Linux Users here?

[noone]

You might want to check out Staroffice from Sun, it is supposed to work with the same file formats as MS Office I believe, I've never tried it out myself though.
http://www.sun.com/staroffice
I'm having a wierd problem with Linux right now. Redhat 5.2 worked pefectly fine on my computer, but the new versions of Redhat and Mandrake won't pick up my ethernet card no matter how much I try. PlugNPlay ISA cards seem to cause a lot of trouble. But I do like Linux a lot, when it works.

[oetje]

I'm going to try Wordperfect 8 from linux.corel.com. It's free and I think it can handle the file formats of M$ office also.

[Edited by oetje on 08-17-2000 at 04:27 AM]

[kb244]

I Use Mandrake 7.1 on a dualboot with my machine, as it easily detects my ethernet card, and uses my external modem for the internet, I dont like Wine, if I want to emulate windows, I can always grab VmWare, which acts as a Virtual machine on Linux. Requires a good speed CPU, and alot of memory, also if you need software for linux you can always try Tucows.com, or freshmeat.net

Also with mandrake 7.1, it is compatible with my USB Microsoft Intelimouse Explorer, it also detects my Geforce DDR, and I like the KDE Desktop, but most of the time I boot back into Win98 for games and what not. I have Mandrake 7.1 loaded on my laptop as well, I like Mandrake better than Redhat.

[Zaphod64831]

I would recommend creating separate partitions and installing both Windoze and Linux. Although, I know of no way to edit a partition without deleting and replacing it, one could always install a secondary HDD to put it on.

Linux includes LILO, which lets you choose your OS on bootup, so the two OS thing shouldn't be a problem.

[oetje]

I have Window$ and Linux installed on the same harddisk.

[Zaphod64831]

Yeah, but for most people there's only one partition on their harddisk and in order to install both on one they have to delete everything and reinstall windows.

[kb244]

Um , Zaph, you can use a partition utility like Partition magic, to resize, move, check, change cluster size, partition type, and almost everything else, without losing your data, I use it all the time when getting ready to install a linux distro, you just resize your windoze partition, until you get the desired ammount of unallocated space to use for linux, you could create linux partitions with PQMagic, but I prefer to do the linux portion inside of the Distro's Fdisk.

My question for all of you is how many of you actually consider yourself Intermediate Linux users, and not beginners from what I seem to be seeing in some of you.

[kb244]

Lilo isnt the new standard anymore, most of the new distributions are using GRUB now, it is a graphically(ANSI) presentible boot menu, like you might see on the Win2k or NT bootloader, you just move up and down and chose your partition to boot, also with GRUB, you can chose off a floppy disk, but boot off the harddrive (with Lilo you had to boot off the floppy then continue the rest of the operation on the harddrive) Windows partition can easily be resized, moved around, with no problem, I cant say the same for the linux partition though, it doesnt like to be altered, and it *knows* you moved it around next time you boot up.

[dimava]

ok, I installed linux like a year ago. From that moment my windows started working 100 times slower (literally) allways crashing, and stupid linux couldn't detect my either net card (even after I installed the driver), and I tried installing stuff on it (like downloaded programs) and error messages always came up when I was trying to run the program. It also coun't detect my speakers, or my cd r drive or my second hard drive, so to me linux was a pain in the ass. Although it was fun in the beginging. (yes I did portion my hard drive) so like 5 months ago, I backed all my files up on drive D, and reformated drive C:\, and everything is perfect right now. I am never installing linux on my system again. Also don't use word perfect. WP for windows is all messed up, and even worse with linux. I would rather use notepad the corel word perfect. (although corel draw is good) also why would corel just let people download the whole thing for free if no one wanted to buy it becuase it sucks?
I had handmake(or somehitng like that) linux 6.5
and for my system I had (and still have) 550 Athlon

[kb244]

Despite your problems in the past, if you are going to grab linux again, I recomend either Mandrake 7.1(my personal favorite, and easy for almost anyone) or Suse Linux(whatever the latest is, i heard it's great for bussinesses)

[dimava]

thats a joke right? I'm never going to be installing linux on my computer again

[oetje]

Why not try it again?:D

[kb244]

Linux distros have changed a hell of a lost in just a year past, look at it from this perspective, when I first got Win95, I went out and brought the original first CD, upgrade version out of Wal-Mart for 80$, it was hell the thing may have been prettier than my Win3.1, but it was purely unstable, and hellish, now look at Win98, much better than the original Win95, but look how long it took a company to get to that point in time. Same thing happens with Linux, only it happens a lot more quickly since financials and companies arnt tied in, instead a fully opensource is updated, created, repackaged by bunch of people worldwide, and the distributions help ship out software with those linux package (mandrake thus far ships with the most software with it) My Mandrake 7.1 had everything with it, office utils, development, gamming, multimedia, also with the Mandrake PowerPack (about 40$ you get about 6 CD, free Email and Telephone tech support 24-7) so even if you are dumbfounded, also check http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/

they will have a hardware compatibility listing of all the hardware that is compatible. they will have links and what not, if you are fortunate enough to have a cable modem+ and a CDburner you can do what I did, download the CD Images and burn your own copies, only downfall is you dont get the techsupport and extra CDs, if you download it for free. also Tucows now offers Linux software, for almost every catagories, and are rated for quality, so I dont know if you happen to have gotten that old Distro from some "Learn Linux in 24 Hour" book, but just so you know not all distributions are created equal.

[()InDiGo)))>]

Hi, ppl,
A lot of ppl say that linux is better then windoz, it's more stable, faster and 'freeer'. i agree with the freeer bit but not the most.
@ home i have an old 486 and i used to run Win95,98 and NT 4.0 on it with little problem, but when i switched to linux... well let's say that for the avaerage user you'll need atleast a PII450 with 128 mb ram (espicailly when u r using Netscape in IDE).
I didn;t have support for some of my hardware, and i ended up settling for a display rate of 1024x748 with 256 colour @ 50 herts... when i should be using 800x600 16 bit @ 60 herts +.

on top of that my linux experience was made worse by the 5 minute load up time when i wanted to sheck my mail through netscape, which i late decided to trash and use telnet. realistacly on a 486 i think windowz is hell of a lot more efficient then the server/client archetecure of Linux. As for stablility, fails pass some checks on every boot up, funnily different check each time. and my version had a habit of unstalling the most current keneral, preventing my dial-up networking, Kppp to work.

i agree that windoz is plagued with regestry erros and illegal operations, but at least it loaded up on 4 days of the week.

one think linux is better @ then n e thing else is the shells. telneting to machines with a native os is better then telneting using ms's telnet, 'cause it doesn't delete sometimes...

the other wired behabious is that my C programs causes a degamentation fault in linux when run from a user's account, but runs okay with root account. this includes numerus other programs such as netscape etc...

if you have a lotta spare time and are very patient then i'd recommend linux, but if you are like me, and want to get the job done, quickly and straightforwardly i'd stick to windoz.

[kb244]

No offence but a computer is only as smart as it's user. sorry you had those expereience, but it was quite the opposite for me. If you were running XWindows on a 486 that would explain your speed problem, linux itself is fast, but XWindows is an exception to the rule.

[()InDiGo)))>]

yeah, ir uns okay on the PII, but surely the X team would have produced a differebt version for home use with out the server client setup. it even runs kinda slow on the PII 450. it loads up okay, but i always get the impression that it would be much quicker if i did it in windoz.
I used to get mystifing "X Server shutdown - caught killsignal" which suggest that somthing is firing off cntrl-alt-backspace. but i never got around to solev the problem so i just gave up...
my impression of linux is great, but when i compare the linux GUI standards with Windowz... :( I may try linuz again once it's gotten better, and the apps become more integrated, such as IDE and GNOME is coming on to. but for simplicity windoz has gotta be the best outta linux and ms. you must admit that windoz is much more easier to use then linux @ time on a low spec pc. when i get my thunderbird i'll reinstall linux and c what the difference is.

p.s. what is the newest distro of RH? i currently have 6.0

[kb244]

6.2 is the newest of redhat, but I prefer mandrake 7.1 over redhat(especially if you are a home user)

[parksie]

I think it's either the latest Mandrake or SuSE distros that were the first to support the SB Live!.

[kb244]

Mandrake 6.* is when I remeber geting support for my SBLive!, I also found support for my USB mouse(Without problems like in RH6.2) in Mandrake 7.1

My opinion two of the best distros at the moment are mandrake and suse (userfriendly.org has a hell of alot of Suse Linux advertizements)

[Penar]

I started to use linux because it came loaded with compilers. I was starting on programming and had no money for borland c++ or microsoft comercial compilers. So I give it a try. Now I love that PC. I have a small LAN at home, and the linux PC is the one with the modem, acting a a proxy server (with apache). I also have some directories that I share with the other 2 win95 pc's to store my personal stuff (Using Samba). I discover that there's no way my wife could read, see or hear what I have on those directories. Security is wonderful. And the best of all... it's an old 486/66mhz with 4megs of ram a 500megs hard disk! And runs fast as hell!!

Ruben

[()InDiGo)))>]

damn... what distro and version r u running? and i presume that you are using lynx right?

[Penar]

:)
I'm Using an old Slackware 2.x distribution... as it dows the job, I haven't upgrade it (If is not broken, why fix it).

From the linux PC, to browse the net, yes I use LYNX. But most of the time I browse from any of the other 2 pc's that are running on win95, going out tru the linux box (using the apache web/proxy server). I also use IRCII from the linux box. Great for making IRC Bots. And sometimes use PINE to access email.

Ruben
-------
If a man says something in the woods and there are no women there, is he still wrong?

[kb244]

See thats what linux was meant to be Fast! hehe, people usally look at Xwindows, as a term of how fast and powerful linux is, and then blow it off when their 486 doesnt run XWindows faster than their pentium 2 running win98, the way you have linux setup is very good, with all the small background executions, and handling stuff like modem, and internet, it can concentrate on the logic, and not how to present it into pretty windows, so I salute ya for being one of the authentic linux users I've seen so far on here hehe.