[Welly Wu]

z

 

[JaGWiRE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zanth After what seemed like forever, I finally started dabbling with *nix again when I bought my new comp in December. My goal was to have a fully working *nix enviro that would in every single way, replace windows. I just recently succeeded by getting two programmes I desperately needed to run under wine/code weaver's cross over office. I'm using Ubuntu (breezy/64bit) and I attempted a few others, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Debian, Kubuntu and Ubuntu Dapper. Only Breezy installed near flawlessly. In fact, it really did install flawlessly given what it is supposed to do. I then upgraded to the Nvidia drivers so I could have the proper refresh rates, configured my mega button mouse and then went to work on getting the windows programmes installed. Except for viewing wmv9 and 10 files, I think I have everything I need to wholely depart from MS-land. I'm elated! That said, sticking with linux is still not a super easy life. For those who don't ticker, need a web browser, some email, maybe a word processor here and there, Ubuntu, maybe the new Suse and the new Fedora Core should be all perfectly fine release candidates. However, if one is even remotely close to being a power used, at least with K/Ubuntu, one is still somewhat confined without going on the compiling road to hell. For instance, K/Ubuntu in their stable Breezy release is stuck on Firefox 1.0.7. Not exactly cutting edge. One can go through some hoops to get the newer version to install, but it isn't necessarily fun. Upgrading to the unstable Dapper, means UNSTABLE! At least with the 64 bit kernels. Most programmes aren't compiled for 64 bit processors, so that sucks, and driver support not to mention programme conflict is just rampant in the unstable release. I had to reformat after just not wanting to invest anymore time getting into all that. I can again, understand why Debian takes a zillion years and a day to move from testing to stable. They want to be sure, 100000%. Particularly when dealing with enterprise level systems. That said, if Ubuntu is likely the most user friendly, most efficient hardware detecting, funky fun distro around (maybe Suse 10 will match or surpass it...) then going BSD is gonna be a total killer on the other end of the useable release spectrum. *BSD OS' require a lot more work to get things just right. They don't have the massive community linux has and driver support is often lacking. It is quite stable and I used to use FreeBSD on a gateway but I've since just bought a nice all-in-one box router and now concentrate on my desktop for the *nix fun-loving-freedom-fighting-stick-it-to-the-man computing. I wish you good luck Welly, but be prepared to compile compile compile!

Heh, suse 10 seemed to work the best for me. I had the same goals as you, and for what I do, Windows isn't even needed (browsing, mp3 playing, online tv shows such as thescene, movies, etc etc.) My real problem is the sound card and video card. My video card is fine in suse, and with tweeking I can get the drievrs to work, but my sound card (M-audio rev 7.1 hates Linux.) I'm about to buy an x-fi elite pro, which has no Linux support as well, but hopefully that wil change in a few months.

 

[JaGWiRE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Welly Wu Yeah, I will check out some O'Reilly books at BN today when I go to work. There is a new SAMS Unleashed FreeBSD 6.0 book coming next month, my birthday month, and it comes with a full installation CD/DVD too. I am psyched about that book. I know quite a bit about UNIX now that I have been using Red Hat, but I just need a book that I can read and place on my lap while I am using FreeBSD. I don't care how hard this project is. I am going to master it over time no matter what. BSD is still worth knowing and so far, with my extremely limited experience, it is highly logical. I now know why the X gui does not load up automatically for the sake of security and freedom of choice for all of its users...and efficiency too. I also now know why you should compile X server and how to run X and then a windows manager and then a desktop environment. All this stuff is highly interesting to me. I am learning about the ports system and that thing has got to be the simplest and most universal method of downloading new packages and applications that I have seen this side of SUSE with YAsT. I really like how when I learn FreeBSD, I just learn FreeBSD and not any other distribution. I also like it a lot that what I learn is applicable toward future inevitable upgrades. I am going to have to get that book. Compiling from source is a fine skill that I still need to master and that is fine. Man, I tell you, when I finally figured out how to configure a basic X GUI, load it, and load up KDE, all of the hours that I spent this early morning were worth it. I have not been so happy about a computer OS and getting an inch further than this morning. I am fully committed now. Now, I am in Windows XP Professional SP-2. I just installed Office 2003 Professional Edition and I am upgrading. So, no FreeBSD until later tomorrow. I will spend 30 minutes of my lunch break today reading the older FreeBSD books so I can learn more and do more. I agree that Ubuntu is a killer Linux distribution and I may try it some time next year, but CentOS 4.3 is where I am at right now. I need something that is highly stable so I do not lose all of my documents and pull my hair out for experimenting. Something has to be the control OS while the others are the variable OSes.

Gentoo is the power user linux distrubiton. Sometimes the books made for one distrubution of Linux or Unix (from what i've seen atleast), just show you how to use apps, nothing useful. I think O'reilly has a book called unix in a nutshell, along with many on the bash shell. What your going to want to learn is really just how to use unix commands, and think unix command before graphical interface clicks. Once you've mastered that, there won't be much more then going on a UNIX irc channel, and asking where to get XX application, or how to use XX. I've found no book covers everything I want, but going on IRC does. Unix is a very old OS (1969 I believe was it's classical days), and you may be fine with an old book, the command line interface had most of the same commands back then from my understanding

 

[JaGWiRE]

Here are some oreilly links, safari membership would rock for this now

.


http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/upt3/index.html
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lunix5/index.html
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/unixnut4/index.html (probably a really good idea as a reference, the nutshell series just rocks for references.)
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/unixcdbs3/index.html
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/1886411743/ BSD!
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/1886411999/ More bsd!
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/cfreebsd/
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/bash3/
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/puis3/

 

[Arainach]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SiBurning You might not want to do this because it can make repairing things really hard in some cases, especially if your video driver goes bad, which is often does if you have an nvidia card and use the much faster nvidia driver. Better to boot to a terminal, log in and type startx. To configure it... $>man startx

"Often does?" What exactly do you do to your system? I haven't had a Video Driver go bad that wasn't my fault (tweaking xorg.conf to see what certain settings I didn't understand did) in.... well, heck, in all my years (7 now) of using Linux.

Even if something DID go wrong, you can always just go to a Virtual Terminal (Ctrl-Alt-F1, Ctrl-Alt-F2, etc.) and login and fix stuff. Or ssh in from another box.

As far as getting X to start on boot, 99% of Linux distros do that automatically nowadays, so I'll assume that you're using FreeBSD.

Quote:

http://www.vmunix.com/fbsd-book/Xwindows.phtml#ch-3 (I highly reccomend reading most of the link, but here's the key excerpt): It is possible to configure X to start autmatically and provide graphical login services. This configuration allows remote X terminals. Typing xdm as root, will start graphical logins immediately. Adding xdm to your /etc/ttys file will start xdm at boot up. Code: [left] ttyv0 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure # Virtual terminals ttyv1 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure ttyv2 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure ttyv3 "/usr/X11R6/bin/xdm -nodaemon" xterm on secure[/left]

I prefer gdm to xdm, but you'd have to install that first.

 

[Welly Wu]

.

 

[JaGWiRE]

Welly, I can't help you with those 2 problems (might want to try a BSD forum as they could be common problems), but I would suggest you get on safari asap and abuse that offer. Everybody who has a safari subscription tell me that it's the greatest thing for computer books, and that it's saved them so much (coming from guys in the IT industry who used to buy numerous books in a year.) A lot of my O'reilly books are on there, and all of those o'reilly books I linked to a few months back are probably on there too. I would download a few.

 

[helix]

http://www.bsdforums.org/

 

[Welly Wu]

OK. Thiis is a worrk in progress. Safari here I comme.

 

[HiFiRE]

I think the value of learning FreeBSD as a first unix is questionable. FreeBSD isn't known for it for being easy to install, and it also isn't known for supporting a lot of hardware when compared to linux distributions. Before FreeBSD 5 came out fbsd was pretty easy to set up and the documentation was excellent. Fbsd 5 changed a lot and it seems like the documentation and simplicity never caught up, this is a reason many people stuck with fbsd 4 for so long after 5 came out.

I don't see the value in reading some documentation and following instructions to get X working unless you want to hang around in a BSD forum and help people having the same problems you have. Start out with a mature Linux distribution, such as Ubuntu, and learn how to get things done on the commandline. Once you get the hang of the commandline, then try something more hardcore, like fbsd.

For me, package managers make an OS, so in terms of which Linux distribution to use I recommend Ubuntu. Anything that doesn't automatically download dependencies and such from online repository is a waste of time. Ubuntu over Debian because the GUI will be nicely set up for you. Even with Ubuntu there's a lot of hurdles to overcome in getting things the way you want. Don't worry about it being too easy or insecure or some other nonsense like kernel architecture.

Lastly, when wanting to learn Unix OSes you need to be realistic about your goals. If you want to get into that line of work, then learning this stuff is important. If you want to learn because it's interesting, well, I don't understand that anymore. I went through a phase where I tried every linux distribution and ended up quite happy with freebsd, but I had to invent reasons to use the machine. Eventually I formatted the computer, put windows on it and used it as a htpc. I used it ten times more with that function. The only truly practical reason to use Linux I can imagine is if you're a programmer, otherwise you could probably find a better use of your time.

 

[JaGWiRE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HiFiRE I think the value of learning FreeBSD as a first unix is questionable. FreeBSD isn't known for it for being easy to install, and it also isn't known for supporting a lot of hardware when compared to linux distributions. Before FreeBSD 5 came out fbsd was pretty easy to set up and the documentation was excellent. Fbsd 5 changed a lot and it seems like the documentation and simplicity never caught up, this is a reason many people stuck with fbsd 4 for so long after 5 came out. I don't see the value in reading some documentation and following instructions to get X working unless you want to hang around in a BSD forum and help people having the same problems you have. Start out with a mature Linux distribution, such as Ubuntu, and learn how to get things done on the commandline. Once you get the hang of the commandline, then try something more hardcore, like fbsd. For me, package managers make an OS, so in terms of which Linux distribution to use I recommend Ubuntu. Anything that doesn't automatically download dependencies and such from online repository is a waste of time. Ubuntu over Debian because the GUI will be nicely set up for you. Even with Ubuntu there's a lot of hurdles to overcome in getting things the way you want. Don't worry about it being too easy or insecure or some other nonsense like kernel architecture. Lastly, when wanting to learn Unix OSes you need to be realistic about your goals. If you want to get into that line of work, then learning this stuff is important. If you want to learn because it's interesting, well, I don't understand that anymore. I went through a phase where I tried every linux distribution and ended up quite happy with freebsd, but I had to invent reasons to use the machine. Eventually I formatted the computer, put windows on it and used it as a htpc. I used it ten times more with that function. The only truly practical reason to use Linux I can imagine is if you're a programmer, otherwise you could probably find a better use of your time.

I am also guilty of trying a bunch of linux distros and ending back up with Windows. In all due respect, I would give it a much longer try and even try using it as a primary OS if the drivers were better, if I was able to do everything I wanted with my sound card, and if my video card was atleast able to get around a gui daily with good preformance and play movies back well. I can only imagine how many conflicts I'de have if I installed freebsd. Anyway, it doesn't matter, it never hurts to try, the worst thing that can happen is you waste some time, but most likely gain some knowledge. I remember my first time I deleted a linux partition on a dual boot system and didn't know about the fixmbr command. Since then I've helped a lot of people out with that simple common issue. Really though, your post covers all the thoughts I agree with.

 

[Welly Wu]

god damn pessimists.

 

[Zanth]

There are other reasons though to use an OSS *nix system, for instance - freedom! Yes some people really don't want to use Microsoft's bastardized OS and they don't want to shell out uber cash on a Mac so they can tinker with OS X. There is also merit is learning about one's computer in a way that is simply not possible (in certain circumstances) with Windows.

I will say, that I do think learning with a mature Linux distro is more logical for a beginner. There are plenty of "issues" that remain that will necessitate tinkering, opening up the term, hacking some sys file etc. I use Ubuntu, I'm not a guru, but I'm a seasoned *nix user. I have gone through the gamut, but in the end, I don't want to sit there compiling everything (Gentoo that means you!) There is merit in going this way, you know your comp intimately, yet, if/when I need to get that specific, I can, but the days I don't want to bother (which is most) I can just apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade and/or apt-get install x_app. Makes life MUCH easier.

 

[pheonix991]

Linux=desktop usr based
Unix=Server admin based

BSD is for servers mostly kuz it is hardcore Unix, not linux.

If you are just looking for something easy to start on, try out Ubuntu linux. But, if you wanna go headfirst, and learn a ton, try out Gentoo. There is a guy on EOCF.com, his name is Anjyl(or something like that), he can fix you up on anything linux.

BTW, I didn't read the thread, just hoping I could help out.

 

[manchau]

No-one recommended Debian based KNOPPIX ???

I tried all flavours (FreeBSD, RedHat, Slackware, Gentoo) and no-one can touch the level of Debain's apt-get. Only Debian is easier then Windows in some respects.

Also I'll prefer knoppix over all other Debian clones due to it's wide auto hardware setup and wide free community support.

Highly recommended for noob's and arguably recommended to experienced though.