What Linux looks like this month

Tuxr99 · Post by **Tuxr99** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 10:19 pm

Bryn Mawr;1350395 wrote: Sadly, my PC died the day after I installed it

Luckily, it was a duff PSU rather than the software

Two new power supplies later, I'm on-line again :-6
Good to hear. Luckily, I'll never have to worry about having a running computer, as I fix and sell pc's for a living.

I'm usually installing some version of windows on the ones I sell, but on my own pc's it's linux only. But I do have win7 in virtualbox to test work related stuff.

Btw, I'm using the your avatar (at least very similar) on a different forum. And no, I didn't get it from you, I found it on google when I was looking for some 1800's stuff. Weird, huh?

littleCJelkton · Post by **littleCJelkton** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 10:27 pm

Tuxr99;1350417 wrote: Good to hear. Luckily, I'll never have to worry about having a running computer, as I fix and sell pc's for a living.

I'm usually installing some version of windows on the ones I sell, but on my own pc's it's linux only. But I do have win7 in virtualbox to test work related stuff.

Running computers is a good thing not to have to worry about

Tuxr99 · Post by **Tuxr99** » Wed Jan 12, 2011 12:35 am

littleCJelkton;1350419 wrote:

Running computers is a good thing not to have to worry about
Good one.

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Wed Jan 12, 2011 1:02 am

Tuxr99;1350417 wrote: Good to hear. Luckily, I'll never have to worry about having a running computer, as I fix and sell pc's for a living.

I'm usually installing some version of windows on the ones I sell, but on my own pc's it's linux only. But I do have win7 in virtualbox to test work related stuff.

Btw, I'm using the your avatar (at least very similar) on a different forum. And no, I didn't get it from you, I found it on google when I was looking for some 1800's stuff. Weird, huh?

I have to run Windoze on the machine at home for my wife to use - she's not confident with computers at the best of times and only touches what she knows, but here in the flat it's straight Ubuntu.

Not, quite true, thinking about it, I do have XP running in VirtualBox for my accounting package but I cannot think of the last time I ran it up.

Post by **spot** » Wed Jan 12, 2011 1:08 am

I switched to OpenBSD for a couple of days last week to get ready to write a post here on security. One install to explore, another the next day to make sure I hadn't missed anything and to fix it in my mind. It was educational. I could use it indefinitely but I didn't see a reason to so I put Slackware back. I'm glad I've seen the current version, it's years since I last looked. And I know more about security now than I did.

Tuxr99 · Post by **Tuxr99** » Wed Jan 12, 2011 11:47 am

spot;1350441 wrote: I switched to OpenBSD for a couple of days last week to get ready to write a post here on security. One install to explore, another the next day to make sure I hadn't missed anything and to fix it in my mind. It was educational. I could use it indefinitely but I didn't see a reason to so I put Slackware back. I'm glad I've seen the current version, it's years since I last looked. And I know more about security now than I did.
I tried BSD a while back and didn't really see the point in using it as an everyday OS. It's lacking in TV/media which I rely on.

Post by **spot** » Wed Jan 12, 2011 2:40 pm

Tuxr99;1350483 wrote: I tried BSD a while back and didn't really see the point in using it as an everyday OS. It's lacking in TV/media which I rely on.

There is absolutely no point in using it as an everyday OS. Without any packages added to the base release it's a secure environment for network infrastructure. That's what it's for. It's very good at that. It also has an X server and a window manager (something wildly primitive like cwm) to allow you to use small fonts with many terminal windows showing the command line. It doesn't have an X server and a window manager in order that you can run graphics packages, watch TV or browse the Internet with Firefox. If you add packages to do that then you're no longer in a secure environment.

Tuxr99 · Post by **Tuxr99** » Sat Jan 15, 2011 10:33 pm

I hear ya spot. But there are so-called (supposedly) easy BSD's that cater to the newbies. Why? The only people that will truly understand bsd are geeks. Linux is just starting to make in-roads at this point, but still has a way to go. I still think bsd is best for servers/firewalls. Call me old fashioned.

On a side note, god I'm getting sick of installing win7. (the money is good though) Yeah, I can make it sing and dance for me, I just don't feel comfortable in it anymore. I'm coming up on my 4yr anniv. using linux. No regrets, as it fits me perfectly. Btw, I'm a heavy metal loving, been there, done that, type dude. I may be a geek, but I'm not a nerd.

Post by **spot** » Sat Jan 15, 2011 10:52 pm

Tuxr99;1350922 wrote: there are so-called (supposedly) BSD's that cater to the newbies.I'd be interested to see a website carrying a claim to that effect.

The difference between BSD and Linux isn't in the applications, they share the same application base. It's not in the drivers, they share the same drivers. It's in the permissions granted to the drivers and in the underlying kernel design. Each BSD has its own distinct kernel whereas all linux implementations share the same once started by Mr Torvalds. I quite like the idea that there's a multiplicity of kernel designs feeding off each other instead of a monolithic take-it-or-leave it solution. What appears on the desktop is completely unaware of any BSD/Linux differences.

Tuxr99 · Post by **Tuxr99** » Sat Jan 15, 2011 11:24 pm

spot;1350924 wrote: I'd be interested to see a website carrying a claim to that effect.

I've seen it. But I'm not here to debate what bsd/linux is or isn't. I just think linux is more "desktop ready" than bsd. Duh.

Post by **spot** » Sun Jan 16, 2011 12:46 am

Tuxr99;1350929 wrote: I've seen it. But I'm not here to debate what bsd/linux is or isn't. I just think linux is more "desktop ready" than bsd. Duh.

You do know Mac OSX is a BSD?

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Sun Jan 16, 2011 2:17 pm

Tuxr99;1350301 wrote: No scripts needed. Just put the libflashplayer.so file into /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins. If you use chrome also, no need to reinstall flash for it as it uses the same directory. Flash for opera would go into /usr/lib64/opera/plugins

But yeah, square is working great for me.

Thanks for the pointer, it helped on my daughter's netbook running an old version of KDE.

The standard loader wanted to delete some libraries Synaptic declared "essential" so I copied the file from :-

/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins

into :-

/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins

and it works a treat :-6

Tuxr99 · Post by **Tuxr99** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 7:38 pm

spot;1350934 wrote: You do know Mac OSX is a BSD?

Certain parts of the NeXTSTEP OS have BSD code that was later incorporated into OS X. It is FAR from pure BSD. To say that OS X is a BSD is simplifying things way too much. It is now an extremely watered down BSD now. So much so, that hard-core BSD users would laugh at you for calling it BSD.

Post by **spot** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 9:38 pm

Tuxr99;1351477 wrote: Certain parts of the NeXTSTEP OS have BSD code that was later incorporated into OS X. It is FAR from pure BSD. To say that OS X is a BSD is simplifying things way too much. It is now an extremely watered down BSD now. So much so, that hard-core BSD users would laugh at you for calling it BSD.I would merely note the following from Apple's own description:UNIX users will quickly recognize the full BSD command-line environment in Mac OS*X, with the usual editors (for example, emacs, vim, and nano), utilities (ls, cp, bsdtar, and so on), and shells.

The Mac OS X kernel at the heart of Darwin is based on FreeBSD 5 and Mach 3.0. Apple has extended this time-tested Mach/BSD foundation with a number of powerful new features

TCP/IP networking: Mac OS X TCP/IP implementation is based on the original BSD networking stack, but over the years, Apple has added numerous powerful enhancements

Asynchronous I/O: BSD poll is implemented on top of the flexible and scalable kqueue APIs from FreeBSD 5, handling file system notifications, signals, and much more

File system architecture: Apple’s dynamic implementation of BSD’s virtual file system layer (VFS) allows Mac OS*X to load numerous local and remote file systems on demand

http://images.apple.com/macosx/technolo ... _TB_FF.pdf

I've been using UNIX in the workplace since the mid-eighties and OSX is obviously a directly descended UNIX system. Having deployed BSD implementations in the past I'd also say the developmental route leading to OSX is still quite blatant there under the cover. One can put whatever GUI one wants on top of the core, and (Apple again) "The core of Mac OS X is built on the same ultrareliable UNIX foundation that powers industrial-strength servers, helping to ensure that your computing experience remains free from system crashes and compromised performance". Finally, and equally obviously, the structure of Apple's OSX UNIX is BSD as opposed to Linux.

Tuxr99 · Post by **Tuxr99** » Fri Jan 28, 2011 9:07 pm

spot;1351484 wrote: I would merely note the following from Apple's own description:
If apple told you the earth was flat, would you believe them? You do realize OSX is not open source, right? It is not BSD, it has some BSD code. But I'm not going to argue with someone who has 100 years experience such as yourself. Please don't respond to this post, as I consider this part of the thread, done.