Anybody using linux ?

[ElectroNewby]

I used linux a couple of time in the last 4-5 years but I always had some tiny problems that led me to delete it from my partition. Like the wi-fi not working, the webcam, etc... Not telling about how much of a pain in the ass it was to get the codecs for mp3s and movies. But as a curious dude, I gave it a shot again and tried 4-5 differant versions this week. I think I've finally found the perfect deal for me: Ubuntu Netbook Remix 10.10 (UNR 10.10). Perfect OS for my laptop.

Installs easy from a LiveCD, no problem installing beside Windows7. Wireless worked right away! It's also very lightweight and comes with a lot of apps... all ready for interneting, music, YouTube... in security (don't have to worry about a virus).

An other new thing for me: I've set up a new email account and I receive them in Thunderbird (FireFox's sister if you will, for mail).
I find it great and I don't know why I didn't do it earlier! No more logging at www.hotmail.com everytime now...
Oh and the "MSN" is pretty cool too... simple and without ads; the software is called Empathy.

I think I'll stick with it now since it's even easier to use than Win7.

Anyway...I'm curious as to know if some people here are familliar with it?

For those who would like to give it a try without installing it, download the .ISO and burn it on a CD, then reboot your computer... it will load in the RAM: https://www.ubuntu.com/netbook

 

[RMMM]

I have been using Ubuntu since 2008.

There have been "hiccups" but the amount of time I had to spend on them still makes it a much cheaper alternative to Windows.

 

[ElectroNewby]

Funny thing, on my laptop I have some touch-buttons... like play/stop/mute and they didn't work on Windows 7. They do know.
Fedora was nice but I had trouble with some codecs and didn't *fool* around enough to find how to make it work, as I was trying differant linuxes.

*edited hihi

 

[gabeNC]

I've been using linux since '99, if memory serves right is Mandrake 6 or something like that. It was a royal pain then, had dependency problems with RPM's, had to build almost everything from source. I use Fedora.

 

[cr0sh]

I've been running Linux in one form or another since about 1995. My first Linux was a weird distro called "Monkey Linux" that used a DOS partition as its file system. I ran it on a hacked together Compaq 386 SLT with 6 meg of RAM.

My first real distro was a copy of Turbo Linux 2.0 on a Zenith 486 laptop; I managed a complete install with -everything- (including soundcard and PCMCIA network card) working perfectly, with an X Window install (I think xfce or something lightweight like that was my window manager) - the laptop had 8 meg of RAM.

From there I moved to Redhat (4.2 IIRC); after Redhat I tried Debian (Woody) for a while, then had to move to SuSE 7.1 when my mobo died on me, and the replacement had a chipset that wasn't recognized by Woody. Ran SuSE for a long time, then a few years back migrated to Ubuntu. Currently running Ubuntu 9.10, and I need to upgrade bad (support stops in April 2011).

I've seen a lot of changes over the years, that's for certain!

 

[killivolt]

I loaded Ubunto on my brothers Machine. I'm going to wipe it and load XP. I suddenly thought all of his friends will be trying to load programs onto it and his kids won't know anything about it. All of what they have seen is Windows stuff anyway.

I might as well save myself the hassle and just go with the norm.

I thought about doing it on my machine at home. But, the AP that was supposed to look like a Mac OS didn't look like what I thought it should have looked like. I still have the bottom tray visibly seen; with a large Black space between them. It should be seamless.

I don't think I will be changing any time soon. I will keep these old boxes and run Windows till I can get a Mac Mini.

kv

 

[cr0sh]

I loaded Ubunto on my brothers Machine. I'm going to wipe it and load XP. I suddenly thought all of his friends will be trying to load programs onto it and his kids won't know anything about it.

Have you ever considered this might be a plus for your brother? No random programs from who-knows-where being loaded onto it, filled with spyware and trojans - ugh.

All of what they have seen is Windows stuff anyway.

Yeah - you wouldn't want to let them learn anything new and different - that could lead to all sorts of other uncomfortable questions.

I might as well save myself the hassle and just go with the norm.

Really - aside from whining questions from the kids and friends on why things can't be loaded on there, your brother may well thank you for the improved performance and stability that Linux can offer...

I thought about doing it on my machine at home. But, the AP that was supposed to look like a Mac OS didn't look like what I thought it should have looked like. I still have the bottom tray visibly seen; with a large Black space between them. It should be seamless.

You probably either need to tweak some more settings, use a different window manager, or perhaps instead of insisting one OS looking like another, make the OS look and work how you want it to. Believe me, if you really want to, you can tweak things to make it look however you want. And if that isn't enough, you can always ditch gnome/KDE for Enlightenment (the mother of all tweakable window managers for Linux, btw).

I don't think I will be changing any time soon. I will keep these old boxes and run Windows till I can get a Mac Mini.

Ultimately your choice, but I think you may be missing out on the experience that is Linux. Like I said before, I've been playing with it since 1995, and haven't been happier (and I'll be honest - there's been time of extreme frustration and toil, but in the end, all worth it, and I've learned a lot for it!)...

 

[ElectroNewby]

cr0sh, well when I had ubuntu 8.something it was all good but for a reason I don't understand 9.x couldn't handle my wifi. I'm using the 10.10 version netbook but I loaded the normal desktop instead of the netbook remix. I don't know what the differance is except the codecs, internet progs and hardware 100% compt right out of the box. Now... 6 mb of RAM ? hahah epic!

kilivolt: what distro was it ?

I really like Windows 7, but for my studio and gaming rig but it is never connected to internet.

edit: cr0sh, didn't see your last post before I posted.. so I just want to add that I think they hit the spot with 10.10
I mean I would install it for my parents with no fear... its very user friendly nowdays IMO (but before, it was not enough!).

 

[cr0sh]

cr0sh, well when I had ubuntu 8.something it was all good but for a reason I don't understand 9.x couldn't handle my wifi.

I started with 8.10, and I remember there was some wackiness moving to 9.x - I actually had to wait a while on one upgrade because they broke something with Samba; I don't run a wireless network, so I can't really comment on that part. I do know that for certain issues, to fix them was a lot of digging and trying things.

I'm using the 10.10 version netbook but I loaded the normal desktop instead of the netbook remix. I don't know what the differance is except the codecs, internet progs and hardware 100% compt right out of the box.

Hmm - been thinking of updating my EeePC 900A - maybe 10.10 would be a good fit on it...

Now... 6 mb of RAM ? hahah epic!

Originally, the machine had 8 mb of RAM, but I had to remove 2 mb to make room for the "new" battery; The original battery used a smaller cell size (I think sub-C), and I was making mine with used cells. I bought a mess of old cell-phone batteries, pulled them apart, and got a bunch of AA Ni-Cds that I put together into a large battery pack held together with electrical tape and a lot of hot glue. Since it was larger than the original battery in one dimension, I had to lose a stick of RAM and cut out a hole in the case to make the battery fit (the Compaq 386SLT - I called it "my little slut" - was a very interesting, but heavy luggable). Hooked it into the battery system, but it wouldn't charge, so I had to build my own custom charger for it. Ugliest thing on the planet; I ended up donating it to goodwill several years back during a renovation of my shop.

edit: cr0sh, didn't see your last post before I posted.. so I just want to add that I think they hit the spot with 10.10
I mean I would install it for my parents with no fear... its very user friendly nowdays IMO (but before, it was not enough!).

Hmm - I think my current install is fairly friendly; I think the one thing that ticked me off the most during my last upgrade was the fact of the color-scheme change. They had so many people contribute some beautiful designs, and they went with a dark, drab ugly brown (with a hint of purple?) scheme. To make matters worse, they made the initial login window unmodifiable (the version prior, you could change all kinds of things). In fact, so many things in Ubuntu in general (and Gnome in particular) seem to be "make it less modifiable", which I find a bit repugnant. I mean, couldn't they just make it so you could modify it, but hide the options for most users. Nope - instead, they make it close to impossible to modify certain things (especially the screen savers - so many options for many of the screen savers, but no way to change them easily).

Part of me says my next "upgrade" should be back to Debian (or maybe Slack - that's one distro I've never tried out, but have meant to)...

 

[Birdman Adam]

Been running Ubuntu 10.04 for a few years now on an old Dimension 4800 (Pentium 4...) system. Its set up as a server to run Zoneminder (CCTV system), and Samba to backup all the data from the 4 other Windows computers in my house.

Using a PV143 PCI card to capture 4 channels at 4FPS each, 640x480. Load is usually around .7 when doing motion detection (which works extremely well!) and writing from multiple channels. I've got a DDNS domain set up so I can watch the house from anywhere through the modem.

Took me a while to get familiar with how things are done in Linux. If you have a problem, just google it, almost always, others have posted your problem on a forum.

 

[cr0sh]

Been running Ubuntu 10.04 for a few years now on an old Dimension 4800 (Pentium 4...) system. Its set up as a server to run Zoneminder (CCTV system), and Samba to backup all the data from the 4 other Windows computers in my house.

Using a PV143 PCI card to capture 4 channels at 4FPS each, 640x480. Load is usually around .7 when doing motion detection (which works extremely well!) and writing from multiple channels. I've got a DDNS domain set up so I can watch the house from anywhere through the modem.

My main workstation running Ubuntu I mentioned up-thread also has zoneminder on it for a single IP camera for our front door; I have it set up to email me captures and such. Last time I did an upgrade on Ubuntu, though, it reset my zoneminder install, and I had to spend a couple of days digging to get it back running (which is one of the reasons why I haven't upgraded as well). I've got a separate machine with FreeNAS on it handling my fileserving needs; it also acts as a backup area. The one non-linux box on my network (but its BSD, so its alright).

 

[ElectroNewby]

Wow I'd like to be able to set up a camera that would watch after my appartment when we leave for a couple of days. You need a program called zoneminder and a USB camera I guess ? I want some kind of movement detector for when I leave... with a timer (like I'd tell it to start "watching" 15 minutes when I leave, and could disable the system with internet as well.

cr0sh, the whole battery thing is even more epic now haha, did the laptops back then use much less power or is it equivalent ?

About the repugnant thing, well I understand what you mean... making it possible although "harder/hidden" for beginers would be the way to go. And it's still orange/purple on 10.10

 

[cr0sh]

Wow I'd like to be able to set up a camera that would watch after my appartment when we leave for a couple of days. You need a program called zoneminder and a USB camera I guess ? I want some kind of movement detector for when I leave... with a timer (like I'd tell it to start "watching" 15 minutes when I leave, and could disable the system with internet as well.

ZoneMinder is one of those programs for Linux that you could create a full scale video security system with and sell it (sorta like companies do PBX systems with asterisk); it is really one of the best security CCTV systems out there. You basically need a box that you can install Linux on, plus zoneminder; as part of zoneminder, it will usually have dependencies in the package manager to install mysql and some other pieces that are needed (zoneminder uses mysql as its database). Everything you talk about can be done; you can use video capture cards, usb cameras, and IP cameras for the camera portion (it can even support pan-tilt-zoom cameras if you have one). I would actually recommend using an IP camera that advertises itself as having "streaming output" and no browser dependencies (some IP cams are IE only, for instance - because they require an activex plugin or such, usually); generally if the camera will stream mjpeg, it will work well with zoneminder. USB cameras and video capture cards (hauppage is best) will work, but some USB cameras can be finnicky to get working with Linux - just so you'll be aware.

Once you have things set up, you can define for each camera "zones" - graphical areas to monitor for change, and each zone can trigger different things to happen (you could litterly define things so that a person messing with something in one area sends an email, while in a different area in the camera view, they trigger an alarm or something). Triggers can do anything from send email, to running a script, to whatever else you want to do. You can define thresholds and a whole host of other stuff (you wouldn't believe how complex it is - this isn't a simple application - not by far).

It will do everything you want to do, and more (in fact, for monitoring an apartment, it is probably overkill - but you'll have some geek cred for setting it up).

cr0sh, the whole battery thing is even more epic now haha, did the laptops back then use much less power or is it equivalent ?

Oh - waaay worse power consumption; the battery, once it was built - measured about 6 inches by 6 inches, and about 1 inche thick, and weighed a ton - truely a hideous thing to behold, wrapped in black electrical tape and such. I had to wrap and glue it in various sections, because the AA batteries were in 4 cell packs, and I had to stack and arrange them just right to have both the voltage (12 VDC) and current (a few amp hours) right for enough run time (I could get about an hour or so off a charge!), and then I soldered the tabs on the packs together, and routed wires to connect the whole thing. Ugly, ugly, ugly...

About the repugnant thing, well I understand what you mean... making it possible although "harder/hidden" for beginers would be the way to go. And it's still orange/purple on 10.10

Not sure if that's better or worse than brown. I don't understand why they just didn't keep the orange-ish theme they had prior to 9.x - that was a nice theme (looked pretty professional, too).