resulting file was
>>> nearly half the size of the equivalent MS Office file.
>> Load a ms-office document into OO and store it with the same format as it had
>> before, but with a different name, you will see files up to 50% smaller.
>> Don't forget that OO can save PDF files and has the ability to edit PDF files
>> natively.
>
> True but the difficulty is sharing. I understand about converting to
> everything to OO, I've in fact done that. The problem is converting
> back.
OO do convert odt to doc nicely, those new docx is another matter, but all MSO
manages to read some doc format and you have quite many to pick from in OO,
the main difference is that OO don't save which font to use for every row in
your document, it tells only which font to use when you change font in your
document, this is what makes the OO saved doc to be smaller than the MSO saved
doc.
> I may have to run MS Word off WINE for my resume which I must
> give a copy of to my employment agencies whenever I'm looking for
> work.
Thats just nonsense, just select to save as MSO doc when you save the document
in OO.
Remember that OO is the only of the two which uses a document standard format.
> And PDF is no go so far in this case.
PDF is a great thing, for you will know it will look exactly the same on the
other machine as on yours, no matter if they have the font installed or not
which you used.
--
//Aho
RodMcKay
>On Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:29:48 -0500, RodMcKay wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:13:29 -0500, RodMcKay <NoJun...@No.com> wrote:
[snip]
>Also, for your first distro, take a look at PCLinuxOS 2009 (http://
>www.pclinuxos.com/). Designed for the Windows user. Very low learning
>curve. And it pretty much comes pre-configured with all the stuff you'll
>need for general computing. No tweaks required.
>
>
>Stef
I dl and tried PCLinuxOS this morning. Found it pretty kewl, you're
right.
One question about these LiveCDs that I've not found a way around:
-----------------------------
2009-11-14 09:19:09
(http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1049483.html)
No you can't since the LiveCD has no access to the Hard Drive.
-----------------------------
is the above statement true? It's what I found 2 years ago that
anything I did would disappear once I rebooted. This feels similar to
a virtual environment which is what I'm guessing a LiveCD is. But
working with the LiveCD for now seems like the perfect transitional
tool for the switch as I'd not have to worry about installing and
working with my partitions fully till I knew more about what I was
doing re things like the file system, etc., etc.
Is there any way to get files/folders created while using LiveCD to
actually be stored on the hdd itself rather than some virtual
representation of the hdd/partitions as seems to happen when on the
LiveCD?
RodMcKay
wrote:
I apologize, can I go back and delete this message <g>? I didn't read
far enough along the post:
-----------------------------
2009-11-14 09:24:16
(http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1049483.html)
To be able to write data from an Ubuntu LiveCD to HDD is to become a
superuser. All you need is this command
sudo nautilus
Then you can read and write on the HDD via Nautilus either it's Ext3,
fat or ntfs.
-----------------------------
I'm still trying to get a handle on the terminal/console and
remembering how to find it.
This will be neat if I can get that to work. I've cleared the only
partition I could, the smallest one (1.76 gigs) because I still had
enough room on the 500gig external drive to move the stuff over to it.
With my WinXP currently buggy 'cause it needs the damned bi-yearly
cleanup (which I should do more regularly but I procrastinate as I
need my system operational, d'uh, like anybody does). That's why I'm
even more in favour of Linux because with the LiveCD I could get into
the external drive and start working on my PVR's ripped DVD files that
a buggy WinXP doesn't process properly anymore. In fact, it's this
that alerts me to the bugginess to begin with since only a clean XP
produces consistently good AVIs with audio completely in sync! <g>
Okay, going to check out this Nautilus stuff. Begging the group's
indulgence and tolerance to this Linux noob <g>.
Stefan Patric
>>I dl and tried PCLinuxOS this morning. Found it pretty kewl, you're
>>right.
>>
>>One question about these LiveCDs that I've not found a way around:
>>
>>-----------------------------
>>2009-11-14 09:19:09
>>(http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1049483.html) No you can't
>>since the LiveCD has no access to the Hard Drive.
>>-----------------------------
>>
>>is the above statement true? It's what I found 2 years ago that
>>anything I did would disappear once I rebooted. This feels similar to a
>>[snip]
>>Is there any way to get files/folders created while using LiveCD to
>>actually be stored on the hdd itself rather than some virtual
>>representation of the hdd/partitions as seems to happen when on the
>>LiveCD?
>
> I apologize, can I go back and delete this message <g>? I didn't read
> far enough along the post:
>
> -----------------------------
> 2009-11-14 09:24:16
> (http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1049483.html)
>
> To be able to write data from an Ubuntu LiveCD to HDD is to become a
> superuser. All you need is this command
>
> sudo nautilus
>
> Then you can read and write on the HDD via Nautilus either it's Ext3,
> fat or ntfs.
> -----------------------------
There are some LiveCDs that when booted will auto-mount all the
partitions on all the drives on system, but read-only. To get write
access, you'll need to be root or a superuser. I think Puppy Linux does
this, and Mepis, but I'm not sure: Don't have the distros handy to
check. Also, PCLOS will easily mount partitions, IIRC. Go to My
Computer on the Desktop, if the drives and/or partitions are there, right
click and pick 'mount' or, maybe, double left click--not sure--to mount.
If you're logged in as a normal user, you'll probably have to enter the
root password to get full access.
Also, some LiveCDs permit you to store configurations and downloaded
applications in a file on your hard drive. So, the next time you boot
it, all your settings are the same, etc.
> I'm still trying to get a handle on the terminal/console and remembering
> how to find it.
Here's a good place to start:
http://linuxcommand.org/index.php
Stef
Jamie
RodMcKay <NoJun...@No.com> mentions:
>So thought I'd ask for any comments from anyone who has already made
>the switch. I mean, anything has practically got to be better than
>Windows, but just curious as to what the major adjustments might have
>been for other Windows users. thx.
I did NOT switch from windows to linux, I went DOS -> OS/2 -> linux
I was a HUGE microsoft DOS fan, thought microsoft was the greatest thing ever,
(I still think CodeView was awesome..)
Then, I got my first 32-bit computer (a 486) and I needed an operating system
for it. The only 32-bit operating system I could find was OS/2, so I went
with that. (I wanted a MS operating system, believe it or not)
Gradually it became obvious that OS/2 would be phased out, by this time I'd
already been using various unix bases machines via telnet.
So I tried to make the "gradual" shift, using a boot manager to install OS/2
and linux on the same machine. This turned out to be a small mistake, would
have been easier if I'd just went with linux 100%.
My advice is install both but don't use windows at all for 30 days, don't try
to "gradually" get into linux, install it and spend about a month or so using
exclusively linux. (you'll be frustrated at first.. believe me..)
The problem is, you'll be looking at linux as a replacement for windows, and
with this perspective, it'll never really seem "as good as" windows.
Fact is, unix is a completely different philosophy, if you get used to the way
it does things (processes, groups, devices, users, pipes, shells, etc..) you'll
find that, at least at the command line, your knowledge is re-usable and after
a month of hard-core linux command line usage, things will be WAY easier than they
ever were with a GUI, like windows.
I find it incredibly sad that linux seems to be getting as bad as windows in
that everything is taking on the monolithic "do everything horribly" approach
of typical windows apps.
These days, the linux gui crap is pretty much on par with windows, it's
resource intensive, crashes a lot and is generally quite frustrating, you'll
feel right at home if you install one of these glitzy-eye candy distros. :-)
Jamie
--
http://www.geniegate.com Custom web programming
Perl * Java * UNIX User Management Solutions
Aragorn
as RodMcKay wrote...
> On Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:42:51 +0100, Aragorn
> <ara...@chatfactory.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On Friday 13 November 2009 00:38 in alt.os.linux, somebody
>> identifying as RodMcKay wrote...
>>
>>> But I can live with the limitations, I believe. But Outlook no. It
>>> handles my rather large email needs like no other. However,
>>> wouldn't like to run it under Wine, I definitely would prefer to
>>> find a Linux "equivalent" to.
>>
>> You could try that Java Outlook clone - unfortunately I do not know
>> what it's called, but Google should be able to provide for some
>> clues.
>
> Wow, sounds interesting. Definitely something to look for. It's not
> just how Outlook looks and its structure, it's the power it has which
> I've enhanced with VB scripts.
I do not know whether this application I spoke of supports VB scripting,
and if it doesn't, then that's a Good Thing (TM). <grin> VB scripting
is one of the mechanisms that allows malware to peruse your address
book and forward itself to everyone listed in there.
>>> And, YES, I definitely like all those things that Linux provides:
>>> - no need to update virus/malware definitions so often
>>
>> "So often"? How about "never"? ;-) There are no viruses for
>> GNU/Linux in the wild. Attempts have been made in controlled
>> environments as a "proof of concept" that an ELF executable could be
>> appended with virus code, but this in itself proves nothing, really.
>
> So, as I hoped, it's like a MAC in that way! Excellent!
Actually, Apple's OS-X is based upon FreeBSD, which is a UNIX-style
operating system similar to GNU/Linux. The main difference however is
that the BSD license permits the proprietary recycling of the software,
which the GNU GPL does not permit. This is one of the reasons why
Steve Jobs chose FreeBSD as the foundation for OS-X. The other reason
was that he was a longtime BSD fan, and that he had previously released
a BSD-based operating system called NeXtSTeP, which used a proprietary
graphical user interface - of which clones exist for the X Window
System.
NeXtSTeP originally ran on proprietary hardware, which was pretty much
the same as that in the MacIntosh of that era - i.e. late '80s, early
to mid '90s'. This was all during the time that Jobs was fired from
Apple Computer. Later on he was offered a return to Apple and then he
sold the hardware to Canon and took NeXtSTeP with him as a future
operating system for the Mac. NeXt computers were quite eccentric - in
both the good and the bad sense - but they were far too expensive for
the enduser and in addition to that, Jobs had a habit of spending huge
amounts of money on trivial things - e.g. he had his office repainted
several times in only a few weeks time - so the company was not exactly
granted a lot of succes.
However, all things considered, if we discard Jobs's NeXtSTeP adventure,
then GNU/Linux is older than OS-X.
>> In order for a virus to work in a UNIX operating system, the virus
>> has to be downloaded, it has to be given ownership by the root user,
>> it has to be given execute permission in the filesystem layer and it
>> then has to be manually started. All of those require conscious
>> actions from the root user. In Windows, "open" equals "execute", and
>> files are considered executable depending on the last three
>> characters of the filename - as was the case in DOS and OS/2 - while
>> in UNIX, a file is executable only if it has execute permission for
>> your user account - either directly, as in "you own the file and it
>> has execute permission for you", or indirectly, as in "you are a
>> member of a group of users who have execute permission", or "you are
>> not a member of the group of users the owner belongs to, but the file
>> has execute permission for everyone else".
>
> Very good. That's what I've always envied for MAC users.
As explained above, OS-X is younger than GNU/Linux, and this aspect of
GNU/Linux is simply an aspect of UNIX as an operating system
architecture. UNIX was first released in 1970, long before Bill Gates
ever founded MICROS~1, and I doubt whether Steve Jobs would have been
very active around that time already as well. ;-)
> But MACs are an impossible situation since there's nothing like WINE
> for those apps we absolutely cannot find a native replacement for.
It is possible to install Wine on OS-X, but it requires installing an X
Window System, which is the default graphical engine in a UNIX-style
operating system. It is possible to install X.Org or XFree86 on OS-X,
but OS-X natively uses a proprietary graphical user interface which
itself is not X11-compatible.
> Linux seems to be the best of both worlds!
GNU/Linux is better than either one. It is free - as in "freedom" - and
most distributions are also available /for/ free - as in "free beer".
>>> - no need to repeatedly wipe the drive and reinstall!!! That I've
>>> always loved the idea of.
>>
>> Actually, that is how a computer should be used. All of the quirks
>> of regualarly rebooting, running antivirus software and a tight
>> firewall, periodically defragmenting the filesystem, periodically
>> reinstalling the operating system, periodic crashes et al, are all
>> MICROS~1'isms. Real computers don't do that. MICROS~1 has built its
>> entire career around turning a computer into a kitchen sink appliane
>> with a perverse sense of humor. That's an awful waste of a perfectly
>> good computer.
>
> You know, it's been said by others but I remember thinking early on
> how clever a plot Micro$oft had in keeping all the Windows
> vulnerabilities it has! And time has proven this sentiment correct!
> The anti-malware industry earns big bucks for so many companies!
Exactly, and so does the hardware industry. MICROS~1 bloats its next
versions of FascistOS so much and breaks backward compatibility, so
that the customer is forced to buy a new and more powerful computer,
which the hardware manufacturers reward by supporting Windows only with
their various peripherals. It's pure fascism: corporations working
together and covering eachother's back.
> I want out of that!! It's things like have my computer slow down each
> night while it takes several hours to run through my 200gig hdd that
> feels so unnecessary! So glad that it's been confirmed that Linux
> won't need that. What a relief!
The only thing UNIX systems typically do - although you can of course
tweak or disable this as per your preferences - is rotate logs
overnight, usually around 04:00, and index files for the (s)locate
feature. However, this only takes a few minutes.
>> UNIX systems are secure, stable, portable, flexible, scalable,
>> versatile, powerful multi-user platforms and always have been. It's
>> the core design of UNIX, which was developed on a multi-user
>> minicomputer. UNIX is designed for 24/7 uptime - one does not just
>> go and reboot a mission-critical minicomputer, supercomputer or
>> mainframe, and an operating system crash on such a system is
>> intolerable as well, given the responsibilities towards the paying
>> customers and the financial implications of failing to live up to
>> those responsibilities.
>
> Wow, thanks for the education. Makes infinite sense to me. But,
> then, I've never equated Micro$oft with sense ... at any moment!
MICROS~1 is all about power, more than about money. Every computer
running MICROS~1 software is endebted to MICROS~1 for use of their
<cough> "intellectual property". That, plus that FascistOS is spyware;
it phones home once every week.
>> As for the learning curve, *everything* has one, but many people hide
>> behind that term "learning curve" simply because they can't let go of
>> a Windows addiction and habituation. This is not a flaw in GNU/Linux
>> but a flaw in the biological unit between the keyboard and the chair.
>> ;-)
>
> I hear you. I've had other obstacles, too. But I've taught myself
> everything I know. From DOS to Windows 3.1/3.11 to Win95, Win98SE to
> WinXP ... and I was running Win3.x at the end with a Win95 GUI called
> Calmira so with all these experiences, have had to deal with steep
> learning curves before. As long as I can eventually run at the same
> speed on my end with none of the Windows hassles, that's all I care
> about. One of the two biggest obstacles seemed the file system one.
> But I should have known that Linux wouldn't have a FAT32 size
> limitation problem and that there was a way around that.
You are not supposed to install GNU/Linux on a FAT/FAT32. The current
Linux-native filesystems are ext2, ext3 and ext4. The latter two have
journaling and are to be preferred over ext2, but you are not limited
to those only. The Linux kernel also has built-in support for
reiserfs, XFS and JFS as filesystems upon which you can install the
system. XFS in Linux is a port from SGI's IRIX filesystem, and JFS is
a port of IBM's AIX filesystem.
The latter two are extremly fast and robust, but I would recommend
connecting your computer to a UPS if you're going to use one of these,
since they only commit the data to disk at the last moment so as to
increase performance, and this could lead to serious data loss in the
event of a power failure. They also have journaling, but due to the
aggressive caching, you would suffer more dataloss than in the event of
a powerfailure while using ext3 or ext4.
GNU/Linux requires at least two partitions, i.e. one for the main
filesystem - called "the root filesystem - and a dedicated swap
partition. Linux can use swapfiles, but a swap partition is still
faster. (Note: This is not a partition with a swapfile on it; it
doesn't have a filesystem on it even, and it's formatted in an entirely
different way.)
While the above is the easy approach in terms of allocating enough space
for the system, the applications and your own work files, it is
possible to "split off" certain sections of the system onto other
partitions with a filesystem of their own (and of your choice). Per
illustration, here's my current partitioning on this box here:
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda2 393M 179M 214M 46% /
/dev/hda1 197M 38M 159M 20% /boot
/dev/hda3 9.8G 2.5G 7.3G 26% /usr
/dev/hda6 746M 33M 714M 5% /opt
/dev/hda7 2.0G 359M 1.6G 19% /var
/dev/hda8 298M 33M 266M 11% /usr/local
/dev/hda9 79G 2.0G 77G 3% /home
/dev/hda10 21G 3.2G 18G 16% /srv
none 1014M 16M 999M 2% /tmp
The leftmost column represents the device special files which form the
abstraction layer for userspace access to the various partitions.
The "none" in the last line is there because I have "/tmp" reside on
a /tmpfs/ - i.e. a pageable RAM-based filesystem that only consumes as
much RAM as the space occupied by what's residing on that filesystem.
The rightmost column represents the directories the partitions are
mounted on. To the enduser, this bears no importance as the file
hierarchy is always the same whether you are using multiple partitions
or just one root filesystem with everything on it. As you can tell,
the swap partition is also not listed there because it is mounted into
the kernel directly, not via userspace.
The "/srv" directory may or may not exist in the distribution of your
choice. It is included in the File Hierarcy Standard (FHS) version 2.3
for shareable storage of things that would traditionally be placed
under the "/var" tree but don't really belong there - e.g. webpages, an
FTP repository, etc. - but not all GNU/Linux distributions implement
it, and those that do usually leave it at the administrator's
discretion how to further organize this directory.
Another useful thing to mention - at least, in my opinion - is that in
the event of using multiple partitions, not only can you use a
different filesystem type for each of them if so desired, but you can
also format them with different blocksizes and specify different mount
options for them. For instance, I have "/boot", "/usr", "/usr/local"
and "/opt" mounted read-only during normal operation, since they only
contain static data - i.e. the bulk of the multi-user software. Having
them read-only also improves system security and reduces any chances of
data corruption should a crash occur - which happens quite a lot on
this machine here due to flawed hardware, by the way.
With regard to the consumed diskspace in the above overview, this is
only a temporary installation - of PCLinuxOS 2009.2 - given that the
hardware has flaws, and so I don't have too much installed, but it does
have a complete OpenOffice /and/ KOffice, The Gimp and a bunch of very
common other software.
The filesystem used on each of the above partitions is reiserfs - since
recently also cynically referred to as killerfs[1] - which is fairly
reliable and fast but unfortunately does not have a complete toolset
like ext2/3/4, XFS or JFS. I am using it because it's a B-plus tree
filesystem (like XFS and JFS, but without the aggressive caching) and
it's quite a lot faster than ext2/3. ext4 is still relatively new and
promises to be a lot faster than its predecessors. The ext-family of
filesystems also has B-trees but they are disabled by default. (They
can be switched on via the /tune2fs/ tool, though.)
[1] This is version 3.6 of the Reiser Filesystem. Version 4.0 is called
reiser4 and is quite revolutionary, but it's not part of the
upstream Linux kernel. Version 3.6 is still being maintained
somewhat, but Hans Reiser, the chief developer of these filesystems
and the founder of NameSys, is currently serving a long prison
sentence for the murder of his estranged wife. I don't know what
has become of NameSys in the meantime, but it was already put up for
sale even before Reiser was convicted, albeit that nobody seemed
interested in buying it.
RodMcKay
wrote:
>On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 09:46:59 -0500, RodMcKay wrote:
Actually, don't know if it's because I dl and used PCLinuxOS or
because of putting "sudo nautilus" in the console window but with
PCLinuxOS, I was able to write to the partition with no problem. I
created some PDFs files and some screenshots, etc., and they were
there when I booted back into XP. Though maybe it's because with
PCLinuxOS I have to log in, something that neither Knoppix or Ubuntu
required. I logged in as guest first and then as root the next time,
but I think I know enough to be careful of what I do in root. It's
like being an administrator in Window$, in the concept I mean ... You
can do things as root that you can't as guest, if I've understood
correctly. But at any rate, with no fuss or muss, I was able to work
in Linux then still have access to the files in Window$.
I have Adobe Acrobat and couldn't do the usual editing of my PDFs so
went back into Windows to do the usual cleanup and adding of URL
links, etc. (Looks like I'll be searching for a replacement for KPDF,
too <g>. Meh, just something minor. <g>)
Thanks! :oD
J.O. Aho
> I have Adobe Acrobat and couldn't do the usual editing of my PDFs so
> went back into Windows to do the usual cleanup and adding of URL
> links, etc.
There are different ways you can make PDF's in Linux, the easiest is to use
OpenOffice 3, with a small plugin you can edit the PDF files too (it's not
100%, it depend on hte application used to create the PDF in the first place).
> (Looks like I'll be searching for a replacement for KPDF,
> too <g>. Meh, just something minor. <g>)
Acrobat reader, it's still only 32bits, so if you use an 64bit installation
you would need to have multilib (32bit libraries). You have also xpdf too,
it's faster and lighter and don't support all the new stuff.
--
//Aho
RodMcKay
<ara...@chatfactory.invalid> wrote:
>On Saturday 14 November 2009 03:46 in alt.os.linux, somebody identifying
>as RodMcKay wrote...
>
>> On Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:42:51 +0100, Aragorn
>> <ara...@chatfactory.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> On Friday 13 November 2009 00:38 in alt.os.linux, somebody
>>> identifying as RodMcKay wrote...
>>>
>>>> But I can live with the limitations, I believe. But Outlook no. It
>>>> handles my rather large email needs like no other. However,
>>>> wouldn't like to run it under Wine, I definitely would prefer to
>>>> find a Linux "equivalent" to.
>>>
>>> You could try that Java Outlook clone - unfortunately I do not know
>>> what it's called, but Google should be able to provide for some
>>> clues.
Interesting. Wonder how good it'll be. Interesting to find out.
[snip]
>Actually, Apple's OS-X is based upon FreeBSD, which is a UNIX-style
...
[snip] Most interesting. I didn't know all this stuff.
>GNU/Linux is better than either one. It is free - as in "freedom" - and
>most distributions are also available /for/ free - as in "free beer".
<sigh> Yup! Great news.
>>>> - no need to repeatedly wipe the drive and reinstall!!! That I've
>>>> always loved the idea of.
>>>
>>> Actually, that is how a computer should be used. All of the quirks
>>> of regualarly rebooting, running antivirus software and a tight
>>> firewall, periodically defragmenting the filesystem, periodically
>>> reinstalling the operating system, periodic crashes et al, are all
>>> MICROS~1'isms. Real computers don't do that. MICROS~1 has built its
>>> entire career around turning a computer into a kitchen sink appliane
>>> with a perverse sense of humor. That's an awful waste of a perfectly
>>> good computer.
Yeah, you've expressed what I've been most disgruntled about; I like
that, _real_ computers shouldn't be that way and _don't_ operate that
way. You don't know how many times I've been forced to answer that
one to my family ... "yup, you're absolutely right, but that's Window$
for you and what can we do ... ???? <sigh>.
Get this, I'm scheduled for two sessions in near future, as soon as I
can manage it, time-wise - the friend I gave my old 11gig box to with
Win98SE can't burn anymore. Well, time to go over and
reformat/reinstall 'cause that's a sure sign that it's time to do the
old overhaul! Fortunately, it's my old box and I kept all the
drivers, etc., for it. A 2-3 hour session to get her back up and
running and a free lunch and it'll be done.
My sister's computer quit about a month ago. I'll have to go over
there and do the same for her, but no such luck re the drivers and
such. Probably no installation CD, either. So that one will probably
be a much longer session or multiple sessions ... <gr> Free lunch
ain't gonna cut that one!
But my friend has been warned. The instant, and I mean the instant
that I'm more comfortable with Linux, enough to show her how to rip
CDs and burn, she's getting switched over to it, no ifs ands or buts!!
My sister, well, she's going to get the Linux talk, too, and very
soon!
My uncle's laptop stopped being able to install last year. The
instant it gets worse and he gets desperate, he's going to get the
"Linux talk", too. I think that my own buggy system and all these
other systems failing in the family and with my friend have
accelerated this decision.
Enough is enough, M$!!! <g>
[snip]
>MICROS~1 is all about power, more than about money. Every computer
>running MICROS~1 software is endebted to MICROS~1 for use of their
><cough> "intellectual property". That, plus that FascistOS is spyware;
>it phones home once every week.
Ahhh, yes. That, too. An oversight on my part for not saying it, but
you're right that it's all about power, too.
>>> As for the learning curve, *everything* has one, but many people hide
>>> behind that term "learning curve" simply because they can't let go of
>>> a Windows addiction and habituation. This is not a flaw in GNU/Linux
>>> but a flaw in the biological unit between the keyboard and the chair.
>>> ;-)
True. But I'm not such an animal. I've migrated from electric
typewriters, to electronic ones, to the first office wordprocessors,
to DOS, from DOS through Win3x and then all the Window$ flavours,
except Vista (and I'm never even going there, never mind Win7!).
Alongside that I've also gone through literally _thousands_ of
different pieces of software. I don't think it would be an
over-estimation to say that I've literally tested 2000-3000 software
titles in last 10 years ever since I got my own home computer. I
literally have to test at least 50 pieces of software till I find the
one that does _everything_ that I need for each task and in a good
way, and that adds up over time since I do so much both at office and
at home. The only things that have stuck throughout the years are the
apps that I have never managed to replace: WordPerfect, Filemaker
Pro, Outlook and Excel and PowerPoint. Those are the constants (and
I'm no MS fan, although if memory serves, the MS apps weren't even
developed by MS anyway, merely taken over by).
The _only_ reason I even have MS to begin with is because of work.
For me, I wouldn't even have it most likely except that now that I
know them, I know it'll be difficult to find replacements for them.
VB might be basis for malware, that's true, but once you start using
it, wow. OpenOffice translated my files, sure, but I lost all
automation and power besides which OO still has some finetuning to do
on its processes/interface as it's really rather clunky.
[snip]
>You are not supposed to install GNU/Linux on a FAT/FAT32. The current
>Linux-native filesystems are ext2, ext3 and ext4. The latter two have
>journaling and are to be preferred over ext2, but you are not limited
>to those only. The Linux kernel also has built-in support for
Thanks.
>GNU/Linux requires at least two partitions, i.e. one for the main
>filesystem - called "the root filesystem - and a dedicated swap
>partition. Linux can use swapfiles, but a swap partition is still
>faster. (Note: This is not a partition with a swapfile on it; it
>doesn't have a filesystem on it even, and it's formatted in an entirely
>different way.)
Kewl, thanks.
[snip - great figures and explanation here]
>Another useful thing to mention - at least, in my opinion - is that in
>the event of using multiple partitions, not only can you use a
>different filesystem type for each of them if so desired, but you can
>also format them with different blocksizes and specify different mount
>options for them. For instance, I have "/boot", "/usr", "/usr/local"
>and "/opt" mounted read-only during normal operation, since they only
>contain static data - i.e. the bulk of the multi-user software. Having
>them read-only also improves system security and reduces any chances of
>data corruption should a crash occur - which happens quite a lot on
>this machine here due to flawed hardware, by the way.
I'm guessing it isn't necessary, though? We can just stick with one
across the board, like ext3, or what have you?
>With regard to the consumed diskspace in the above overview, this is
>only a temporary installation - of PCLinuxOS 2009.2 - given that the
>hardware has flaws, and so I don't have too much installed, but it does
>have a complete OpenOffice /and/ KOffice, The Gimp and a bunch of very
>common other software.
Um, your hardware or hardware in general? Not sure I got that part.
[snip]
I have to admit that I didn't understand all of that but that's just
because I've not learned a lot about hardware issues. I can't replace
my box easily so I've never messed with it, otherwise I'd be as strong
in this aspect as I am in the software side of things.
Thanks, lots of great information here. :oD
RodMcKay
>In <mqunf5h0gpadh7fbo...@4ax.com>,
>RodMcKay <NoJun...@No.com> mentions:
>>So thought I'd ask for any comments from anyone who has already made
>>the switch. I mean, anything has practically got to be better than
>>Windows, but just curious as to what the major adjustments might have
>>been for other Windows users. thx.
>
>I did NOT switch from windows to linux, I went DOS -> OS/2 -> linux
Interesting progression ...
[snip]
>My advice is install both but don't use windows at all for 30 days, don't try
>to "gradually" get into linux, install it and spend about a month or so using
>exclusively linux. (you'll be frustrated at first.. believe me..)
I have no choice there. Work will be M$ probably for the foreseeable
future. I can't give it up completely at work so I'll have to keep it
on hand at home. Recently had to go to Office 2007 and that further
alienated me from M$. But I've switched OSsa before several times,
nothing new there.
>The problem is, you'll be looking at linux as a replacement for windows, and
>with this perspective, it'll never really seem "as good as" windows.
Well, bad wording on my part, I guess.
>Fact is, unix is a completely different philosophy, if you get used to the way
>it does things (processes, groups, devices, users, pipes, shells, etc..) you'll
>find that, at least at the command line, your knowledge is re-usable and after
>a month of hard-core linux command line usage, things will be WAY easier than they
>ever were with a GUI, like windows.
Well, I did a lot via commandline in old DOS system, too, so that's
not new, it's actually old <g>. I've just gotten used to doing things
via GUI, is all.
>I find it incredibly sad that linux seems to be getting as bad as windows in
>that everything is taking on the monolithic "do everything horribly" approach
>of typical windows apps.
>
>These days, the linux gui crap is pretty much on par with windows, it's
>resource intensive, crashes a lot and is generally quite frustrating, you'll
>feel right at home if you install one of these glitzy-eye candy distros. :-)
Yeah, but see, I do like GUIs over commandline. It's just quicker and
more "friendly" (for me). Yes, I'll adapt back but when DOS went GUI
via Win3x, it actually felt good to me. Then I went and found Calmira
several years after we went 32bit and I loved that to bits. GUIs
don't alienate me since I'm very visual. Even a "bad" Linux distro
has got to be better than Window$ so this doesn't bother me.
What I _do_ like is having the commandline option. In Win98SE days,
can't tell you how many times I'd reboot to DOS to fix a problem the
GUI side wouldn't let me fix, so the Linux approach is actually quite
comfortable for me in this regard. Just a matter of preference, I
guess.
>Jamie
Thanks Jamie.
RodMcKay
wrote:
>RodMcKay wrote:
>
>> I have Adobe Acrobat and couldn't do the usual editing of my PDFs so
>> went back into Windows to do the usual cleanup and adding of URL
>> links, etc.
>
>There are different ways you can make PDF's in Linux, the easiest is to use
>OpenOffice 3, with a small plugin you can edit the PDF files too (it's not
>100%, it depend on hte application used to create the PDF in the first place).
I just made the PDF via the option to print to PDF from Firefox, as I
would do "normally" in Window$.
>> (Looks like I'll be searching for a replacement for KPDF,
>> too <g>. Meh, just something minor. <g>)
>
>Acrobat reader, it's still only 32bits, so if you use an 64bit installation
>you would need to have multilib (32bit libraries). You have also xpdf too,
>it's faster and lighter and don't support all the new stuff.
Acrobat Reader? But it just reads. I have the full Adobe Acrobat
which is the creator/editor, too.
I'd forgotten OO can create PDFs. I'll have to check that out.
Thanks.
J.O. Aho
Yes, it only reads like KPDF.
> I'd forgotten OO can create PDFs. I'll have to check that out.
Alternatively you can use ps2pdf, command line tool which converts a printer
spool to pdf.
--
//Aho
J.O. Aho
> I have no choice there. Work will be M$ probably for the foreseeable
> future. I can't give it up completely at work so I'll have to keep it
> on hand at home. Recently had to go to Office 2007 and that further
> alienated me from M$. But I've switched OSsa before several times,
> nothing new there.
I have been quite lucky, I have been able to choose my OS to use at work the
last 4 employments I have had, and I have of course chosen to use Linux, it
have given mer more than use microsoft.
--
//Aho
Aragorn
as RodMcKay wrote...
> On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 06:36:35 +0100, Aragorn
> <ara...@chatfactory.invalid> wrote:
>
>>>> As for the learning curve, *everything* has one, but many people
>>>> hide behind that term "learning curve" simply because they can't
>>>> let go of a Windows addiction and habituation. This is not a flaw
>>>> in GNU/Linux but a flaw in the biological unit between the keyboard
>>>> and the chair. ;-)
>
> True. But I'm not such an animal. I've migrated from electric
> typewriters, to electronic ones, to the first office wordprocessors,
> to DOS, from DOS through Win3x and then all the Window$ flavours,
> except Vista (and I'm never even going there, never mind Win7!).
I myself had been using DOS on other people's computers, and when I
bought my first own computer, it came with DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.x. I
only used it like that for about five months, until OS/2 2.0 became
available for retail.
Then I've used OS/2 2.0 and 2.1 for about five years, and although I
really wanted a UNIX for my next system, proprietary UNIX was
incredibly expensive for endusers, and GNU/Linux was still largely
unknown to me - it was still in its infancy and I didn't even have an
internet connection - so I compromised on NT 4.0 Workstation. I used
that for only two years and then I switched to a (purchased) Mandrake
GNU/Linux distribution. I have never used anything other than
GNU/Linux on my own computers since, and I only got my internet
connection after I was already exclusively running GNU/Linux.
> Alongside that I've also gone through literally _thousands_ of
> different pieces of software. I don't think it would be an
> over-estimation to say that I've literally tested 2000-3000 software
> titles in last 10 years ever since I got my own home computer. I
> literally have to test at least 50 pieces of software till I find the
> one that does _everything_ that I need for each task and in a good
> way, and that adds up over time since I do so much both at office and
> at home. The only things that have stuck throughout the years are the
> apps that I have never managed to replace: WordPerfect, Filemaker
> Pro, Outlook and Excel and PowerPoint. Those are the constants (and
> I'm no MS fan, although if memory serves, the MS apps weren't even
> developed by MS anyway, merely taken over by).
That is the case for most of their stuff. You (or someone else)
mentioned WordPerfect. Well, WordPerfect existed in a GNU/Linux
version, but WordPerfect had been bought by Corel - who also had their
own, albeit crappy GNU/Linux distribution.
Then MICROS~1 expressed an interest in acquiring Corel - officially so
that they could incorporate the CorelDRAW technology into their own
products, but everyone knows that the main incentive was to kill of
Corel's GNU/Linux distribution and its WordPerfect for GNU/Linux
support.
>> Another useful thing to mention - at least, in my opinion - is that
>> in the event of using multiple partitions, not only can you use a
>> different filesystem type for each of them if so desired, but you can
>> also format them with different blocksizes and specify different
>> mount options for them.
>>
>> For instance, I have "/boot", "/usr", "/usr/local" and "/opt" mounted
>> read-only during normal operation, since they only contain static
>> data - i.e. the bulk of the multi-user software. Having them
>> read-only also improves system security and reduces any chances of
>> data corruption should a crash occur - which happens quite a lot on
>> this machine here due to flawed hardware, by the way.
>
> I'm guessing it isn't necessary, though? We can just stick with one
> across the board, like ext3, or what have you?
It is not necessary to use different types of filesystems for different
partitions, and it is indeed also not necessary to use multiple
partitions, but it *is* advised to at the very least keep "/home" on a
separate partition, and in professional circles one typically opts for
spreading out the system over multiple partitions. They don't even
need to be physical partitions, because you can use logical volumes for
most of those filesystems instead, even, which offers more flexibility
than static partitions in terms of assigning diskspace.
Having the system spread out over multiple partitions or logical volumes
reduces fragmentation - not that this is an issue, but every filesystem
eventually gets fragmented when it starts to fill up - and reduces the
chances of data corruption. The idea is to keep the static filesystems
separate from the dynamic ones - such as "/var" and "/tmp" - and the
shareable separate from the non-shareable.
It's all about organization and efficiency. In the end, you get to
decide, because it's your computer, not MICROS~1's. ;-)
>> With regard to the consumed diskspace in the above overview, this is
>> only a temporary installation - of PCLinuxOS 2009.2 - given that the
>> hardware has flaws, and so I don't have too much installed, but it
>> does have a complete OpenOffice /and/ KOffice, The Gimp and a bunch
>> of very common other software.
>
> Um, your hardware or hardware in general? Not sure I got that part.
This particular computer here from which I am typing this. At the
moment this is my only usable machine so I need it for a few elementary
tasks, but its hardware is flawed - probably bad capacitors or a broken
keyboard controller.
First I thought it was the RAM but this has already been replaced. It
regularly hangs with flashing keyboard LEDs. I'm no engineer so I
can't really say what the problem is. Oh well, it'll have to make do
for now... :-/
RodMcKay
wrote:
<shudder> Reminds me of doing that years ago with ghost on Windows!
Thank god there's decent pdf freeware creation these days! I'm
definitely no longer into commandline, not that I ever was. It's just
that in old DOS days, not much choice. But Linux has so much GUI
alternatives going for it so it's not so bad. I didn't realize before
this weekend just how commandline it was, and glad I didn't because I
might have cowardly backed out <g>. But after dl and trying out
several more distros, found that what one does commandline, there is
something a GUI for it in the other distro. I'm definitely a GUI
person, have to admit <g>.
RodMcKay
wrote:
>RodMcKay wrote:
Yes, lucky you! Wish we had that kind of choice. If it weren't for
the fact that that's the OS everywhere I go re work, I'd be able to
drop Window$ much more easily. <g>
Avrom Pearson
"AndLinux", running Ubuntu over Windows XP allowed me to become familiar
with Ubuntu while using my familiar Windows programs and checking
out open source equivalents.
Ran Ubuntu 9.10 from disk a few times, going back to
XP for shorter and shorter visits.
Backed up hard disk, convinced I was going to wipe out
XP by repartitioning.
Repartitioned.
Installed Ubuntu 9.10.
Did not wipe out XP or my data.
Running Ubuntu, can now
bring up XP (don't very often) or Ubuntu and I can access
my old data and use some of my Windows programs using WINE.
Still have a lot to learn.
אברהמ
sctvguy1
> MarcB wrote:
>> RodMcKay wrote:
>>
>>> I've been fed up with Windows ever since I switched from a Win98SE box
>>> to WinXP a couple of years ago. But I haven't made the switch for
>>> programs I use. I'm ready to see how to do the switch anyway and see
>>> how Wine works. But that seems to defeat the purpose.
>>>
>>> the switch. I mean, anything has practically got to be better than
>>> Windows, but just curious as to what the major adjustments might have
>>> been for other Windows users. thx.
>>
>> At first I dual booted windows & linux, after knowing linux a little
>> better, I erased windows from my hard drive in order to have more
>> space for films.
>>
>> On my site, I described the process, and wrote down some settings as a
>> memory aid.
>>
>> https://sites.google.com/site/marcshomesite/Home
>>
>
>
> Good info
>
> I did a test install of Vista and there were no drivers for my very
> common sound card and SCSI card.
>
> Even with all the updates and the system tweaked for best performance...
> it ran terribly.
>
> I installed Linux and was very happy to see that *all* my hardware was
> detected just fine. As someone who has been using Linux on a part time
> basis for many years...this was the year I made the transition to it
> being my main OS.
>
> Since my machine has removable drive kits...I can compare different
> operating systems on the same H/W
>
>
> My main machine is a dual core XP-2800+ with three gigs of RAM
>
>
>
> The speed test I ran was simply copy an entire CD to the harddrive,
> then delete it.
>
>
> Using either Linux or XP...the time was about the same...
>
> however from Vista...it took *twice* as long
>
>
> Though Microsoft has now lost me as a customer...
> I suppose I should give Win7 a try...
> but I will not be using it other than for evaluation
do you still have eCS or OS/2? I am still waiting for eCS 2.0 to come out.
philo
I still have an ECS installation somewhere