How Many Linux Users?

David Mullis · Post by **David Mullis** » 4 Mar 2007 5:23 pm

I've been running Ubuntu Linux for the last few weeks and don't think I'll be going back to XP. Anyone else?

Russ Little · Post by **Russ Little** » 4 Mar 2007 9:13 pm

Ive been running mephis for quite a while,
dont have a problem with it.
still waiting on the final version of
pc linux to come out
Russ

Lou[NE] · Post by **Lou[NE]** » 5 Mar 2007 3:57 am

Been wanting to experiment with Linux but haven't had sufficient inclination yet. Does anyone run Mandriva Linux (formerly Mandrake)?

Lou

Cal Sharp · Post by **Cal Sharp** » 5 Mar 2007 5:29 am

I've tried several Linux distros, and currently have Kubuntu and WinXP dual booting on a fairly modern homemade computer. The problem with Linux is that Flash 9 so far seems to be problematic. The only reason I use Windows at all anymore is to work with Publisher files, as there isn't any Linux app I've found that will open them. Linux rocks for me - safe, secure, solid, virus-free, no malware. There are comparable apps for all the popular Windows apps, and it's all free.

Linux takes a little tweaking to set up properly, so it's not the best OS for the average non-geeky computer user.

I've also installed several distros on an old G3 iMac, but none of them run right.

There's lots of online info re Linux, one being at www.polishlinux.org

David Mullis · Post by **David Mullis** » 5 Mar 2007 5:45 am

Hey Cal, have you tried Cross Office? It allows you to run MS apps in linux. Wine is supposed to do the same thing, but i never got it to work. I ran Cross Office for a day or two so I could get to my .pst files in Outlook. Looks like I'll have to put it back on here for Publisher though. I've got a bunch of .pub files myself.

Cal Sharp · Post by **Cal Sharp** » 5 Mar 2007 5:57 am

Dave, I'll look into CrossOffice. Haven't tried Wine yet. What I have been doing with the Pub files is uploading them to a site that converts them to PDFs, but you can't edit them beforehand, so it's not really practical.

Cal Sharp · Post by **Cal Sharp** » 5 Mar 2007 6:04 am

It's CrossOver Linux, at http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxoffice/
The downside is it's not free.

Unless it can be found on a P2P site.

David Mullis · Post by **David Mullis** » 5 Mar 2007 6:34 am

yeh, that's the one

Cal Sharp · Post by **Cal Sharp** » 5 Mar 2007 4:40 pm

I'm back on my Linux box now, and am happy to report that the Linux version of Firefox plays Flash 9 (like on youtube) fine. Konqueror (a Linux explorer/finder/browser), however, is still stuck at Flash 7.

BTW, that free Publisher to PDF converter is at http://convert.neevia.com/

C#

David Mullis · Post by **David Mullis** » 5 Mar 2007 5:41 pm

Cool, thanks man! I just got xgl going on mine. I never had aproblem with flash, but wmv is another story.....

Cal Sharp · Post by **Cal Sharp** » 5 Mar 2007 5:58 pm

Try the VLC player, Dave. It plays wmv and a lot of other formats. You might be able to install it from the package manager, or whatever it's called, in Ubuntu.
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

David Mullis · Post by **David Mullis** » 5 Mar 2007 7:05 pm

Thanks for the suggestion Cal. I am using VLC, I guess I should have clarified that the only place I'm having trouble with micro$haft files is in firefox. If I download the media, it works fine. VLC does a fine job outside the browser tho. I also spoke too soon on XGL, it works for a while, but ain't real stable on my machine. Just got my free copy of Vi$ta today, beta tested for M$ this summer, trying to resist the tempation LOL

Take Care
David

David Mullis · Post by **David Mullis** » 5 Mar 2007 7:10 pm

BTW Lou, I have used Mandriva before, and would probably still be using but it didn't work with all of my laptops hardware. I have it installed in a dual boot with Windows Media Center on the box that I use for a home theater system. I'm trying to figure out how to get Freevo working on Mandriva, then I can hopefully get rid of all flavors of Windows on all my PC's.

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 5 Mar 2007 7:34 pm

I just won a two disk set with Ubuntu 2007 Linux and Linspire XP on an eBay auction. I plan to install them on a spare computer and play with them.

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 6 Mar 2007 12:30 pm

I installed ubuntu on this old PC last night. I was going to throw it away because I couldn't find my Windows CD after the old hard disk failed. But b0b suggested ubuntu and it was easy to use the new Windows PC to download ubuntu and make a CD that installed ubuntu on the old PC.

It sure is easier than the last time I put Linux on a PC, around 1995. That lasted only about a month.

Will Holtz · Post by **Will Holtz** » 6 Mar 2007 1:49 pm

I currently have Ubuntu on a few machines. I still have WinXP for my recording setup. I've been using linux on and off since 1994 when I first tried my hand with Slackware. Its finally getting pretty easy to setup and try out, especially with the live CDs that require no installation.

David Mullis · Post by **David Mullis** » 6 Mar 2007 4:00 pm

Yeah I too have tried Linux many times since 1997 and up until now, I never found a distribution that would do everything I wanted without having to call in a linux guru. I am getting more comfortable with the command line though. Takes me back to the old DOS days when I did DOS,and Windows 2.x - 3.11 tech support @ M$. Now if I can only get the 3D stuff happening on my laptop. I found out today I can do that without even running Beryl. So I'm going to take that off and try setting it up through 3D desktop. What's that other desktop XCFS or something? Any of y'all using that?

Take Care
David

David Mullis · Post by **David Mullis** » 6 Mar 2007 4:01 pm

I'm also looking for a Linux replacement for Windows Media Center. Any of y'all familiar with Myth TV of Freevo?

Jon Bergh · Post by **Jon Bergh** » 13 Mar 2007 4:31 am

Cal Sharp wrote:It's CrossOver Linux, at http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxoffice/

I just installed the CrossOver for Macintosh product and it runs Office apps (installed from the Office CD, so yes, Publisher is there... haven't tried it yet). The nice thing is Outlook seems to behave nicely with my corporate Exchange server, which is a big win,

David Mullis wrote:I'm also looking for a Linux replacement for Windows Media Center. Any of y'all familiar with Myth TV of Freevo?

Right here man! I've got an older box, Ubuntu 6.10, mythtv .20, P4 3GHz, nvidia 6200, several drives in an LVM (half-terabyte of space), the pchdtv-5500 tuner and I am happily pulling over-the-air HD and watching it via DVI->HDMI on a flat LCD TV! Just got it stable about a week ago. I have a second card (kworld 110) but it is not installed yet.

There are some minor issues to tweak (audio level is low, sometimes the image doesn't fill the screen, need to configure a remote, etc.

But basically it works and is very cool. I can schedule using the mythweb plug-in from a different home computer. The info the "tv guide" gets is detailed (and pretty). We never had Tivo so the fact that we can start watching a show when it is only, say, 20 minutes in and auto-skip commercials is quite fun.

I think myth is a more mature product than freevo. There are some .iso distros offering "live cd" myth functionality (knoppmyth, mythdora) but without the tuner you don't get to see much!

David Mullis · Post by **David Mullis** » 13 Mar 2007 4:45 am

Cool, I'll definitely have to give myth a try once I can get linux to play nice with my TV. I guess I'm gonna have to figure out the refresh rates to get that going.

I tried the Enlightenment desktop last night. Very Mac-ish but cool. I'll have to try a more stable version through. This one kept crashing.

Take Care
David

Jon Bergh · Post by **Jon Bergh** » 17 Mar 2007 5:47 am

David Mullis wrote:Cool, I'll definitely have to give myth a try once I can get linux to play nice with my TV. I guess I'm gonna have to figure out the refresh rates to get that going.

Man, the PC-to-TV thing was a huge headache. When you get closer give me a shout and we can take this via email and maybe i can save you some time. If you can easily boot that machine into Windows you may have some success with a program called PowerStrip (http://www.entechtaiwan.net/util/ps.shtm) which theoretically helps find all those crazy sync/refresh/scan/overscan numbers.

David Mullis wrote:I tried the Enlightenment desktop last night. Very Mac-ish but cool. I'll have to try a more stable version through. This one kept crashing.

You know, I messed around with a lot of those and I think I like the default Ubuntu/GNOME the best. With mythtv you never see the desktop so a full GUI isn't loaded, so maybe that's why I'm not really bothered by it. (On a related note the Vista UI is, at first, terribly distracting).

When you say "stable version" do you mean your Ubuntu install or your Enlightenment WM?

David Mullis · Post by **David Mullis** » 17 Mar 2007 7:46 am

Howdy Jon, I meant a stable version of Enlightenment. Ubuntu it pretty solid. I also like the Gnome interface best so far. The PC that will have MythTV set up on it is currently running Windows Media Center, so getting into Wine-doze will not be a problem.When I get ready to mess with Myth again, I'll give that util a try!

Take Care
David

Craig Stenseth · Post by **Craig Stenseth** » 19 Mar 2007 4:32 pm

Anyone else messed with 64 Studio? I installed it, and actually had pretty good luck getting some of its applications (mostly multimedia-oriented) running.
I like the price tag.

http://64studio.com/wiki

Mike Ester · Post by **Mike Ester** » 23 May 2007 5:17 am

Gee, I know I'm late to the party, but I use Linux all the time. I tend to lean toward Debian-based distros, but I have used Slackware, Mandrake (pre-Mandriva), Red Hat, DSL, Feather, Slax, and probably others I have forgotten about.

I keep a USB stick with Puppy Linux 2.16 on it, for emergencies.

I'm not out to evangelize the world, but I just prefer the freedom of open-source software solutions. I find most EULAs onerous and consumer-unfriendly.

Randal Smith · Post by **Randal Smith** » 12 Jun 2007 7:34 pm

I've been running Linux for about 5 years now. My first distro was Red Hat 7.2. I worked IT with a Telecommunications company for about a year. We ran Linux (mostly Mandrake) with Asterisk (a software PBX) as a VoIP solution. I miss it.

At home, I'm running Xandros, which is mostly stable, but slow. I'll be switching shortly since they've signed an agreement with Microsoft. I don't mind Bill Gates, but Steve Ballmer is the Anti-Christ.

I have another testbed machine on which I've tried: Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, Mepis, Mandriva, DamnSmall, Puppy, Suse, Fedora Core 6 & 7, Linux Mint, ZenWalk, Freespire 1.0, Slax, and Yoper. All of these work, but none had everything I wanted. PCLinuxOS came the closest, but I really like Slax and Puppy.

Currently, I'm looking at two very promising ones. Granular is built on PCLinuxOS and runs very well from the live CD. My favorite at the moment is Elive. It runs the Enlightenment window manager and doesn't look or act like any other distro. Since it's not as bloated as KDE or Gnome, it's very fast, especially on an older machine.

Bottom line, any distro will work, given enough time and tweaking. Some need more than others. Ubuntu is the current darling, replacing Mandriva. For more information about Linux than you want or need, check out www.distrowatch.com and be prepared for info overload.