Just started linux!

> any suggestions?

Erm, well what do you want to do with it?

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Original post by RapidStunna
Okay, so this is just more of a praise for linux, and a recommendation for anyone who hasn''t tried linux to try it! for anyone who has used it, any suggestions?

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Make games for it.

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Original post by RapidStunna
for anyone who has used it, any suggestions?

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WINE is dead easy to setup with Gentoo. IIRC WINE will run MSVS6 fine (been a while since I tried ) which can save you quite a bit of trouble depending what you are deving on (although YOUR programs may not work in WINE )

Even better than that... If you are deving games you can write things so they compile in both windows and linux. Just use something like SDL/opengl (NOT directx), keep as must OS specific code in it''s own file as possible, and use define''s to determing which code to compile with.

That can be a bit of work to get figured out, but it''s well worth it as you can reuse the code on any project you do.

For general linux tip... Learn! Learn as much as you can. Especially learn the command line and all the spiffy little programs.
There are countless programs I''ve never had to write because a combination of a couple simple command line apps could do the job perfectly.

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Shoot Pixels, Not People.

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kde is just soo much better.

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Why?

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Original post by noVum

Why?

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KDE is faster on lower end graphics cards. BUT when I hardly noticed a difference when Im using better graphics card w/ 3d acceleration .

Uhm, faster on what? I have the feeling that window redrawing etc. are slower/laggier on Linux/X11 than under Windows.

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Original post by owl

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Original post by RapidStunna
Okay, so this is just more of a praise for linux, and a recommendation for anyone who hasn''t tried linux to try it! for anyone who has used it, any suggestions?

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Make games for it.

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Hey owl I''ve been meaning to ask you: Is your modus operandi still devoted entirely to the penguin or have you had to use windows since?

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Original post by noVum
Uhm, faster on what? I have the feeling that window redrawing etc. are slower/laggier on Linux/X11 than under Windows.

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You''ve been using the wrong window manager for the target platform. Running KDE3 on anything with less than 128MB of RAM is like running Unreal Tournament 2003 on a Voodoo1.
If you have a low-end spec machine, try fluxbox/OpenBox/BlackBox.

- JQ

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Original post by JonnyQuest

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Original post by noVum
Uhm, faster on what? I have the feeling that window redrawing etc. are slower/laggier on Linux/X11 than under Windows.

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You''ve been using the wrong window manager for the target platform. Running KDE3 on anything with less than 128MB of RAM is like running Unreal Tournament 2003 on a Voodoo1.
If you have a low-end spec machine, try fluxbox/OpenBox/BlackBox.

- JQ

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..or a bit like trying to run winXP on a low spec machine .. I have seen a lot more problems with that than with KDE3.

On this same note, Enlightenment is also a good pick for the not-so-high-spec machine. Gnome is also quite good when you want that full DE but KDE is too large for your needs.

Of course... for the really cut down window manager you could always try ratpoison.

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Drakonite

[Insert Witty Signature Here]

Hi,
I have also just installed Linux Red Hat 7.3 (Vahalla), in an effort to learn more about UNIX based systems. I''ve just started learning Shell commands (is BASH command the correct term?), which seem similar to the DOS commands I already know.

A few things are a little bit of a concern though:

1) I found it a little tricky to install, certainly no-one without a heavy computing science background would have a clue how to follow the install process- although on a personal note I found it interesting to finally apply some of the stuff I learned on my O/S course :-)

2) I cant connect to the internet! I connect to the internet via an ethernet card which is connected to a router (in Windows). There doesnt appear to be any easy way to install drivers for the hardware I have. As most of the documentation for Linux is on line its a bit of a joke as I need to be logged into WinXP in order to read anything on Linux.

3) The documentation is terrible. On a program to program basis its of varying standards from barely adequate to simply not there- many programs on my system just have no documentation AT ALL- what are we meant to be, psychic? Especially worrying was the total lack of documentation on the Shell, which I would expect as basic!

4) There is no manual. And this is to anyone out there who has ever said "RTFM" to a Linux newbie.... THERE IS NO F****NG MANUAL!!! GET IT??! ... ahem.. Sorry, but I had to get it off my chest.
The best I can do is read on-line docs at the Red Hat site, whilst logged into Windows....

As long as this state of affairs persists Linux will never be a serious competetor to MS.
However, call me crazy but I still want to find out more. I liked the choice of UI (GNOME or KDE) and thought that both had their merits- its just such a shame no one has been hired to write decent documentation or tutorials!

I''d like to ask some questions now if thats OK-

a) How do you go about installing additional software?

b) Linux on my system is on a separate HD which is divided into a number of partitions: although there seem to be very many conflicting opinions as to what they are FOR. I have:
\root
\var
\tmp
\usr
\programs (suggested by a friend)
and a swap partition. What are they for? Why use separate partitions for each?

c) After learning the basic command line stuff, where do you suggest someone should go from there?

Jon





In OOP no one can hear you scream..

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Original post by JonnyQuest

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Original post by noVum
Uhm, faster on what? I have the feeling that window redrawing etc. are slower/laggier on Linux/X11 than under Windows.

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You've been using the wrong window manager for the target platform. Running KDE3 on anything with less than 128MB of RAM is like running Unreal Tournament 2003 on a Voodoo1.
If you have a low-end spec machine, try fluxbox/OpenBox/BlackBox.

- JQ

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actually it's an XP 2000+ /w 512mb RAM
And yes, I've installed the newest radeon linux drivers from ATi and they are working. (MTTR access and AGP support is working too)

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I cant connect to the internet! I connect to the internet via an ethernet card which is connected to a router (in Windows). There doesnt appear to be any easy way to install drivers for the hardware I have. As most of the documentation for Linux is on line its a bit of a joke as I need to be logged into WinXP in order to read anything on Linux.

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You have to set your gateway in /etc/resolve.conf correclty or enable DHCP on the network adapter.
You would have to do this on MS OSs before XP too (not sure about 2000)

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\root
\var
\tmp
\usr
\programs

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Who told you that you have to use partitions? You can put everything on one partition if you want. And these are slashes not backslashes.
/root = the home directory of the administrator
/var = various stuff, like logs
/tmp = temponary
/usr = stuff every user can access
/programs = ?? this is not standard unix.

[edited by - noVum on November 10, 2003 11:11:42 AM]

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Original post by jonpolly99
Hi,
I have also just installed Linux Red Hat 7.3 (Vahalla)

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I''m going to stop you right there. Do you have any idea how old Red Hat 7 is in terms of OSS age? I believe there is version 9.0 out by now, although admittedly, I''ve never really used Red Hat and don''t keep up with it.
A lot has changed since then, distributions like SuSE and Mandrake make installation pretty painless, the only thing that tends to give a bit of grief is either hardware that is extremely new, and you have to install a driver for, but that''s the case for Windows as well. Another thing is a more recent phenomenon: ATI and nVidia publish their drivers under rather restrictive (non-Open Source) licenses which can cause a bit of upset initially, as you don''t get them bundled with the distro. Installing the nVidia driver is usually trivial, the ATI driver works fine too, as long as you remember to load agpgart.

- JQ

WRT KDE problem.

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Original post by noVum
actually it''s an XP 2000+ /w 512mb RAM
And yes, I''ve installed the newest radeon linux drivers from ATi and they are working. (MTTR access and AGP support is working too)

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Weird. It works fine on my Pentium 4 1700 Laptop (512MB RAM) and my AthlonXP 1800+ (also 512MB RAM).
Of course, it may be that you''ve enabled various graphical effects that I haven''t, so try disabling those.

- JQ

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Original post by jonpolly99
Especially worrying was the total lack of documentation on the Shell, which I would expect as basic!

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RTFM: man bash.


--
Bernie Kirschner
www.bkgames.com

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Original post by jonpolly99
1) I found it a little tricky to install, certainly no-one without a heavy computing science background would have a clue how to follow the install process- although on a personal note I found it interesting to finally apply some of the stuff I learned on my O/S course :-)

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Try a recent distro and you'll be surprised how esay they are (i've heard many friends tell me that they are infact _easier_ to install than windows

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Original post by jonpolly99
2) I cant connect to the internet! I connect to the internet via an ethernet card which is connected to a router (in Windows). There doesnt appear to be any easy way to install drivers for the hardware I have. As most of the documentation for Linux is on line its a bit of a joke as I need to be logged into WinXP in order to read anything on Linux.

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in this case you are right, linux is quite a bitch to get support for hardware which the distro doesn't support but here too: get a new distro
besides that if you have compiled your first kernel (what sounds much more difficult than it is) you wont ever have problems again (except there is still no/little support for your hardware in the kernel, like in my case the nforce 2 chipset)

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Original post by jonpolly99
3) The documentation is terrible. On a program to program basis its of varying standards from barely adequate to simply not there- many programs on my system just have no documentation AT ALL- what are we meant to be, psychic? Especially worrying was the total lack of documentation on the Shell, which I would expect as basic!

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Linux Documentation Project
there you can find howtos for almost everything
you can also try man or info even man/info and you will be presented quite extensive help (very often much to much for a beginner but it's there nonetheless)

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Original post by jonpolly99
4) There is no manual. And this is to anyone out there who has ever said "RTFM" to a Linux newbie.... THERE IS NO F****NG MANUAL!!! GET IT??! ... ahem.. Sorry, but I had to get it off my chest.
The best I can do is read on-line docs at the Red Hat site, whilst logged into Windows....

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same as above: check out ldp, download the howtos (on windows if you still can't access internet on linux), and off you go.
also, just ignoring the fact that i'm repeating myself , buy a distro --> get a manual, you can even buy one with your friends and legally use it where ever you want (unlike windows)

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Original post by jonpolly99
a) How do you go about installing additional software?

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apt-get install mozilla
(it's a debian world after all )
seriously though: most software you download has much documentation with it where you can read howto install it (if it's not in your distro)

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Original post by jonpolly99
b) Linux on my system is on a separate HD which is divided into a number of partitions: although there seem to be very many conflicting opinions as to what they are FOR. I have:
\root
\var
\tmp
\usr
\programs (suggested by a friend)
and a swap partition. What are they for? Why use separate partitions for each?

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/root:
you usually don't need a partition for this unless you use the root account for everyday use (which is _really_ bad)
/programs:
as noVum pointed out: it's not standard unix but ask your friend how he meant that because i bet he uses /programs like on windows (have everything in it's own folder) but thats not how it works on *nix, for good reasons, which i thing almost anyone will tell you.

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Original post by jonpolly99
c) After learning the basic command line stuff, where do you suggest someone should go from there?

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that is one of the questions i hear most often. the answer is simple though:
get used to the programs you need. it's like on windows/dos:

do you want do do shell scripting (.bat on win/dos?
learn bash (or whatever you please)!

do you want to use your applications (office, games, etc.)?
learn how to use th word processor installed!

do you want to start programming.
learn how to use gcc and whatever tools you might need.

it's a bit like the question: how do i eat? --> just do it!
if you need specifics (i.e. ho do i eat an orange everyone will tell you to take off the skin first (ok there could be people who don't just try it and see for yourself ))


hope this gives you some insights (and doesn't drive you away by my insane views) but feel free to ask (specifics) and everyone will help you.

[edited by - LousyPhreak on November 11, 2003 7:17:31 AM]

No manual??? try man [ command-name ] at a prompt -- gives you a nice page of everything you ever needed to know about the command. I man bash, for example, is 85 pages long. If you have info installed you can also try info , which might give you an info page (often easier to read than a man page), or at least will fall back to the man page if no info page exists. I personally don't like info though, because sometimes it seems to give counter-intuitive results. For example on my computer info gcc brings up the gcc-internals page... not really what I'm usually looking for.

Oh, and just info by itself will bring up a table of contents, which then can be searched by typing "/[ text to search for ]"... ditto for man pages, by the way (at least if you're using less as your man pager, which is usually the default).

[edited by - Garfong on November 11, 2003 6:43:27 AM]

Compared with Macintosh (ignoring the Unix bit) and Windows, Unix has always seemed to me like this:

• Easy things are hard to do.


• Advanced things are easy to do.

[edited by - merlin9x9 on November 11, 2003 7:51:54 PM]

First of all, I''d like to thank everyone who chipped in to answer my questions- it was good of you and has helped a lot. Thanks for the link to the Linux doc site especially, I''ll check it out later.

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RTFM: man bash.
-bernatk

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This is exactly what I''m talking about. Is this some kind of recursive joke?

Me- "I cant read the manual cos there doesnt seem to be one available.."
Linux Guy- "RTFM"

Sheer brilliance.

Anyway, I''ll try using the "man [command]" thing in a bit and see if I have that "info" feature available.
The version of Red Hat I have is pinched from my college (free) which is why I was using it. However, from what you''ve said I may fork out for the newer version (9)- Ive seen it on sale for about £20.

About the internet connection- I''m a bit lost, as setting it up in windows was dead easy. You just followed a wizard and thats it- done. In Linux however, I''ve found that I need to download a driver written in C, compile it, and somehow install it (its a D-Link 530TX, using something called a rhine driver?). And thats just for setting up my network card- I''ve no idea how Im supposed to configure the router for Linux, I may have to contact the support people and ask them.

As for the partitions- the manual that came with the distribution (which covers installation only) says that you should use separate partitions for the various folders I mentioned. I have no idea why separate partitions are needed- thats why I asked you guys. The \programs partition was suggested by a friend who said you just put all of your installed programs into it, although he did say that this was not standard practise he had found it useful. Is there something wrong with this?

Is there any way of checking which hardware RH Linux 9 supports before I fork out for a copy?

Jon

In OOP no one can hear you scream..

A router does NOT need a driver, you just have to use a normal ethernet driver for your network card and set up the gateway and DNS server correctly

RTFM of your router please before bashing anything.

[edited by - noVum on November 11, 2003 11:49:37 AM]