Re: [PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to Linux

[Richard Owlett]

On 3/27/2016 7:19 PM, Tim Wescott wrote:
>
>
> Yup. Most importantly I know that if my suggestion is of base for his friend,
>  Richard will go another direction with no slight assumed or taken.

Yepp. Besides which he pointed me in a useful direction, even if 
it wasn't where he thought he was pointing me ;)


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Re: [PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to Linux

[Richard Owlett]

On 3/27/2016 5:23 PM, Tim Wescott wrote:
>
>
> That's a good point - I've had Ubuntu updates screw things up. I've just 
> adopted
>  a strategy of putting in a new hard drive whenever X.04 comes 
out and doing a
>  clean install. It sounds like that's not for him.

Definitely. Although he's the one who completed a BSEE, I'm the 
one that's into the computer internals (hardware or software). I 
know he is into a quite different set of applications than I. Not 
sure what his current uses are as I've not been up there for 
several years. I suggested in a recent exchange that he keep a 
diary of programs used for a week to give me an idea. His email 
response included:
"Neither of us [he and his wife] KNOW what we want a computer to 
do other than whatever we happen to ask it to do, and from day to 
day, who knows whatever that might be or if we would be able to 
describe it."



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Re: [PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to Linux

[Tim Wescott]

Yup. Most importantly I know that if my suggestion is of base for his friend, 
Richard will go another direction with no slight assumed or taken. 


Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone

 Original message 
From: Richard Owlett <rowl...@cloud85.net> 
Date: 03/27/2016  1:44 PM  (GMT-08:00) 
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to
  Linux 

On 3/27/2016 2:33 PM, Tyrell Jentink wrote:
[snip]
>
> The OP never stated WHY he felt Microsoft-like behavior was evil, or even
> WHAT makes something Microsoft-like... [snip]

Tim operating on information you didn't have.
He's known  for several years. I also assume he agrees with the 
logic behind your reply to my post.


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Re: [PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to Linux

[Tim Wescott]

That's a good point - I've had Ubuntu updates screw things up. I've just 
adopted a strategy of putting in a new hard drive whenever X.04 comes out and 
doing a clean install. It sounds like that's not for him. 


Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone

 Original message 
From: Richard Owlett <rowl...@cloud85.net> 
Date: 03/27/2016  1:38 PM  (GMT-07:00) 
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to
  Linux 

On 3/27/2016 11:05 AM, Tim Wescott wrote:
>
>
> Check Xubuntu for usability. Most of Ubuntu's Microsoft like qualities are in 
> the desktop, and Xubuntu puts Xfce on top of Ubuntu. Lubuntu is a 
> possibility, too. (I use Xubuntu, for much the reasons you quote).

Remember you introduced me to the Debian family in the first 
place. Besides their default UI I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable 
having having him on something using a rolling release 
philosophy. I only sporadically follow Ubuntu related groups, 
does that create any problems in the real world? As to which UI, 
I'd have look at each of them. The choice would depend more 
heavily on "human factors" than technical specs.

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Re: [PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to Linux

[Richard Owlett]

On 3/27/2016 2:33 PM, Tyrell Jentink wrote:
[snip]
>
> The OP never stated WHY he felt Microsoft-like behavior was evil, or even
> WHAT makes something Microsoft-like... [snip]

Tim operating on information you didn't have.
He's known  for several years. I also assume he agrees with the 
logic behind your reply to my post.


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Re: [PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to Linux

[Richard Owlett]

On 3/27/2016 11:05 AM, Tim Wescott wrote:
>
>
> Check Xubuntu for usability. Most of Ubuntu's Microsoft like qualities are in 
> the desktop, and Xubuntu puts Xfce on top of Ubuntu. Lubuntu is a 
> possibility, too. (I use Xubuntu, for much the reasons you quote).

Remember you introduced me to the Debian family in the first 
place. Besides their default UI I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable 
having having him on something using a rolling release 
philosophy. I only sporadically follow Ubuntu related groups, 
does that create any problems in the real world? As to which UI, 
I'd have look at each of them. The choice would depend more 
heavily on "human factors" than technical specs.

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Re: [PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to Linux

[Richard Owlett]

On 3/27/2016 10:05 AM, Bill Barry wrote:
> I would ask the question why do you need to know what hardware here has? It
> is very likely Linux will just boot and run without you having to know what
> hardware he has. He could send you the disk from his machine, you can put
> it in your computer, install Linux on it, send it back to him, he puts it
> back in his machine and your good to go.
>

Well-l-l-l. First of all he has several machines. Second at least 
one of them is not particularly happy with anything later than 
Win XP (not sure if it is Home or Pro)


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Re: [PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to Linux

[Richard Owlett]

On 3/27/2016 10:01 AM, Tyrell Jentink wrote:
> I'm going to be frank... I'm worried we have a "Blind leading the blind"
> situation here.

<*ROFL*> ;/
The University was proud of the computer that ran my first 
FORTRAN programs  -- it had TRANSISTORS. I don't act my age. My 
second PC, a KAYPRO-10, is around here somewhere.
I succumbed to the M$ bug with Win 3.1 and relatively recently 
broke free.

By the way, I agree with most of your logic, if not your conclusions.

[snip]
> #! /bin/bash
> uname -all > results.txt

That got me pointed in useful directions. From the man pages what 
I was looking for is likely lshw [although not currently 
installed on my working Debian Squeeze box - I'd done a really 
minimal install.

I never had a need for it as I already know what's in my boxes. I 
just don't know what's in his.

Thank you for your time.


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Re: [PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to Linux

[Tyrell Jentink]

> Check Xubuntu for usability. Most of Ubuntu's Microsoft like qualities are
> in the desktop, and Xubuntu puts Xfce on top of Ubuntu. Lubuntu is a
> possibility, too. (I use Xubuntu, for much the reasons you quote).
>


The argument that "Canonical is aiming at the same market as Microsoft and
comes up with similar solutions on the operator interface..." is vague at
best.

The argument COULD be applied exclusively towards the Unity desktop
environment, which would be fair... In which case, Lubuntu and Xubuntu MAY
be acceptable replacements. On the other hand, he singled out the parent
company and their product line as the offenders... So I'm tempted to
respect his wishes.

The argument could be equally applied towards Canonical's willingness to
bundle proprietary drivers, codecs, and software... Also to the App Store
that features both proprietary and for-cost applications... Also to
Canonical's willingness to work with 3rd parties that don't share the FOSS
philosophies...  Etc. Ad nauseum.  So again, I'm tempted to simply respect
his wishes.

On the other hand, while the argument that "Anything that LOOKS like
Windows is the Enemy" certainly does exclude KDE, Gnome3, and Unity to
varying degrees of offense, it holds little value in a philosophical
software-design arena, where attention to detail in the User eXperience is
as important as usability to the end product, and doesn't really make one
"Microsoft-like," as much as it makes them "Pro-user..."  I'm suddenly
sounding more "Microsoft is pro-user" than I usually sound...

OK, so I acknowledge I have played Devil's Advocate here...  So let me get
to the point...

The OP never stated WHY he felt Microsoft-like behavior was evil, or even
WHAT makes something Microsoft-like... So any arguments in that arena are
poorly articulated at best, and are best saved for the burning bridge where
the troll lives.

He said he didn't want Ubuntu because Canonical is targeting the mass
market... Respect that, and move on with the helpful input.
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Re: [PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to Linux

[Bill Barry]

I would ask the question why do you need to know what hardware here has? It
is very likely Linux will just boot and run without you having to know what
hardware he has. He could send you the disk from his machine, you can put
it in your computer, install Linux on it, send it back to him, he puts it
back in his machine and your good to go.

Bill
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Re: [PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to Linux

[Tyrell Jentink]

I'm going to be frank... I'm worried we have a "Blind leading the blind"
situation here.  IF you have to ask the questions you are asking, you are
probably not ready to be doing this kind of remote administration...  THAT
SAID, the following is a pretty strong poke in the right direction...

The Linux equivalent to BAT files are BASH files.  Programming in BASH is
philosophically, but not syntactically, similar... You will probably have
to start learning from scratch. Still, once you have a functional BASH
file, running it SHOULD be as easy as clicking on it in the file browser
(Although, I've never done this... And I would do some more sanity checking
in the script to make sure I KNOW where the file is gonna be saved) this
will require MUCH more sanity checking than my example below), or even in a
worst case scenario, opening a command line, running the script
(/mnt/script.bash), and it will do it's thing (Again, that would require
more sanity checks than my example below provides; If, on the other hand,
they switch to the folder first... ie, cd /mnt/, then ./script.bash, the
example below would then work fine).  You COULD put it on a liveCD, and set
it to run the script on boot (Either through a cron job, or some other
auto-starter)... In effect, this will make the script as easy as "Plug it
in and reboot..."

But I actually recommend against using a LiveCD for automated diagnostics.
Sure, it would work just fine for hardware oriented issues, but it would be
completely worthless in diagnosing OS configuration issues, because it will
run in the LiveCD environment, NOT the native, on disk system.


At any rate, you are gonna have to learn a few basic concepts:
1) Basic BASH scripting.  There are lots of good guides out there (Google
"Bash scripting"), I recommend walking through a couple of them and try out
all of their examples.

2) You really need to understand pipes and output redirection (Google
"Linux i/o redirection").  You will have to know | (Pipe), > (Write over),
and >> (Write into).  Again, various guides are on the internet, I
recommend you use several of them so you understand some of the
eccentricities.

3) The tools that will check the values you need...  This will just be a
matter of knowing the commands you need, and how to pipe the output to a
file.  This will make more sense once you understand the above. FOR
EXAMPLE, in the example you gave (Checking CPU) you will want to check out
uname...

4) The tools for filtering outputs. For example, you will almost certainly
need grep, and maybe cat and awk as well.

The following VERY BASIC script will report all of the hardware information
available through uname, and how much RAM is installed, and write it to a
file called results.txt located in same folder where the program was run
from (Presumably the flash drive itself).  KEEP IN MIND THAT THIS SCRIPT
MAKES NO EFFORT TO VERIFY WHERE THE FILE IS BEING WRITTEN! If there is any
chance that this script is CALLED from somewhere other than the folder it's
stored in (IE, if you are on the command line, and you are working from
your home folder, ie /home/user, and you call the script from somewhere
else, ie /mnt/script.bash, then the output file will end up in /home/user.
Sanity checks become somewhat environment specific, as default mount points
vary slightly from distro to distro), then you will want to add a bunch of
sanity checks, to verify it's writing the file to where you expect it to.

#! /bin/bash
uname -all > results.txt
cat /proc/meminfo | grep MemTotal >> results.txt


On Sun, Mar 27, 2016 at 7:05 AM, Richard Owlett  wrote:

> I live in SW Missouri (or as one wag in the group has put it) "He
> lives out past Estacada, even." My friend lives in Upstate NY.
> Yes I realize that long distance support will create problems.
> Not doing it is not an option.
>
> What I suggest will be either Debian or Debian based because that
> is what I will be using. It will NOT be Ubuntu as Canonical is
> aiming at the same market as Microsoft and comes up with similar
> solutions on the operator interface. That is where His primary
> problem apparently is. [Based on having known him and is wife for
> ~50 years.] For the same reason Gnome3 is out. I'm leaning
> towards Mate as DE.
>
> I'll take a two pronged approach. I have an old laptop on which
> I'll install what I think is a reasonable approximation of what
> he needs and he would find comfortable using.
>
> The second prong requires more homework on my part and is what
> motivates this post.
>
> I'm looking for suggestions for tools to look at an unknown
> system and report on the installed hardware -especially CPU,
> clock speed, RAM, and networking hardware.
>
> Windows software [suitable for WinXP or later] would be nice. I
> would put it on a flash drive with an appropriate bat file. He
> would run it on each of his machines and return the drive to me
> via snail mail. [Did you note the lack of user input required ;]
>
> The 

Re: [PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to Linux

[Rich Shepard]

On Sun, 27 Mar 2016, Richard Owlett wrote:

> [Based on having known him and is wife for ~50 years.] For the same reason
> Gnome3 is out. I'm leaning towards Mate as DE.

Richard,

   Take a look at Xfce4 for a GUI. It's not KDE or Gnome and is lightweight.

> The second option is for me to create a LiveCD [don't know if all his
> machines can boot from a flash drive]. There would be a script which would
> write the information to a flash drive I supplied. That drive would have
> an appropriate UUID.

   This has two advantages over your first option. 1) You can have it run
uname and your friend can transmit the results to you (see man uname). 2) He
can play with the live CD, become familiar (or lost, his choice) and give
you feedback on the experience(s).

Rich
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[PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to Linux

[Richard Owlett]

I live in SW Missouri (or as one wag in the group has put it) "He 
lives out past Estacada, even." My friend lives in Upstate NY. 
Yes I realize that long distance support will create problems. 
Not doing it is not an option.

What I suggest will be either Debian or Debian based because that 
is what I will be using. It will NOT be Ubuntu as Canonical is 
aiming at the same market as Microsoft and comes up with similar 
solutions on the operator interface. That is where His primary 
problem apparently is. [Based on having known him and is wife for 
~50 years.] For the same reason Gnome3 is out. I'm leaning 
towards Mate as DE.

I'll take a two pronged approach. I have an old laptop on which 
I'll install what I think is a reasonable approximation of what 
he needs and he would find comfortable using.

The second prong requires more homework on my part and is what 
motivates this post.

I'm looking for suggestions for tools to look at an unknown 
system and report on the installed hardware -especially CPU, 
clock speed, RAM, and networking hardware.

Windows software [suitable for WinXP or later] would be nice. I 
would put it on a flash drive with an appropriate bat file. He 
would run it on each of his machines and return the drive to me 
via snail mail. [Did you note the lack of user input required ;]

The second option is for me to create a LiveCD [don't know if all 
his machines can boot from a flash drive]. There would be a 
script which would write the information to a flash drive I 
supplied. That drive would have an appropriate UUID.

Comments, other than I'm ... ?
TIA




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