Linux

[rockingmtranch]

Hey everyone. Most of you know me from around the net (STALKER forums, Floatingpoint.org, Montanamenagerie.org) and maybe some others. I use Linux and have for over two years now for all my internet use (mail, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook) and wherever else I may find to cause trouble LOL. You may not know that you can, right this minute, download a complete operating system that will do all that stuff and more. Even come with a complete Office program that will equal Microsoft Office. And for FREE. I'm also willing to bet that most of you, maybe not all (those that sell their old pc stuff) have everything you need right now to build a Linux Box.

Got an old motherboard? Maybe even so old you can plug your monitor into it? Your golden if you have one of those because that saves you from putting a video graphics card in it. An old processor that won't play your games. Maybe a 64MB stick of ram (32? Sure). Power supply (300 watt? Or less...whatever) and an old HDD and a cd rom (HDD is not completely necessary). Keyboard and mouse of course. No case? Stick it on the wall. Put it in a milk crate. No worries. You have everything you need to make a pc with a complete operating system to do the mundane tasks you are doing on your gaming machine.

The difference? For your gamer, no anti-virus (unplug your internet, dump all those programs), no spyware program (another program gone), and are you also doing daily maintenance on that machine to keep it protected? Half an hour? An hour? Patch Tuesday make you sweat? Well, now it will just be a defrag once in a while. Maintenance done. You can opt here to "dual boot" your machine and still have these benefits.

Of course for all you online players, you have to keep all that “protection”. No way around that unless you completely trust the site where you're playing.

The Linux? No anti-virus (only three known viruses and the creator, Linus Torvalds wrote two of those for testing). No spyware (no registry....nothing to exploit). No defrag (Linux uses a swap system, like we would use scratch paper, to keep it's files in place). It checks for updates daily (can be set to anything you want). You never even have to turn it off. It won't ever ask you to restart unless it upgrades from, say the 2.6.21 to the 2.6.23 kernel. And you don't have to upgrade. Bugs, security, and anything else that you have on YOUR machine get updated though. I put Battle of Wesnoth on one of mine and when there is an update, the game gets updated. And speaking of games, there are hundreds of games. They are just OpenGL and not Microsoft Direct X. No biggie. Cedega.com will fix you up (crossover platform) but why play games on this little thing. You've got that monster next to it ready to go :-)

Linux now also has an ADD/REMOVE programs. Very handy. Just click on a program you want and it will be installed. It even has a great search engine to help you find programs you're looking for.

I of course will help anyone that wants help. Me, and I don't know how many people worldwide that will help anytime (community support....no calls to India). Usually a simple Google search will fix you up.

Worth a shot right? What have you got to lose? You can even order the CD's online and they will ship them to you, and they pay all costs. No shipping. Nothing.

[Nightwatch]

Very neat features indeed. Thanks for opening this thread. It has been overdue for long. Most of us heard and know something Linux at different extents, but I guess not to the full extent. Therefore this thread should serve this purpose very nicely.

I am having enough of this Vista actually, it's nearly two years and not getting much better. XP was not a walk in the park either, none of the Microsoft products actually has been so. We all know that Microsoft has got the domination by "clever" marketing tactics rather than quality of its products and the service they offer.

I've started to consider to go a double boot system at the first opportunity. That would be a nice and useful first-hand try.

While most of the software market, and the PCs, are already swamped with MS software -so the familiarity in usage matters that came with this- I'd like to learn if any or all, or what extent, Microsoft and Microsoft compatible software work on Linux? For example if I write something, or edit some photographs on Linux, can others who don't have Linux see it? And, for example, I have Adobe photoshop and InDesign, etc, can these software operate on Linux? I know these are highly professional software and not interest to general public, general user, but through this example I'd like to learn, from the real users of Linux in practice, what the extent is within which this compatibility exist?

Overall, this is a very impressive system that needs to be supported. Extremely secure, totally stable. Deserves a much better standing than what Microsoft currently holds.

[rockingmtranch]

Over the summer, I took an online college course. I had to create and send a lot of files and documents and the school is pure Microsoft. Open Office allows to save in Microsoft formats. As for Adobe, adobe is used in Linux. For the others I don't know but like I said, a simple Google can answer lots of questions.

Edit: And, yes some of your programs can run in Linux but you'll probably find the programs already in Linux are just as good. You'll have to use a crossover (WINE) platform to make Microsoft products work. Then, they don't always work as expected. Go figure. Microsoft has fought for years to not be compatible with anything. But, you can save your Windows file, use a flash drive to pass it over to the Linux side and send the file.

[Nightwatch]

Good ideas I'll give it a go as soon as possible. Anyway, I already have Open Office. Great software and comes free, does everything Microsoft Office does. Perfect catch for everybody, particularly considering the price difference: "Zero" to "hundres of dollars/pounds."

[EggChen]

Hey Rocking, I read your initial post and am impressed with the security of Linux... now the question!

My niece has one of these netbook things, very nice little machine. My bro is worried about security, I mentioned your comments, but is there anything we should do to protect it when online?

Everything I know about Linux came from your first post

[Grump642]

There are some security programs for Ubuntu. You can get a firewall through the package manager. Plus, Clam antivirus was written for linux. All opensource. I have the latest version of Ubuntu and the Ultimate Boot CD both installed on a thumb drive. I like the KDE blue, but I like Gnomes layout better.
EggChen--Gimp was made for Linux, and ported over to windows.

[EggChen]

Cheers Grump, I'll look into those, I think it runs a customised Ubuntu Linux.....

GIMP - I never knew that... GIMP is by far my favourite free program ever!!

Thanks again buddy

[Grump642]

Gimp, 7zip, open Office, Firefox, Thunderbird, Audacious( audio editing), Ubuntu has or can get them all.

[rockingmtranch]

Hey Grump Didn't know you were a fellow Ubuntu user As far as security, I've been using Linux 2 and a half years. I use Clam AV once every six months (just to protect others from me spreading a virus) and have yet to come up with anything. And, I always use Ubuntu as it comes and let it do it's updates as needed. And as for programs, there are thousands available and with a add/remove programs. Simple. Plus, as for putting it on a thumb drive, now there is no "burn to cd" required. Totally awesome and I have personally run my desktop for several weeks on a 2 gig Sandisk Cruzer drive (after the U3 was removed of course).

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/live-ubunt ... l-windows/

http://www.montanamenagerie.org/forum/v ... f=19&t=167 (my other home)

[Grump642]

I used to run duel boot for a long time. Then when I went all wireless on the phones, including internet, I never could get online with Linux. Plus I had trouble with grub errors couple of times. Now I just use it for checking hardware vs Windows problems. Now I see that Ubuntu is starting to provide some wireless support, and Sierra Wireless( they make my USB Aircard) has some beta drivers for Linux. But it is still a real pain. But I am thinking of putting it on my laptop that I only use for when I'm short on time and want to go online.

[rockingmtranch]

Here's a little something I put together a while back for USB phones:

http://www.montanamenagerie.org/forum/v ... f=19&t=903

[EggChen]

Question for you Linux buffs....

Is there any concern that with the recent popularity of these tiny netbooks, and a substantial increase in user base, that those nasty men who write viruses may target Linux?

[Grump642]

I would say not really. The user base is still small enough that it is not worth the effort, plus Linux does not have the built in holes that Windows has. Plus, Linux is locked down pretty tight. You need to sign in as "root"( kind of like Admin) to access some files or make serious changes. Pretty tight, security wise.

[rockingmtranch]

Plus, no registry. Windows biggest target I believe. And, Linux is free. The virus writers are mostly out to sabotage the Big Corporation shit anyway. And that makes you buy anti-shit to protect yourself. Vicious circle to be sure.
Do you remember the annual hacker challenge? $10,000 dollars and a new pc to the first that can hack into Windows, MAC or Linux? Every day they make the challenge a little easier until they finally find an exploit. At the end of the week, Linux was left un-hacked and the hackers played it off that they didn't try because it was too easy. They actually tried plenty and couldn't. And, if it was so easy, grab the $10K and then spend the week screwing with the other OS's. Geeks. I swear. Such bad liars.

[Nightwatch]

Yeah, as I hear, too, Linux remains to be untouchable. It is virtually not only the safer Os, but also the safest and possibly the only safe one still to the date. after saying this, I have to admit that I am still (unfortunately) using Windows purely due to the reasons of maintaning the function of compatibility that Windows offers in consumer based environment. This is not right, but in the world in which we live, not everything works best for the real best one. Microsoft has long ago cornered the consumer market by cheap (but rather productive) trade initiatives -as it's preferred to be called like this, instead of calling them: plots-.

I use a lot of heavy software, like Adobe suits, Frontpage, office suits, etc, and not all of them are at the moment fully compatible with Linux, as far as I'm aware. I hope Linux will manage to offer this compatibility soon. But for the majority of people who really do not rely on such complicated business software, Linux even now offers the best solution, I agree. For Linux.. and for the microsoft:

[rockingmtranch]

Anyone here that uses Linux, have you had trouble with gamerspedia.net? Ever since Nightwatch created it, I have not been able to go to the site. My browser crashes. Any browser crashes. I'm sure it has to do with the embedded videos on the site but to this date I haven't been able to find a fix and I have yet to find another website that will give me the same issue. Really weird.

[Nightwatch]

Really? Then you may be right, maybe the Java that the site requires in order to show videos shakes the Linux browser. It's actually Microsoft Windows Media Player on the site, embedded on MS Frontpage. I have don ethe site using MS Frontpage 2003, if any of this helps.

My motherboard, ASUS P5Q has an inbuilt "fast access" cut-down Linux (set in Mobo) which initiates after teh post screen on each reboot and waits for 15 seconds for me to activate, if not goes to normal OS, which is Vista.
This Linux part, if chosen during the boot up, fires up a browser and a few other internet stuff (actually I haven't used any of them yet) for fast, in 5 seconds access to the Internet.
I'll later try that, and try to go to the site by Linux browser, but I'm not sure if I'd understand the cause (if it crashes as yours) because frankly I don't know very little about Linux when my knowledge is compared with yours.

So quite probably, you'll be the one who can offer the diagnosis. Meanwhile, ask whatever info you feel that you may need, and what should I do to make it suitable for Linux browsing as well.

[rockingmtranch]

Oh, I had checked what it was and what "M$" product was used LOL (with my Vista gaming machine). Billy Gates still doesn't like to play with 'us' so that's all it really is. Just like I can open any Microsoft Office file with Open Office but not the other way around and that is intentional on their part (Google "EU Fines Microsoft" and see what comes up). And you're particular combination of how you put the site together may have something to do with it but in the end, it's all MS. No biggie really. I was curious if anyone else had success loading the site with Linux is all.

[Nightwatch]

I see your point and totally agree with it. Well, my views about MS is quite open and known by now anyway.

I entered the Linux diring boot up (a few minute ago, I rebooted my PC) and went to gamerspedia with aLinux browser it offered. It didn't crash actually. I saw the site. But it showed the fonts a bit too big, and the videos were not playing. Instead, on the video screens, there were some icons which said underneath: " you need to downlaod plug-in/software in order to watch this" (something in this effect), but when I clicked on the icon, browser said: "operation not supported" (by Linux I guess).

Yeah, it's the way how Billy the Gates conquered the world of software and PCs; I remember the famous court battles between him and Apple about the User Interface stuff.