Re: [Dorset] Linux Distribution of choice?
On Saturday 07 Apr 2012 00:03:49 Tim wrote: > > Anyway, what's your favourite? I should add I mean for desktop use > > rather than server use, but it's all relevant! As my Sig says, Kubuntu on this box. I also have a Netbook which runs Ubuntu and a for recent project at work we used a tweaked version of TinyCore to grab the identities and versions of all the hardware installed on newly procured servers and send the data (in XML) to a (Windows based) auditing tool on a remote server. I moved over to Linux when Amiga Format stopped publishing in the early Noughties. I bought a boxed Mandrake distro, then moved to SuSe for quite a few years and then to Kubuntu not long after it came out. (Mandrake was KDE by default, so I've stuck with it ever since, apart from on the Netbook.) As an aside, before Linux I'd previously been using a beefed up Amiga A1200 to do fairly serious home computing, including internet access, and I was offered a subscription to Linux Format to replace my old Amiga one. Going back further, I started using my son's Amiga A600 to 'play around' with AmigaDOS and do something other than the games that everyone used Amigas for in those days (in this country anyway). When we got him an Amiga CD32, I bought a plugin that provided a faster processor, more RAM, a hard disc drive and video and serial ports. The serial port allowed me to connect a modem and I was able to get internet access fairly early in 1994, using an archaic TCP/IP stack which was set up by editing a config file, rather like samba is when you don't use a GUI tool. I still like the power and simplicity of AmigaDOS, although it couldn't stack up to what can be achieve in bash these days. Sometimes, I wish that Commodore hadn't had such a dumb management team, because the combination of AmigaDOS and Workbench was brilliant and years ahead of anything on Windows or Linux at the time. The Mac had a better desktop at the time, but there was no shell at all, so you could only do what the GUI let you do. Apart from that, Datatypes were introduced around 1992, which meant that apps knew what to do with different file types without resorting to clunky mechanisms like file extensions like Windows did (and still does). -- Terry Coles 64 bit computing with Kubuntu Linux -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Linux Distribution of choice?
On Fri, 2012-04-06 at 21:06 +0100, Glenn Korbey wrote: > Hi all, > > I am sure this has been asked before, and I am only asking out of idle > curiosity.. > What is your preferred distribution of Linux? It seems most of the list > is based on Ubuntu or some derivative (or even Debian) > > Personally I'm on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed (the rolling release version of > OpenSUSE) and liking it very much, though perhaps lacking in app > selection in the repositories, however that is not a big issue, I can > always compile my own :D Biggest bugbear for me was the poor font > rendering. Unlike Ubuntu flavours, OpenSuse doesn't have nice looking > fonts by default, of course this was easily fixed by a community > repository with updated freetype2 and related stuff but it would have > been nice to have it enabled by default as per Ubuntu related. > > Anyway, what's your favourite? I should add I mean for desktop use > rather than server use, but it's all relevant! > > Glenn Years ago, when I wanted to get my students aware of Linux, I obtained copies of fedora/Suse from HP /IBM and as many other variants as I could find off mag covers or download. My favourite was Mandrake for a few years until in metamorphosed into Mandriva. I am now I guess firmly ensconced in Kubuntu on my desktop, though I still like Xubuntu. I am not a true blue CLI user, but get along with it when I have to. I hazard a comment that your question can be broken down into two parts - Which version of linux, and which desktop GUI? Peter M. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Linux Distribution of choice?
On Fri, 2012-04-06 at 21:06 +0100, Glenn Korbey wrote: > Hi all, > > I am sure this has been asked before, and I am only asking out of idle > curiosity.. > What is your preferred distribution of Linux? It seems most of the list > is based on Ubuntu or some derivative (or even Debian) > > Personally I'm on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed (the rolling release version of > OpenSUSE) and liking it very much, though perhaps lacking in app > selection in the repositories, however that is not a big issue, I can > always compile my own :D Biggest bugbear for me was the poor font > rendering. Unlike Ubuntu flavours, OpenSuse doesn't have nice looking > fonts by default, of course this was easily fixed by a community > repository with updated freetype2 and related stuff but it would have > been nice to have it enabled by default as per Ubuntu related. > > Anyway, what's your favourite? I should add I mean for desktop use > rather than server use, but it's all relevant! > > Glenn In some ways it's like banks. You may not be with the best one, But most people do not change banks easily. You get used to the way that 'your' bank does things. Peter M. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Linux Distribution of choice?
On 7 Apr 2012, at 08:20, Terry Coles wrote: > On Saturday 07 Apr 2012 00:03:49 Tim wrote: >>> Anyway, what's your favourite? I should add I mean for desktop use >>> rather than server use, but it's all relevant! > > The Mac had a better desktop at the time, but there was no > shell at all, so you could only do what the GUI let you do. Apart from that, > Datatypes were introduced around 1992, which meant that apps knew what to do > with different file types without resorting to clunky mechanisms like file > extensions like Windows did (and still does). I mainly use BackTrack, which is now Ubuntu-based, but that because I work in Information Security and the distro is probably the best equipped for penetration testing and malware research. Apart from that, it's Ubuntu. I just like the the package management system, it reminds me of BSD which is my heritage (along with Digital VMS). I know that Fedora now has a similar package management system, but every time I've tried installing it I've had hardware compatibility issues. In my previous role I was responsible for about 5,000 CentOS servers - I wouldn't recommend that for a desktop OS! Funny Terry mentioned the lack of Terminal on the original Macintosh operating system, I used to use a Macintosh application called "Mach 10" in the late-eighties that ran a separate BSD kernel in each instance of the application. With this, for instance, you could start multiple kernels each handling a separate NCSA Webserver instance and if one dropped, you could respawn the instance, this is virtualisation 10 years ahead of VM Ware ;) Jimmy -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
[Dorset] Programming languages
While you are relaxing: http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/hello-world-programming-languages-quiz-188874 I got 10 right, but should have got 12, as I got two wrong on languages that I used to use. (I'm not telling you which or how long I used those languages as I'm too embarrassed). Peter M -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Programming languages
On Saturday 07 Apr 2012 10:18:10 Peter Merchant wrote: > I got 10 right, but should have got 12, as I got two wrong on languages > that I used to use. (I'm not telling you which or how long I used those > languages as I'm too embarrassed). I got 7, but 90% of my answers were guesses. Out of all the languages listed, I've only ever written in Basic, C and C++ (a little). -- Terry Coles 64 bit computing with Kubuntu Linux -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Programming languages
Hi Terry, > I got 7, but 90% of my answers were guesses. Out of all the languages > listed, I've only ever written in Basic, C and C++ (a little). 19 out of 20, though some had me thinking a bit; it helps to know language lineage too even if you're not overly familiar with the language itself. Cheers, Ralph. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Linux Distribution of choice?
I was a die-hard Fedora fan and then converted to Ubuntu. Use LTS releases for server (apart from the odd Enterprise SUSE machine). On the desktop I got frustrated with Unity so it is Lubuntu for me. Si On 06.04.2012 21:06, Glenn Korbey wrote: > Hi all, > > I am sure this has been asked before, and I am only asking out of idle > curiosity.. > What is your preferred distribution of Linux? It seems most of the list > is based on Ubuntu or some derivative (or even Debian) -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Programming languages
Embarrassed to say 13/20 - eeek. A bit of guessing in places (by elimination) Si On 07.04.2012 10:18, Peter Merchant wrote: > While you are relaxing: > > http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/hello-world-programming-languages-quiz-188874 > > I got 10 right, but should have got 12, as I got two wrong on languages > that I used to use. (I'm not telling you which or how long I used those > languages as I'm too embarrassed). -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] OT: (ish) Go is Go!
Hi Terry, > Real-time isn't usually an issue, because any requirements are dealt > with by the test instrument. However, responsiveness is, because the > UUT (unit under test) can come back with answers that need processing > reasonably quickly to allow the next signal to be set up. Go uses garbage collection BTW. http://golang.org/doc/go_faq.html#garbage_collection Why do garbage collection? Won't it be too expensive? One of the biggest sources of bookkeeping in systems programs is memory management. We feel it's critical to eliminate that programmer overhead, and advances in garbage collection technology in the last few years give us confidence that we can implement it with low enough overhead and no significant latency. Ahem, if a program's going to be running long-term, e.g. a server, then you don't want it to be 32-bit Go at the moment, only 64-bit; the GC is conservative and it's a lot harder to spot a memory pointer amongst 32-bit words than it is amongst 64-bit ones. They're planning to improve this but it's not a quick fix. Another point is that a large part of the difficulty of concurrent and multi-threaded programming is memory management; as objects get passed among threads it becomes cumbersome to guarantee they become freed safely. Automatic garbage collection makes concurrent code far easier to write. Of course, implementing garbage collection in a concurrent environment is itself a challenge, but meeting it once rather than in every program helps everyone. Finally, concurrency aside, garbage collection makes interfaces simpler because they don't need to specify how memory is managed across them. The current implementation is a parallel mark-and-sweep collector but a future version might take a different approach. On the topic of performance, keep in mind that Go gives the programmer considerable control over memory layout and allocation, much more than is typical in garbage-collected languages. A careful programmer can reduce the garbage collection overhead dramatically by using the language well; see the article about profiling Go programs for a worked example, including a demonstration of Go's profiling tools. That last paragaph is fairly key; I've not been hearing of noticeable hangs whilst the GC ran, as used to plague Lisp, and Google are using Go (on 64-bit) for back-end services where reponse time is critical. Cheers, Ralph. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Linux Distribution of choice?
Hi folks ,i have stuck with ubuntu 10.04 LTS for ages as i did not get on with the unity updates and whatnot ,and have just migrated to mint yesterday.A few flaky areas but on the whole a jolly nice system to use. Vic P On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 10:56 AM, Simon P Smith wrote: > > > I was a die-hard Fedora fan and then converted to Ubuntu. > > Use LTS > releases for server (apart from the odd Enterprise SUSE machine). > > On > the desktop I got frustrated with Unity so it is Lubuntu for me. > > Si > > > On 06.04.2012 21:06, Glenn Korbey wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > I am sure > this has been asked before, and I am only asking out of idle > > > curiosity.. > > What is your preferred distribution of Linux? It seems > most of the list > > is based on Ubuntu or some derivative (or even > Debian) > > -- > Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 > Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ > New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk > How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue > -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Programming languages
On 07/04/12 10:18, Peter Merchant wrote: While you are relaxing: http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/hello-world-programming-languages-quiz-188874 I got 10 right, but should have got 12, as I got two wrong on languages that I used to use. (I'm not telling you which or how long I used those languages as I'm too embarrassed). Peter M That was fun :) I got 15 out of 20. I swapped Perl and PHP, and FORTRAN and COBOL. I also mistook Scala for Objective C. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Programming languages
Hi John, > I swapped Perl and PHP, and FORTRAN and COBOL. I thought their Fortran was pretty unrecognisable compared to the Fortran I'm used to, but then I read and wrote Fortran 77. Generally, I thought a bigger example than Hello World would have been good; for some modern languages it's little more than two lines plus a couple of braces, not much room for signal. Cheers, Ralph. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Linux Distribution of choice?
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Well, started with Red Hat - eons ago then installed SuSe and stayed with that for years. Mainly because SuSE was certified for both Oracle and IBM's DB2 UDB II [ both of which I was using ] Now, KBUNTU 11 and Linux Mint 12 at home Work: which is all servers - Oracle Unbreakable Linux 4; 5,1 and 5,7 [If they have a GUI is Gnome but most do not ] I am finding that the distributions' 'restrictions' of what is available to install after updates become available a little trying. You know : Thunderbird announces an upgrade and it takes a couple of weeks for it to happen on the repositories - so I guess ARCH could be a good tryout. I did install, and liked, CrunchBang into a virtual machine on my work PC, but that was a little frowned on. Very clean desktop but I suspect not for anyone from a Windoze background. Terry's comments about Amiga are spot on. When I was teaching in OZ, one student challenged me about IBM compatible and proceeded to demonstrate just what his Amiga2000 (?) could do - it was impressive then and the pity is that it got crushed in the rush of the lumbering stuff we have now [ mind you I am the one at work who gets teased about CLI rather than GUI ] Mind you we must all be careful, at work I still get the comments about all the varying Linux releases and how they are not compatible - and that from the Windoze team. I do keep having to demonstrate that that is not true. The good bit is that that team now realizes it has more Linux machines then I have - Barracudas; Riverbed; etc etc cheers pwl -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAk+AY1EACgkQnbH2cLovUvIjyACfWeY8Db1123YJHpIH7AVy9wHl SaAAmwRhLcZlKDCTQU9gNz8FKztMVpUg =nBSW -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Linux Distribution of choice?
On Saturday 07 Apr 2012 16:54:58 Peter wrote: > Terry's comments about Amiga are spot on. When I was teaching in OZ, one > student challenged me about IBM compatible and proceeded to demonstrate > just what his Amiga2000 (?) could do - it was impressive then and the pity > is that it got crushed in the rush of the lumbering stuff we have now [ > mind you I am the one at work who gets teased about CLI rather than GUI The Amiga thousand series (1000, 2000, 3000, etc) were never sold in this country to the best of my knowledge. These were the 'serious' Amigas that the rest of the world used. In the US, they were used as rendering farms to do the titling for all but the biggest TV stations. In Germany and Scandinavia, they were used as Office machines. I have no idea what Oz did with them. -- Terry Coles 64 bit computing with Kubuntu Linux -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Linux Distribution of choice?
On 07/04/12 17:16, Terry Coles wrote: The Amiga thousand series (1000, 2000, 3000, etc) were never sold in this country to the best of my knowledge. These were the 'serious' Amigas that the rest of the world used. In the US, they were used as rendering farms to do the titling for all but the biggest TV stations. In Germany and Scandinavia, they were used as Office machines. I have no idea what Oz did with them. The Amiga 1500, 2000, 3000, and 4000 were all sold in this country, not sure about the original Amiga 1000 though. I even owned a 2000 for a short while, but it got fried in a thunderstorm power surge :( It was replaced by my A1200. Glenn -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
[Dorset] Media Center/server.
Hi, I now have a medium power PC free, and would like to make it in to a... media center/server. I am not wanting to attach it to a TV, but have it rip my DVD and other media I want to send it and the have my MACs and Ubuntu machines be able to access it. Any ideas what Linux to put on the server and what software to use to rip and serve with? I think there are Distrows just for this. Thanks. Andrew Andrew Drapper www.Bible-Matters.com -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Media Center/server.
Hi Andrew, > I think there are Distrows just for this. http://xbmc.org/ is popular and they ship an Ubuntu-based distro, http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMCbuntu. Cheers, Ralph. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Media Center/server.
Thanks Ralph, I believe that this is the distro, (where did the 'w' come form), that I looked a some years ago when I had nothing to run it on. In the reading that I have done so far I have not seen it used to streem to other devices, i.e. Macs and Other linux PCs. Dose it do this? Andrew Drapper On 7 April 2012 19:35, Ralph Corderoy wrote: > Hi Andrew, > > > I think there are Distrows just for this. > > http://xbmc.org/ is popular and they ship an Ubuntu-based distro, > http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMCbuntu. > > Cheers, Ralph. > > -- > Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 > Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ > New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk > How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue > -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Media Center/server.
On 07/04/12 21:04, Andrew Drapper wrote: Thanks Ralph, I believe that this is the distro, (where did the 'w' come form), that I looked a some years ago when I had nothing to run it on. In the reading that I have done so far I have not seen it used to streem to other devices, i.e. Macs and Other linux PCs. Dose it do this? Andrew Drapper On 7 April 2012 19:35, Ralph Corderoy wrote: Hi Andrew, I think there are Distrows just for this. http://xbmc.org/ is popular and they ship an Ubuntu-based distro, http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMCbuntu. Cheers, Ralph. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue Dyne Bolic has a good reputation and it comes in the form or a bootable DVD http://www.dynebolic.org/ -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-05-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
