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| 2.5 |
I’ve been using Linux in some way, shape or form since 2000, and its come along way since I first downloaded a version of Mandrake Linux to try. My primary OS is still Windows (Vista no less) due to the need of it at work (we use a management system here that is Windows only) however I still have two (yes, two!) different linux distributions installed on the laptop in addition to the windows install. I’ve compiled a list of the popular (read, heavily downloaded from LinuxTracker.org) distributions and why they’re worth a look…
I want to let you know that this list is in no way scientific and is almost entirely based on my experiences in the Linux realm. If you have some opinions you’d like to share, please do, I’d love to hear if you think I’m right or wrong. Also, the numbering is not how I think they rank, just the order I happened to write about them…
Popularity: 6% [?]
| 2.5 |
Amy and I went on a cruise last week and I have to say, it was a great way to travel, but thats not what I’m writing about today… While in Coco Beach, Fl. we stayed at a Marriott Courtyard hotel and I was impressed with the “business center” at the hotel for one reason.
Two of the computers available (the only two by the way…) were running linspire. I was quite impressed that a hotel would put these in the loby as the primary computers for its guests. I think thats very cool. If you’re going to Coco Beach, or you need a hotel newar Port Canaveral, make sure to stay at the Coco Beach Marriott Courtyard. THEY KICK ASS!!
Popularity: 7% [?]
| 2.5 |
Popularity: 7% [?]
| 2.5 |
WUBI!! w00t!! Wait! What? WUBI?? Thats right, the Windows UBuntu Installer project installs an Ubuntu install right to your windows box with out repartitioning, or otherwise fscking up your partitions or harddisks. But wait you say, it can’t be a full Ubuntu install can it? Oh, but it can and it is.
I was a little skeptical at first myself, it sounded too good to be true, and I had used VMplayer to load Linux Distributions before and while they worked, there were things lacking (graphic support, sound and so on…). However, once I fired up the installer and I noticed that it downloaded what appeared to be the actual ISO for Feisty, I became a little more impressed. I let it run over night and when I came in in the morning, it was finished and ready for a reboot.
The installer actually creates a vitrual image of the OS that resides on your drive. Obviously, its size is a full size distribution and the more crap you download and add to the install, the more space it takes up, but in a world where you can buy 1tb harddrives these days, who cares? Anyway, it edits the NTboot loader and creates an option for ubuntu. I need to go in and change the timeout on it, but thats a minor thing (I believe that when there is an option on a non-mission critical machine, it should wait for you to select an OS no matter how long it waits….). I selected ubuntu and on first boot it took a bit of time and one reboot as it configured itself, after that though it was smooth sailing.
I did have to enable the closed source ATI drivers and add XGL support and beryl following some instructions I had found, but I would have had to do that on a regular install anyway (Thanks ATI!) and over all, I’d have to say, I’m pretty impressed. I have not tried the wireless connection yet, but the wired connection came right up and connected right away….
I’ll post some screenshots later today….
Popularity: 8% [?]
| 2.5 |
More ad goodness.
Unfortunately, they don’t quite raise the hair on the back of my neck like the ibm linux one did…
Popularity: 7% [?]
| 2.5 |
Well… *she* is:
I think most linux users (the male ones anyway) would equate their linux boxes with a female personality….
Popularity: 7% [?]
| 2.5 |
Yar, this weekend, almost 2 full weeks earlier than years past, the sound of people waking up an hour late for Sunday morning Services (or work) will be heard across the country. If you’re operating on a windows based OS with automagic updates enabled, you’re covered. If your cell phone is set to use the network time, then providing your carrier is up-to-date, you’re covered. What about us Lee-noox users? Well, you can make sure you’re covered in a relatively simple way….
Open up an xterm (or aterm, or whatever term you like….) and type:
# zdump -v EST5EDT | grep 2007
The output should look exactly like this:
EST5EDT Sun Mar 11 06:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 11 01:59:59 2007 EST isdst=0 gmtoff=-18000
EST5EDT Sun Mar 11 07:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 11 03:00:00 2007 EDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-14400
EST5EDT Sun Nov 4 05:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Nov 4 01:59:59 2007 EDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-14400
EST5EDT Sun Nov 4 06:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Nov 4 01:00:00 2007 EST isdst=0 gmtoff=-18000
If that’s not the case, then do an ‘apt-get update; apt-get upgrade’ (if you’re on debian that is, you could probably do an emerge sync && emerge world on gentoo based systems…) and then run the command again. If that didn’t fix your issue, then there’s the NIH.gov technique (mind you this is all in the terminal:
1. su
2. cd /root
3. ftp elsie.nci.nih.gov
user: anonymous
pass: you@you.com
4. cd pub
5. ls
6. use ‘get’ to get the latest tzdata file like so:
get tzdata2007a.tar.gz
7. quit
8. mkdir tzdata
9. mv tzdata*.gz tzdata/.
10. cd tzdata
11. tar xzvf *.gz
12. cp /etc/localtime /etc/localtime.LAST
13. rm /etc/localtime
14. zic northamerica
15. ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/EST5EDT /etc/localtime
16. zdump -v /etc/localtime | grep 2007
It should show Mar 11 and Nov 4 as the new times, in my case. My example above is only for the east coast of USA. If that’s not you, then modify for your timezone. Sorry I don’t know about other timezones, but you can grep the /usr/share/zoneinfo directory to see what else is there….
Note: This info was gleaned from UbuntuForums. Props to the original poster!
Popularity: 7% [?]
| 2.5 |
Despite the fact that I’m not a big fan of his… Wil Wheaton actually has a decent post about some good linux resources out there. Recently, he tried linux out again and his findings this time were pretty good… though, I will say, he was using the current Linux Golden Boy, Ubuntu.
Got any more good linux resources for beginners? Let us know.
Popularity: 7% [?]
| 2.5 |
So I did something on a live production server (the web server here at work) the other day that I probably shouldn’t have done…. I ran yum update with out masking anything out of the update and then I rebooted the server. Needless to say, I learned why there are certain things (kernel and kernel sources) that should be masked when getting ready to automatically update your server.
On reboot, the server nicely suffered a kernel panic because it couldn’t find root. This stems from my custom partitioning the drives and setting it up the way I know how (with out the logical volume manager). I do this for several reasons, but mostly because I like it that way. The problem is most modern kernels and distributions do not support this with their stock kernels and grub installs any more… grrrrr. So I rebooted the machine and at the grub prompt, I selected the older kernel. Which is fine, we don’t need the bells and whistles of the 2.16.20 kernel (we’re on 2.16.18 or something…)
To counter this, installers such as yum, portage (emerge), apt-get, swaret… have ways to mask or protect certain packages from being upgraded. It does strike me kind of odd, that Fedora 6 doesn’t seem to by default…
Before upgrading world on your boxen, make sure to mask out any mission critical packages that could potentially ruin you if they’re done wrong…
Popularity: 7% [?]
| 2.5 |
I am by no means a guru when it comes to Linux, but, as (I think it was Zaphod Bebelbrox’s Psychiatrist) someone once said, “I’m just a guy, you know?” As such, I have been using linux for about 7 years now, and I’ve watched it grow from a fun server/toy use to something that remotely resembles a usable desktop (see Ubuntu, Mandrivia or Sabayon). Having been part of the “Linux Community” for the time I’ve been a user/fanboy, I’ve come to believe that one of the things that makes Linux so strong is its community and the development community that surrounds it. On the other hand, its also one of the things that hurts it so much.
Take for example, the gazillion different versions of Ubuntu that abound online. From Ubuntu Christian edition, to Ubuntu Muslim Edition to Ubuntu Ultimate Gamers Edition, if you’re looking for something particular, you’ll most likely find it. Some consider this a good thing. Hundreds of programmers, doing the work of reinventing the wheel. As if Joe A. can make a better wheel than Joe B. Granted, most distributions that put out a sub 1.0 release rarely make it these days and if you look at it, almost no one is developing a completely new, never been seen before distribution, but merely a derivation of something that already exists.
Ubuntu is Debian. Sabayon is Gentoo. Mandrivia was Redhat… and so on and so forth. Are all these changes really needed? Why aren’t more people joining the development teams for the major distributions? Could you imagine the awesomeness that could be achieved if the Ubuntu (which, admittedly is taking on a life of its own… being one of the worlds golden boys right now…) developers teamed with the debian developers? The result would be a rock solid server/desktop combo with one of the best package management scripts (despite my lack of love for Debian, apt-get rocks). If the guys behind the Sabayon overlay would work with Gentoo? You’d have one of the best customizable distributions around (and it would look really really good too).
Maybe its time for the linux community to quit forking around and get down to work. The Linux Desktop has come along way in the past 7 years with more and more people switching to it for every day use…. now lets make it a little more consistent.
Popularity: 7% [?]
| 2.5 |
I finally decided to try out linux on the laptop again, a project that was once a daunting task due to the wireless networking chip HP decided to use in this box. I was pleasantly surprised when i booted the Sabayon linux live disc in and on boot it found my network card and video card and had everything setup waiting for a key to access the network. Pretty smooth, and I did like the beryl features too, so I went ahead and installed it to the laptop, nuking the windows install I had labored so long to make almost perfect.
Installing sabayon was easy and I was actually able to install it on the laptop while I was driving home… as once you enter some key information, it does its thing until you’re ready to reboot. By the time I had picked the girls up from day care and gotten them all inside the house, the system was ready to reboot.
The machine boots about as fast as it does in windows, which is ok, I don’t need speed on boot (as I very rarely turn the system off) and the default WM is KDE with beryl. Which is ok too, I guess. I’ve always been somewhat of a Gnome fan, however, the recent switch of slackware going KDE only and the more recent stuff with Linus and the Gnome team left me with questions. I’ve found, in the week that I’ve been using it, its very similar to Windows in the way it does things and handles menus, and the new kicker is cool too.
Sabayon is not a distribution for those who like to go minimal. It is a Gentoo Stage 3 install on Steroids, and it comes with several versions of software that do the same thing (something like 6 videos players?!?!?!) however, if you have a beefy system and want something that looks classy, then its a good fit. I have had some problems with some of the software not playing nicely, firefox for one, which was stable as anything on the windows install has crashed on me several times when it comes up against embedded media that it can’t handle (I admit, this might not be a fault of Sabayon so much as firefox) and the lack of a really decent MS Exchange friendly mail client (yea, there’s evolution, but come on…..) has led me to throw together a windows xp box to use on my desktop for email (the company uses exchange…) and browsing trouble sites…
Over all, the distro is good, and probably stable enough for the average user, the polish is there, I would say that sabayon just needs to work on the stuff under the hood for the next major release. 3.3 is due out some time with in the next month or so. Below is a video of my desktop in action…. it didn’t come out as good as I wanted, but I think its not bad for a first time….
Popularity: 7% [?]
| 2.5 |
So, those few who visit the site might have realized that it was down for most of last week (well, since the 18th anyway…) this was due in part to my registrar (RegisterFly) having an issue with their CEO embezzling and taking money from the company then when he was fired for it, he locked the entire support staff out of their own servers. Cool huh? Well, long story short, ICANN has interviened, Enom has been kind enough to give me back control over the domains that I own that they still have in their power (about half…) and I am seriously considering moving all my domains unless registerfly straightens up and flies right.
On another note, I have managed to install Sabayon Linux 3.26 on the lappy and I must say, I’m impressed, screenshots as well as a vidcap of the beryl WM inaction will be posted shortly.
Yo. Its good to be back.
Popularity: 7% [?]
| 2.5 |
A lack of physical memory can severely hamper Linux performance. In this article, learn how to accurately measure the amount of memory your Linux system uses. You also get practical advice on reducing your memory requirements using an Ubuntu system as an example.
read more | digg story
Popularity: 7% [?]
| 2.5 |
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Temperature: 73°F Humidity: 78.2% Wind: WSW at 4 mph Dew Point: 66°F Visibility: 7 miles Clouds: Scattered Clouds Barometer: 0.999 atm |
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