Linux Corner
Stoopid disk wont boot at startup. Yes, before you ask, boot from optical drive is enabled and is number one priority, wouldn't have got Dapper Drake running otherwise.
Maybe I have to download a new copy, but this one was off the VTech server which is listed on the website?
Oh well, another mirror will have to do.
Maybe I have to download a new copy, but this one was off the VTech server which is listed on the website?
Oh well, another mirror will have to do.
Oh Shazbat!
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I think I'll blame slim_slag 
- after seeing the comments on Ubuntu 7.04 in this thread I decided to go for broke & upgrade my own PC.
The good news Keef is that the new 7.04 saw my USB Wireless adapator & configured it automatically from the live CD - Wow!. Bad news is that once installed I had to manually configure it, but it seems to be working fine now. Compare that to Ubuntu 6.10 where it took me a week & a lot of compiling of code to make the device work so that at least is impressive, and dare I say even more than Windows XP could do.
The bad news is that whilst the 7.04 Live CD was more than happy co-existing with the XP partition, the install options were either to overwrite the XP partition or to overwrite the XP partition. OK, so with this level of wireless support I don't need XP now as a safe option to download code to, but I would have preferred if the options had worked correctly.
rotorcraig - the auto codec load seems to work (albeit not perfectly) if you have gstreamer configured - a big improvement. However the codecs I pulled down for mms support didn't work and froze my PC so I regressed to xine & manually getting codecs.
Overall though, Ubuntu 7.04 is a big step forward and I would suggest about as easy to install as XP SP1 was. I would definitely recommend it - it is all I have on my PC now
Oh - and out of box internet performance is much better too
- after seeing the comments on Ubuntu 7.04 in this thread I decided to go for broke & upgrade my own PC.The good news Keef is that the new 7.04 saw my USB Wireless adapator & configured it automatically from the live CD - Wow!. Bad news is that once installed I had to manually configure it, but it seems to be working fine now. Compare that to Ubuntu 6.10 where it took me a week & a lot of compiling of code to make the device work so that at least is impressive, and dare I say even more than Windows XP could do.
The bad news is that whilst the 7.04 Live CD was more than happy co-existing with the XP partition, the install options were either to overwrite the XP partition or to overwrite the XP partition. OK, so with this level of wireless support I don't need XP now as a safe option to download code to, but I would have preferred if the options had worked correctly.
rotorcraig - the auto codec load seems to work (albeit not perfectly) if you have gstreamer configured - a big improvement. However the codecs I pulled down for mms support didn't work and froze my PC so I regressed to xine & manually getting codecs.
Overall though, Ubuntu 7.04 is a big step forward and I would suggest about as easy to install as XP SP1 was. I would definitely recommend it - it is all I have on my PC now
Oh - and out of box internet performance is much better too
Disregard previous! Posting this from Mepis 6.5 
Had a couple of problems once I told the comp to behave itself and book from drive (I think the bios has a liking for MS
) - first time over it the monitor went blank with the power LED blinking, but the system was running under the hood as num lock could be toggled, and it responded to the three-fingered salute and rebooted
Next time around, I told it to stick to 800x600 and 60 Hz and it worked like a charm. Nothing needed configuring. One glitch was that the taskbar (or equivalent) was blinking continuously, I have stopped it by locking it but dont know why it happened first off.
Still, This is much easier on the eyes than Ubuntu and its default settings, it seems to have a tremendous set of apps too. I'm off to explore
Had a couple of problems once I told the comp to behave itself and book from drive (I think the bios has a liking for MS
) - first time over it the monitor went blank with the power LED blinking, but the system was running under the hood as num lock could be toggled, and it responded to the three-fingered salute and rebooted Next time around, I told it to stick to 800x600 and 60 Hz and it worked like a charm. Nothing needed configuring. One glitch was that the taskbar (or equivalent) was blinking continuously, I have stopped it by locking it but dont know why it happened first off.
Still, This is much easier on the eyes than Ubuntu and its default settings, it seems to have a tremendous set of apps too. I'm off to explore
Bad news - the sound does not work. After some serious hunting, I found out that there is no fix for my particular board. Honestly, without sound it is rather useless, so till there is a fix for that, it aint no fun.
Edited to add: The list of tools is impressive, with partition managers and likes. It even has an antivirus, though god alone knows why! Sadly, Berly crashed the system on launch, so I didn't get to see the eye-candy. Still, I liked the itnerface. And it gave me access to my existing hard disk very easily. So this will make a rather good emergency disk....
However batninth - you mention you got Fiesty Fawn running as LiveCD? maybe I'll try that next
Edited to add: The list of tools is impressive, with partition managers and likes. It even has an antivirus, though god alone knows why! Sadly, Berly crashed the system on launch, so I didn't get to see the eye-candy. Still, I liked the itnerface. And it gave me access to my existing hard disk very easily. So this will make a rather good emergency disk....
However batninth - you mention you got Fiesty Fawn running as LiveCD? maybe I'll try that next
Last edited by BombayDuck; 25th Apr 2007 at 05:34.
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I'm running this installation of Kubuntu on a separate hard drive for evaluation purposes, ie: I disconnect the WinXP hard drive and plug in the Linux drive.
I've decided to keep Kubuntu by making the machine a dual boot job with two HDDs. Does anyone know if GRUB is included in the Kubuntu download?
I'm keen to avoid mistakes and don't really want to be faced with re-installing XP. Life is too short.
Ta,
N o t a
I've decided to keep Kubuntu by making the machine a dual boot job with two HDDs. Does anyone know if GRUB is included in the Kubuntu download?
I'm keen to avoid mistakes and don't really want to be faced with re-installing XP. Life is too short.
Ta,
N o t a
Last edited by None of the above; 26th Apr 2007 at 19:04.
Oh Shazbat!
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BombayDuck
It seems that the folks who have nothing better to do than write viruses to pain you & me are now looking to MacOS & Linux for their kicks:
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6059140.html
batninth
It even has an antivirus, though god alone knows why!
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6059140.html
batninth
Yes, the Kubuntu 7.04 installation will also install grub. You get the choice of whether to install it to the mbr of the first hd or not. I've never had a problem installing it to the mbr.
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Thanks for that IT (? )
I'll have a go at dual booting tomorrow or at the weekend. Just finding my way around the system at the moment. I've arrived at the age where thinking presents something of a challenge so it might be a little while until the system becomes second nature.
Thanks again,
N o t a
I'll have a go at dual booting tomorrow or at the weekend. Just finding my way around the system at the moment. I've arrived at the age where thinking presents something of a challenge so it might be a little while until the system becomes second nature.
Thanks again,
N o t a
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I'm now up and running with Ubuntu "Feisty Fawn" and doing very well with it.
With my previous "Edgy Edge" setup I had real problems getting the nVidia drivers for my Asus A7N266 motherboard configured correctly. Using legacy drivers I could get most things working, but I never did get Google Earth or streaming video on sites such as BBC News to be stable.
Upgraded to Feisty hoping that it would sort these issues out - it didn't. Struggled on for a couple of days and convinced myself that it was the A7N266's onboard GeForce2 video setup that Ubuntu could not handle.
Bought a new cheap video card (Tornado GeForce FX5200 for 30 quid), stuck it in the AGP slot - and hey presto everything now works absolutely fine.
RC
PS I dual boot with XP and have had no problems. Set up your NTFS partition as the first on the drive, and install XP into that. Then install Ubuntu specifying partitions 2,3,4 as Ext3 for Linux root, swap, data etc. The installation process should spot XP in the first partition and ask whether you want to set up GRUB for dual boot - say yes.
With my previous "Edgy Edge" setup I had real problems getting the nVidia drivers for my Asus A7N266 motherboard configured correctly. Using legacy drivers I could get most things working, but I never did get Google Earth or streaming video on sites such as BBC News to be stable.
Upgraded to Feisty hoping that it would sort these issues out - it didn't. Struggled on for a couple of days and convinced myself that it was the A7N266's onboard GeForce2 video setup that Ubuntu could not handle.
Bought a new cheap video card (Tornado GeForce FX5200 for 30 quid), stuck it in the AGP slot - and hey presto everything now works absolutely fine.
RC
PS I dual boot with XP and have had no problems. Set up your NTFS partition as the first on the drive, and install XP into that. Then install Ubuntu specifying partitions 2,3,4 as Ext3 for Linux root, swap, data etc. The installation process should spot XP in the first partition and ask whether you want to set up GRUB for dual boot - say yes.
Official PPRuNe Chaplain
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Once you've got the hang of dual-boot, and subject to hard drive capacity (I've got three big ones, all partitioned heavily, in the Linux machine) then you can install several different flavours of Linux and switch between them. Sometimes they change the "primary" Grub partition, but that's easy to suss out. Then you edit menu.lst to offer all the options, and off you go.
I've now got Mepis running via WiFi. The USB WiFi dongle didn't come with Linux drivers, and I couldn't be bothered to search for them. But the PCMCIA WiFi card was fine. A little tweaking using Kwifimanager, and the card saw the router. It just didn't ask it for a DHCP address, so no "connection".
ifconfig and iwconfig told me what the various devices are - the Wifi card is wlan0.
A root terminal, and the command dhclient wlan0 led to some beeping and twittering, followed by the message that it had connected and obtained DHCP address 192.168.8.10 - and off we go!
I'm liking Mepis more and more!
I've now got Mepis running via WiFi. The USB WiFi dongle didn't come with Linux drivers, and I couldn't be bothered to search for them. But the PCMCIA WiFi card was fine. A little tweaking using Kwifimanager, and the card saw the router. It just didn't ask it for a DHCP address, so no "connection".
ifconfig and iwconfig told me what the various devices are - the Wifi card is wlan0.
A root terminal, and the command dhclient wlan0 led to some beeping and twittering, followed by the message that it had connected and obtained DHCP address 192.168.8.10 - and off we go!
I'm liking Mepis more and more!
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Today's statement from Dell on the subject can be found here:
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/g...=us&l=en&s=gen
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/g...=us&l=en&s=gen
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From the Times:
Microsoft in Linux warning
Microsoft has stepped up its campaign against free and open-source software by claiming that the Linux operating system and other popular open-source products infringe more than 235 Microsoft patents.
Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith and licensing chief Horacio Gutierrez made the claims in an interview with Fortune magazine, published yesterday.
"This is not a case of some accidental, unknowing infringement," said Mr Gutierrez.
"There is an overwhelming number of patents being infringed."
In a subsequent interview with the US business magazine, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer pulled back from saying that it would pursue individual users of open-source software for royalty payments.
Mr Gutierrez's comments have surprised some, as Microsoft appeared to be thawing in its attitude to open-source software in recent years.
Last November, it entered into an agreement with Novell, a leading provider of open-source software, which both sides said would improve interoperability between open-source software and Microsoft's products, as well as providing assurances over patent issues.
Con Hennessy, chief technology officer with Irish open-source services firm OpenApp, described the Microsoft comments as "sabre-rattling" designed to sell more software through its relationship with Novell.
"If you did a real analysis, a lot of the Microsoft patents would be thrown out," said Mr Hennessy. "They are either really obvious or you would find that someone else had created the same thing before it."
Mr Hennessy pointed out that Microsoft holds the patents in the US and said that software cannot currently be protected by European patents, so Microsoft's threats would have no impact in Europe.
Microsoft itself has fallen foul of US patent law recently.
In February, a San Diego court awarded $1.52 billion in damages to Alcatel-Lucent after it found that Microsoft had violated patents it holds related to MP3 digital music technology.
Microsoft in Linux warning
Microsoft has stepped up its campaign against free and open-source software by claiming that the Linux operating system and other popular open-source products infringe more than 235 Microsoft patents.
Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith and licensing chief Horacio Gutierrez made the claims in an interview with Fortune magazine, published yesterday.
"This is not a case of some accidental, unknowing infringement," said Mr Gutierrez.
"There is an overwhelming number of patents being infringed."
In a subsequent interview with the US business magazine, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer pulled back from saying that it would pursue individual users of open-source software for royalty payments.
Mr Gutierrez's comments have surprised some, as Microsoft appeared to be thawing in its attitude to open-source software in recent years.
Last November, it entered into an agreement with Novell, a leading provider of open-source software, which both sides said would improve interoperability between open-source software and Microsoft's products, as well as providing assurances over patent issues.
Con Hennessy, chief technology officer with Irish open-source services firm OpenApp, described the Microsoft comments as "sabre-rattling" designed to sell more software through its relationship with Novell.
"If you did a real analysis, a lot of the Microsoft patents would be thrown out," said Mr Hennessy. "They are either really obvious or you would find that someone else had created the same thing before it."
Mr Hennessy pointed out that Microsoft holds the patents in the US and said that software cannot currently be protected by European patents, so Microsoft's threats would have no impact in Europe.
Microsoft itself has fallen foul of US patent law recently.
In February, a San Diego court awarded $1.52 billion in damages to Alcatel-Lucent after it found that Microsoft had violated patents it holds related to MP3 digital music technology.
Plastic PPRuNer
But of course, they won't specify which patents GNU/Linux/OpenOffice is supposedly infringing....oh no.
Just noise and FUD, hoping to scare companies away from Linux.
"No, we really don't want to litigate, just make a deal with us and we promise not to sue."
Path-etic!
"Gimme $20 and I'll make sure your nice car's paintwork don't get scratched!"
Faced with major disinterest in their new soopa-soaraway Vista, MS have decided to start waving the big patent litigation stick to try and halt Linux. Demanding money with menaces used to be called extortion.
MS holds thousands of patents, most of them on matters so banal that the patents should never have been granted, like double-clicking a mouse or filling in a HTML form.
In the USA you can more or less patent anything in software, the patent system is so broken. The patent examiners have no time to search for prior art and few of them know enough about programming logic to know what they're granting but they grant it anyway. The status of software patents generally is untested in the US anyway.
Many of these patents are so broad that any one of us probably violates several of them a day when writing a letter!
Most of the patents that MS has scrambled to register in the last 5 years are laughable, like linked-lists (which have been around since pre-VAX days), so MS obviously hopes never to have to actually legislate their claims - it's just something to threaten people with.
What an admission of fear and lost confidence in their own product/s!
My advice? Ignore them and they'll go away (and good riddance!)
Just noise and FUD, hoping to scare companies away from Linux.
"No, we really don't want to litigate, just make a deal with us and we promise not to sue."
Path-etic!
"Gimme $20 and I'll make sure your nice car's paintwork don't get scratched!"
Faced with major disinterest in their new soopa-soaraway Vista, MS have decided to start waving the big patent litigation stick to try and halt Linux. Demanding money with menaces used to be called extortion.
MS holds thousands of patents, most of them on matters so banal that the patents should never have been granted, like double-clicking a mouse or filling in a HTML form.
In the USA you can more or less patent anything in software, the patent system is so broken. The patent examiners have no time to search for prior art and few of them know enough about programming logic to know what they're granting but they grant it anyway. The status of software patents generally is untested in the US anyway.
Many of these patents are so broad that any one of us probably violates several of them a day when writing a letter!
Most of the patents that MS has scrambled to register in the last 5 years are laughable, like linked-lists (which have been around since pre-VAX days), so MS obviously hopes never to have to actually legislate their claims - it's just something to threaten people with.
What an admission of fear and lost confidence in their own product/s!
My advice? Ignore them and they'll go away (and good riddance!)
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Interesting development, along with the news that Dell is again offering XP on new machines, 'amid significant customer demand' (CNet 2007).
As for going over to Linux, it's a really interesting experience, even if you're just a general tinkerer. As mentioned above, I'd recommend a second machine, or a dual boot (not as horrible as it sounds).
When I tried Ubuntu and Debian (two different PC's) I really enjoyed learning something new, but you need to 'un-Microsoft' yourself. For instance, you can't just plug a memory stick or portable CD drive into your machine - you've got to learn how to get Linux to mount these devices, then configure it to do so automatically. Again, not as nasty as it sounds, with a little persistence and some good reference material.
Performance is also excellent.
James
As for going over to Linux, it's a really interesting experience, even if you're just a general tinkerer. As mentioned above, I'd recommend a second machine, or a dual boot (not as horrible as it sounds).
When I tried Ubuntu and Debian (two different PC's) I really enjoyed learning something new, but you need to 'un-Microsoft' yourself. For instance, you can't just plug a memory stick or portable CD drive into your machine - you've got to learn how to get Linux to mount these devices, then configure it to do so automatically. Again, not as nasty as it sounds, with a little persistence and some good reference material.
Performance is also excellent.
James
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Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Does anybody know how well programmes like iTunes, etc run on UBUNTU OS, is there anyone who knows of anything that isn't compatible with UBUNTU, I am about to load it on my laptop and just wondering if something wont work, like my webcam for instance.
Cheers
Does anybody know how well programmes like iTunes, etc run on UBUNTU OS, is there anyone who knows of anything that isn't compatible with UBUNTU, I am about to load it on my laptop and just wondering if something wont work, like my webcam for instance.
Cheers
Oh Shazbat!
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s2h,
Linux, including Ubuntu, tends to have it's own versions of software rather than a Linux-ised version of something else - so you have to make the links or as JamesT73J said "un-Microsoft" yourself.
A good example is in media players - there isn't an iTunes binary for Ubuntu or any Linux. You could try running the Windows versions over WINE, or I would suggest looking at the various media players that are native to Linux - Rythmbox, Amarok etc and seeing how they stack up (Amarok seems to be a good iTunes alike for Linux)
I would strongly suggest registering on the Ubuntu forums and searching for iTunes there to see how many posts have been made on this subject. The Ubuntu forums are incredibly busy & useful (http://ubuntuforums.org/) - if this question hasn't been answered there, then post it & you're highly likely to get an answer, espcecially on if & how any licence rights could be migrated.
Best answer on your question is at: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...ghlight=iTunes
Linux, including Ubuntu, tends to have it's own versions of software rather than a Linux-ised version of something else - so you have to make the links or as JamesT73J said "un-Microsoft" yourself.
A good example is in media players - there isn't an iTunes binary for Ubuntu or any Linux. You could try running the Windows versions over WINE, or I would suggest looking at the various media players that are native to Linux - Rythmbox, Amarok etc and seeing how they stack up (Amarok seems to be a good iTunes alike for Linux)
I would strongly suggest registering on the Ubuntu forums and searching for iTunes there to see how many posts have been made on this subject. The Ubuntu forums are incredibly busy & useful (http://ubuntuforums.org/) - if this question hasn't been answered there, then post it & you're highly likely to get an answer, espcecially on if & how any licence rights could be migrated.
Best answer on your question is at: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...ghlight=iTunes
Plastic PPRuNer
"[Microsoft] is no stranger to patent law disputes.
From April 2004 through to March 2007 the company paid
$1.25bn TO Sun Microsystems,
$536m TO Novell,
$440m TO InterTrust,
$60m TO Burst.com,
$6m TO private inventor Carlos Amado,
$115m TO z4 Technologies,
$74m TO Korean company P&IB, and most recently, $1.52bn TO Alcatel-Lucent
over patents allegedly infringed by Microsoft's software."
Infringe patents
Pay off the owners from your vast cashpile
Profit!
From April 2004 through to March 2007 the company paid
$1.25bn TO Sun Microsystems,
$536m TO Novell,
$440m TO InterTrust,
$60m TO Burst.com,
$6m TO private inventor Carlos Amado,
$115m TO z4 Technologies,
$74m TO Korean company P&IB, and most recently, $1.52bn TO Alcatel-Lucent
over patents allegedly infringed by Microsoft's software."
Infringe patents
Pay off the owners from your vast cashpile
Profit!
Oh Shazbat!
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Calm down Mac,
Before you go too far down that track it is worth remembering that Microsoft is very acquisative. In that context what would be more useful is a break down of how many of the patent infringements came from products developed directly inside Microsoft, and how many from products aquired and subsequently developed.
Also I wonder how much has been paid by the other technology companies for similar patent infringements.
Knowing one of the patents my last company applied for, and how open ended it was, it would be quite easy to find infrigements against that patent as well - albeit that the companies doing it would probably be completely unware of doing so.
In summary, I'm not saying that Microsoft is blameless, but what I am saying is that patents can be easy to infringe without trying to do so deliberately, or that an attempt to produce something akin to an existing patent could then be liberally interpreted as an infringement (think AMD vs Intel here). I suspect in the numbers you quote as in the numbers for many, many technology companies there will be a mix of all three types of infringment.
Before you go too far down that track it is worth remembering that Microsoft is very acquisative. In that context what would be more useful is a break down of how many of the patent infringements came from products developed directly inside Microsoft, and how many from products aquired and subsequently developed.
Also I wonder how much has been paid by the other technology companies for similar patent infringements.
Knowing one of the patents my last company applied for, and how open ended it was, it would be quite easy to find infrigements against that patent as well - albeit that the companies doing it would probably be completely unware of doing so.
In summary, I'm not saying that Microsoft is blameless, but what I am saying is that patents can be easy to infringe without trying to do so deliberately, or that an attempt to produce something akin to an existing patent could then be liberally interpreted as an infringement (think AMD vs Intel here). I suspect in the numbers you quote as in the numbers for many, many technology companies there will be a mix of all three types of infringment.