Made the swicth, and never going back

General Forums Off-topic Chat
1

Well, I got rid of XP on my home comp on the weekend and made the switch to linux. Using Ubuntu and I could not be happier.

Very easy to install and set up and everything I need works like a charm right from the first boot up.

A huge thanks to ztonzy and some others on IRC for mentioning Ubuntu as an easy linux distro.

I will never go back to a Doze box again at home.

Now if I cna only convince the company to swicth all the machines at work. :wink:

BgDM

2

I have done the same thing some month ago. Ubuntu is a very good linux. I have try others but it’s the only one which run well on my AMD 64.

3

Glad Ubuntu is working for you.
I tried to set it up last weekend and ran into a problem.

I wanted to use the latest Nvidia drivers for my video card but when I went to do the old sh - to the file, it told me I had to be logged in as root.

During the install, I never was given the opportunity to set up a root user.

Probably has a simple fix, but I figured I’d go back to Mandrake, which I had been able to get setup before, but then I started getting lots of hardware errors during the install, so I just gave up.

4

teragone: Try SuSe thats got the 64bit version of its Linux OS.

And back to the actual thread.

Good for you BgDM :smiley: a very good choice on a Linux distro.

Tell your company that by moving to Linux its cheaper and they will rarely crash, and they’ll probably go over straight away :slight_smile:

I’ve been using Linux for nearly 2 years now, and I havent had any serious problems.

The only thing good with Windows is the games for it, but I think Linux is so good I’ll sacrifice the few games I cant run.

5

Congrats, BgDM!

Cheers,

b01c

6

I know that SuSe is a good distro, but at the time I installed Ubuntu, SuSe was not free and the 64 bits eval version require a DVD burner.

7

Same thing here but I went back to it about a month later and realised my mistake. Ubuntu doesn’t really act like a conventional linux box :slight_smile:

Root user is a no go. Just use the sudo command.
sudo ./nvidia_blah_blah.sh
Then enter your password. It will run the setup.

You can also just use the add&remove programs bit and grab the latest precompiled version for ubuntu by running a search on nvidia. It downloads, installs and configures all in one.

To be honest Ubuntu is ludicrously simple to use and that is main problem I had. You almost feel like you are cheating :smiley:

Same problem with the wireless lan. I was hunting for commandline iwconfig etc and it turns out you just go into networking and add your essid etc. Click apply and your good to go.

Chimpoid

8

How are you coping on the software front? Do you use WINE at all or is it all open-source stuff?

9

osxrules: All has been fine. No wine at all. Ubuntu come with OpenOffice, so all my spreadsheets and word processing is covered. Actually easy to use as well.

Everything else hasn’t been a problem either. If I need a plugin or a new app, I just do a search and download it and install. Everything has been opensource that I have looked at so far. All have worked fairly well too, which is really nice.

BgDM

10

Now that I have free development software via my programming class I have a copy of Virtual PC. If it seems to work through there I may permanently put linux on my laptop and only use XP through that when necessary.

I think the load off of my system resources via unnecessary windows crap should make up the difference even when I need to use Virtual PC.

11

congrats BgDM! glad that ubuntu has worked out so well for you!

do you have to issue all linux commands as root using sudo in ubuntu?? sounds quite insecure to me :frowning:

i wish i had a chance in hell to get my work to switch their machines, but alas, no autocad replacement in nix that will work in a commercial environment :frowning:

12

Good for you BgDM,

Personally I don’t look back either :slight_smile: No reason for that…we have
everything we’d ever need, and what we don’t need…will probably come
to make us need it…

Let’s see how you feel in …oh…say…14 days time,
my experience with newbie-linux users are that they’ll go insane within 1-2 weeks
or a month if they’re Really trying. Me? I switched back and forth more
than one time, I’d say…20-30 times before I switched permanently - of course
how can we know that it’s “permanently”…interesting issues that…only
Sith’s deals in “Absolutes” … So I guess anything could happen.

/JoOngle
Who loves his Slack 10.1

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pld: Not sure about that 100%. But AFAIK, yes, you have to use sudo for all commands. I used to use ACAD, so I know what you mean there. But I don’t use it anymore. The only thing I am really going to miss is my Photoshop at home, but GIMP is basically the same. Just have to get used to using it is all.

JoOngle: LOL! I know what you mean. I actually tried a version of Mandrake about 5 years ago. I liked it, but it was too much for me at the time. Ubuntu is very easy to grasp and work with, hence the final decision to switch.

And since it’s for home use only, it’s basicaly for internet, email, and some basic stuff. I won’t be doing anything fancy or anything that is 100% doze based, so all should be OK. At least I hope so. :stuck_out_tongue:

My oldest daughter is already bitching about it, cause non of her music videos work and some of her friends websites don’t work properly. That’s just cause she doesn’t know how to install the patches, etc. to get them running, and I am not going to get them running either, if you know what I mean. :wink:

BgDM

14

Oh dear…

I’ve changed my mind… 1 week…tops!
daughters are SMS-monsters…meaning…if you take away their cell phone…hell’s to pay!
And if they don’t get to surf their trendy friends webpages with their latest buzz
and not to mention all the clothes information in their favourite popz-dreamz music
video “insert daughters favorite here”…then…

…oh well…

I can promise you ONE thing - you WILL install the patches…or she will torment you
to the degree that you will switch back to Windows eventually…

I’ve got to follow this soap…

…any chance we can catch you live anywhere (you know…like bigbrother)

15

i gotta tell ya, the idea that any user can run root commands with sudo is a little scary to me, BgDM. you might wanna consider learning how to enable a root account, and use visudo to fix those sudo rights.

this is the reason I am not a fan of “user friendly” linux distros. stuff like this gets done.

scenario: BgDM decides to try his hand at running a web server from his home machine to share his blender images, blend files, etc. So he downloads and installs a nice copy of apache. In order to have other cool things available to him, he tries installing PHP and MySQL to run a portal website or something like that as well. God help you if you have a user input box that gets processed anywhere. (sic: exec(“sudo rm -rf ./”)) --> extremely frightening. especially if the user is “nobody” for instance, or “apache” or “httpd”.

eep!

So, to help keep your box safe, THIS should get you started.

then visudo and fix the sudoers file!

16

Hehehe. Always have a separate computer for the kids, always. Let them ruin it. Let them figure it out. Let them have Windows. Just make sure you control the internet plug (great leverage).

I keep the router in my office (music studio). If they fight over the computer or misbehave in any way, I pull the little wire out of port 3 and that’s it. Kid’s computer is useless unless they want to play minefield or, god forbid, do their homework.

Same thing about spyware/viruses. They are on their own. They mess it up to the point where it is unuseable, they have to wait for my biannual maintenance, hahaha. on the upside my son has become pretty good at fixing some of the stuff and my daughter is much nicer to him when she needs the computer.

17

pld: I see what you mean. But I can assure you that I will not be doing any of that stuff on my home comp. That is for sure. For the simple reason that I just don’t know how to :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Bussman: That may be coming in the very near future. And I can assure you that the connection will be on a router and it will get unplugged. I can guarantee it. :stuck_out_tongue:

BgDM

18

PLD, why is sudo worse than root exactly?
As I see it…

sudo + your command
<prompts for user password>

or

su
<prompts for root password>
+enter your comand

With sudo you can limit the commands useable by a sudoers member to give them “less than root” access.

One point to note though: adding a user input in php without scrubbing the content on submission is just plain dumb. 1 function, scrubs the submission for exec, sudo, etc and gives clean output.

I still have a lot to learn about linux admittedly but the security probs with sudo escape me. Surely a root or user password is just a password and equally sensitive? Is it because you generally stay out of root whereas your user pass is “always on”?

Chimp

19

I’ve tried Ubuntu as well, it’s indeed a great OS, I really love it and so on. THe only thing that still didn’t switch me to Linux completely is because I can’t use my daily used software in Linux.

Now you might think, what then? Well Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, Quark Xpress, Flash, and some more. I’ve tried to run them with wine, and the whole Linux community says it should work, but it really doesn’t. When I ask for help in a linux irc chat, they suddenly don’t respond because they don’t know how. I wish I could get it to work.

Now you think, why not use GImp, or Inkscape and Open Office. Well I’m using this to practise and to get experience and in the real graphic design industry they don’t use GImp or Inkscape and OpenOffice. Sure I tried them in windows, and it was great.

For so far I’m still waiting when a miracle happens to load everything what’s made for windows, run as well in Linux. :smiley:
But so far I stick with windows, but I also really don’t get why it’s that bad. I have worse experience with linux desktop enviroments then with windows it’s one. It could start in a flame, but please don’t, I know how to use it and found out that some parts of windows are evil when you use them, so I replaced it with something else. :wink: Firefox and THunderbird are a part of it. hehehe

But the reason I want to use Linux, and the only reason, it being save for virusses and that ugly spyware/addware crap which I have in control on doze now, but still it’s really anoying. They should turn that stuff in illigal activities, I mean, being able to get money from the person who host that spy/addware and virusses and get him in jail. :smiley:

20

When you go to bed, do they sneak out of their rooms and plug it in again (assuming it isn’t in your room)? I used to… my little sister still does.

What’s more effective is barring them access via the router software.