Re: [Hampshire] Btrfs
On Sat, 29 Oct 2011 01:24:00 +0100, Imran Chaudhry wrote: On 25 September 2011 21:10, Anton Piatek an...@piatek.co.uk wrote: Has anyone tried btrfs? The ability to stripe and mirror data across disks of varying sizes really appeals. I understand it is not production ready, but sounds really promising. Anton No replies? I was curious about this too. Sounds promising but my concerns were bugs as not as mature as ext3/4 and does it really work as advertized. Did you get anywhere with it Anton? I have btrfs on a netbook spanning two differently sized SSDs as a single volume (running Arch, which is a revelation after Ubuntu). It just works, but I'm not sure it could be recovered other than from backup if it broke, and I wouldn't use it with a pre 2.6.38 / 3.0 kernel, as I had some (unrecoverable) issues with much earlier version (on VMs). The machine also has an encrypted (ecryptfs) home. In summary, I'm very content with it, and I take regular backups. -jh -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Laptop Linux distro recommendations
On Sat, 29 Oct 2011 00:58:44 +0100 Imran Chaudhry ichaud...@gmail.com wrote: Can anyone recommend a good Linux distro that meets the following requirements: - must work easily with a Huwei 3G dongle - Gnome 2.x - easy to set-up encrypted home dir - makes good use of a modern laptop (eg. usable webcam) I have been living with Ubunty 11.10 Unity for the last two weeks and while it has eye-candy, usability and much promise, I found it hard to be efficient with it compared to Gnome 2 (especially where one has multiple terminal windows). My conclusion is that it is not suited for technical users. One can login with Gnome Classic but for some reason the menu and icons look rather odd and I did not have the patience to fix it. I really hope 12.04 maintains Gnome 2.x as 10.04. I did try Gnome 3 but discarded it as it was not as obvious to use as the alternatives. Debian with XFCE4 is what I have moved to for similar reason to your comments above, but I don't know if it meets your other requirements. XFCE4 does seem to meet my needs and doesn't come with all the baggage that Gnome (even Gnome2) does. I simply don't use all the stuff so many people think essential these days, ie I don't do social networking, blogging, instant messaging, internet phone, rss feeds, downloading/watching TV etc etc but it isn't possible to remove those un-wanted apps from gnome easily. My primary web browser is opera, though I do keep firefox installed for the odd website that doesn't play nicely with opera. Opera did tabbed browsing first and still does it better IMHO and it suits the way I use a web browser for accessing genealogy data in geneweb or on the internet. Since most of my genealogy data comes in pdf format I need acroread because the free pdf readers simply aren't good enough yet and I have been using sylpheed and its current incarnation claws-mail almost as long as I have been using linux based systems. I like to run each app in its own workspace and I need 2 or 3 terminal windows as I prefer to do aptitude-upgrades, accessing other local or remote systems using the command line and despite all the gui file managers there are I much prefer to use mc (in a terminal window), goes back to when I used dos and norton commander I suppose. It is amazing how deeply embedded gnome is and how difficult it is to purge the last lingering traces of it from the system. I suspect I may have removed too much, for example I am left with icons on the desk top for an external USB drive with one ext3 and one fat partition on it that I cannot open or mount other than as root, whereas gnome did allow this. For the moment I've use mountpy to find and mount the usb drive and I'll probably have to do the same when I plug in the camera. XFCE4 is much more configurable than LXDE but that is OK in its default setup for what I'll be using the Compaq N-160 for and light enough not to tax its limited resources. I now have XFCE4 on two systems and it is highly unlikely I'll go back to gnome. After all I was happily using windowmaker for many years and it was only when I installed 64bit Debian Sid that I went along with the default desktop. -- John Lewis using Debian sid -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Laptop Linux distro recommendations
On 29 October 2011 00:58, Imran Chaudhry ichaud...@gmail.com wrote: I really hope 12.04 maintains Gnome 2.x as 10.04. I did try Gnome 3 but discarded it as it was not as obvious to use as the alternatives. It won't. GNOME 2 will be disappearing from most distros over the next year or so. Have you tried GNOME 3 fallback mode? It looks and feels more like the old GNOME 2 2-panel environment than Unity or GNOME Shell. Al. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Laptop Linux distro recommendations
On 10/29/2011 10:24 AM, Alan Pope wrote: On 29 October 2011 00:58, Imran Chaudhryichaud...@gmail.com wrote: I really hope 12.04 maintains Gnome 2.x as 10.04. I did try Gnome 3 but discarded it as it was not as obvious to use as the alternatives. It won't. GNOME 2 will be disappearing from most distros over the next year or so. Have you tried GNOME 3 fallback mode? It looks and feels more like the old GNOME 2 2-panel environment than Unity or GNOME Shell. Will Gnome 3 fallback mode always be there, or will it disappear in future versions? cheers Chris -- Chris Dennis cgden...@btinternet.com Fordingbridge, Hampshire, UK -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Laptop Linux distro recommendations
On Sat, 29 Oct 2011 10:24:43 +0100 Alan Pope a...@popey.com wrote: On 29 October 2011 00:58, Imran Chaudhry ichaud...@gmail.com wrote: I really hope 12.04 maintains Gnome 2.x as 10.04. I did try Gnome 3 but discarded it as it was not as obvious to use as the alternatives. It won't. GNOME 2 will be disappearing from most distros over the next year or so. Have you tried GNOME 3 fallback mode? It looks and feels more like the old GNOME 2 2-panel environment than Unity or GNOME Shell. Hi Alan I think Imran said he'd tried it but didn't like it. I didn't even bother to try it in Debian as the live Gnome3 CD from someone else I'd tried on my backup system defaulted to fallback mode and that was ugly. OK, in neither case have I used the latest version of Gnome3 but have decided it isn't for me. I think the developers have lost their way and are inflicting their idea of how a desktop should work regardless of how people actually use it. Not everyone wants the latest all singing all dancing stuff that gets in the way of doing real work. They are targeting Gnome3 at a class of user I don't fit into (probably applies to the way ubuntu is going too but that is a distro I have no intention of using). -- John Lewis using Debian sid -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Laptop Linux distro recommendations
On 29 October 2011 11:35, Chris Dennis cgden...@btinternet.com wrote: Will Gnome 3 fallback mode always be there, or will it disappear in future versions? GNOME 3 fallback mode isn't on the CD and thus isn't installed by default, the same goes for GNOME Shell on 11.10 and above. However you can install GNOME Shell (and fallback) from the repositories. I don't see them going away anytime soon. Al. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Laptop Linux distro recommendations
On 29 October 2011 11:43, john lewis johnle...@hantslug.org.uk wrote: I think Imran said he'd tried it but didn't like it. I didn't even bother to try it in Debian as the live Gnome3 CD from someone else I'd tried on my backup system defaulted to fallback mode and that was ugly. My mistake. I thought as he said 'classic' he meant in Ubuntu 11.04 because that's what we label GNOME 2 two-panel style desktop. I guess he did indeed mean fallback mode in 11.10. OK, in neither case have I used the latest version of Gnome3 but have decided it isn't for me. I think the developers have lost their way and are inflicting their idea of how a desktop should work regardless of how people actually use it. Not everyone wants the latest all singing all dancing stuff that gets in the way of doing real work. I dont find any of the new stuff singing and dancing. The idea behind GNOME Shell and Unity is that it gets out of the way and lets you get on with your work. It mostly seems to do that for me. They are targeting Gnome3 at a class of user I don't fit into (probably applies to the way ubuntu is going too but that is a distro I have no intention of using). The target for Ubuntu is everyone. Some people will self-select themselves out of that group, and that's fine. Nobody is forcing anyone to use it. Cheers, Al. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
[Hampshire] Changing my shell...?
Hi all. Have started using Mint on my Desktop. When I press the up arrow in a terminal I get "^[[A". I assume it's because it isn't Bash, because if I type bash it then starts behaving what I think of as properly. I've searched on the web but I can't express my search terms clearly enough to get a good answer. So I wander if someone could help me to set things up so that any terminal on any user defaults to Bash, and also how I find out what it's doing at the moment? Thanks in advance Owain ---Still a newbie after all these years--- -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Laptop Linux distro recommendations
On 29/10/11 01:03, Bryn Jones wrote: I'd recommend Mint - Ubuntu with a shiny finish (and in 11 running Gnome 2). The only thing I'm not sure about is encrypting home dir (but I'm pretty certain you can). Yes it should prompt you to encrypt /home Owain -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Changing my shell...?
terms clearly enough to get a good answer. So I wander if someone could help me to set things up so that any terminal on any user defaults to Bash The shell for each user is defined in /etc/passwd - just edit that to set up the shell you want. Defaults for new users can be set up by editing /etc/default/useradd . HTH Vic. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Changing my shell...?
On 29/10/11 14:25, Vic wrote: The shell for each user is defined in /etc/passwd - just edit that to set up the shell you want. Defaults for new users can be set up by editing /etc/default/useradd . HTH Vic. Great - thank you very much, Vic -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Changing my shell...?
vipw to edit passwd file properly, / etc/shells are the available ones and /etc/skel* are skeleton files for default env for new user shells. When you adduser you get to choose what shell Owain Clarke simb...@cooptel.net wrote: On 29/10/11 14:25, Vic wrote: The shell for each user is defined in /etc/passwd - just edit that to set up the shell you want. Defaults for new users can be set up by editing /etc/default/useradd . HTH Vic. Great - thank you very much, Vic -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk -- -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Laptop Linux distro recommendations
** Alan Pope a...@popey.com [2011-10-29 12:31]: On 29 October 2011 11:43, john lewis johnle...@hantslug.org.uk wrote: Msnip OK, in neither case have I used the latest version of Gnome3 but have decided it isn't for me. I think the developers have lost their way and are inflicting their idea of how a desktop should work regardless of how people actually use it. Not everyone wants the latest all singing all dancing stuff that gets in the way of doing real work. I dont find any of the new stuff singing and dancing. The idea behind GNOME Shell and Unity is that it gets out of the way and lets you get on with your work. It mostly seems to do that for me. I think the changes to Unity in 11.10 are a positive move, but for me it is still seriously lacking in basic functionality. If I don't use a program regularly I don't want it clogging up the application launcher. That only leaves searching to access applications or multiple clicks on the new (and yes improved in 11.10) home lens (or default lens, I can't remember what its called!). The panel has lost functionality in terms of pop up information when you hover the mouse over it (in particular I get no battery info, but none have any status pop ups). Start Up Applications used to be populated by a list of pretty standard items you could just check, but this has gone. I've grown to quite like the window controls at the top left, but I'm not so happy with them being moved onto the panel. Much as I thought this would be a good idea given the various comparisons between Windows and Mac, in practice I get annoyed when I'm working on a small window, say at the bottom right, and have to move the mouse up to the top left to access a menu and then head back down to the bottom right. What I'm hoping is that, with a bit of work with lenses I can rebuild some of the functionality I miss as I would rather not move to another distro at the moment, and I'm not a big fan of installing Ubuntu and heavily customising it by removing chunks - it never works that smoothly (which is why I've always left Evolution installed even though I never use it) - or the *ubuntu derivatives (I tried Xubuntu as I like XFCE, but it took too much adding and removing stuff to get it the way I liked it, and didn't seem to fit well with the main Ubuntu choices - particularly with networking). They are targeting Gnome3 at a class of user I don't fit into (probably applies to the way ubuntu is going too but that is a distro I have no intention of using). The target for Ubuntu is everyone. Some people will self-select themselves out of that group, and that's fine. Nobody is forcing anyone to use it. Personally I'm determinedly patient and waiting to see where the changes go, but I am sceptical. As a technical user Unity is slowing me down (and actually pushing me more towards the CLI!). Looking at my dad's usage as a very non-technical user I'm not at all convinced. I've not installed Ubuntu for him, and part of this was the switch to Unity as default when I was building his new machine. Windows was a requirement to get things going (app compatibility with things my mum was already using), but I had intended to install Ubuntu to (and still do). Knowing the questions he asks about Windows I think he would be seriously lost in Unity. He can look for an application in a drop down menu grouped by category, but would not hunt far enough through the standard Unity lens to find anything. I also suspect that that not having the menus obvious in the panel, or preferably application window, would confuse him - if something is obvious he will explore, but if it is hidden he won't spot it, or remember where it is. ** end quote [Alan Pope] -- Paul Tansom | Aptanet Ltd. | http://www.aptanet.com/ | 023 9238 0001 == Registered in England | Company No: 4905028 | Registered Office: Crawford House, Hambledon Road, Denmead, Waterlooville, Hants, PO7 6NU -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Changing my shell...?
On 29/10/11 14:50, Ian Grody wrote: vipw to edit passwd file properly, / etc/shells are the available ones and /etc/skel* are skeleton files for default env for new user shells. When you adduser you get to choose what shell Thanks -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Laptop Linux distro recommendations
On Saturday 29 October 2011 12:28:01 Alan Pope wrote: I dont find any of the new stuff singing and dancing. The idea behind GNOME Shell and Unity is that it gets out of the way and lets you get on with your work. It mostly seems to do that for me. For me, they just make it harder to do work. I upgraded one of my machines to 11.10 recently, and found that Unity was the only option installed by default (despite having Gnome on there previously). I tried using it, and then had problems where icons seemed to stop working. I finally figured out that it was refusing to open a second terminal window. Revert to Google to try and find out how to install Gnome, which seemed a non-trivial exercise. Just now, I was working on it and trying to figure out some complex (for me) mencoder operations, trying to follow instructions in a web page by typing into a terminal (by this point, I'm in Gnome). But due to screen size, the two windows overlap, and as soon as I click in the terminal, it brings it to the front, obscuring the browser window I'm trying to read. Normally this is a quick options change (and one I make on all my PCs), but after much hunting around, I discover that 'focus follows mouse' is no longer an option by default, and I need to install more packages (compiz utilities) to configure what I consider to be an incredibly basic option. It was easier to scp the files across to my main PC (running KDE on Ubuntu 11.04), than it was to mess around trying to 'fix' the new Ubuntu install. It's actively getting in my way, and preventing me from doing work. The target for Ubuntu is everyone. Some people will self-select themselves out of that group, and that's fine. Nobody is forcing anyone to use it. To me, that sounds like it's your fault if you don't like it. The target very obviously isn't people who like KDE because it gives them lots of control over their desktop. Gnome/Unity takes away options (or makes them harder to find) with every release, and unless the new defaults are exactly what you like, then that's a bad thing. I've only been trying Ubuntu for less than a year, but in that time every upgrade seems to undo my configuration and makes it harder to get back to how I want things. I'm now at the point where I'm afraid to update my computer, and that rebuilding from scratch with Gentoo might be the least painful option. -- Be seeing you,Games: http://www.glendale.org.uk/ Sam. Posts: http://www.google.com/profiles/samuel.penn -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Laptop Linux distro recommendations
On 29 October 2011 10:24, Alan Pope a...@popey.com wrote: On 29 October 2011 00:58, Imran Chaudhry ichaud...@gmail.com wrote: I really hope 12.04 maintains Gnome 2.x as 10.04. I did try Gnome 3 but discarded it as it was not as obvious to use as the alternatives. It won't. GNOME 2 will be disappearing from most distros over the next year or so. Have you tried GNOME 3 fallback mode? It looks and feels more like the old GNOME 2 2-panel environment than Unity or GNOME Shell. Al. That affirms what I've read on the GNOME Wikipedia page and elsewhere - looks like Gnome 2.32 will be the last release while all development effort goes to GNOME3. I really hope someone does a xbmc4xbox.org and continues to maintain the 2.x branch somewhere. GNOME3 will take a while to mature I think. Not sure which option fallback mode is or what the GNOME Shell relates to. I tried every option that the cog gave me on the Ubuntu 11.10 login screen. I invested quote a bit of time getting the Ubuntu install right so my post was really a last resort. The turning point came when in crunch time I really needed to switch between multiple ssh sessions and it was simply inefficient with the way Unity does things. I got frustrated. Yesterday, in the Ubuntu 11.10 install I also tried xfce4-desktop (lightweight, clean but too simple and barebones for me) and Awesome (do not have time to learn it). These days I simply do not have time to put up with some things, my tolerance is lower for stuff like this. I am going to do two things next: 1. Try Arch Linux on this laptop as I like what I've read of their keep it simple philosophy and the rolling releases. If this does not work out then Debian Squeeze. 2. Continue to use Windows 7 for working with multiple ssh sessions to Linux. I am using the ZOC Terminal app for that. It is currently the best, most efficient desktop OS for this laptop considering I use some proprietary apps (Skype, 3G dongle software) which are superior on Windows. I may even make this my primary OS on this laptop. Well, I kind of did expect that my post would stimulate some opinion over Unity. Can I give my 2p worth? Canonical are probably right to focus on Unity. To fix bug#1 they need a really a good GUI that differentiates the Ubuntu brand and reinforces Linux for human beings. I like many things about Unity even though it requires me to adjust eg. the way the app menu bar melds into the top-panel like OSX, the animated dock icons if something needs my attention, the app search box, the way the dock can be rearranged. However, If ultimately it is not for me then fine, Ubuntu does not owe me anything and I will look at the alternatives. I will continue to wear proudly the large Ubuntu: Linux for human beings sticker on this laptop lid - if it makes a someone curious and they ask me about it then I'll recommend Ubuntu and talk positively about it. Maybe it will convert that person and I would have repaid Ubuntu in a small way. I think my Ubuntu desktop days will end with 10.04 (imho the best Ubuntu release so far) but it has been a great ride and I wish them the very best. -- GPG Key fingerprint = B323 477E F6AB 4181 9C65 F637 BC5F 7FCC 9CC9 CC7F “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” - Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
