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Linux for a Windows junky |
Wed, 21 January 2004 05:36 |
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HiltonL | | | Messages: 67
Registered: December 2003 Location: South Africa | |
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Hiy'all.
Gible's post in the puzzle thread got me thinking.
I've been a Windows junky since Win 95 came out - close to a decade now. I used to be a regular UNIX user at my university, but now develop with Microsoft tools on Windows for a living. Without wanting to start any flamewars - for the most part I'm very happy and generally think that Microsoft has produced (generally) excellent products for the last 4 or 5 years.
However, part of me yearns back to the UNIX environment - the REAL use of the command line, the lighter kernel and tools, the raw efficiency, the trend towards open-source. I find each visit to sourceforge.net really exciting and I'm disappointed each time I have to choose the Windows binaries to download. I think it's the idealist techy inside me trying to get out.
I'm not really willing to turn my life upside-down over this, but I've got a few gigs to spare on both my home and work PCs, and would love to install Linux just to play with and experiment with - if there was an easy way to do it on my WindowsXP PC. Every time I look at a distribution it's laden with warnings about co-habiting with 2000/XP, and it seems if you make a mistake you could well lose your existing installation.
Can anyone point me to user-friendly distributions that are going to nicely cohabitate with Windows XP on one hard drive? As I said, I'm keen to do it, but not if it's going to be a massive headache or risk.
Thanks in advance for the advice.
Cheers
Hilton
BTW - My development machine at work is running with XP, MySQL, MSSql2000, PHP, ASP, ASP.NET... Currently running PHP/MySQL apps of UT2003 localstats, AATradewars and others. So I'm not a COMPLETE Microsoft junky.
[Updated on: Wed, 21 January 2004 05:42] Report message to a moderator
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Re: Linux for a Windows junky |
Wed, 21 January 2004 13:11 |
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HiltonL | | | Messages: 67
Registered: December 2003 Location: South Africa | |
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Ron wrote on Wed, 21 January 2004 19:02 |
Oh? So you're running a AATradewars server also?
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Yes, it was your message that you'd set one up that got me interested. It looked like an interesting concept, but bandwidth is shocking in South Africa, so I d/led the distribution from www.AATraders.com so I could play with it locally.
I showed a few guys in the office, and they played for a while but lost interest. Myself and one other guy log on daily for a laugh. Perhaps once I've fully learned the rules I'll sign up for your server. But if you witness the response times of pages in South Africa you'll understand why I prefer PBEM like Stars!
(And no, I just chose default values to everything when setting up the universe - so it was quicker!)
Quote: | "and others." Do tell...
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Well, primarily UT2003 localstats. I've always been an Unreal fan over Quake because I prefer the built in game modes, and it got a big following in our office because UT1 had good software rendering for the office PCs. I obsessively managed the stats, writing game reports after we had tournament-style sessions, and was shocked when UT2003 had no local stats! (See above, South Africa bandwidth and company firewall meant global stats was never really feasible)
So when I found a MySQL/PHP local stats logger and analyser (virtually identical to the UT1 version), it was quickly deployed onto my UT2003 server!
I'm running PHPMyAdmin, which allows me a bit of MySQL database management, I've been spoilt by Microsoft Enterprise Manager, I need a GUI to chat to the database.
I installed NetOffice for a laugh while my company was investing various collaboration tools, including the very cumbersome Sharepoint Portal 2. Ugh.
The biggest MySQL app I'm running is another stats program for a cool little platform-based motorbike game called "ElastoMania". It reads in a level times file from each player and shows grids, graphs and maps for each level or level pack, so the ultra-competitive people at my office can improve their times on the right levels. It's a .NET windows application, but I've recently changed the database to MSSql - I couldn't get MySQL to store images in the database without writing quite a bit of wrapper code. It's a 3000+ lines of code labour of love, very sad that it's only got about 10 users! If it wasn't written with .NET which provides the rich GUI, I'd certainly wrap it up and release it to the rabid ElastoMania fans. (And there are lots of them!)
Hope that provides some insight into my sad life.
Cheers
Hilton
[Updated on: Wed, 21 January 2004 13:12] Report message to a moderator
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Re: Linux for a Windows junky |
Wed, 21 January 2004 13:56 |
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HiltonL | | | Messages: 67
Registered: December 2003 Location: South Africa | |
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Ron wrote on Wed, 21 January 2004 20:44 | That's one reason I'm running mod_gzip on the AutoHost web server, saves a LOT of bandwidth if your browser supports compression. (IE5.5+, Mozilla, Firebird, maybe Netscape 7, unsure on others, probably Opera 6)
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My REAL job is to write web applications for a large financial institution in South Africa - the only INTERNET site I have the privilege to host (hosting services are too expensive for hobbyists here). We turned on page compression (which is built into IIS on Win2K server) and got about a 70% reduction in page size. It astonishes me that it doesn't seem to be a standard! Every modern browser supports it, and it's possible to check the request headers and send compressed or uncompressed pages dynamically.
Sadly we had to turn it off because it broke a lot of ASP functionality! I must take another look at it in Win2003 and see if it's fixed.
I've noticed that Autohost is one of the quickest sites I can access from here, especially considering the rich look/feel - this explains it!
Cheers
Hilton
[edit by Ron: personal question answered via PM]
[Updated on: Wed, 21 January 2004 17:33] by Moderator
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Re: Linux for a Windows junky |
Fri, 23 January 2004 09:29 |
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steev | | Crewman 3rd Class | Messages: 9
Registered: January 2004 Location: Belfast | |
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Welcome back to the real world!
The reason all the distros are covered in dire warnings is because they need to legally cover themselves. Since XP is closed source, and probably full of "feature" ridden implementations of standards, no linux company can ever be sure what it's going to unleash on the hard drive.
Two important things I learned the hard way when moving from Windows to Linux:
1. Don't ever (re)install windows after you've got linux up and running on the same HDD. You'll just break your windows partition badly.
2. Don't be afraid to ask questions, but be specific if you want the answers to be useful.
And three things i learned the easy way
1. not to fear the command line
2. to expect good manuals on everything
3. that i don't need windows for anything, i have wine!
As for distros, i learned on mandrake, but ended up preferring slackware, debian or suse. I currently run an LFS system. I'd recommend trying out mandrake, knoppix, fedora or debian first.
--
steev();
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Re: Linux for a Windows junky |
Mon, 02 February 2004 04:08 |
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HiltonL | | | Messages: 67
Registered: December 2003 Location: South Africa | |
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steev wrote on Fri, 23 January 2004 16:29 | Welcome back to the real world!
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Actually, I think exactly the opposite is the case...
Quote: | 1. Don't ever (re)install windows after you've got linux up and running on the same HDD. You'll just break your windows partition badly.
2. Don't be afraid to ask questions, but be specific if you want the answers to be useful.
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Thanks, I've taken your advice on both of those. The linux boot menu is great and allows me to still boot Windows for my wife and (sadly), real life work.
Quote: | And three things i learned the easy way
1. not to fear the command line
2. to expect good manuals on everything
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Amen to that! The return of the man page is making me very happy...
Quote: | 3. that i don't need windows for anything, i have wine!
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Notepad.exe is the most advanced program I have managed to get running under wine. I shall press on, but my success ratio is very low so far.
Quote: | As for distros, i learned on mandrake, but ended up preferring slackware, debian or suse. I currently run an LFS system. I'd recommend trying out mandrake, knoppix, fedora or debian first.
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Well, I get a Knoppix distribution which was fun for a while, but I've now installed mandrake on a brand new HDD at home.
More in another post...
Cheers
Hilton
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Re: Linux for a Windows junky |
Mon, 02 February 2004 04:39 |
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HiltonL | | | Messages: 67
Registered: December 2003 Location: South Africa | |
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Hi All...
Thanks to all who have helped me and given me advice about my Linux adventure, which is still underway.
Some feedback...
Positive:
- The return to a useful console was a real pleasure, I just loved trying to remember all those old vi commands
- Running as a non-superuser, and being able to switch identities for key tasks. Boy, does Windows need this ability! Running an a non-admin in Windows is virtually impossible. The silly runas command seldom works properly (because the Windows command line is so klunky), and logging out and in is way too cumbersome
- The utility-type applications (maths, calenders etc) which shipped with both Knoppix and Mandrake are great!
- KDE never blinked an eyelid which I XKilled a bunch of hung applications.
- OpenOffice seems to work pretty well, I gave it one of my formatting-rich Excel sheets, and it coped pretty well with the conversion. Not perfect, but excellent for a free product!
Sadly, quite a bit of negative, which I didn't expect:
- The overwhelming negative I have is the vitriol that the Linux community heaped on Windows. Virtually every site I went to for support was basically crammed with propaganda, much of it blatantly out of date and misinformed. The Linux community seems to lack a basic respect for choice and it made it quite an unpleasant task to wade through that rubbish before finding useful information. It reminded me of the graphics card of CPU fanboys that I encounter every time I upgrade and search out the latest reviews - but with more spite and less purpose. Sad.
- The size of the distributions. Considering Windows is always accused of being "bloatware", none of the mainstream distros were less than 3 CDs, and that is without the driver support that Windows ships with. Oh well, I've got my 4 Mandrake CDs now, but it seems excessive.
- The number of apps which hung on me, and refused to close down without being process-killed. It happened with KMovie just by playing MP3s time and again, and quite a few other apps.
- I'
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Re: Linux for a Windows junky |
Mon, 02 February 2004 21:19 |
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nash | | Chief Petty Officer | Messages: 84
Registered: December 2003 Location: Sydney Australia | |
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Well at the risk of sounding like a person listed in the first item below, I have to disagree, at least in some way with most of these negative points.
HiltonL wrote on Mon, 02 February 2004 20:39 |
Sadly, quite a bit of negative, which I didn't expect:
- The overwhelming negative I have is the vitriol that the Linux community heaped on Windows. Virtually every site I went to for support was basically crammed with propaganda, much of it blatantly out of date and misinformed. The Linux community seems to lack a basic respect for choice and it made it quite an unpleasant task to wade through that rubbish before finding useful information. It reminded me of the graphics card of CPU fanboys that I encounter every time I upgrade and search out the latest reviews - but with more spite and less purpose. Sad.
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Hopefully I've managed to avoid any of this myself - well at least recently. I've been bad at this in the past.
I don't notice as much anti-MS BS around these days, but then again it may be because I am anti-MS myself (but I try not to ram it down peoples throats, and back up my arguments), and I know how to avoid such useless flamage. For instance slashdot has both linux bigots and windows lovers spending a lot of time ranting at each other. [feel free to swap bigot and lovers in the previous sentence].
But yes, there is a lot such garbage on the web. My best response is: Hopefully it is improving. In the linux communities defense, it is not as if microsoft has never made false or misleading statements about linux [But that is not a valid excuse].
HiltonL wrote on Mon, 02 February 2004 20:39 |
- The size of the distributions. Considering Windows is always accused of being "bloatware", none of the mainstream distros were less than 3 CDs, and that is without the driver support that Windows ships with. Oh well, I've got my 4 Mandrake CDs now, but it seems excessive.
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Actually I would argue you are not really comparing apples to apples here. Those 4 cds contain a lot more
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[Updated on: Mon, 02 February 2004 21:22]
Sentio aliquos togatos contra me conspirare.Report message to a moderator
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Re: Linux for a Windows junky |
Tue, 03 February 2004 00:08 |
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HiltonL | | | Messages: 67
Registered: December 2003 Location: South Africa | |
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Hi Nash.
Thanks for your reply. To save space (and effort since I don't have much time) I'm not going to quote, I'll just answer from memory...
I am finding mitigating circumstances to some of my criticisms. I realized that my "distribution size" argument was a bit of a newbie gripe, I didn't realize that only disk 1 was needed for a basic install. Yes, you're right. WinXP + MSOffice + Visual Studio is 3 CDs - so if you treat disks 2 and 3 as "optional addons" they compare well. Remember that most of those features you mentioned DO ship with Windows. Web server, Internet servers, Remote access tools - but yes, point taken.
Also, I didn't realize that "disk 4" of Mandrake's distro was "MandrakeMove", a CD only version like Knoppix.
I realize that the driver situation is not Linux's FAULT, but it is nevertheless a reality that must be taken into account before using the OS. You can blame Windows for having a monopoly and CAUSING the fault, but sadly it detracts from the experience of using Linux.
Don't misunderstand me - I'm not complaining about bootup time - I'm just saying that WinXP and Mandrake/KDE both boot up in the same, pretty quick, time. I think that my misconception that Linux was lightning fast and Windows was sluggish and deadly slow comes from people coming the Linux CLI with the Windows GUI. Fair enough... A GUI is a GUI and takes roughly the same time to start up.
I've spent a bit more time with OpenOffice and am now investigating StarOffice. And vi.
I'll blame hanging on odd drivers and KDE for now, since it's mostly media that dies. I'll give GNOME a shot and compare, thx.
Also, thanks for clearing up the NVidia misconception - I assumed their driver was opensource, but I guess with industrial espionage with other companies and all that politics, it was probably out of the question.
As I said, I certainly try not to be in camp or another, I can see the relative merits of both Windows and Linux, so my negative list w
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