Linux Users - What Desktop Environment Do You Use?

[StromRider]

From what I've read FC5 still requires you to add much of the stuff required to play videos/music. Can you let us know if that is the case from your experience?

For easiest ootb multimedia play, pclinuxos is still the best in my experience. Using automatix in Ubuntu takes much of the effort out of it but even that kind of process isn't required for pclos.

Note to Chris - yes, I know that is the lazy, unimaginative, unthinking, cowardly way to do it. But that is what some people want. I don't have my own test machine and if the wife wants to use our computer I had better be able to turn it over to her, with access to xp, within 5 minutes or I'll never hear the end of it.

 

[Swart]

From what I've read FC5 still requires you to add much of the stuff required to play videos/music. Can you let us know if that is the case from your experience?

Being a 100% OS distro it doesn't contain anything that isn't OS. However, I've got it down to 4 lines of code to fix that problem!

First you need to change the repositories from Redhat's to something halfway decent. Then it's just a matter of 'yum install apt-get'. Then configure Synaptic, then apt-get your your life away!

If you like I'll post my install procedure.

Als, if anyone's interested in installing Novell Open Enterprise Server I think I've got that down pat now! However, it was a case of trial and error (more error than trial). The procedure is quite long. Mainly due to problems with EVMS. It took me a while to work out you really can't use EVMS on the boot partition!

 

[StromRider]

If you like I'll post my install procedure.

I would like very much!!

I am very comfortable/familiar with synaptic (and I can use apt from the cli)

That was my problem in dealing with suse and it's yast and when I saw fc5 used something called yum I said, "Oh no, not again"

Being able to get synaptic going with some decent repositories would be wonderful.

Do you know anything about the problem I read about where the initial release of fc5 doesn't allow for the addition of 3d drivers from ati/nvidia? Not that that's a big issue, we still use xp for gaming and picture work but it's always a nice to have to see what glxgears score I can get

 

[Swart]

I would like very much!!

I am very comfortable/familiar with synaptic (and I can use apt from the cli)

That was my problem in dealing with suse and it's yast and when I saw fc5 used something called yum I said, "Oh no, not again"

Being able to get synaptic going with some decent repositories would be wonderful.

They all operate similarly, it's a matter of preference. The main advantage of synaptic is there is a wider variety of repositories to choose from.

YaST is a sweet tool. Once Novell OS it, other distros will snap it up. Novell are putting their update efforts into Red Carpet - which allows them to control te subscription channels more easily.

Fedora provides two update methods natively: YUM (Yellowdog Update Modifier) and up2date (which also uses YUM repositories). Up2date is available in both graphical and CLI modes. YUM is CLI only. In most cases, the only thing you need to know is:

yum update
yum install <package>

Do you know anything about the problem I read about where the initial release of fc5 doesn't allow for the addition of 3d drivers from ati/nvidia? Not that that's a big issue, we still use xp for gaming and picture work but it's always a nice to have to see what glxgears score I can get

If NVidia would release non-binary kernel modules it wouldn't be a problem. The binaries provided by NVidia spoil the kernel. And, as they aren't OS they aren't provided with the distro.

You can download the drivers here. For more info, see here.

As I've said before, I'm starting to wonder in Fedora is worth the effort. Your at the cutting edge and being used by Red Hat as a beta tester for their commercial distributions. Mahy's the time I've backrev'd a kernel update because of instability. Things get worse with time as well. he initial release is stable, then comes a flurry of updates. I left a workstation for a few weeks and ended up with 116 updates to apply! The distro's I work with are much more stable, however the flexibility of Fedora is great. You don't get that with SuSe or Ubuntu.

 

[BohemianChris]

I tried Core3. All you had to do was put the discs in and select what software you wanted, wait an hour, and be done.

I still don't see that as a reason to cop-out and just use something completely n00b friendly and not learn anything.

Chris

 

[JacobsDream]

I'm trying to install pclinux and after it checks for different components (of which only internet fails which doesn't seem to be a problem), it hangs on the next screeen with the curso at the top left corner (the only thing on the screen).
Any ideas?

 

[StromRider]

I'm trying to install pclinux and after it checks for different components (of which only internet fails which doesn't seem to be a problem), it hangs on the next screeen with the curso at the top left corner (the only thing on the screen).
Any ideas?

Are you installing after it has booted to the desktop from the livecd or is it not getting to that point?

I had a problem because of my ati video card. At the first screen presented from the cd, I pressed F2 and at the command line typed "livecd xdrv=vesa" This allowed me to get past the initial video difficulties to the desktop where I could then install the os.

I am by no means an expert on pclinux, I just play one on tv, or should that be updated to the internet now?

The forum at http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php is a great resource where you can search to see if anyone else has encountered the same thing you are or pose a question. There are a lot of very knowledgeable people there who are more than willing to help out a newcomer.

Good luck and keep trying. I don't think you'll be disappointed with this os.

 

[JacobsDream]

Thanks for the reply and sorry for my late response.

I ended up alternating both distros untill suse installed completely about 3 hrs ago.
I began to mess with it and twice already, I get a blank screen with the curso at the top left corner and nothing responds, not even the cd-rom drive. I have to push the power button and restart.
It is an hp pIII 933 with a 64mb vc and 256mb ram. It ran xp without problems.

I'm willing to research it further but am curios if this is a common event.

 

[BohemianChris]

Sounds like a problem with X. Check your Xorg logs for information.

Chris

 

[Swart]

Install done from VMWare. For some reason it wouldn't recognise virtual SCSI HDDs, so I had to use virtual ATA HDDs.

Installation was smooth. Anaconda is much changed and a great deal of effort has gone into simplifying the install process. What this really does is make you dig deeper to find all the bits you really need. I liked the old way better. I ended up installing without kernel source which meant I had to go back and do it again. Anaconda is still not a patch on YaST.

There's some cool stuff in there. VoIP is now native OOTB, which has encouraged me to start using it. If upgrading, it pays to read the install notes as there are some changes. One trap I found is that the Postgres backend for GNUCash is no longer there so you need to export to XML before upgrading or... bad luck - it's gone!

Java is now fully implemented. WebDAV is much improved with a feature similar to Novell's NetDrive. Disparate authentication (LDAP, Kerberos, NIS) is much improved with an easier interface. Multimedia support is somewhat improved.

The speed of updates is still too high for my liking. It's only 4 days since release and yum downloaded 26 updates. The base kernel is 2.6.15.

I'm still undecided about it, but I'll continue to put it through it's paces. I strongly suspect that I may be migrating to SLES10 when it is released. I also plan on checking out the the latest Kannotix and Ubuntu (when released).

 

[Perseverant]

I'm just getting into Linux and I've tried several distros. Currently running Fedora Core 5 until I get the hang of it then perhaps I'll give Slackware a try. I believe the desktop enviroment is Gnome. But I am such a newb that half the time I don't know what I am running.

 

[Swart]

I'm just getting into Linux and I've tried several distros. Currently running Fedora Core 5 until I get the hang of it then perhaps I'll give Slackware a try. I believe the desktop enviroment is Gnome. But I am such a newb that half the time I don't know what I am running.

A Newbie would probably find some of the friendlier distros easier. For Newbies I recommend Ubuntu, SuSe, Mandriva. Linspire is an excellent commercial distro that is easier to use than Windows.

Fedora is a "middle-road" distro. It has the power and flexibility of Gentoo and Debian without the complexity.

Checkout http://www.distrowatch.com

 

[BohemianChris]

Mandrive is like the Windows ME of Linux.

 

[Swart]

Mandrive is like the Windows ME of Linux.

I've always thought of it as the BeOS of Linux...

 

[JacobsDream]

Is there any app similar to dreamweaver that I could get/try for linux (suse)?
To my disappointment, dreamweaver is only available on windows and mac, I didn't expect that but o well.
I can always use good old notepad but whatelse is out there that you guys know of?
Thanks.

 

[Swart]

Is there any app similar to dreamweaver that I could get/try for linux (suse)?
To my disappointment, dreamweaver is only available on windows and mac, I didn't expect that but o well.
I can always use good old notepad but whatelse is out there that you guys know of?
Thanks.

You won't get any OSS that comes close to Dreamweaver and the commercial software companies are still staying clear of Linux. Part of the reason is that it's very difficult to create a multi-distro app that is pre-compiled. Some apps get around this by writing it for GTK or QT environments (this is what Opera does). The problem is then whether to distribute it statically or dynamically linked. The only other alternative is to write it in Java - which means it will probably be sloooow. The other problem is that Sun Java isn't OS either.

Anyway, freshmeat and sourceforge are good places to look for OSS:

http://freshmeat.net/search/?q=web+editor&section=projects

http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/trove_list.php

 

[Qyöt27]

Is there any app similar to dreamweaver that I could get/try for linux (suse)?
To my disappointment, dreamweaver is only available on windows and mac, I didn't expect that but o well.
I can always use good old notepad but whatelse is out there that you guys know of?
Thanks.

http://screem.org/

While it's not a WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver, it seems to be a better alternative to using Notepad. I haven't used it yet, but that's mainly because I do my HTML coding in Notepad/Wordpad/gedit/whatever (on a side note, the color highlighting in gedit when coding HTML or XML is really handy).

 

[timbrown]

Suse 10 with KDE, although I usually like Gnome better. I went back to KDE because Gnome started to crawl for some reason.

but I'd NEVER go back to windows! Yuck!

Tim

 

[BohemianChris]

Yeah, use nano not some program that puts in unneeded code.

 

[JacobsDream]

A little problem.
I'm trying to install apache on my machine, I unpacked and configured it, now comes the make and install parts and I'm stuck:
Maybe the screenshot will explain better.

I can't run make either on the bash prompt or the > after configuring.