How many of you use Linux?

[walkerk]

This morning, I decided it was time to wipe Window$ off and set up a full Ubuntu 7.04 install. I can't put my finger on exactly why, but the Gnome environment feels better than KDE.

I set the drive up with a 10 GB root partition, a 1 GB swap partition and alloted everything else to a /home partition. I'm hoping this combination will allow the Gutsy upgrade without losing any data.

Congratulations! Feel free to affix a Tux case badge to your machine now.

Red Hat provides a "switchdesk" command. For others there's a simple way to do this. Instructions here:
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/quick-...viceversa.html

10 Gig for everything but home? If Ubuntu installs Apache web content in /var/www you might be tight for space soon. Regardless, soft links can be used to allocate space when needed.

Note for those who may not know: Red Hat Enterprise Linux is available for a nominal yearly subscription to anyone associated with academia. Details here: http://www.redhat.com/solutions/education/academic/

[Erisianmonkey]

I have recently started playing around with Ubuntu. I had some cd-rom trouble with the live cd for awhile, so I used a Wubi install until I found a solution. I'm now running a dual-boot with XP and Ubuntu. I like the Gnome desktop a lot better than KDE. KDE seems to be trying and failing to be a Windows clone. There are some programs for KDE that I like better than the Gnome counterparts, so I have both KDE and Gnome on the same machine. The neat thing with that, is that since I have KDE installed, I can use some of its apps in Gnome. Of course, my bootup splash is now the Kubuntu splash, but I think I'll live.

Ardchoille: What is it that Automatix does that can't be done with Synaptic or Adept? Other than be a hazard to your system, I mean? I realize you've been speaking against it, but I thought you might know.

[Mike1]

Ardchoille: What is it that Automatix does that can't be done with Synaptic or Adept? Other than be a hazard to your system, I mean? I realize you've been speaking against it, but I thought you might know.

Since Ardchoille hasn't been around, let me toss my two cents in.

It looks as if Automatix makes some modifications that are not 'standard' and those mods end up causing problems down the road with upgrades. If you get familiar with Synaptic or with the sudo apt-get install command, you can do pretty much anything Automatix will do. And then everything will be properly installed and should not present a problem with future upgrades.

I was struggling to find Kompozer yesterday afternoon, when it suddenly struck me that I didn't have to find it. I could just rely on sudo to do it for me. A few seconds later, Kompozer was running. Let's see the Windoze users do that with an HTML editor install. I had Kompozer installed before a Windoze user could type in a license number and click to agree to all the restrictions on an install.

It's been a week since I wiped Windows and I'm loving Gutsy. I see people are struggling with it, but I must have had beginner's luck. It took a bit of tweaking to get Gutsy to play well with my ATI Radeon X1300, but once I got that handled (maybe 15 minutes effort?), everything has been smooth as silk. And with the way Storm is rearing its ugly head again, I couldn't be happier to not be using Windows. Especially when the people at Symantec and McAfee are pretty much not saying anything about Storm, other than warning people to not open attachments. LOL, that's like telling children not to unwrap presents. For the non-geek Windoze users reading this thread, you need to know that Storm is very real and is very nasty. How about a Trojan that will fight back with a DDoS if you try to remove it? Welcome to Storm. Keep your anti-virus software absolutely up to date and you're still open to being infected with Storm. While the Linux users sit back and wonder why you're running the risks you are.

I've been installing some nightly package builds for a script on a three of my own forums, this past week. After years of using SmartFTP, it has taken an open mind to find an FTP client that I am comfortable with. FileZilla and gFTP didn't feel quite right, but I'm now using KFTPGrabber and life is good again. Once you get over things looking different, you come to the realization they work every bit as well. And in some instances, they even work better!

The only problem I have with Ubuntu is that it took me until Feisty to get up the nerve to just do it.

[ardchoille]

Since Ardchoille hasn't been around, let me toss my two cents in.

It looks as if Automatix makes some modifications that are not 'standard' and those mods end up causing problems down the road with upgrades. If you get familiar with Synaptic or with the sudo apt-get install command, you can do pretty much anything Automatix will do. And then everything will be properly installed and should not present a problem with future upgrades.

Sorry for my absence. Automatix was created to ease the installation of many popular software applications, but it does so in a way that makes the system unstable. Each new Ubuntu release has been slowly pushing out the need for Automatix and the automatix team has recenly stated that they won't be releasing it anymore for Ubuntu - it just isn't needed anymore, Ubuntu handles this stuff on its own now.

[James MacMillan]

I have multiple machines and platforms in my house, PC, Apple, etc and have tried to keep an open mind on the different operating systems.... but lately I find that I am a converted (now maybe hardcore) linux user. I'm sorry that I don't use it in a wireless configuration, but with all my other problems, I always found help on line.

There are many many usergroups and some very dedicated people out there.

Start by typing LINUX in google and looking around....... much help is available.

I would highly suggest going ..here..

[ardchoille]

I would highly suggest going ..here..

Another excellent link, thanks

[Q-Tip]

First computer was a cpm machine basic a nd a few apps then I got a vic 20 closy followed by a cbm 64 then I went for amiga 1500.
Did college on a hpux machine installed minix
Installed the first veriosn of linux (0.99 or some other number I think) that was a real bi*ch to set up then along came slackware use it right up to version 10 then switched to debian. The just a few months back switched to ubuntu 6.06 lts and now this week ubuntu 7.10.

Out of all of them slackware is nice if your a developer as its hands on
debian is similar but has nicer package managent tools.
ubuntu is now ready for real users to get there hands dirty ;)

Oh and did I say I did my read hat exam to and used fedora and red hat ,,, mmm ;)

I also (have to) use windows all of them up to vista!!) my workstation is always unix..

To play games I have a playstation2 and a PSP
To develop software and anything else computer related I use Linux..

[Erisianmonkey]

Thanks Mike. I think I'll stick with the terminal, Synaptic and Adept. My onlyproblem with Gutsy is that the video support for nvidia has gone downhill a bit in Gnome. (Much better than it was in the Beta though.) I used the Beta for all of an hour and a half before I tossed it. I'm kind of missing having direct control over compiz too. I'll have to do some tinkering to try and get the compiz manager working in Gutsy.

[Mike1]

Oddly enough, Feisty recognized my ATI card straight away. With Gutsy, I had to give it a nudge. Then again, I discovered Feisty some 5 months after its official release, so who's to say how well Gutsy will be working in March?

I'm not so interested in CF, to be honest. It is running OK on this machine, but I really don't have need for it. Most of my computer time is spent keeping a few of these forums alive, so as long as I am able to edit PHP files, do some minor graphics editing and get files FTP'ed to their proper locations, then I'm satisfied. I'm writing some articles for one of my own forums, so OpenOffice is coming in handy, too.

[Erisianmonkey]

Yep. Gutsy should be humming along real well soon. I managed to get compiz fusion running great after I posted last. The "negative" effect is really great for reading long e-texts. (The main reason I wanted it running, as I read a lot of e-books.) Now if only Lexmark would release a linux driver for my printer I'd be all set.