LINUX chatter

[shikamaru]

Thanks Shikamaru, your advice actually saved me some time I believe. What got me looking into Linux was that Sunday night my old puter blew up...finally. Had to get a new one. I used my son's laptop in the in-between time, which has Windows 7. Quite honestly W7 impressed me. One of the things that impressed me was using my standard privacy enhancements, absolutely zero cookies or LSO's were being dropped on the machine. Quite honestly I like W7 better than XP (never thought I would say such a thing). Then I got looking into Linux a little closer and ran into this video on YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkgahANeq14. The title of the video is Linux Sucks.

Basically the presentation makes the case that Linux will never get any better because of the lack of profit. That the troubles Linux has had, at the desktop level they have been facing for 10 years, and the problems never get straightened out.

So, if I decide to play around with Linux, your suggestion of using Virtualbox seems like the best play.

I would argue that Linux is getting better and will continue to get better due to improvements from people all over the world.

It is because of Linux that for profit IT companies have been pressured to come out with better products.

Virtualbox is a good way to go until you become proficient in Linux to a high degree.

[Banja]

Debian is great. Its the choice of many 'elite' Linux gurus. Ubuntu is effectively a variant of Debian which itself is a Linux variant. Package management (i.e. software installation, removal or upgrade management) in Debian (apt get, aptitude) is superior to that of Red Hat IMHO (rpms).

Thanks Shikamaru, your advice actually saved me some time I believe. What got me looking into Linux was that Sunday night my old puter blew up...finally. Had to get a new one. I used my son's laptop in the in-between time, which has Windows 7. Quite honestly W7 impressed me. One of the things that impressed me was using my standard privacy enhancements, absolutely zero cookies or LSO's were being dropped on the machine. Quite honestly I like W7 better than XP (never thought I would say such a thing). Then I got looking into Linux a little closer and ran into this video on YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkgahANeq14. The title of the video is Linux Sucks.

Basically the presentation makes the case that Linux will never get any better because of the lack of profit. That the troubles Linux has had, at the desktop level they have been facing for 10 years, and the problems never get straightened out.

So, if I decide to play around with Linux, your suggestion of using Virtualbox seems like the best play.

[shikamaru]

How funny. Spent a couple hours looking into Linux yesterday evening, and then I see this thread this morning !! Looked into Linux a couple of years ago, the Linux offerings seem to have come a looooong way in a short period of time, or am I wrong ?

Debian really peaked my interest along with Linux Mint. Does anybody have any experience with Debian ?? After reviewing the various Linux offerings it sure looks to me that once you made the transition, that now you could leave Windows way back in the rear view mirror.

Debian is a very solid OS. I use it for my Xen server. Works very well right out of the box.

My preference for desktop is for Ubuntu or Mint. If you are starting out, I recommend one of the aforementioned flavors.
If you already have Wind0ze installed, install VirtualBox first, followed by creating a VM, and finally setup of your chosen Linux flavor.

[allodial]

How funny. Spent a couple hours looking into Linux yesterday evening, and then I see this thread this morning !! Looked into Linux a couple of years ago, the Linux offerings seem to have come a looooong way in a short period of time, or am I wrong ?

Debian really peaked my interest along with Linux Mint. Does anybody have any experience with Debian ?? After reviewing the various Linux offerings it sure looks to me that once you made the transition, that now you could leave Windows way back in the rear view mirror.

Debian is great. Its the choice of many 'elite' Linux gurus. Ubuntu is effectively a variant of Debian which itself is a Linux variant. Package management (i.e. software installation, removal or upgrade management) in Debian (apt get, aptitude) is superior to that of Red Hat IMHO (rpms).

[Banja]

How funny. Spent a couple hours looking into Linux yesterday evening, and then I see this thread this morning !! Looked into Linux a couple of years ago, the Linux offerings seem to have come a looooong way in a short period of time, or am I wrong ?

Debian really peaked my interest along with Linux Mint. Does anybody have any experience with Debian ?? After reviewing the various Linux offerings it sure looks to me that once you made the transition, that now you could leave Windows way back in the rear view mirror.

[allodial]

OpenBSD, IMHO is the best if not of the best OS's. The problem was the lack of a Java 2 VM for a loooong looooooong time. I figure it would have done the readers an injustice if OpenBSD had gone without mention. However Debian/Ubuntu have it for usability.

[shikamaru]

How long ago was that if you don't mind asking? RH used to be preferred. Nowadays I can install from scratch but... I prefer to just roll out Debian or a flavor thereof (apt get is awesome). Ubuntu is about rock solid. I remember the days when Linux was moreso unstable and questionable in use. But Ubuntu is rock solid. There are free virtual machines that allow you to run MS Windows and your favorite Windows apps. Or you can use the WINE (a Windows Emulator). Thusly you can have your cake and eat it too. Ubuntu + Windows running underneath in a VM.

I forgot about Debian! That's what I run my Xen server on.

Re: MacOS. Its funny how many people are just figuring out that MacOS is just BSD with Apple-flavored lipstick on.

Funny .

[allodial]

I wish I could afford the downtime...

I ran across a software engineer from Laser Magnetic Storage International, knew him from there, and bought Red Hat, hired him to set up a dual boot on my laptop. That turned out to be pretty time costly in itself. The guy was out of work and bought a cell phone with what I paid him. The cell phone got him a job in Atlanta with T-Mobile...

I never did get it up and running.

How long ago was that if you don't mind asking? RH used to be preferred. Nowadays I can install from scratch but... I prefer to just roll out Debian or a flavor thereof (apt get is awesome). Ubuntu is about rock solid. I remember the days when Linux was moreso unstable and questionable in use. But Ubuntu is rock solid. There are free virtual machines that allow you to run MS Windows and your favorite Windows apps. Or you can use the WINE (a Windows Emulator). Thusly you can have your cake and eat it too. Ubuntu + Windows running underneath in a VM.

Re: MacOS. Its funny how many people are just figuring out that MacOS is just BSD with Apple-flavored lipstick on.

For those who are sick of MS, its possible to install MacOS on a PC. Or still, one can run MacOSX in a VM under Windows (I have!) or under Linux.

Agreed: Ubuntu + Virtualbox or VM Ware + MacOS or Windows 7 VM-images = win. Dual core or better with lots of RAM is probably the way to go.

[shikamaru]

Ubuntu here. Easy, good support, auto-updates and it's free. I dual boot with Windoze. I first installed Windows, then shrunk that partition to free-up some space on the hard drive, then installed Linux. So either way will work.

Depends on whose boot loader you want to control the bootstrap process .

Ubuntu here. Easy, good support, auto-updates and it's free. I dual boot with Windoze. I first installed Windows, then shrunk that partition to free-up some space on the hard drive, then installed Linux. So either way will work.

[shikamaru]

Yeah, two computers. I could learn a Linux system on a second computer and slowly transition when I am ready.

Installing Linux in a virtual machine in Virtualbox on top of Windows is an excellent way to go.

[shikamaru]

Yes, that is not an easy thing to do, MS Windows always fighting for the boot partition even though you are trying to use bootloader from the linux package, next thing you know cannot even get into linux, that is one of the main reasons I keep windows on a separate system all together then I use remote software Teamviewer 6 so do not have to do any major configuration changes hardware wise to switch between systems, don't even have to get of the chair.
The windows computer is used as a print server so I can spool off print jobs to that system rather then slowing down resources on the main linux system.

I had no problems setting up dual boot Linux and Windows.

Just make sure to install Linux first.

[shikamaru]

I wish I could afford the downtime...

I ran across a software engineer from Laser Magnetic Storage International, knew him from there, and bought Red Hat, hired him to set up a dual boot on my laptop. That turned out to be pretty time costly in itself. The guy was out of work and bought a cell phone with what I paid him. The cell phone got him a job in Atlanta with T-Mobile...

I never did get it up and running.

I'd forgo the dual boot.

Find the OS you are most comfortable with either Windows or Linux. Install Virtualbox. You'll be able to run any OS of your choice and as many as your resources can handle in virtual machines.

If you need help doing this, just let me know.

All my laptops are setup this way.

[shikamaru]

I'm using Linux Mint, which is based on Ubuntu, and it's fantastic. My geek skills are lacking, so I wanted something user friendly with community support.

Linux has come a long way. The "live CD's" allow you to test drive it on your system before installing it. I dual-boot, using Linux for all internet activity and keeping winblows in isolation (still using win2k).

Linux is much more secure, a firewall is all that is needed. No more screwing around with windoze updates and the adware/spyware BS. Actually, I'm getting to the point where I don't need winblows at all anymore. Woohoo!

I, myself, am migrating to bare metal hypervisors and cloud computing.

I like to run too many different OSes from Windows to Linux to UNIX. The above meets my needs nicely.
Working on whipping up some sort of SAN implementation too.

[shikamaru]

What flavor is all a matter of opinion and interests, I have met people who are loyal to certain flavors of it even if it is old school like Suse an swear that it is the best.

I stated which flavor of Linux was considered the most user friendly by most. Best is a matter of opinion, yes. I'm partial to Ubuntu, CentOS, Solaris, and FreeBSD.

Linux is also a fork off of Unix, but if you want to get technical about names you are correct, they all have some similarities just like the human race.

Agreed. Linux is a fork of UNIX. The difference of the variants is in the implementation and design of the kernels within the various flavors.

I am aware of 2 of them apps, first time i heard of Xen though, thanks.
What I am attempting to use is a Web App that runs off of an executable, so far wine did not work, have not tried VM or Xen, just not got around to messing with it yet.

If you are running a web app, why not use Apache?
A web app isn't going to run without some HTTP service to handle its request.
I'd have to ask more questions about the architecture of the web application in order to give more particular answers.

If portable is what you are seeking, there is portable Apache as well XAMPP.

If you have the skills for it, I'm sure you can whittle those apps above down to include them within the executable.