Re: Mail getting through?
On Thursday 25 May 2006 08:39 am, Magnus Therning wrote: On Wed, May 24, 2006 at 06:36:23PM -0400, Matt Price wrote: sorry, just testing my account -- the last 3 messages I sent to the list don't seem to have made it all the way! Lately I've been having problems with this too. Well over 12 hours for an email to make the roundtrip from my system and back via the mailing list server. Other mailing lists I'm on, this is the only Debian list I post on really, don't show the same behaviour. Clearly something wrong. This list averages 150 email a day normally. Now it is down in the 50-some range. Perhaps the server needs maintenance? Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: quesiton
On Thursday 18 May 2006 08:29 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I purchased a used laptop with Windows operating system, but I don't have the disk. Can I install Linux directly over Windows? Will it wipe out Windows and everything in the computer? I had exactly this situation except the machine was not a laptop. I was quite amazed that the Debian installer essentially did all the work for me: creating a partition of the size I wanted for the Windows part, installing Linux, and creating dual boot stuff. Worked just great. Of course, you have the option to remove the existing Windows OS during the install. Andy
Re: Social Contract
On Thursday 27 April 2006 09:05 pm, Mike McCarty wrote: You seem very angry that someone doesn't like GPL. If you want to make your software free, then do so. But don't hamper the freedom of those to whom you give it. And don't live under the illusion that GPL'd software is free. Mike, surely you'd like to re-phrase the above quote. It implies you are asking the providers of an OS to provide you their product -- for which they ask no monetary compensation -- to also give you free reign to modify and redistribute their work for your own profit. From the previous discussion I'm guessing you are a libertarian who leans to the right. If that's true, then you surely believe in the right of any group distribute their product under their own terms. Why should anyone labor long and hard without material compensation merely to help someone else turn a monetary profit? Andy
Re: Social Contract
On Friday 28 April 2006 08:18 pm, Mike McCarty wrote: [snip] mm If the fit is good, then fine. For me, the fit is not good, so I mm don't use it. For people who try to make a living writing mm software, who are not members of the idle rich, and who cannot mm afford to donate a significant portion of their lives to giving mm away software it generally is not a good fit. One part which makes mm this a bad fit is that anything which the GPL touches it invades. You are looking at this incorrectly. The FSF isn't against anyone making money. There are many ways to make money on software that does NOT involve using a proprietary license. Umm, do you presume to speak for the FSF? In private e-mail back in 1986 or so I discussed Richard Stallman's goals with him, and his goal, AIUI, is that people should *not* make money off of writing software. If I understand him properly, he disbelieves in any form of intellectual property. But, since he lives in a world which is not to his liking, he uses the intellectual property laws to try to reshape it as closely as he can to a world where people cannot make money merely by writing and selling software. Mike, I agree if you are trying to code for a living -- especially as an independent -- doing so under the GPL obviously is not a good fit. And you might look around at all that GPL'd software out there and be frustrated that you cannot exploit it legally. But, in spite of whatever personal goals Stallman has, GPL software *is* helping an awful lot of people make money -- and not just the those people using Apache and MySQL, developers too. I don't know many developers who would be very happy if they didn't have access to OSS based OSs and tools -- especially the independent coders. At no cost whatsoever (beyond the hardware and some of your time), you can put together an absolutely sterling software development and testing environment as well as a compete document and multimedia authoring toolset -- as everyone here knows. Then you can use that OSS environment to make all the money you want creating proprietary software. It would never have happened without OSS. I don't think anyone is saying you have to love OSS or even contribute to it, but showing respect for what it has done for the community of programmers of which you're a part is not to much to ask. Andy
Re: Social Contract
On Friday 28 April 2006 08:34 pm, Mike McCarty wrote: 'll respond to the very last sentence first. I don't know. But you might ask Benjamin Franklin, because he put everything he did into the Public Domain, and lobbied hard to have neither Copyright nor Patent Law in the USA. He lost his battle, so he put everything into the Public Domain. I didn't know this about old Ben. He sounds very much like a pure socialist and that's very surprising -- and very much like Richard Stallman since without copyrights and patents there's no protection for intellectual property. I wonder what Ben thought about how an author or inventor would survive in a free market economy. Just the other day I was watching a Senate hearing where a songwriter was saying she could not make a living without the copyright and IPR laws. And I've wondered a long time about how the economy might have to change if there were no IPR. The idea has appeal in so many ways, then you run smack into the wall of monetary incentives. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Social Contract
On Friday 28 April 2006 03:34 pm, Steve Lamb wrote: Andy Streich wrote: Just the other day I was watching a Senate hearing where a songwriter was saying she could not make a living without the copyright and IPR laws. And I've wondered a long time about how the economy might have to change if there were no IPR. The idea has appeal in so many ways, then you run smack into the wall of monetary incentives. They'd live the same way they do now. Remember, IPLs are why the record companies make money. They songs are owned by the record companies, not the artists. Artists, big and small, make their money through live performances which copyright IPL or the lack thereof does not alter as the audience is going to watch the people perform their songs. Well, of course there's cover bands and lounge acts. But by and large... ;) That does not seem accurate. Royalties from radio play and sales are significant to many artists. The songwriter I heard said she makes $0.09 (some sort of average figure) each time a song of hers is played on the radio and that sort of income was essential for her. No, I'm afraid IPL is pretty dumb to me. I'm having a hard time grasping why one of the activities in these lists are illegal and the rest are not. Borrowing a book from a library. Having a friend lend you a book they like. Having a friend tell you the plot of a book they like. Downloading a copy of the book. Borrowing a CD from a library. Having a friend lend you a CD they like. Having a friend sing a song from a CD they like. Downloading a copy of the CD. Borrowing a video from a library. Having a friend lend you a video they like. Having a friend tell you the plot of a video they like. Downloading a copy of the video. Current law makes downloading different from your other options illegal because of the speed and quality of copy you can make and the ease of doing so with digital formats -- at least that's how the IPR argument goes. (This was the precise point of the Senate hearing I witnessed.) In each case the content producer gets paid once (Library, friend, etc) and the intellectual property, the content, is distributed. Yet three of the four cases it is legal and has been encouraged for decades while the fourth, the exact same activity, is illegal. Yes, but now new technology has changed the game. The really sad thing? Most authors would kill to have their books lent out a few times from libraries/friends to build up a following and yet don't want their books downloaded for fear of some kind of intellectual theft. *boggle* There are many books I would not buy if I could get free electronic copies -- just the plain text would be enough. I can see an author being concerned about that. IPL and copyright in today's world have very little to do with protecting individual's interests. It is often used to strip individuals of their rights (ala musical artists). Tod Rungren would agree; he testified at the hearing as well, opposing the songwriter. But I was thinking more of how established businesses (like Sun, IBM, HP, Intel) and startups would function without IPR laws and protections. I find it hard to imagine because we have no examples in developed countries, and I've benefited materially from being part of a tiny startup that was acquired for its IP. I wish there was a way to get by without IPL because of the many positive things that would be enabled by doing so, but in a capitalist economy it doesn't seem viable to do away with it. And, imagining the USA and other developed countries moving to a different kind of economy any time soon isn't too realistic. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Linux Distribution Chooser
On Sunday 08 January 2006 10:30 am, Steve Lamb wrote: Chris Howie wrote: And if that's the case then you select both of them during the install. On an advanced install that's exactly what you do. Except that Debian put Gnome there when all I selected was Desktop environment. Come on, you know that Linux users tend to value specificity. WHICH desktop environment? Whichever you decide the first time *you* log in. I would be very happy to see the tasksel setup show exactly what is being installed, e.g. * Mail server (Exim) * Web server (Apache 2) * Desktop environment (X.org, KDE, Gnome) * DNS server (Bind 9) Tasksel is for the neophytes. If you don't want the neophyte answers use the tools better geared to your experience level. And really, how bad can a separate option for KDE and Gnome be? It's a largely unneeded question and added complexity. I mean, while we're getting KDE and Gnome, why not icewm, xfce4, and fluxbox? Show me neophytes who are using icewm, xfce4 or fluxbox. Generally what do they want Something like Windows as that is what they're used to. The two realistic options are the default. How hard can it be to give the user a choice during the install, and why is that such a stupid idea according to you? You are given a choice. You just refuse to see that. Steve, rather than defending the status quo perhaps you could bend a little and hear the request being made in a different light. Having the tasksel options is a great feature and perhaps can be improved without adding too much complexity. To me it is as if the current install process is designed to serve two extreme cases: the guru and the know-nothing newbie. Many (most?) of us are between those extremes. I spent days trying to figure out how to remove Gnome and leave KDE in a working state. When I gave up that approach, I tried the guru install thinking I'd avoid having to mess with Gnome at all and just get KDE installed, but the number and detail of the questions presented was just too overwhelming. I never found a combinations of settings that worked. (Strangely, I would have preferred just Gnome and no KDE; but KDE ran fine and Gnome was unstable. I still don't know why). Cheers, Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Poll: debian-newcomer list [Was: Re: newbies needing help for graphic login]
On Sunday 08 January 2006 05:02 pm, kamaraju kusumanchi wrote: I was trying to put up something like this at http://people.cornell.edu/pages/kk288/du-guidelines.html but never got time to finish it up. Would you mind if I copy some lines (word by word) from your previous email and work on it? That's an excellent document, Raju. Good work. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: java for jabref
Please, what is the common way for java development under debian sarge? Is it better to develop under solaris and simply run and test it under debian ? netbeans and eclipse are both open source, so they should qualify for debian. I'm using Netbeans 4.1 from: http://ftp.debian-unofficial.org/debian/ sarge main -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: setting up Debian Linux from scratch
On Friday 06 January 2006 10:57 am, Andrei Popescu wrote: On Fri, 6 Jan 2006 18:04:12 + Cold Fusion [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sorry if this is in fact included in the install manual, but I have a computer I'd like to install Debian on, it's presently got windows, and I don't like that - I'm going to uninstall it. But then how do I install linux? I've got the CD, and help would be appreciated. Thanks No need to uninstall the windoze, Debian can wipe it out nicely for you (if you choose so) during the install ;) In fact I had the extremely pleasant experience of letting the Debian installer leave Windows in a small partition on my drive so I could still use it for things like troubleshooting my Internet connection with the cable company (they only support Win and Mac). Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: newbies needing help for graphic login
On Friday 06 January 2006 10:12 am, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: [snip] Having said all that, I agree that the prevalence of help help emails is a good sign and its incumbent upon us, as a community to reach out to these people and help them in whatever way we can. First, of course, talk them through it on the list. Second, help the dev's produce a better first time experience for users. Finally, I think this sort of stuff is already pretty well done by other debian based distros. The question is does debian want to become like them? or remain as it is -- the grandfather/mother of many distros and a place for the more experienced/brave? I really appreciate this topic and am delighted to see experienced Debian users responding positively to the help, help emails. Andrew's question is the critical one: is Debian for newbies or not? From my own experience over the last couple of years I'd say it is not -- unless the newbie has strong technical skills and lots and lots of time to read manuals and this email list and getting the system up-and-running quickly is not critical. Without a prior Unix/Linux background or the dedicated help of a local expert, you have to approach Debian at the very least as a time consuming, very technical hobby. I think many in the community would say, But that's as it should be. If you don't have the dedication to figure things out, go to another distro, stick with Windows, or buy a Mac. To me that's short sighted. If Debian is to remain vital, it needs to keep attracting new users. In addition to the other suggestions on how to improve the newbie experience, I would add creating yet another mailing list specifically for people trying to establish a stable installation. Like other diehards on this list I can filter 150 emails/day. That's not true for all and a newbie especially. Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: newbies needing help for graphic login
On Friday 06 January 2006 12:48 pm, kamaraju kusumanchi wrote: Andy Streich wrote: In addition to the other suggestions on how to improve the newbie experience, I would add creating yet another mailing list specifically for people trying to establish a stable installation. Like other diehards on this list I can filter 150 emails/day. That's not true for all and a newbie especially. Andy debian-boot already exists. See http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/ for more information. I took a quick peek at that list. It's not what you think it is but rather Developing the installation system Discussion and maintenance of the Debian installation system. That is, it's for developers, not newbies. Andy
Re: newbies needing help for graphic login
On Friday 06 January 2006 12:46 pm, Clive Menzies wrote: On (06/01/06 12:18), Andy Streich wrote: I really appreciate this topic and am delighted to see experienced Debian users responding positively to the help, help emails. Andrew's question is the critical one: is Debian for newbies or not? From my own experience over the last couple of years I'd say it is not -- unless the newbie has strong technical skills and lots and lots of time to read manuals and this email list and getting the system up-and-running quickly is not critical. Without a prior Unix/Linux background or the dedicated help of a local expert, you have to approach Debian at the very least as a time consuming, very technical hobby. I disagree about strong technical skills but you need some time and motivation to learn. The 'new' sarge installer it is a lot easier than installing woody. Oh, absolutely the sarge installer is a great advancement. Unfortunately the comparison we are faced with is people who buy a Win or Mac box with everything set up and running on the one hand and, on the other, those same people expending effort to install Debian and get to that same point. I think many in the community would say, But that's as it should be. If you don't have the dedication to figure things out, go to another distro, stick with Windows, or buy a Mac. To me that's short sighted. If Debian is to remain vital, it needs to keep attracting new users. It clearly does attract new users, often those who've tried a derivative distro but want something more. That said, it would be nigh on impossible to satisfy all potential users; however, between the range of derivative distros and debian itself, most needs are covered. Which puts you in the camp that thinks Debian is for the advanced user -- and that's fine. IMO there are plenty of potentially happy Debian users who are lost along the way -- simply because there is no quick/simple/relatively-sure-fire install for the newbies that just want a desktop with email, open office, and a browser to get them started. The one thing that has ALWAYS worked for me in a Debian install is the mouse, the one thing that never worked is sound, and the screen/video always need tweaking by hand editing a configuration file. I understand that these are not simple things for the developers who are working on that part of installation system and all-things-considered the current installer does a great jobs. It's just that in comparison to newbie expectations (however unrealistic), the experience still falls short and the fix/tweaking process often becomes labour and time intensive. Those of us who have been around the block a few times think nothing of opening a terminal window, switching to root, executing a few obscure Unix commands, and running an editor like gvim. To a newbie who has only seen Windows doing that is a horrifying experience. If you want to say to them you are not ready to use Debian that's a valid position. My feeling is that Debian has so much to offer one you get a working system, we should go out of our way to make it even easier than it is today to help the newbie. If that's not going to happen, then we should be honest and put a big advanced users only banner on www.debian.org and save a lot a people a lot of grief. In addition to the other suggestions on how to improve the newbie experience, I would add creating yet another mailing list specifically for people trying to establish a stable installation. Like other diehards on this list I can filter 150 emails/day. That's not true for all and a newbie especially. I've never filtered the list mail (incl. boot, powerpc and user) because I learn so much from reading about other people's problems and solutions. As a newbie, most of it went over my head but over time, much of it began to make sense. Agreed. I use a similar strategy. I just want to give the newbie the option to do that -- after they have a solid working setup. Until then, a debian-newcomer list (or debian-how-in-the-heck-do-I-get-this-working list) seems like a good idea. Cheers, Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: newbies needing help for graphic login
On Friday 06 January 2006 06:11 pm, kamaraju kusumanchi wrote: Andy Streich wrote: Agreed. I use a similar strategy. I just want to give the newbie the option to do that -- after they have a solid working setup. Until then, a debian-newcomer list (or debian-how-in-the-heck-do-I-get-this-working list) seems like a good idea. This has been discussed a lot of times (read as 'read the archives'). There is no real use in setting up a newbie list or debian-newbie list. The thing is if it is a newbie list, only newbies will be there and you wont get any advice from experts. To almost all the questions you will have replies saying oh! I do have the same problem... but there wont be any solution provided by anyone (as everyone is a newbie). I know I wont hang out in a newbie list. But I am not sure about others. The assumptions you are making include: 1. no experts want to help newbies (contrary to all evidence on this list) 2. it's been discussed in the past so no need to bring it up again I'm not sure either one of those are valid, Raju. Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: newbies needing help for graphic login
On Friday 06 January 2006 02:41 pm, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Fri, 6 Jan 2006 20:46:18 + Clive Menzies [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On (06/01/06 12:18), Andy Streich wrote: I really appreciate this topic and am delighted to see experienced Debian users responding positively to the help, help emails. Andrew's question is the critical one: is Debian for newbies or not? From my own experience over the last couple of years I'd say it is not -- unless the newbie has strong technical skills and lots and lots of time to read manuals and this email list and getting the system up-and-running quickly is not critical. Without a prior Unix/Linux background or the dedicated help of a local expert, you have to approach Debian at the very least as a time consuming, very technical hobby. I disagree about strong technical skills but you need some time and motivation to learn. The 'new' sarge installer it is a lot easier than installing woody. Clive Andy, I agree with Andy, that it is at least time consuming, and for a total linux newbie, would be daunting if not impossible. I agree that Debian CAN be newb-friendly, but I don't think it necessarily needs to be. I think the derivative distros cover that pretty well. I look at them as gateway-distros, once you're hooked... [snip] Again, Andrew, you've put your finger on it. If the Debian-Way is to serve advanced users, at least it's a clear, definitive approach. I'd only ask that it be clearly labeled as such in the What Is Debian and Getting Started sections of the www.debian.org home page. But, as you say, Debian can be newbie-friendly. So why not make it so? My story: I kind of grew up with Unix on a VAX in the 1980s. Then my career led me to into Windows for a decade before, of all things, bringing me into Sun Microsystems developing JavaCard in one of only two groups using Windows boxes in a company dedicated to Solaris. (Drivers for smart cards then were only available for Windows.) When I finally had the professional and personal freedom to delve into GNU/Linux the first challenge was to pick a distro -- from more than 100 possibilities! That is the first problem a newbie faces and in itself a reason to stick with a Win or Mac box. I chose Debian for its open source community philosophy and reputation for robustness, luckily just after the new installer appeared. As I installed Debian on a few, very different, machines I thought it was a wonderful experience -- for me. Because I've been involved in rolling out a number of commercial products and the user feedback that entails, I couldn't help but think of the more typical user experience and what a nightmare it might be. As a true believer in FLOSS to me Debian is a sort of a cornerstone of that approach. The multiplicity of distros is a good thing -- but not in and of itself -- only if the lessons learned are rolled back into Debian. Having gone from 100 to 1000 distros by 2010 would not be a win. A win will be having Debian incorporating the advances made in the distros it has spawned. IMO the current situation -- raw newbies should start with Ubuntu, for example -- is a temporary holding pattern. Who wants to be told Debian is too advanced for you, install Ubuntu (again, as an example), use it for a while, then wipe that out and install Debian when you've learned your way around? Especially when it's all about factoring software and writing good installers. It's not about changes in the operating system but in system configuration. That speaks to installer evolution and system configuration management rather than distro multiplicity. With all that said, how does one discover/influence the roadmap for Debian? Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Slightly OT: Comments, ideas, or suggestions for improving websites
On Wednesday 07 December 2005 01:26 pm, Katipo wrote: Mark Crean wrote: However, in my experience running a website is a great deal of hard work and many people start to flag after three months or so. Many other people enjoy running their own show and wouldn't want to combine into a bigger one, other than as, perhaps, an item in a web ring. Which is why all these sites exist. The personal requirement for individual recognition superceding the requirement of the group. A form of grafitti, really. Sometimes it's about the personal requirement for individual recognition, but other times it has more to do with an individual having a vision and trying it out. That's not something we should be pushing back on. Sure it would be nice if all these people found a way to cooperatively produce all the Debian-related material we all wish for -- and that should always be tried. But figuring out how to become part of the relevant group, learning who needs to be influenced, and, frankly, playing the politics that are always part of a group can sap the creative energy from a person with a good idea. My hope is that many people will create good stuff that's useful to a wide audience and /then/ find ways to hook it efficiently into all the other good stuff out there, if that happens to be the way they are most productive. Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Slightly OT: Comments, ideas, or suggestions for improving websites
On Wednesday 07 December 2005 05:26 pm, Josh King wrote: So, the question is still open. What is all the Debian-related material we all wish for? At least in your view? I've received several inputs on this, both on and off this list. Its given us a good direction to start with, but I'd like to be able to define an end goal with all of this. Obviously, Debian-Administration is quite capably handling the high end and the docs cover all a developer would ever wnt to kow to get started. So, at least from what I see, the holes may be in the new users realm. Yep, taking care of common new user problems is a clear hole to fill. But I expect you to have something in mind as well -- something of your own that has motivated you to create a new Debian site. It's good to poll for new ideas, but you need to have your own independent thoughts based on your own experience. Otherwise you are just duplicated existing material. Anyway, I'd love to see not just docs for new users but configuration software that plays an active role in plugging the holes. Don't just give me better things to read (although that's great), give me a tool that finds and fixes problems. Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's your favourite FLOSS?
On Wednesday 30 November 2005 03:09 am, Tshepang Lekhonkhobe wrote: Hello, There has been an interesting number of responses on this thread. I like it because it helps me explore some other FLOSS (or not so FLO) out there which I might otherwise find superior to my own favourites. I would just like to post stats on what the respoding population likes (in brackets we find the number of votes): audio editor: * audacity (7) * audacious, gnusound, xfmedia audio player: * Amarok (6) * XMMS (5) * beep-media-player (3) * XMMS2, mp3blaster, muine, totem, rhythmbox cd-ripper: * sound-juicer (6) * abcde (4) * KAudioCreator (2), grip (2) * dagrab, cdparanoia Desktop Environment: * GNOME (2) * Xfce4 DBMS: * MySQL (3) * PostgreSQL (2) * Openoffice2.0 Base, Oracle development: * Eclipse (2), Qt (2), Quanta (2) * bluefish, GTK+ disc burner: * k3b (11) * gnomebaker (6) * cdrecord (2) * xcdroast, nautilus-cd-burner, nero-linux, graveman e-mail client: * Thunderbird (9) * evolution (5) * mutt (4) * kmail (2) * Gmail (2) * M2 * sylpheed-claws-gtk2 file manager: * MC (6) * nautilus (5) * konqueror (3) * rox-filer (3) * emelfm * xterm * xfe * p-desk * krusader finance: * gnucash (5) * Calc * kMyMoney firewall [ shorewall ] ftp: * gftp (4) * ftp * lftp icons [ dlg-etiquette ] image editor * gimp (18) * imagemagick image viewer: * gthumb (9) * f-spot (3) * GQview (2), kuickshow (2), eog (2), display? (2) * imgSeek, mozilla-firefox, kview, gliv instant messenger * gaim (3) * Kopete (2) mathematics: * octave (2), maxima (2) * latex, texmacs, R misc utilities: * sudo (3) * dvd9to5 (2), oggasm (2), ssh (2), grep (2), screen (2) * lsof, sloccount, splint, uptimed, uptime, bash, awk, find * fuser, scim, route, netstat, dpkg-www p2p: * aMule (2) * azureus package manager: * aptitude (7) * Synaptic (6) * adept (2), apt (2) * portage * pkg_add pdf-reader: * acroread (2), kpdf (2) * xpdf, gpdf, evince process monitor: * top (3) * procmeter tag editor: * easyTag (5) * juk, id3v2 terminal emulator: * gnome-terminal (7) * Konsole (6) * Xterm (4) * xfce4-terminal (2), RXVT (2), Yakuake (2) * eterm text editor: * gedit (6) * vi (5) * kate (4) * gvim (3), gxedit (3), * nano (2), vim (2), Emacs (2) * anjuta, FTE, mousepad, OpenOffice.org video player: * mplayer (7) * VLC (4) * Kaffeine (3) * xine-ui (2), totem (2), totem-xine (2) * gmplayer, gxine web browser: * mozilla-firefox (17) * Epiphany (2) * opera, wget, konqueror (unreleased): * GNU HURD (4) 3D animation: [ blender (5) ] office: [ openoffice (2) ] aggregator: [ lifearea ] admin: [ webmin ] bootloader: [ grub ] cms: [ drupal ] config: [ gkDebconf ] dns: [ dnsmasq ] eyecandy: [ wallpaper-tray ] http-proxy: [ privoxy ] image manager: [ digiKam ] IRC client: [ XChat ] mail server: [ cyrus21 ] media-player: [ Kaffeine ] PIM: [ kontact ] spam murderer: [ spamassassin ] window manager: [ fvwm ] Summary: 18 votes: gimp 17 votes: mozilla-firefox 11 votes: k3b 09 votes: gthumb, Thunderbird 07 votes: aptitude, gnome-terminal, mplayer, audacity Thanks for all the responses... Here's one more vote: jEdit, world's best text editor (programmer's editor). Thanks for putting the list together, it's very interesting. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Request to remove Information
On Friday 25 November 2005 01:52 pm, Steve Lamb wrote: I tend more towards the Bastiat view expressed at the beginning of The Law. What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense. Collective organization of the /individual/ right to lawful defense. He goes on to explain why anything more than that is nothing more than sanctioned theivery. What's being defended in the above? Is it bodily integrity, personal space, property (whose definition?), a contract, ...?
Re: A few general questions from a Debian newbie
On Monday 14 November 2005 09:21 am, s. keeling wrote: Stability is what Debian was trying to produce when Murdock friends began. That's still a cornerstone value. Considering all the downstream distributions based on Debian, that strategy is working well. I agree. But as a relative newbie myself I'd like to better understand the rationale. A newbie looking at the plethora of distros is one confused and mystified individual. I chose Debian because of its open development model and reputation for stability (and lacked the time to investigate the 100+ so alternatives). The net-install was a quite a pleasure -- living without sound until I bought new hardware was a small price to pay. My use is primarily Java and web development and document writing. I don't need the latest and greatest of everything. What I did find surprising after reading this list for a while was that stable meant not only really stable but also really slow release cycle. Okay, that's the price you pay for really stable. What seems odd to me is that a stable release is not just the OS and utilities but also all the applications that run on top of them (15,000+ packages total -- that certainly explains the release cycle time). Is the rationale that this is the best way to do testing and configuration management? Is it just a consequence of the way Debian has grown up? Or something else entirely? As a newbie I expected there to be a set of OS/utility packages that were released together (say, for example, like Sun does with Solaris) and various sets of application software that had independent release cycles. The Debian model seems to be that all FLOSS software constitutes a Debian release and once that release happens you can pick and choose what you want. Why is that a good thing? Any clarification on the above will be appreciated. I'm not throwing stones here, just trying to figure out what the motivation is so I can better understand the Debian way. Andy
Re: Solaris: The Most Advanced OS?
On Tuesday 08 November 2005 11:20 pm, Nate Duehr wrote: Mike McCarty wrote: Well, I may not be the best one to ask, since I've been out of telecom for about three years. But so far, I do not see Linux making much if any entry into telecom. Blue Hat has made some progress, but not much. The availability requirements in telecom are so far beyond what most system engineers consider, that proprietary solutions are still mostly the choice. snip Well-written, Mike. As one of those still in telecom -- the uptime requirements are amazing at times. And the joys of databases with a requirement of 150ms maximum response time for a query on a nationwide network, much of which is still running on 64K DDS circuits at the end-points. Wh! [snip] Insurance companies rule the roost in the telco game, like many industries. If the hardware doesn't pass massively tough fire/power testing (well beyond UL-listing), it often can't be brought through the door. Telco is the only industry where I've ever seen hardware that both had to be self-extinguishing for fire and also be able to withstand a shotgun blast from a 12-gauge at a pre-specified distance. Of course, the above statement gives away that I've never built military hardware. :-) Nate and Mike drive home the point that GNU/Linux isn't fit-for-purpose when it comes to telco. I trust that isn't much of a suprise to those who are aware of the requirements and isn't much to be bothered about either. I only mention this because of rabid GNU/Linux partisans who can be rather manic about FLOSS being everywhere and doing everything. Their enthusiasm is endearing even if misdirected IMO. FLOSS is about politics and economics as much as it is about good software. There are areas such as telco where the natural forces just don't come together to enable it -- yet. Who knows what the future may bring.
Re: Solaris: The Most Advanced OS?
On Monday 07 November 2005 05:28 am, Tshepang Lekhonkhobe wrote: I doubt many people on this list have much experience working in high-volume, financial transaction environments where minutes of downtime correspond to millions of dollars lost. It's not reasonable IMO to expect OSS to serve that market -- yet. Sounds like you are underrating FLOSS... Isn't Google using the Linux kernel. Or rather aren't you saying that the corporates haven't opened their eyes yet. Saying that FLOSS has not yet solved all problems in all areas is not underrating it. Sure Google uses GNU/Linux but what is the cost to Google or its users if one of their servers faults? There are several areas FLOSS has not begun to penetrate all of which have hard realtime constraints where lots of money and/or lives are on the line: military, industrial control, finance and medicine come quickly to mind. FLOSS can only enter those areas when there is a seachange in how the world economy functions. I think there are many interesting questions about when and how that kind of change might occur. Debain GNU/Linux is a big part of the equation but no more so than OpenOffice. I know user apps are not seen as very exciting to OS gurus but OpenOffice is affecting the economics of software as much as GNU/Linux itself.
Re: Firefox throbber problem
On Sunday 06 November 2005 06:19 am, John Hasler wrote: I don't like to have to restart my browser. I lose all my tabs. the list saved me from adding to the already long list of bugs for firefox It's still a bug. The development team knows that good bug reports are like gold. John is right, it's still a bug. Please file your bug report.
Re: Solaris: The Most Advanced OS?
On Friday 04 November 2005 09:11 am, Mike McCarty wrote: On the whole, I'm happy with Linux. But in a side-by-side comparison, IMO Solaris is superior. No flames, please. You are wise to include the no flames request. As always this is as more of an emotional issue for many people than an intellectual or economic one. In asking what's best or what's superior you have to state for what intended purpose. I think it would be hard to make a case for Solaris being the best OS to run on your workstation at home or your typical webhost when Debian GNU/Linux is available. But if your company is doing high volume stock and banking transactions, Solaris may very well be the best. In both cases it's not just about the technical quality of the OS -- although that's critically important -- it's also about the available community support. In the former case the community is the essentially the people on this mailing list. In the latter, I'd much prefer to look to -- and pay for -- the community of engineers at Sun. (One way in which Sun distinguishes itself is that it is still a company where engineers dominate, as opposed to Microsoft, as someone else mentioned, which is purely marketing driven. Sadly the results can be seen in their stock prices.) I doubt many people on this list have much experience working in high-volume, financial transaction environments where minutes of downtime correspond to millions of dollars lost. It's not reasonable IMO to expect OSS to serve that market -- yet. As Mike wrote: No flames, please. But I'd be very interested in what others thing about this. Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OOo2.0 space concern
On Tuesday 25 October 2005 08:05 am, Mark Grieveson wrote: 300 MB of space would have been fine. However, before the install, I had over 10 (ten) GBs of space left on my 40 GB drive. Afterward, I was down to 1 (one) GB left; so, something went wrong somewhere. Is there a way to list files by filesize? A program, or command similar to ls that lists files, but sorts them in order of filesize? This way I could attempt to track what is causing this excessive usage of space. I believe the actual working install of OpenOffice.org is not, in and of itself, the culprit (I'm guessing that uninstalling it via synaptic would only free up a bit over 200 MB -- I'm basing this guess upon viewing the listed created debs in synaptic, and marking them for removal to see what synaptic would report). As always, all suggestion/comments appreciated. --Mark To sort files in the order of the size use du --max-depth=1 -m / | sort -g replace / with the corresponding directory. More information can be found in 'man du', 'man sort' raju Thanks for this suggestion. This space concern happened shortly after I installed OpenOffice.org 2.0, but that may be a co-incidence. I also turned on a usb storage device that a friend of mine gave to me (which had an old Windows file system on it.) I think something, for some reason, is repeating itself (a sort of loop) within my computer somewhere. Last night, nautilus reported that I had zero bytes (I had had eighteen, previously.) So, I eliminated various files and programs, freeing up 3.1 GB (I previously had not been able to read email due to space limitations.) This morning, once again, it reported zero bytes free. Rebooting did not change this. So again, I deleted some more stuff. Is there a way to check what processes are going on, so that perhaps I could kill whichever one is screwing up my computer? Also, an hour ago I entered the command du --max-depth=1 -m/ | sort -g, and it's still pondering this. If you have KDE installed, run Konqueror and chose View -- View Mode -- File Size View. It does the same thing as 'du' but starts giving visual feedback immediately. Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
backup scheme install [was Ready to join the club..]
On Sunday 23 October 2005 10:20 pm, Steve Lamb wrote: AFAIK, there is not a single vendor of PC's that provides a robust system out of the box that includes a ready-to-go backup/recovery procedure. It's always something left to the user. It's like selling a car without a spare and a jack. It's a hardware issue. Tell me what piece of hardware you're going to presume the user has to back up to. But hardware detection is one of the many fine features of the Debian installer, and I presume burning a CD is the best low-end hardware to target. The user I have in mind has a computer for email, websurfing, document writing, maybe image manipulation and spreadsheets. The current Debian desktop install serves them well when it comes to providing the means to create the data they are interested in, but leaves them on their own on an issue we all know is critical to a well-configured system: backup and recovery. I understand I'm advocating for a feature that isn't going to appear tomorrow, but it's important to consider it as part of the roadmap. And it could be yet another way Debian distinguishes itself from the crowd. On Sunday 23 October 2005 09:11 pm, Paul Johnson wrote: Then you are not familiar with the legions of PC users who know nothing of making backups, care a lot about their data, and only realize they should have learned about regular backups when the data turns to toast. Obviously they didn't care enough about their data to think about how to protect it. They got what they had coming. It's not that people are lazy (okay, some are) but just clueless. Cluelessness is a symptom of laziness. Cluelessness is a symptom of being inexperienced. Andy
Re: OpenOffice 2.0
On Sunday 23 October 2005 05:53 pm, Mark Grieveson wrote: Thanks for the suggestion of using alien to install OpenOffice.org on Sarge. It worked flawlessly. Someone else mentioned it need updated libraries from unstable. Is that not the case or did you selectively update? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ready to join the club..
On Sunday 23 October 2005 06:27 pm, Paul Johnson wrote: This is a straw-man argument. Anybody who actually cares about their data keeps a good set of backups anyway. Then you are not familiar with the legions of PC users who know nothing of making backups, care a lot about their data, and only realize they should have learned about regular backups when the data turns to toast. I think this is the biggest failure of every OS install (or more generally a lack of evolution in design). While providing a desktop system with all the common office programs, there is no prompting for setting up a backup procedure. It's not that people are lazy (okay, some are) but just clueless. AFAIK, there is not a single vendor of PC's that provides a robust system out of the box that includes a ready-to-go backup/recovery procedure. It's always something left to the user. It's like selling a car without a spare and a jack.
Re: sound card config?
On Thursday 20 October 2005 02:15 pm, Bob Hynes wrote: Hello, is there a way to reconfigure a sound card? Mine works in Windows, but it isn't working in Debian...it's old, but I'd rather try to use it than buy another one if I can. Need more info. Have you installed alsa or tried alsoconfig? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: gmplayer not working (solved)
On Monday 17 October 2005 10:08 am, Enrique Morfin wrote: PS: I can't connect to: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/ since saturday. Anyone else have the same problem? or just me? me too -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: How to get realplayer and mplayer to properly install?
On Friday 07 October 2005 11:56 pm, Malcolm Lalkaka wrote: 2. all updates and packages were installed with synaptic As far as I know, RealPlayer doesn't have an official Debian package. Therefore, I would suggest that you go to the RealPlayer website (http://www.real.com) and download/install the latest version directly. An unofficial Debian package is available at http://ftp.debian-unofficial.org/debian/ I have no idea of the quality of that site but I did use it to download and install Java 1.5 and have not experienced any problems.
Re: commands and packages
On Tuesday 04 October 2005 07:57 pm, enediel gonzalez wrote: Hello I need to install a sofware who requires the following commands to work properly, the installation detects that they aren't installed yet. ypcat rusers ypwhich xhost ?How could I know the package's name who contains a specific command? I have at this moment sarge stable I use Synaptic for package management. It has a search function which can search in package names and descriptions. Your command names may be in the package descriptions. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
upgrading to etch after installing sarge
Hi, Just installed sarge on a P4 box, then ran synaptic and upgraded to etch during which I got this: * Configuring debconf * unpacking replacement locales * preparing to replace 2.3.2.dsl-22 (using libc6_2.3.5-i386.deb) * [snip] * Name Service Switch update in C Library... * [snip] * gdm must be stopped before glibc upgrade * [snip] * Continue Y/n: So at that point I quit the process. This was my second pass at doing an install on this machine. The first time when I got to this point, I continued with the process and wound up with a locale problem and a warning that udev requires kernel = 2.6.12 upgrade aborted. Gnome was hosed while KDE continued to work. But, after this second install now I have a working desktop system with both Gnome and KDE. I'm a relative noob. Had etch with the 2.4 kernel working on a P2 machine which literally caught on fire (black, smelly smoke kind of fire). On the new one I installed the 2.6.8 kernel. I'd like to move to etch (testing) and am wondering what to do after running into the above problem. Do I boot to a command prompt and run aptitude as a work around? Or ...? Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: upgrading to etch after installing sarge
On Thursday 29 September 2005 12:11, valdyn wrote: you could pin udev to whatever version you have from sarge or you could grab a 2.6.12 kernel image from sid and install that one. Example(s) for pinning to some version are in 'man apt_preferences'. Thanks. I've pinned udev. Any hint on how to avoid this kind of thing in the future with some other package upgrade? I was using synaptic, added testing to the repository after installing sarge, and then chose Mark All Upgrades. I thought that part of debian way of package management was preventing a package being installed without its dependencies being present or at least installed at the same time. Or is this something peculiar to a kernel dependency? (Or do I just have the wrong conception of the whole scheme?) Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: 500 million Linux laptops in next year
On Thursday 29 September 2005 09:40 pm, Gautam Bakshi wrote: On 9/29/05, Don Jackson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Interesting article on BBC news: ** Sub-$100 laptop design unveiled ** Nicholas Negroponte of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), outlines blueprints for a sub-$100 PC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/technology/4292854.stm Yea i heard about it also...Hopefully many children in third world countries will benefit and also spread linux more around the world. See http://laptop.media.mit.edu/ (actually it is 100 million, not 500 million, but who's counting? Seems that RedHat is involved.) Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Overwhelmed newbie
On Friday 16 September 2005 12:55 pm, Kjetil Kjernsmo wrote: Most importantly, this is _debian_-user. If you want to advocate other distributions willy-nilly, it's not the place. That kind of isolationism is something I think you will find very little support for in the free software community. I think most people will agree that we want to direct people to what is best for them. I am also an overwhelmed newbie, one who could not have been using Debian for the last 9 months without the kind (and sometimes terse and abrupt) help from people on this list. It takes a remarkable amount of dedication and time to become comfortable configuring a desktop Debian system on a machine with modest resources where you can't run KDE or GNOME without a significant performance problem. The choice of window managers for a desktop systems is, to really go out on a limb, fairly important. The best advice I've gotten is that I should just start installing and trying out all the others. That's not too appealing but I accept the reality. I keep staring at my Ubuntu disks and wondering if I should switch horses. Yet I can't begin to estimate the costs involved -- in terms of my time and in the quality and maintainability of the resulting system. Would a few months of using Ubuntu cause me to come running back to Debian? I have no idea. Any pointers to useful reading material would be appreciated.
Re: OT: English usage. Was: Re: No Starch Press releases _The Debian System_ by Martin Krafft
On Thursday 15 September 2005 05:55 pm, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: My tenth grade english teacher taught it like this: If you can't replace the semicolon with a period and make two coherent and complete sentences, then it doesn't belong. Best grammar advice I ever received. It can also be used to separate elements in a list which themselves contain commas yet are not complete sentences. Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Which Java for browser plugins?
On Thursday 01 September 2005 07:10 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I used java-package along with Sun's Java 5. Instructions here: http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/142 Great article! That works for me. Thanks for your help. Returning to my original question of free Debian Java packages, I think this quote from the article above summarizes the situation: Whilst there [are] a growing number of open Java environments at times installing Sun Java environment is the pragmatic approach. . . . Sun recently made another noise about opensourcing Java sometime in the future. I sure won't hold my breath. If they'd only loosened up enough to allow a real deb package to be constructed I'd be happy. Andy (ex-Sun Java Division)
Re: Wordpress
On Monday 29 August 2005 11:33 am, Roel Schroeven wrote: Either I don't understand what you're saying or you didn't understand the linked website: this mailing list was added to Gmane already a long time ago, and the link above links directly to its blog interface on Gmane. Thanks, that wasn't clear to me. Sadly, the interface looks so nice but is lacking at least 2 features I find essential, especially with the quantity of posts involved: 1. There is not next at the bottom of the page. Instead you have to go back to the top and click on a page number. 2. Searching for wordpress didn't find anything on this thread. If it is hard to navigate, doesn't have effective searching, but looks pretty, well, that's not a good solution for me. One nice feature was that I could put in my email address and see what posts I've made which is quite useful when you are tracking down information related to problems you've been having. Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Which Java for browser plugins?
On Tuesday 30 August 2005 02:18 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello Debian users, I'm wondering which Debian package(s) I should install for Java plugins for opera and mozilla. Most of the documents I found on the net talk about downloading J2RE from a Sun site. Does this mean there aren't standard Debian packages which can replace Sun's Java? Not that I don't want to use Sun's Java, but that I prefer the standard Debian way of package management if possible. Thank you, Ryo I used java-package along with Sun's Java 5. Instructions here: http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/142 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
OT Re: Gmane (Was: Wordpress)
On Wednesday 31 August 2005 03:52 am, Jon Dowland wrote: I'd like to suggest should rather than can - if you can find the time to rant on this list, you should spare at least the same amount of time ranting productively :) I'm rather surprised to be perceived as ranting. I'll certainly take my feedback to the gmane folks. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
OT Re: Gmane (Was: Wordpress)
On Wednesday 31 August 2005 01:51 am, Björn Lindström wrote: The blog interface is comparatively new, and lacking in some areas. If you have suggestions for improvements, you can post them on http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.discuss Thanks for link, Bjorn.
Re: Wordpress
On Monday 29 August 2005 01:15 am, Björn Lindström wrote: Andy Streich [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Agree. Hence the suggestion entailed a blog and the existing email list as two views on exactly the same data. Gmane has something like this. http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.linux.debian.user Thanks, Bjorn, that's exactly what I had in mind and it was implemented 3 years ago. Any reason not to do add this mailing list to Gname? Who could do it? Andy
Re: wordpress (was Re: FW: call for a vote -- should debian-user mailing list replies go to author or to list?)
On Sunday 28 August 2005 04:18 pm, Mark Crean wrote: I suspect an important reason for the popularity of web boards is that they provide a greater sense of community than a mailing list and become, for some, a place to hang out. At present, though, I don't think anyone's really cracked the problem with web boards, namely that mailing lists are fast, simple and don't require a gui to use even though they are less flexible than the boards in some respects. Agree. Hence the suggestion entailed a blog and the existing email list as two views on exactly the same data. In addition, web boards require quite a lot of oversight and maintenance, in my experience, not to mention server resources. So someone would have to do a lot of work. To me that's the real problem. Frankly I have no hope for anything like this being implemented in the near future, but still want to advocate for it. The mailing list is a tremendous resource. For people in remote locations (like me) it's a necessary lifeline for using the Debain distro. And if it is necessary to say, I'm not disparraging the mailing list. Instead I have these dreams sometimes, probably inspired by the thought that the 100 or so emails I get on this list each day that contain lots of really useful information, and every single user of the list is likely working on a computer that individually has more power than all the computers I touched as an undergrad combined. GNU/Linux is a wonderful collection of complex software and the Debian distro is magical. Yet the one thing hasn't changed much in 30 years and that's the production of documentation and support information. That sort of work rarely if ever gets the cudos that writting a few dozen lines of clever system code does even though it is just as (arguably more) critical -- especially at this stage in the GNU/Linux life cycle. We all dream. Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Drawin program like CorelDRAW
On Saturday 27 August 2005 08:12 am, Paolo Pantaleo wrote: I am looking for a drawing (vectorial) program, i read about: Sodipodi Skencil Karbon14 Any other? Any suggestion about which is better? I've been using Inkscape (SVG vector illustrator lately) and have been pleased with the result; it's feature-rich IMO. Couple of years ago I tried Sodipodi but at that time it was, I guess, still in its infancy and not working so well. Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: FW: call for a vote -- should debian-user mailing list replies go to author or to list?
On Saturday 27 August 2005 01:25 pm, David Christensen wrote: debian-user: Here's the final tally: clearly voted reply to list6 clearly enough voted reply to sender 2 clearly abstained1 other ~86 Thank you all for the quantity and quality of discussion on this thread. :-) I conclude that: 1. Many debian-user mailing list users want their replies to be directed to the mailing list most of the time. 2. The debian-user mailing list facilitates Reply to List functionality, but many mail client programs in common use (including mine) lack the feature(s) necessary to use it. 3. Many mailing lists have implemented a work-around whereby they set the Reply-To message header so that replies are directed to the list when the reader activates the Reply feature of their mail client. 4. Users with mail client software lacking the Reply to List feature have grown accustomed to the work-around behavior because it does what they expect. They are unpleasantly surprised when they reply to a message from this list and it goes to the sender. 5. The work-around breaks key functionality from the sender's perspective if they have deliberately set the Reply-To header, or if it has been set on their behalf. 6. Advanced debian-user mailing list senders depend upon correct mailing list operation, including respect of the Reply-To header, and would be adversely impacted by the work-around. 7. Some debian-user mailing list senders are zealous about this issue. I have some ideas for a solution: 1. Educate debian-user mailing list readers (especially new ones) on this issue. Put information into a new reader Welcome letter. Put information into a FAQ. Make it prominent and easy to find. 2. Write an open-source Reply to List feature (plug-in?) for common mail clients missing such. 3. Add per-user-configurable options to the debian-user mailing list software to set the Reply-To header, subject to message direction (user sending to list, user receiving from list), exceptions (always set, only set when not set), and/or other relevant criteria. I hereby volunteer to help implement a solution to the reply to list for brain-dead MUA's problem, per the above or any other good idea(s), with the caveat that my time be used effectively. (Having just pushed the reply to list button in KMail...) Great job summarizing the discussion and vote, David. I like your solutions and, in the same spirit of offering ideas that I can't implement on my own, here's mine: As a supplement to (not replacement for) this email list, I'd really love to see a weblog where anyone who registers (just like we subscribe to this list) can post questions and comments. Ideally when signing up for a list you could choose to be a weblog user or a mailing-list user or both. Posts and comments on the blog would be sent to the list and vice versa. Opensource blog software is pretty good these days and simple to set up (at least Wordpress, the only one I've personally setup, is). The whole blog paradigm is especially well suited to the kind of conversations that go on here. I'm sure there would be plenty of volunteers to help with maintenance, moderation, etc. Wouldn't it be nice to actually use modern computer technology to aid people who are eager to use and promote Debian software? (Apologies in advance for what might appear as a snide remark. It's not intended that way.) Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: windowmaker
Anders, Roman, Roberto: Thanks very much for your advice. For the record I'm running Sarge and had no problem with KDE or GNOME, rather liked them both in fact. Just looking now for ways to free up resources for big apps -- and spending a lot of time learning to be a linux admin for my system! Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: windowmaker [OT]
On Friday 08 July 2005 01:44 pm, Tom Allison wrote: I love punch cards. Did you ever use the paper tape? I used punch cards to program a Burroughs mainframe in the mid-70's and programmed a CNC lathe (machine tool) with paper tape -- what a rush!
windowmaker
Hi, Based on advice on this list to maestro I'm considering switching to windowmaker: I no longer have time to spend hours tweaking config files, and thus prefer an integrated desktop environment, but GNOME and KDE are too bulky for my PIII-650 / 320MB workstation I'm even resource-poorer with a PII-400/128MB workstation. I tried KDE, switched to GNOME, and now am investigating windowmaker. Can anyone give me pointers to information about what to expect? Specifically, 1. resources to learn/understand windowmaker 2. email client that works well (and lightly) in that environment (love KMail, but the overhead is too much on my system) 3. package manager, I've been using Synaptic. Am I right in assuming that aptitude is the way to go in a windowmaker environment or am I reduced to the command line? 4. am I just too optimistic that my old system is adequate to run some kind of GUI on linux? 5. where do I learn about how to change from booting into a GNOME dm to login to a windowmaker dm? FYI I'm a dinosaur that learned programming in FORTRAN with punch cards in the '70s. Even in the '80s 128MB of RAM was a supercomputer and people (from HP if I recall correctly) were writing papers claiming that 50Mhz CPUs were impossible. Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
jEdit
Hi again, I'm wondering if there is any awareness in the Debian community of the jEdit editor? I writing a plugin for jEdit that enables people, some of whom are non-technical, to create and maintain websites and would like to get a sense of how wide-spread jEdit usage/awareness is among Debian users. (The app is not dependent on jEdit and runs from the command line in any Java 1.4+ environment.) Since jEdit is a Java app, I'd also like to gather some information about the acceptance/usage of Java 1.5 (aka 5.0) within the Debian community since that is the OS that I'm using and would like to recommend. I'd love to require my users to have Java 5 installed but only if there is some positive acceptance of Java 5 generally. Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT (and Flamebait): Top-Posting
On Thursday 07 July 2005 07:45 pm, Stephen R Laniel wrote: The trouble is that everybody has different standards: some like inline quotes, some like top-posting, and some like bottom-posting. Rather than get exercised about others' aesthetic choices, we should let our programs format our mail the way we want. Which is why I like KMail but I'm running it on a -- by today's standards -- low-powered system (PII, 400 Mhz, 128 ram, 6 GB hard drive). If the receivers of your mail are all on cool, modern, big systems then you've no worries. But KMail takes up nearly 30% of my available RAM, and I'm searching for an alternative which likely won't have all it's capabilities. Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Opening urls in evolution
On Saturday 02 July 2005 05:29 pm, Glenn Davy wrote: Hi all Can anyone tell me how I can get firefox to open as my browser when I click on a URL in an email in evolution? At the moment a shell pops up, retrieves file with wget and opens the source in vim. Thanks Glenn I have the same question wrt firefox and KMail which I'm running in gnome rather than kde. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Opening urls in evolution
On Saturday 02 July 2005 06:42 pm, Glenn Davy wrote: I thought it might have something to do with the 'preferred applications' in gnome, and or /etc/alternatives/x-www-browser, but changing these (which are set to firefox anyhow) make no difference. when you say 'same question' are you getting the wget-vim result as well? No, in my case it opens Konqueror -- a lovely browser/file manager combination but without the platform independence that firefox offers.
Re: possibility of debian cannabilizing other Linux distributions in 5-10 years time
On Saturday 25 June 2005 11:42 pm, Dominik Margraf wrote: In 10-15 years time, Do you think that Debian will dominate the desktop and the server market to the extent that most desktops/laptops sold in department stores will be preinstalled with Debian (just like today's M*Shit Windows)? One might hope so, but many things will have to change. Today, Debian as a desktop is only practical where there is strong, nearby, technical support. Clearly you don't like MS Windows (I don't like MS in general) but it works out of the box for nearly every user and there is a ton of software that the non-technical person can add-on with no trouble. There is no Debian equivalent (apt-get or aptitude or synaptic or ...?) I'd be very interested to know if *anyone* is distributing a Debian system for the non-technical user -- a basic setup with the os, a gdm, Open Office, Firefox (with the appropriate plugins and extensions installed), Thunderbird, along with a plan for painless upgrades and support. The frame isn't Windows vs Linux. It's Windows vs a tremendously fragmented Linux community with a myriad of Linux distros, all different. We can't even agree on Gnome, KDE, or someother GUI. As a geek I love all the options but it fails as a business plan. Please, if you see it differently, let me know either on this list or to me individually. Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: USB cdr
Since it is now Monday I'm hoping somebody who might help will be back at work reading their list email. (Forgive me for resending. I'm quite stuck. Even a pointer to an obscure or embarrassingly obvious doc would be appreciated.) On Saturday 18 June 2005 05:30 pm, Andy Streich wrote: I'm running Sarge with the 2.4 kernel (i386) and need help accessing my USB cdr drive. I have this line in /etc/fstab: usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs defaults 0 0 mount tells me it is mounted: polar:/etc/hotplug# mount usbfs mount: usbfs already mounted or /proc/bus/usb busy mount: according to mtab, usbfs is already mounted on /proc/bus/usb Hotpluging is working to the extent that I see things change under /proc/bus/usb as I move the USB connecter from one port to the other. So how do I mount the cdr drive itself so I have some place to write to/read from? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: newbie pointers request
On Friday 17 June 2005 07:28 pm, Kent West wrote: These might be a good start: http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/system-administrator/index.html#contents http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/user/ http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/network-administrator/ http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ Thanks, the chapters that are not TBD are very good. I was hoping there was more out there (maybe even drafts of the missing chapters). One thing I'm can't find is how to make a recovery disk floppy. It was not part of the install procedure I used. Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
USB cdr
I'm running Sarge with the 2.4 kernel and need help accessing my USB cdr drive. I have this line in /etc/fstab: usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs defaults 0 0 mount tells me it is mounted: polar:/etc/hotplug# mount usbfs mount: usbfs already mounted or /proc/bus/usb busy mount: according to mtab, usbfs is already mounted on /proc/bus/usb Hotpluging is working to the extent that I see things change under /proc/bus/usb as I move the USB connecter from one port to the other. So how do I mount the cdr drive itself so I have some place to write to/read from? Andy (noob) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
newbie pointers request
Can anyone point me to web-based documentation for newbies that would contain tips, hints, and lead-me-by-the-hand directions on configuring my new Sarge install? Or have I just made a big mistake in choosing Debian over, say, any one of the 100's of other distributions? I am familiar with Unix as a user, but now I need to learn administration tasks like basic configuration of peripherals, system backup, os upgrading, samba config (for a few home computers, one running Windoze). And I like the Debian delevopment philosophy. I'm pretty overwhelmed by the variety of advice I'm get, most of which is narrowly focussed on one little aspect of what I need to do. I'm looking for the guide to new admin's of Debian GNU/Linux system: the newbie version. (And, no, there is no local unix group in the remote area in which I live.) Thanks, Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
