A Confession
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I am enjoying working with linux ever since I setup a linux box for actual use rather than for playing. I setup and configured a whole lot software packages, wrote a few shell scripts (bash + python) and even used Vim. Now I have downloaded the source and my aim is now to build a kernel with only those things which I need. It is fun and I can’t believe the number of open source packages available out there. The best thing to me is that it can run on low end machines pretty well.
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I am enjoying working with linux ever since I setup a linux box for actual use rather than for playing. I setup and configured a whole lot software packages, wrote a few shell scripts (bash + python) and even used Vim. Now I have downloaded the source and my aim is now to build a kernel with only those things which I need. It is fun and I can’t believe the number of open source packages available out there. The best thing to me is that it can run on low end machines pretty well.
Using Linux reminds me of the feeling I got as a child in my grandfather's garage. It was old and a bit intimidating, packed to the rafters (and above...) with boxes, machinery, tool cabinets, and strange bits of wood and metal that might be scrap or might be some special-purpose tool he'd built himself at one time... It could be overwhelming, and often difficult to navigate, but there was never any doubt that no matter what I might need to do, there were tools that would let me do it well... once I learned to use them. Right now, I'm setting up a computer for a friend of mine who is blind. He'd been using Windows 98 with JAWS installed, and I've often watched him frustratedly navigate through irrelevant menus or deal with poorly-captioned pop-ups or badly-configured keyboard support. Once done, he'll be able to boot up and use the machine for his primary tasks - listening to music, scanning and reading mail - with nothing else to get in his way... Linux is perfect for this sort of thing.
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I am enjoying working with linux ever since I setup a linux box for actual use rather than for playing. I setup and configured a whole lot software packages, wrote a few shell scripts (bash + python) and even used Vim. Now I have downloaded the source and my aim is now to build a kernel with only those things which I need. It is fun and I can’t believe the number of open source packages available out there. The best thing to me is that it can run on low end machines pretty well.
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I am enjoying working with linux ever since I setup a linux box for actual use rather than for playing. I setup and configured a whole lot software packages, wrote a few shell scripts (bash + python) and even used Vim. Now I have downloaded the source and my aim is now to build a kernel with only those things which I need. It is fun and I can’t believe the number of open source packages available out there. The best thing to me is that it can run on low end machines pretty well.
Yeah, I just tried installing Ubuntu 9.04 on a computer I'm getting rid of. I played around with it for a while just for the heck of it. It's pretty nice. The install I had gave tons of install options (alongside Windows, run from disc without install, install on partition, wipe all partitions and install with single new partition). And there were tons of apps included (games, OpenOffice, a syntax highlighting text editor, GIMP, a DVD and CD burner, Firefox, and so on). I don't usually play computer games, but it came with a version of snake that I had to try. I wouldn't use it as my main environment, but I am thinking of installing it on one of my partitions on my main computer so I can play with it more.
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Yeah, I just tried installing Ubuntu 9.04 on a computer I'm getting rid of. I played around with it for a while just for the heck of it. It's pretty nice. The install I had gave tons of install options (alongside Windows, run from disc without install, install on partition, wipe all partitions and install with single new partition). And there were tons of apps included (games, OpenOffice, a syntax highlighting text editor, GIMP, a DVD and CD burner, Firefox, and so on). I don't usually play computer games, but it came with a version of snake that I had to try. I wouldn't use it as my main environment, but I am thinking of installing it on one of my partitions on my main computer so I can play with it more.
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I am not using it as a desktop. I am using my machine as a server: it has no x windows installed. I access it via ssh only. As a server it has been perfect.
PHPDownunder wrote:
I access it via ssh only.
Aren't you the guy who zaps up all of Telstra's bandwidth? And you use all that merely for ssh? :rolleyes:
Regards, Nish
Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
My latest book : C++/CLI in Action / Amazon.com link -
How do you know he is a witch?
My current favourite word is: Smooth!
-SK Genius
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Yeah, I just tried installing Ubuntu 9.04 on a computer I'm getting rid of. I played around with it for a while just for the heck of it. It's pretty nice. The install I had gave tons of install options (alongside Windows, run from disc without install, install on partition, wipe all partitions and install with single new partition). And there were tons of apps included (games, OpenOffice, a syntax highlighting text editor, GIMP, a DVD and CD burner, Firefox, and so on). I don't usually play computer games, but it came with a version of snake that I had to try. I wouldn't use it as my main environment, but I am thinking of installing it on one of my partitions on my main computer so I can play with it more.
I have been using it as my main os for about 6 months now...I only launch Win7 in a virtual for programming in Visual Studio. My virtual Win7 takes 14.54GB of disk space (no office, only Visual Studio), and a virtual Ubuntu takes 4.64GB and includes eclipse and open office installs. I would imagine that a server build with no graphical ui would be around 1GB.
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I have been using it as my main os for about 6 months now...I only launch Win7 in a virtual for programming in Visual Studio. My virtual Win7 takes 14.54GB of disk space (no office, only Visual Studio), and a virtual Ubuntu takes 4.64GB and includes eclipse and open office installs. I would imagine that a server build with no graphical ui would be around 1GB.
Sounds useful. I imagine I'd have to use the virtual machine more often because of Visual Studio, Windows Media video with DRM played through the browser, and iTunes. So it still isn't worthwile for me to make the leap fully to Ubuntu. I do use OpenOffice and Thunderbird already though, so those wouldn't cause me any hassle. And I suppose I could always use MonoDevelop instead of Visual Studio, but there isn't any WPF support (yet). I guess that means I'd have to use a virtual machine (or dual boot setup). What virtual machine software do you use? And how easy is it to copy files between the virtual machines? Any network related problems (I have my router port forward to my desktop so I can remote in, so that might complicate things somewhat) with a virtual machine?
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I am enjoying working with linux ever since I setup a linux box for actual use rather than for playing. I setup and configured a whole lot software packages, wrote a few shell scripts (bash + python) and even used Vim. Now I have downloaded the source and my aim is now to build a kernel with only those things which I need. It is fun and I can’t believe the number of open source packages available out there. The best thing to me is that it can run on low end machines pretty well.
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How do you know he is a witch?
My current favourite word is: Smooth!
-SK Genius
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I am enjoying working with linux ever since I setup a linux box for actual use rather than for playing. I setup and configured a whole lot software packages, wrote a few shell scripts (bash + python) and even used Vim. Now I have downloaded the source and my aim is now to build a kernel with only those things which I need. It is fun and I can’t believe the number of open source packages available out there. The best thing to me is that it can run on low end machines pretty well.
Once you get used to it, you'll find vim to be quite useful :) Give FreeBSD a whirl. I find it less cluttered. I've gone to Linux/FreeBSD about 6 months ago now. Don't regret it whatsoever. If you do decide to look at FreeBSD, look at PC-BSD.
If the post was helpful, please vote, eh! Current activities: Book: Devils by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
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Sounds useful. I imagine I'd have to use the virtual machine more often because of Visual Studio, Windows Media video with DRM played through the browser, and iTunes. So it still isn't worthwile for me to make the leap fully to Ubuntu. I do use OpenOffice and Thunderbird already though, so those wouldn't cause me any hassle. And I suppose I could always use MonoDevelop instead of Visual Studio, but there isn't any WPF support (yet). I guess that means I'd have to use a virtual machine (or dual boot setup). What virtual machine software do you use? And how easy is it to copy files between the virtual machines? Any network related problems (I have my router port forward to my desktop so I can remote in, so that might complicate things somewhat) with a virtual machine?
aspdotnetdev wrote:
And I suppose I could always use MonoDevelop instead of Visual Studio, but there isn't any WPF support (yet).
MonoDevelop is just not that great if you already have Visual Studio...much easier to develop in Visual Studio on Windows and copy it over to Linux for deployment. I really like having nice clean and lean virtuals for development.
aspdotnetdev wrote:
And how easy is it to copy files between the virtual machines?
Setting up shared folders on the host os is pretty easy, but you can also access shares between the virtual machines if you configure both ends properly. Or just use ftp between the virtuals. I am using VirtualBox with a host os of Ubuntu Studio 64 bit on a machine with 8GB ram.
aspdotnetdev wrote:
Any network related problems (I have my router port forward to my desktop so I can remote in, so that might complicate things somewhat) with a virtual machine?
I have heard that there are some network problems, but I'm not sure if that is still true, and I have not tried anything like that to test it. I mostly do Android development in an Ubuntu vurtual, and .Net development on a Windows 7 virtual. Last year I was playing with Mono, but that was on my Ubuntu machine in my workshop. I would develop on my old (don't have it any more) xp machine using Visual Studio, then copy the program over to the Ubuntu machine to run it there. I am using Ubuntu Studio for my host os because I do some audio recording with Ardour. I don't have any video, and all my music is ripped from my cd collection in flac format, so no drm.
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I am enjoying working with linux ever since I setup a linux box for actual use rather than for playing. I setup and configured a whole lot software packages, wrote a few shell scripts (bash + python) and even used Vim. Now I have downloaded the source and my aim is now to build a kernel with only those things which I need. It is fun and I can’t believe the number of open source packages available out there. The best thing to me is that it can run on low end machines pretty well.
I've just moved back from using Linux as my main desktop OS. I still use it to run my NAS box though (Debian on an NSLU2). It's great for server work and is great if you want to run but until manufacturers start to provide linux drivers / wine compatible DRM etc it's never going to be any good for a normal PC for me. It's a shame because I think the latest versions of linux are pretty spot on and if Windows and Linux started out now I think the fight would be pretty even, however, if I have to boot into windows to do things occasionally I may as well stay in windows all the time.
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aspdotnetdev wrote:
And I suppose I could always use MonoDevelop instead of Visual Studio, but there isn't any WPF support (yet).
MonoDevelop is just not that great if you already have Visual Studio...much easier to develop in Visual Studio on Windows and copy it over to Linux for deployment. I really like having nice clean and lean virtuals for development.
aspdotnetdev wrote:
And how easy is it to copy files between the virtual machines?
Setting up shared folders on the host os is pretty easy, but you can also access shares between the virtual machines if you configure both ends properly. Or just use ftp between the virtuals. I am using VirtualBox with a host os of Ubuntu Studio 64 bit on a machine with 8GB ram.
aspdotnetdev wrote:
Any network related problems (I have my router port forward to my desktop so I can remote in, so that might complicate things somewhat) with a virtual machine?
I have heard that there are some network problems, but I'm not sure if that is still true, and I have not tried anything like that to test it. I mostly do Android development in an Ubuntu vurtual, and .Net development on a Windows 7 virtual. Last year I was playing with Mono, but that was on my Ubuntu machine in my workshop. I would develop on my old (don't have it any more) xp machine using Visual Studio, then copy the program over to the Ubuntu machine to run it there. I am using Ubuntu Studio for my host os because I do some audio recording with Ardour. I don't have any video, and all my music is ripped from my cd collection in flac format, so no drm.
Scott Serl wrote:
I am using VirtualBox
Thanks, I will give that a try when I get a chance. Maybe I'll start playing around with Mono again. :)
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I am enjoying working with linux ever since I setup a linux box for actual use rather than for playing. I setup and configured a whole lot software packages, wrote a few shell scripts (bash + python) and even used Vim. Now I have downloaded the source and my aim is now to build a kernel with only those things which I need. It is fun and I can’t believe the number of open source packages available out there. The best thing to me is that it can run on low end machines pretty well.
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I am enjoying working with linux ever since I setup a linux box for actual use rather than for playing. I setup and configured a whole lot software packages, wrote a few shell scripts (bash + python) and even used Vim. Now I have downloaded the source and my aim is now to build a kernel with only those things which I need. It is fun and I can’t believe the number of open source packages available out there. The best thing to me is that it can run on low end machines pretty well.
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How do you know he is a witch?
My current favourite word is: Smooth!
-SK Genius
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I am enjoying working with linux ever since I setup a linux box for actual use rather than for playing. I setup and configured a whole lot software packages, wrote a few shell scripts (bash + python) and even used Vim. Now I have downloaded the source and my aim is now to build a kernel with only those things which I need. It is fun and I can’t believe the number of open source packages available out there. The best thing to me is that it can run on low end machines pretty well.
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http://www.gentoo.org/[^] Fantastic instructions to compile your own.
I doubt it. If it isn't intuitive then we need to fix it. - Chris Maunder
I also use Gentoo ... a great distro. It has my main development OS at work for four years, and even longer at home. The only real reason I still have windows is because of games.