A little Linux advocacy

[Kier]

Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much to do
with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been done before,
numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good for a few posts.

So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and why?
What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves and what
do they hate?

Of late, I've been using VLC and totem-xine much more than mplayer or
kaffeine. VLC is great, and it has a nice skin mode, and it plays just
about everything. And totem is plain, and simple.

Cinelerra. It's a bugger to learn at first, and rather ugly, but very
powerful. I use LiVES, the Linux Video Editing System, more often at the
moment. Since it no longer has rpms for SUSe, I had to compile, but it was
very easy to do. Nice program, not hard to use, and fairly versatile for a
beginner.

Scrot. Terrrific little commandline screenshot program. Ssh in and
screenshot your desktop from another machine, cool :-)

Exhaile. Saw it mentioned here, by Roy I think (ta, Roy). installed it.
Not quite up to amarok standards yet, but damn close, and great for the
Gnome-lovers among us. Has one or two nicer features, like a Clear
Playlist button, rather than having to go through a menu to clear a
playlist.

I'm a Kate fan. But lately I've been using the trusty gedit instead (just
wish it had a hard word-wrap function). Tabbed editors are great.

And of course evolution. So good I don't even have thunderbird installed
on this machine.

Lastly, a little app called EasyTag, great for creating playlists for your
music.

[Tim Fairchild]

Post by Kier
Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much to do
with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been done before,
numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good for a few posts.
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and why?
What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves and what
do they hate?

Mostly using the same old apps here, although there has been a big
conversion to amarok in the house. The kids have little ipod things and
amarok works well with that - and without some of the baggage of the apple
software. I like the way it all works, and the kids seem happy as well.

I've been using kate as well, although I've also been using vi more these
days on the console rather than jed.

Was using linDVD for a while, but moved to back to totem. It's just more
reliable. linDVD just doesn't work, really, but it came with the OS so I
thought I'd give it a go.

I also gave nvu a go, but soon went back to bluefish. nvu was okay most of
the time, but it made a bit of a mess when I moved to css. With bluefish I
can actually get the pages to validate and still not have to create ever
tag from scratch.

ssh. Okay, so I've actually moved away from telnet on the local net, except
for the ancient printer server. It's easier and better, but there wasn't a
real security issue to really push the change before now. Even now it only
happened as the later OS's just don't come with a telnet server included :)

The stalwarts remain. Would not be without knode, kmail and firefox.
Occasionally use pan for binaries as it seems a bit better there. Pretty
much don't use Lyx any more and use OOo or something else. The smaller OOo2
file sizes are better. Sure, there is plenty of disk space, but huge file
sizes for small docs still annoy me.

I use more gui tools. No real need to even edit smb.conf and nfs shares much
any more. I still do, but often use a gui tool now. Just about everything
seems to have a gui way now... But the CLI way still beats all, esp when
I'm doing it on a remote machine...

[Kier]

Post by Tim Fairchild

Post by Kier
Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much to do
with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been done before,
numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good for a few posts.
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and why?
What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves and what
do they hate?

Mostly using the same old apps here, although there has been a big
conversion to amarok in the house. The kids have little ipod things and
amarok works well with that - and without some of the baggage of the apple
software. I like the way it all works, and the kids seem happy as well.

I've considered getting an iPod of some sort - my brother's got a video
pod, very nice, but I don't really use that kind of thing enough to
justify the price. I've been tempted to get one of those Archos video
handhelds, I think they Linux compatible (anyone know for certain?) though
they're also fairly pricey.

Post by Tim Fairchild
I've been using kate as well, although I've also been using vi more these
days on the console rather than jed.

I used to be heavily into Xemacs, but I don't seem to use it much these
days. I try to start it once in a while, though, just to keep the knack of
its basic operation, as it's useful, and I don't like vi/vim.

Post by Tim Fairchild
Was using linDVD for a while, but moved to back to totem. It's just more
reliable. linDVD just doesn't work, really, but it came with the OS so I
thought I'd give it a go.

Is that the version Mandriva shipped?

Post by Tim Fairchild
I also gave nvu a go, but soon went back to bluefish. nvu was okay most
of the time, but it made a bit of a mess when I moved to css. With
bluefish I can actually get the pages to validate and still not have to
create ever tag from scratch.
ssh. Okay, so I've actually moved away from telnet on the local net,

Wise move :-) Where would we be without ssh?

Post by Tim Fairchild
except for the ancient printer server. It's easier and better, but there
wasn't a real security issue to really push the change before now. Even
now it only happened as the later OS's just don't come with a telnet
server included :)
The stalwarts remain. Would not be without knode, kmail and firefox.

Love firefox. Just been playing with the latest Knoppix, and that has
iceweasel (daft name in some ways, but memorable!). I used to used kmail
at one time, but went over to thunderbird some time back for KDE.

Post by Tim Fairchild
Occasionally use pan for binaries as it seems a bit better there. Pretty
much don't use Lyx any more and use OOo or something else. The smaller
OOo2 file sizes are better. Sure, there is plenty of disk space, but
huge file sizes for small docs still annoy me.

Me too.

Post by Tim Fairchild
I use more gui tools. No real need to even edit smb.conf and nfs shares
much any more. I still do, but often use a gui tool now. Just about
everything seems to have a gui way now... But the CLI way still beats
all, esp when I'm doing it on a remote machine...

When something goes tit's up, as it can do whatever OS you use, the CLI
can come to the rescue, so learning even just the basics is never wasted.

[Oliver Wong]

Post by Kier
I've considered getting an iPod of some sort - my brother's got a video
pod, very nice, but I don't really use that kind of thing enough to
justify the price. I've been tempted to get one of those Archos video
handhelds, I think they Linux compatible (anyone know for certain?) though
they're also fairly pricey.

http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/cowon/d2/ claims to "Support Linux v2.2
or higher". However, it only seems to come in 2GB and 4GB models.
Personally, I've been looking at
http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/cowon/a2/ which goes up to 60GB, but
they don't claim Linux support. However, it does show up as a "Universal
Mass Storage" (i.e. what USB keys show up as), so I don't see why it
wouldn't work under Windows.

- Oliver

[Kier]

Post by Oliver Wong

Post by Kier
I've considered getting an iPod of some sort - my brother's got a video
pod, very nice, but I don't really use that kind of thing enough to
justify the price. I've been tempted to get one of those Archos video
handhelds, I think they Linux compatible (anyone know for certain?) though
they're also fairly pricey.

http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/cowon/d2/ claims to "Support Linux v2.2
or higher". However, it only seems to come in 2GB and 4GB models.
Personally, I've been looking at
http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/cowon/a2/ which goes up to 60GB, but
they don't claim Linux support. However, it does show up as a "Universal
Mass Storage" (i.e. what USB keys show up as), so I don't see why it
wouldn't work under Windows.

If it works as a mass storage device it should work for Linux, too.

[High Plains Thumper]

Post by Kier
Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much
to do with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been
done before, numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good
for a few posts.
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up,
and why? What new software have they taken up using? What are
their faves and what do they hate?

I find OpenOffice more than adequate for my needs.

Q-Cad has some nice features, I opened some really large AutoCad DXF
maps in open Q-Cad.

K3b burns data DVD's, it rocks. I used it to backup Windows XP
partition whilst in Linux.

Whilst in Linux I have grown to enjoy knode for browsing the Usenet.
It has more features than XNews on my laptop, very flexible.

Firefox is my regular browser.

[Kier]

Post by High Plains Thumper

Post by Kier
Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much
to do with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been
done before, numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good
for a few posts.
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up,
and why? What new software have they taken up using? What are
their faves and what do they hate?

I find OpenOffice more than adequate for my needs.

I like OO, but lately I've not used it much.

Post by High Plains Thumper
Q-Cad has some nice features, I opened some really large AutoCad DXF
maps in open Q-Cad.
K3b burns data DVD's, it rocks. I used it to backup Windows XP
partition whilst in Linux.
Whilst in Linux I have grown to enjoy knode for browsing the Usenet.
It has more features than XNews on my laptop, very flexible.

I started out using knode, but once I saw pan, there was no going back for
me.

[cc]

Post by Kier
Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much to do
with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been done before,
numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good for a few posts.
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and why?
What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves and what
do they hate?
Of late, I've been using VLC and totem-xine much more than mplayer or
kaffeine. VLC is great, and it has a nice skin mode, and it plays just
about everything. And totem is plain, and simple.
Cinelerra. It's a bugger to learn at first, and rather ugly, but very
powerful. I use LiVES, the Linux Video Editing System, more often at the
moment. Since it no longer has rpms for SUSe, I had to compile, but it was
very easy to do. Nice program, not hard to use, and fairly versatile for a
beginner.
Scrot. Terrrific little commandline screenshot program. Ssh in and
screenshot your desktop from another machine, cool :-)
Exhaile. Saw it mentioned here, by Roy I think (ta, Roy). installed it.
Not quite up to amarok standards yet, but damn close, and great for the
Gnome-lovers among us. Has one or two nicer features, like a Clear
Playlist button, rather than having to go through a menu to clear a
playlist.
I'm a Kate fan. But lately I've been using the trusty gedit instead (just
wish it had a hard word-wrap function). Tabbed editors are great.
And of course evolution. So good I don't even have thunderbird installed
on this machine.
Lastly, a little app called EasyTag, great for creating playlists for your
music.

Since most of my Linux use is work related, I have to say I'm pleased
Ethereal has a Linux version. I use it for debugging some code. I know
there's always be tcpdump, but what can I say, I like the layout and
presentation of information in Ethereal. The KDE C++ IDE isn't as bad
as some make it out to be around here. It's no Visual Studio, but it
can mostly handle what I need, and has never cause me a headache. Dorky
apps I know, but what can you do.

[Kier]

Post by cc
Since most of my Linux use is work related, I have to say I'm pleased
Ethereal has a Linux version. I use it for debugging some code. I know
there's always be tcpdump, but what can I say, I like the layout and
presentation of information in Ethereal. The KDE C++ IDE isn't as bad
as some make it out to be around here. It's no Visual Studio, but it
can mostly handle what I need, and has never cause me a headache. Dorky
apps I know, but what can you do.

One thing I've never been, and that's a developer :-) Must be nice to have
the skill, but I fear it'd take me more than what remains of my life to
grasp it. Though I do keep meaning to learn a little simple bash scripting.

[7]

Post by cc

Post by Kier
Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much to do
with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been done before,
numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good for a few posts.
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and why?
What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves and what
do they hate?
Of late, I've been using VLC and totem-xine much more than mplayer or
kaffeine. VLC is great, and it has a nice skin mode, and it plays just
about everything. And totem is plain, and simple.
Cinelerra. It's a bugger to learn at first, and rather ugly, but very
powerful. I use LiVES, the Linux Video Editing System, more often at the
moment. Since it no longer has rpms for SUSe, I had to compile, but it
was very easy to do. Nice program, not hard to use, and fairly versatile
for a beginner.
Scrot. Terrrific little commandline screenshot program. Ssh in and
screenshot your desktop from another machine, cool :-)
Exhaile. Saw it mentioned here, by Roy I think (ta, Roy). installed it.
Not quite up to amarok standards yet, but damn close, and great for the
Gnome-lovers among us. Has one or two nicer features, like a Clear
Playlist button, rather than having to go through a menu to clear a
playlist.
I'm a Kate fan. But lately I've been using the trusty gedit instead (just
wish it had a hard word-wrap function). Tabbed editors are great.
And of course evolution. So good I don't even have thunderbird installed
on this machine.
Lastly, a little app called EasyTag, great for creating playlists for
your music.

Since most of my Linux use is work related, I have to say I'm pleased
Ethereal has a Linux version. I use it for debugging some code. I know
there's always be tcpdump, but what can I say, I like the layout and
presentation of information in Ethereal. The KDE C++ IDE isn't as bad
as some make it out to be around here. It's no Visual Studio, but it
can mostly handle what I need, and has never cause me a headache. Dorky
apps I know, but what can you do.

I'm just in the process of designing Ethernet circuits and Ethereal
(or Wire Shark as its now known) is gonna be heavily used.
I can't believe the power and freedoms of open source
when it comes to free developer tools.
Knoppix, Mepis, DSL and Ubuntu all make my day tick smoothly.
Recent purchases of compiler and downloading of free versions
of pay tools for Linux has made my engineering environment
slick and highly productive. There is almost nothing that
goes wrong without an open source tool picking up the problems
(hex editor, gambas parser of log data, diff tool, dd command,
etc..)
All I can say well done to open source guys.
What they have created is a truly marvel of engineering.

[Edwards]

Post by Kier
So, what apps do posters here treasure?

LaTeX, perl, matlab, xfig. Sure, they each have their own quirky
little personalities, but they play really well together as a group.
(Editing I do with xemacs, but no one cares about editors any more.
I hope...)

Post by Kier
What are their faves and what do they hate?

"With malice toward none" as the saying goes. :) I mean, take
openoffice for example; okay, I would never use that for a (serious)
document of my own, and I have no more affection for it than MS Word
or any other word processor ("pull-down menus? dialogue boxes? do it
to julia! do it to julia!")... But, that being said, it is _really_
nice when someone sends me an MS Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file to be
able to open it up, edit a little bit if they've asked me to, and send
it back to them.

Linux means not having to hate anybody/anything. :)

[Kier]

Post by Edwards

Post by Kier
So, what apps do posters here treasure?

LaTeX, perl, matlab, xfig. Sure, they each have their own quirky
little personalities, but they play really well together as a group.
(Editing I do with xemacs, but no one cares about editors any more.
I hope...)

Post by Kier
What are their faves and what do they hate?

"With malice toward none" as the saying goes. :) I mean, take
openoffice for example; okay, I would never use that for a (serious)
document of my own, and I have no more affection for it than MS Word
or any other word processor ("pull-down menus? dialogue boxes? do it
to julia! do it to julia!")...

1984 fan? Ever see the BBc's version with Peter Cushing? I had that
prvilege, once, and I wish they'd get a move on and finally release the
long-promised DVD.

Post by Edwards
But, that being said, it is _really_
nice when someone sends me an MS Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file to be
able to open it up, edit a little bit if they've asked me to, and send
it back to them.
Linux means not having to hate anybody/anything. :)

That's a nice attitude.

I suppose when you think about it, we Linuxers have so much choice in
apps, we never need to learn to hate one, since we're seldom forced to use
it if we don't like it - there are nearly always suitable alternatives.

[Edwards]

Post by Kier

Post by Edwards

What are their [linux users, more or less] faves and what do they hate?

"With malice toward none" as the saying goes. :) I mean, take
openoffice for example; okay, I would never use that for a (serious)
document of my own, and I have no more affection for it than MS Word
or any other word processor ("pull-down menus? dialogue boxes? do it
to julia! do it to julia!")...

1984 fan? Ever see the BBc's version with Peter Cushing? I had that
prvilege, once, and I wish they'd get a move on and finally release the
long-promised DVD.

Well, being honest here I read it only once, and that in high school
some decades ago (skimmed it again more recently at
online-literature.com, don't even remember why now); I just figured it
would be a common enough reference everyone'd get it. :) (Also I was
hoping the implication would come across that this (distaste for the
GUI-style word processor) was just a personal quirk.) As for movies,
I have seen I think only one version, and I am pretty sure it wasn't
with Cushing. (I'm more a "Brazil" fan to be honest.)

[Kier]

Post by Edwards
Well, being honest here I read it only once, and that in high school
some decades ago (skimmed it again more recently at
online-literature.com, don't even remember why now); I just figured it
would be a common enough reference everyone'd get it. :) (Also I was
hoping the implication would come across that this (distaste for the
GUI-style word processor) was just a personal quirk.) As for movies,
I have seen I think only one version, and I am pretty sure it wasn't
with Cushing. (I'm more a "Brazil" fan to be honest.)

Cool film, that.

[DFS]

Post by Edwards
Linux means not having to hate anybody/anything. :)

They missed that memo here on cola, where hatred of MS is the order of the
day.

Besides, Linux actually means not having to pay anybody/anything.

[Peter Köhlmann]

Post by DFS

Post by Edwards
Linux means not having to hate anybody/anything. :)

They missed that memo here on cola, where hatred of MS is the order of the
day.

Despising MS is not the same as "hatred"

Post by DFS
Besides, Linux actually means not having to pay anybody/anything.

Strange then that I have paid more for linux software the last years than
for windows software. Seems not everything linux means "gratis"

[Linonut]

Post by DFS

Post by Edwards
Linux means not having to hate anybody/anything. :)

They missed that memo here on cola, where hatred of MS is the order of the
day.
Besides, Linux actually means not having to pay anybody/anything.

Exactly. You don't /have/ to pay.

[The Ghost In The Machine]

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Linonut
<***@bone.com>
wrote
on Wed, 24 Jan 2007 13:43:10 -0600

Post by Linonut

Post by DFS

Post by Edwards
Linux means not having to hate anybody/anything. :)

They missed that memo here on cola, where hatred of MS is the order of the
day.
Besides, Linux actually means not having to pay anybody/anything.

Exactly. You don't /have/ to pay.

Actually, one does have to pay -- just not nearly as much.
If one pays $30/month for a 1.5 Mib DSL line, for example,
a .ISO download of 700 MiB will set one back maybe 2/10ths
of a cent, if that.

[Oliver Wong]

[on the topic of getting Linux for free]

Post by The Ghost In The Machine
Actually, one does have to pay -- just not nearly as much.
If one pays $30/month for a 1.5 Mib DSL line, for example,
a .ISO download of 700 MiB will set one back maybe 2/10ths
of a cent, if that.

It's a quantized cost, though. If you download only that ISO, and
otherwise don't use your internet, you end up paying $30, and not 2/10ths of
a cent for acquiring Linux.

Apparently, you can fill in an online form to get free Ubuntu physical
media (they pay for shipping and everything). If you don't have (or are
unwilling to pay for) Internet access, you could perhaps go to a public
library to access the online form.

- Oliver

[The Ghost In The Machine]

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Oliver Wong
<***@castortech.com>
wrote
on Wed, 24 Jan 2007 17:53:56 -0500

Post by Oliver Wong
[on the topic of getting Linux for free]

Post by The Ghost In The Machine
Actually, one does have to pay -- just not nearly as much.
If one pays $30/month for a 1.5 Mib DSL line, for example,
a .ISO download of 700 MiB will set one back maybe 2/10ths
of a cent, if that.

It's a quantized cost, though. If you download only that ISO, and
otherwise don't use your internet, you end up paying $30, and not 2/10ths of
a cent for acquiring Linux.

A rare but possible happenstance. Many computer users
nowadays will have some form of online access.

Still cheaper than Vista, which could be likened to 6-9
months of access (depending on edition).

Post by Oliver Wong
Apparently, you can fill in an online form to get free Ubuntu physical
media (they pay for shipping and everything). If you don't have (or are
unwilling to pay for) Internet access, you could perhaps go to a public
library to access the online form.

Now one drags public taxation into the mix. But then it's
already in the mix; DARPA was, after all, the original
developer of what is now the Internet.

So take "free" with a small grain of salt, and there are
issues regarding the Linux learning curve (it's now only
a little steeper than Windows, and at this point it might
actually be a wash, if one doesn't have preconceptions),
but from the looks of it Linux might do fairly well in the
non-desktop market (and already is) if there's not undue
government or other interference.

Of course the desktop market already has been interfered with. ;-)

Post by Oliver Wong
- Oliver

[Linonut]

Post by The Ghost In The Machine
Now one drags public taxation into the mix. But then it's
already in the mix; DARPA was, after all, the original
developer of what is now the Internet.
So take "free" with a small grain of salt, and there are
issues regarding the Linux learning curve (it's now only
a little steeper than Windows, and at this point it might
actually be a wash, if one doesn't have preconceptions),
but from the looks of it Linux might do fairly well in the
non-desktop market (and already is) if there's not undue
government or other interference.
Of course the desktop market already has been interfered with. ;-)

Linux, the Free Lunch.

[The Ghost In The Machine]

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Linonut
<***@bone.com>
wrote
on Thu, 25 Jan 2007 06:09:45 -0600

Post by Linonut

Post by The Ghost In The Machine
Now one drags public taxation into the mix. But then it's
already in the mix; DARPA was, after all, the original
developer of what is now the Internet.
So take "free" with a small grain of salt, and there are
issues regarding the Linux learning curve (it's now only
a little steeper than Windows, and at this point it might
actually be a wash, if one doesn't have preconceptions),
but from the looks of it Linux might do fairly well in the
non-desktop market (and already is) if there's not undue
government or other interference.
Of course the desktop market already has been interfered with. ;-)

Linux, the Free Lunch.

Like I said, cum grano salis. However, as far as meals go
(if one may continue the analogy) it's far healthier than
McWindows. :-)

[Linonut]

Post by The Ghost In The Machine

Post by Linonut
Linux, the Free Lunch.

Like I said, cum grano salis. However, as far as meals go
(if one may continue the analogy) it's far healthier than
McWindows. :-)

Saw a cartoon in the New Yorker: A fast-food place called "The
Donald's". The server is saying, "Here's your order, you fat loser!"

[The Ghost In The Machine]

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Linonut
<***@bone.com>
wrote
on Fri, 26 Jan 2007 07:44:52 -0600

Post by Linonut

Post by The Ghost In The Machine

Post by Linonut
Linux, the Free Lunch.

Like I said, cum grano salis. However, as far as meals go
(if one may continue the analogy) it's far healthier than
McWindows. :-)

Saw a cartoon in the New Yorker: A fast-food place called "The
Donald's". The server is saying, "Here's your order, you fat loser!"

Not exactly the best tack to take for customer service. :-) (Sort of
like DRM is for Microsoft.)

[mlw]

Post by Kier
Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much to do
with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been done before,
numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good for a few posts.
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and why?
What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves and what
do they hate?

Great post!!

Apps I can't live without:
OpenOffice.org, of course
Firefox, of course
Thunderbird
knode
PostgreSQL
Apache
PHP
Xine - Movie player
MPlayer - Movie player
XMMS - MP3/OGG player
TVTime - TV Card interface
gcc+dev tools
gaim - Yaho/AIM/etc chat
find - standard utility
grep - ditto
kcalc - calculator
vnc - allows remote screen
x2x - uses X protocol to control multiple computers with one kbd/mouse
x2vnc - simmilar to above but works with non X computers.
X - X display server, allows remote applications
digicam - digital camera application
gimp - graphical program
cups - perfect for my printers
sane - Scanner interface
hplip - Hewlett Packard printing tools
Wine - Windows API interface, every now and then, I need it to run BCC.

I think that's about it. At least the ones I deal with almost daily.

[Kier]

Post by mlw

Post by Kier
Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much to do
with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been done before,
numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good for a few posts.
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and why?
What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves and what
do they hate?

Great post!!

Thanks. I try.

Post by mlw
OpenOffice.org, of course
Firefox, of course
Thunderbird
knode
PostgreSQL
Apache
PHP
Xine - Movie player

Xine was my first favourite, and the first one I really got working well
back when I first started using Linux. Stillhave a soft spot for it.

Post by mlw
MPlayer - Movie player

Another good one, but of late it's become a bit annoying in some ways. But
when it's good, it's very good.

Post by mlw
XMMS - MP3/OGG player

Beep is nice, too, and also zinf is one I sometimes like to have installed.

Post by mlw
TVTime - TV Card interface
gcc+dev tools
gaim - Yaho/AIM/etc chat
find - standard utility
grep - ditto
kcalc - calculator
vnc - allows remote screen
x2x - uses X protocol to control multiple computers with one kbd/mouse
x2vnc - simmilar to above but works with non X computers.
X - X display server, allows remote applications
digicam - digital camera application
gimp - graphical program
cups - perfect for my printers
sane - Scanner interface

Must get my scanner going again. Haven't used it for ages

Post by mlw
hplip - Hewlett Packard printing tools
Wine - Windows API interface, every now and then, I need it to run BCC.
I think that's about it. At least the ones I deal with almost daily.

Scp. CAn you call that an app? It's more of a tool or a function, but that
gets a lot of use at times. And I forgot about K3b. I do a lot of ISO
burning (Live CDs).

[t***@tux.glaci.remove-this.com]

Post by Kier
Another good one, but of late it's become a bit annoying in some ways. But
when it's good, it's very good.

Yes, Its a workhorse, if a bit unglamorous in its non-gui incarnation.
The mencoder interface is what does it for me. I've used it to re-encode
widescreen PAL DVDs from Europe so they can be viewed on an American NTSC
DVD player on a non-widescreen TV. The man page for mplayer/mencoder
goes on forever, it seems there is almost nothing you cannot do with it.

Thad

[Kier]

Post by t***@tux.glaci.remove-this.com

Post by Kier
Another good one, but of late it's become a bit annoying in some ways. But
when it's good, it's very good.

Yes, Its a workhorse, if a bit unglamorous in its non-gui incarnation.

I compiled its non-gui form a couple of times a year or two back. But I'm
glad I don't need to do that any more. Though it wasn't nearly as hard as
I expected.

Post by t***@tux.glaci.remove-this.com
The mencoder interface is what does it for me. I've used it to re-encode
widescreen PAL DVDs from Europe so they can be viewed on an American NTSC
DVD player on a non-widescreen TV. The man page for mplayer/mencoder
goes on forever, it seems there is almost nothing you cannot do with it.

Mencoder's really useful.

[Tim Fairchild]

Post by Kier

Post by mlw

Post by Kier
Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much to do
with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been done before,
numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good for a few posts.
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and
why? What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves
and what do they hate?

Great post!!

Thanks. I try.

Post by mlw
OpenOffice.org, of course
Firefox, of course
Thunderbird
knode
PostgreSQL
Apache
PHP
Xine - Movie player

Xine was my first favourite, and the first one I really got working well
back when I first started using Linux. Stillhave a soft spot for it.

Post by mlw
MPlayer - Movie player

Another good one, but of late it's become a bit annoying in some ways. But
when it's good, it's very good.

Post by mlw
XMMS - MP3/OGG player

That was the staple player here for a long time...

Post by Kier
Beep is nice, too, and also zinf is one I sometimes like to have installed.

Post by mlw
TVTime - TV Card interface
gcc+dev tools
gaim - Yaho/AIM/etc chat
find - standard utility
grep - ditto
kcalc - calculator

It's a good calc.

Post by Kier

Post by mlw
vnc - allows remote screen
x2x - uses X protocol to control multiple computers with one kbd/mouse
x2vnc - simmilar to above but works with non X computers.
X - X display server, allows remote applications
digicam - digital camera application
gimp - graphical program

I forgot Gimp before. I use it just about every day for something.

Post by Kier

Post by mlw
cups - perfect for my printers
sane - Scanner interface

Must get my scanner going again. Haven't used it for ages

Same here. Need to get new scanner. Haven't had as much need for one since I
went to a digital camera a few years ago...

Post by Kier

Post by mlw
hplip - Hewlett Packard printing tools
Wine - Windows API interface, every now and then, I need it to run BCC.

I still run a couple of windows apps and games. I tend to use wine,
crossover and cedega as they all have their good and bad points. Straight
wine I mostly use for small apps I use infrequently.

[mlw]

Post by Tim Fairchild

Post by Kier

Post by mlw

Post by Kier
Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much to do
with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been done
before, numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good for a few
posts.
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and
why? What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves
and what do they hate?

Great post!!

Thanks. I try.

Post by mlw
OpenOffice.org, of course
Firefox, of course
Thunderbird
knode
PostgreSQL
Apache
PHP
Xine - Movie player

Xine was my first favourite, and the first one I really got working well
back when I first started using Linux. Stillhave a soft spot for it.

Post by mlw
MPlayer - Movie player

Another good one, but of late it's become a bit annoying in some ways.
But when it's good, it's very good.

Post by mlw
XMMS - MP3/OGG player

That was the staple player here for a long time...

Post by Kier
Beep is nice, too, and also zinf is one I sometimes like to have installed.

Post by mlw
TVTime - TV Card interface
gcc+dev tools
gaim - Yaho/AIM/etc chat
find - standard utility
grep - ditto
kcalc - calculator

It's a good calc.

Very useful for quick stuff.

Post by Tim Fairchild

Post by Kier

Post by mlw
vnc - allows remote screen
x2x - uses X protocol to control multiple computers with one kbd/mouse
x2vnc - simmilar to above but works with non X computers.
X - X display server, allows remote applications
digicam - digital camera application
gimp - graphical program

I forgot Gimp before. I use it just about every day for something.

Post by Kier

Post by mlw
cups - perfect for my printers
sane - Scanner interface

Must get my scanner going again. Haven't used it for ages

Same here. Need to get new scanner. Haven't had as much need for one since
I went to a digital camera a few years ago...

FWIW, I recommend Hewlet Packard, the HPLIP project offers amazing support,
it is a model that other OEMs should follow.

\

[Tim Fairchild]

Post by mlw

Post by Tim Fairchild
Same here. Need to get new scanner. Haven't had as much need for one
since I went to a digital camera a few years ago...

FWIW, I recommend Hewlet Packard, the HPLIP project offers amazing
support, it is a model that other OEMs should follow.

I just bought my daughter a hp so I'll be trying that soon.

[Linonut]

Post by Tim Fairchild

Post by mlw

Post by Tim Fairchild
Same here. Need to get new scanner. Haven't had as much need for one
since I went to a digital camera a few years ago...

FWIW, I recommend Hewlet Packard, the HPLIP project offers amazing
support, it is a model that other OEMs should follow.

I just bought my daughter a hp so I'll be trying that soon.

http://hplip.sourceforge.net/

Brother also is helpful. It provides two styles of printer drivers for
Windows, one being Postscript, so my family can print easily to our
Linux-hosted printer.

http://solutions.brother.com/linux/sol/printer/linux/lpr_drivers.html

[Tim Fairchild]

Post by Linonut

Post by Tim Fairchild

Post by mlw

Post by Tim Fairchild
Same here. Need to get new scanner. Haven't had as much need for one
since I went to a digital camera a few years ago...

FWIW, I recommend Hewlet Packard, the HPLIP project offers amazing
support, it is a model that other OEMs should follow.

I just bought my daughter a hp so I'll be trying that soon.

http://hplip.sourceforge.net/

Well that was easy. hplip is included with mandriva 2007, so it was a matter
of plugging in the printer/scanner and pressing ok a few times. Had the
printer and scanner working in a couple of minutes.

[Bob Hauck]

Post by Tim Fairchild

Post by mlw
kcalc - calculator

It's a good calc.

This one's better, at least if you like RPN:

<http://home.planet.nl/~demun000/thomas_projects/free42/>

[mlw]

Post by Bob Hauck

Post by Tim Fairchild

Post by mlw
kcalc - calculator

It's a good calc.

<http://home.planet.nl/~demun000/thomas_projects/free42/>

ARRGHHH!!!!!!!!

RPN has its place in automated parsers, but as a human, a standard
calculator works for me.


Which makes more sense?

(1)
1 [enter]
2 [enter]
+ [enter]
p [enter]

or (2)
1 + 1 =


Sorry, RPN sucks. It is an arcane syntax developed to make building advanced
calculators easy.

[Linonut]

Post by mlw
ARRGHHH!!!!!!!!
RPN has its place in automated parsers, but as a human, a standard
calculator works for me.
Which makes more sense?
(1)
1 [enter]
2 [enter]
+ [enter]
p [enter]
or (2)
1 + 1 =
Sorry, RPN sucks. It is an arcane syntax developed to make building advanced
calculators easy.

RPN makes more sense, actually. You're example is too simple. For more
complex calculations, RPN will save you some keystrokes (since you
don't need to use the two () characters to group the
intermediate calculations, nor do you need to store
intermediate results in a memory), and it is (I think) easier
to keep track of nested results with RPN.

Think of PostgeSQL stored procedures versus MySQL's (previous) lack of
them.

[Bob Hauck]

Post by mlw

Post by Bob Hauck

Post by Tim Fairchild

Post by mlw
kcalc - calculator

It's a good calc.

<http://home.planet.nl/~demun000/thomas_projects/free42/>

ARRGHHH!!!!!!!!
RPN has its place in automated parsers, but as a human, a standard
calculator works for me.

Whatever. I happen to like RPN so I thought I'd point out a good
implementation.

Post by mlw
Which makes more sense?
(1)
1 [enter]
2 [enter]
+ [enter]
p [enter]
or (2)
1 + 1 =

Simple examples don't scale. I find that entering complex expressions
with parenthesis is awkward on typical algebraic calculators.

With RPN you just work from the inside out and the stack keeps track of
the intermediate results. No need for scrolling back and forth, and you
don't have to wait until the final "big bang" to know if you've made a
mistake.

But this debate is almost as pointless as vi vs emacs. Besides, when
the going gets tough, the tough pull out Octave <G>.

[chrisv]

Post by mlw
Sorry, RPN sucks.

Wrong. It's much better.

[mlw]

Post by chrisv

Post by mlw
Sorry, RPN sucks.

Wrong. It's much better.

Actually, RPN isn't "better," it is different, sure, but it isn't better.

[chrisv]

Post by mlw

Post by chrisv

Post by mlw
Sorry, RPN sucks.

Wrong. It's much better.

Actually, RPN isn't "better," it is different, sure, but it isn't better.

Well then, it doesn't "suck", either.

It works better for me, I know that...

[flatfish+++]

Post by chrisv

Post by mlw

Post by chrisv

Post by mlw
Sorry, RPN sucks.

Wrong. It's much better.

Actually, RPN isn't "better," it is different, sure, but it isn't better.

Well then, it doesn't "suck", either.
It works better for me, I know that...

Same here.
I still use my trusty HP 41CV.

What people forget is that HP RPN made it easier for certain types of
equations and order of operations, ie: parenthesis.
Texas Instruments, the only real competitor to HP back in the good old
days, didn't have true parenthesis on their calculators for a while after
HP was essentially doing it with RPN.

Of course it depends upon the problem being solved as to which method is
more efficient and I forget which is easier on which calculator.

[Tim Smith]

Post by Tim Fairchild
Same here.
I still use my trusty HP 41CV.

I'll throw in a vote for RPN. I've got an HP-15C, HP-16C, and HP-48SX.

[The Ghost In The Machine]

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, chrisv
<***@nospam.invalid>
wrote
on Tue, 23 Jan 2007 11:01:25 -0600

Post by chrisv

Post by mlw

Post by chrisv

Post by mlw
Sorry, RPN sucks.

Wrong. It's much better.

Actually, RPN isn't "better," it is different, sure, but it isn't better.

Well then, it doesn't "suck", either.
It works better for me, I know that...

It tends to be less ambiguous certainly.

Quick, is the expression 2+3*4 14 or 20? Fortunately, one
has precedence rules to help there (* binds more tightly)
but '2 3 4 * +' does not need them; it's always 14. If
one wants the alternative, '2 3 + 4 *' gives one 20.

There is the flip side of "roll" or "exch" versus "( )",
but that's not a big deal.

Admittedly, at this point I use GP/Pari on a desktop and
don't have a portable calculator handy, RPN or otherwise. :-)

[Mark Kent]

begin oe_protect.scr

Post by The Ghost In The Machine
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, chrisv
on Tue, 23 Jan 2007 11:01:25 -0600

Post by chrisv

Post by mlw

Post by chrisv

Post by mlw
Sorry, RPN sucks.

Wrong. It's much better.

Actually, RPN isn't "better," it is different, sure, but it isn't better.

Well then, it doesn't "suck", either.
It works better for me, I know that...

It tends to be less ambiguous certainly.
Quick, is the expression 2+3*4 14 or 20? Fortunately, one
has precedence rules to help there (* binds more tightly)
but '2 3 4 * +' does not need them; it's always 14. If
one wants the alternative, '2 3 + 4 *' gives one 20.
There is the flip side of "roll" or "exch" versus "( )",
but that's not a big deal.
Admittedly, at this point I use GP/Pari on a desktop and
don't have a portable calculator handy, RPN or otherwise. :-)

Reverse polish is an excellent calculator language - far more sensible
than the commonly adopted algebraic. I note now that many modern
calculators have adopted parts of RPN in their function, as displays
have improved.

[Handover Phist]

Post by Kier
Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much to do
with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been done before,
numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good for a few posts.
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and why?
What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves and what
do they hate?

Good idea, Kier, these types of posts inevitably lead to the discovery
of more software I didn't know about.

I use OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, slrn (obviously), Gimp,
audacity, rdesktop, xmms, Gftp, gthumb, and mplayer on my desktop box.
This keeps me in both work and entertainment. My servers are Slackware
with sendmail ripped out and Postfix put in it's place. I run Apache,
BIND, and MySQL on top of that and rent out the webspace.

I've been interested in Cinelerra, but haven't taken the time to learn
it yet. Now that I have a decent digital camera I would like to splice
some footage though, so will probably soon take a looksee at its inner
workings.

Perhaps I'm a bit of a traditionalist, but I cant let this post go
without a tip of the hat to vim.

[Linonut]

Post by Handover Phist
I use OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, slrn (obviously), Gimp,
audacity, rdesktop, xmms, Gftp, gthumb, and mplayer on my desktop box.

Ditto, plus mutt and beep-media-player. GIMP rocks.

Post by Handover Phist
Perhaps I'm a bit of a traditionalist, but I cant let this post go
without a tip of the hat to vim.

Amen! An incredibly powerful version of vi.

For diagramming (UML), ArgoUML and Umbrello. Have looked at xfig and
TCM (Toolkit for Conceptual Modelling.

kdiff3 for file diffing.

fluxbox and Xfce. Schweeeeeet.

streamtuner.

gkrellm.

gnome-commander.

Say, I couldn't find exhaile. Where is it?

[Kier]

Post by Linonut

Post by Handover Phist
I use OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, slrn (obviously), Gimp,
audacity, rdesktop, xmms, Gftp, gthumb, and mplayer on my desktop box.

Ditto, plus mutt and beep-media-player. GIMP rocks.

Post by Handover Phist
Perhaps I'm a bit of a traditionalist, but I cant let this post go
without a tip of the hat to vim.

Amen! An incredibly powerful version of vi.
For diagramming (UML), ArgoUML and Umbrello. Have looked at xfig and
TCM (Toolkit for Conceptual Modelling.
kdiff3 for file diffing.
fluxbox and Xfce. Schweeeeeet.
streamtuner.

Definitely.

Post by Linonut
gkrellm.

Superkaramba, how did I leave that out?

Post by Linonut
gnome-commander.

That's another one I only came across quite recently. Really nice. I think
it was recommended in Linux Format. I always did like those two-paned file
browsers. I used to use one called gentoo.

Post by Linonut
Say, I couldn't find exhaile. Where is it?

What distro are you using? It may not be in all the distro repositories,
it's relatively new, I believe. I only have it installed on my SLED box
at the moment, which is served by a number of the openSUSE repos.
Lemme see....

Bugger, I misspelled it - look for Exaile!

[Kier]

Post by Handover Phist

Post by Kier
Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much to do
with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been done before,
numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good for a few posts.
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and why?
What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves and what
do they hate?

Good idea, Kier, these types of posts inevitably lead to the discovery
of more software I didn't know about.

Glad to help ;-)

Post by Handover Phist
I use OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, slrn (obviously), Gimp,
audacity, rdesktop, xmms, Gftp, gthumb, and mplayer on my desktop box.

I've used gthumb, but I like gqview better (another one I forgot in the
original post).

Post by Handover Phist
This keeps me in both work and entertainment. My servers are Slackware
with sendmail ripped out and Postfix put in it's place. I run Apache,
BIND, and MySQL on top of that and rent out the webspace.
I've been interested in Cinelerra, but haven't taken the time to learn
it yet. Now that I have a decent digital camera I would like to splice
some footage though, so will probably soon take a looksee at its inner
workings.

It's worth it, though you need a reasonably powerful box to get decent
results. There are some tutorials about on the web, and a PDF manual
available (I think from the cinelerra site).

Post by Handover Phist
Perhaps I'm a bit of a traditionalist, but I cant let this post go
without a tip of the hat to vim.

I can necver get to grips with it. My brother is a vi user through and
through, and knows it backwards, but I just can't wrap my brain round it.

[Kelsey Bjarnason]

Post by Kier
Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much to do
with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been done before,
numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good for a few posts.
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and why?
What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves and what
do they hate?

What do I treasure? The whole blinkin' lot, even when sometimes it drives
me batty.

Take Gnome. I don't use it, I can't stand it. Something about it brings
out the "ick" factor in me. On the other hand, it does represent a
choice, an option, a competitor to KDE which can hopefully keep spurring
the KDE folks on to bigger and better things - and vice-versa.

Specific tools or apps I like in particular? Kopete. Small, quiet,
unassuming, yet does things with MSN and Yahoo that MSN and Yahoo's own
clients can't do - despite sucking up something like three times the RAM.
Pathetic little tools, those.

xchat. Love it. mIRC for X, minus the endless security holes.

Pan. Although, that said, as of 0.119 they've moved to a different
codebase and, IMO, seriously crippled the app in the process.

mplayer. Why can't Windows-based media players work this well? WMP
persists in the incessant "downloading codec... failed" nonsense, instead
of just doing it right.

apt/synaptic/etc. Package management in general. Makes installing
and updating software in Windows look like it was designed by a retarded
child.

Amarok. Hands down eats anything I've seen in Windows-land for lunch.
Including that abomination iTunes thing which is a pig and offers bugger
all Amarok doesn't. Oh, yeah, tie-ins to the store. Whoopee.

Apache. 'Nuff said.

KDE. In toto. Love the design, the "feel", the apparent mindset of those
working on it. It just "feels" right.

Konq. Where else can I get an app that, in a consistent file-management
interface, lets me manage files - whether they're audio CDs to copy as
oggs, or remote files to be accessed via ssh? It is an extraordinarily
well thought out tool.

Of course there are many more... php... firefox... mysql and pg...
openoffice... however these are more "portable" than LGX-based so I didn't
include 'em.

What have I given up moving to Linux? Hmm. Games, but I was never much
of a gamer in the first place, so not much of a loss. Aside from that,
all I've really lost is the headaches, hassles and worries that my system
is going to be eaten alive by a virus or worm, or that the latest patch is
going to cripple some piece of core functionality.

I can live with that.

[flatfish+++]

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
What do I treasure? The whole blinkin' lot, even when sometimes it drives
me batty.

We've noticed....

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Take Gnome. I don't use it, I can't stand it. Something about it brings
out the "ick" factor in me. On the other hand, it does represent a
choice, an option, a competitor to KDE which can hopefully keep spurring
the KDE folks on to bigger and better things - and vice-versa.

I don't like gnome either but I do like kde.
Very much in fact.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Specific tools or apps I like in particular? Kopete. Small, quiet,
unassuming, yet does things with MSN and Yahoo that MSN and Yahoo's own
clients can't do - despite sucking up something like three times the RAM.
Pathetic little tools, those.

+1 on kopete.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
xchat. Love it. mIRC for X, minus the endless security holes.

Never use it.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Pan. Although, that said, as of 0.119 they've moved to a different
codebase and, IMO, seriously crippled the app in the process.

+1.
I don't like the new direction pan is taking at all.
The older series is an excellent reader.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
mplayer. Why can't Windows-based media players work this well? WMP
persists in the incessant "downloading codec... failed" nonsense, instead
of just doing it right.

I've never seen the CODEC D/l thing work.
Never.
mplayer/xine are both good applications.
Another thing with WMP that drives me nuts is the brightness/contrast/etc
controls reset after every video so if you are playing say a couple in a
row, you have to adjust the controls each time.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
apt/synaptic/etc. Package management in general. Makes installing
and
updating software in Windows look like it was designed by a retarded
child.

Disagree here.
Yes it is one stop shopping, but there are many rough edges.
I prefer the Windows method of setup.exe.
Of course the Linux method doesn't appear to leave around all the
droppings that uninstalling an application under Windows usually does so
I suppose overall, the Linux method is better.
It still needs work though.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Amarok. Hands down eats anything I've seen in Windows-land for lunch.

Too slow, still, with thousands of files.
It does do a lot of things though.
I'm just not getting the playlist based players at all.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Including that abomination iTunes thing which is a pig and offers bugger
all Amarok doesn't. Oh, yeah, tie-ins to the store. Whoopee.

A lot of people will disagree.
Personally iTunes on the Mac is MUCH better than the Windows version.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Apache. 'Nuff said.

Never used it.
Nothing said.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
KDE. In toto. Love the design, the "feel", the apparent mindset of
those working on it. It just "feels" right.

I have to agree.
I think they should do a little work on control panel though because the
look and feel stuff is somewhat obtuse.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Konq. Where else can I get an app that, in a
consistent file-management
interface, lets me manage files - whether they're audio CDs to copy as
oggs, or remote files to be accessed via ssh? It is an extraordinarily
well thought out tool.

Yes it is.
Now all it needs is a SINGLE PLACE where people can learn about all it can
do.
The help system is useless.

Is there a webpage with a listing of features and examples of how to use
them?

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Of course there are many more... php... firefox... mysql and pg...
openoffice... however these are more "portable" than LGX-based so I
didn't include 'em.

Firefox under Windows is better.
The menus pop up faster and the bookmark sorting is faster as well.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
What have I given up moving to Linux? Hmm. Games, but I was never much
of a gamer in the first place, so not much of a loss. Aside from that,
all I've really lost is the headaches, hassles and worries that my
system is going to be eaten alive by a virus or worm, or that the latest
patch is going to cripple some piece of core functionality.

I'm not much of a gamer.
About all I use Windows for is audio stuff and CBT courses that won't run
under Linux.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
I can live with that.

[Kier]

Post by flatfish+++

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
What do I treasure? The whole blinkin' lot, even when sometimes it drives
me batty.

We've noticed....

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Take Gnome. I don't use it, I can't stand it. Something about it brings
out the "ick" factor in me. On the other hand, it does represent a
choice, an option, a competitor to KDE which can hopefully keep spurring
the KDE folks on to bigger and better things - and vice-versa.

I don't like gnome either but I do like kde.
Very much in fact.

Why don't you like Gnome (or am I opening a can of worms here)? I like
both, for differing reasons - well, actually, for much the same reason.
They're both great, in their respecetive ways.

Post by flatfish+++

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Specific tools or apps I like in particular? Kopete. Small, quiet,
unassuming, yet does things with MSN and Yahoo that MSN and Yahoo's own
clients can't do - despite sucking up something like three times the RAM.
Pathetic little tools, those.

+1 on kopete.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
xchat. Love it. mIRC for X, minus the endless security holes.

Never use it.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Pan. Although, that said, as of 0.119 they've moved to a different
codebase and, IMO, seriously crippled the app in the process.

+1.
I don't like the new direction pan is taking at all.

Could you enlighten us on it? I've only heard the rumours. What's been
done that's detrimental? Surely there's not a huge amoutn you can *do* to
a newsreader?

Post by flatfish+++
The older series is an excellent reader.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
mplayer. Why can't Windows-based media players work this well? WMP
persists in the incessant "downloading codec... failed" nonsense, instead
of just doing it right.

I've never seen the CODEC D/l thing work.
Never.
mplayer/xine are both good applications.
Another thing with WMP that drives me nuts is the brightness/contrast/etc
controls reset after every video so if you are playing say a couple in a
row, you have to adjust the controls each time.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
apt/synaptic/etc. Package management in general. Makes installing
and
updating software in Windows look like it was designed by a retarded
child.

Disagree here.
Yes it is one stop shopping, but there are many rough edges.
I prefer the Windows method of setup.exe.

You have to put a lot of trust in that installer, though.

Post by flatfish+++
Of course the Linux method doesn't appear to leave around all the
droppings that uninstalling an application under Windows usually does so
I suppose overall, the Linux method is better.
It still needs work though.

What doesn't?

Post by flatfish+++

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Amarok. Hands down eats anything I've seen in Windows-land for lunch.

Too slow, still, with thousands of files.
It does do a lot of things though.
I'm just not getting the playlist based players at all.

How d'you mean? You don't like using playlists? Or just don't find them
useful?

Post by flatfish+++

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Including that abomination iTunes thing which is a pig and offers bugger
all Amarok doesn't. Oh, yeah, tie-ins to the store. Whoopee.

A lot of people will disagree.

no great surprise, since they don't grasp the issues. No reason why sthey
should, most of the time.

Post by flatfish+++
Personally iTunes on the Mac is MUCH better than the Windows version.

That's not a great surprise, either, I'd say.

Post by flatfish+++

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Apache. 'Nuff said.

Never used it.
Nothing said.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
KDE. In toto. Love the design, the "feel", the apparent mindset of
those working on it. It just "feels" right.

I have to agree.
I think they should do a little work on control panel though because the
look and feel stuff is somewhat obtuse.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Konq. Where else can I get an app that, in a
consistent file-management
interface, lets me manage files - whether they're audio CDs to copy as
oggs, or remote files to be accessed via ssh? It is an extraordinarily
well thought out tool.

Yes it is.
Now all it needs is a SINGLE PLACE where people can learn about all it can
do.
The help system is useless.

Help systems often are, unfortunately. Linux needs someone whose mission
in life is to write great help files.

Post by flatfish+++
Is there a webpage with a listing of features and examples of how to use
them?

I've never seen opne Maybe konq has its own project pages or wiki
(evrything seems to, these days), if so, it might be there.

Post by flatfish+++

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Of course there are many more... php... firefox... mysql and pg...
openoffice... however these are more "portable" than LGX-based so I
didn't include 'em.

Firefox under Windows is better.
The menus pop up faster and the bookmark sorting is faster as well.

It's a long while since I used Windows, so I wouldn't really know if that
is true. I don't really see why it should be.

[Kelsey Bjarnason]

[snips]

Post by Kier

Post by flatfish+++

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Pan. Although, that said, as of 0.119 they've moved to a different
codebase and, IMO, seriously crippled the app in the process.

+1.
I don't like the new direction pan is taking at all.

Could you enlighten us on it? I've only heard the rumours. What's been
done that's detrimental? Surely there's not a huge amoutn you can *do* to
a newsreader?

Let's start with the groups layout. Old Pan, there was a pull-down which
selected which groups to show - all, subscribed, new. New pan, they're
all shown in a single pane, grouped by subscribed, "other", etc. I prefer
the former; it's cleaner.

Old pan: if there's a + before a message title, it means there's a thread.
Click on the message title to read the individual message, or click on the
+ to expand the thread. New pan: click on the title to... expand the
thread. Of course, clicking the title again does _not_ collapse the
thread. Ick. Make it a toggle, or get rid of it.

Old pan: if a thread has, say, five messages scoring differently, the
collapsed view will show the highest score. So in a thread where my
messages are scored 9999 and yours are scored 100, the collapsed view will
show the score as 9999. New pan: no idea how the decision is made, but
I'm seeing the lower score, not the higher, being displayed. Except where
it only displays the color, no score value at all. Also, the colors...
they're rather low contrast, hard to see. Black on blue, for example, is
not a particularly good combination.

Old pan, there's a menu item "Filter". This, not too surprisingly,
controls - filters - which messages are displayed, so you can view all, or
all except ignored, etc. New Pan? Hmm... Oh, it's in "View/Header pane".

Old pan... there was a "tri-state" coloring of articles. Those which are
read show as grey. Those which aren't read, but are old show as black.
Those which are new as of the last fetch show as bold black. As far as I
can tell, the new pan uses a two-color scheme, with grey for read and
black for unread. I'll have to play with it a bit, but that, to me, is a
PITA. It means you have to either mark all the messages read before doing
a fetch - which is not necessarily what you want to do - or sort through
umpteen thousand unread articles to figure out which ones just came in.
Old pan made this easy. New pan? If I can't get that sorted out, that
alone is a shoot-it-in-the-head item.

Composer window. Old Pan had a "more headers" tab. Click it and you get
"Follow-up to" and "reply-to" and "Organization" and "Charset" and
"Custom", the latter of which allows you to define custom headers. New
Pan? A weird little down-arrow labelled "More headers" which, when
clicked, shows a single line text-entry box. Very odd.

Old pan, in the composer, has a button for "send now" with a graphic of
an email with an arrow; new pan shows the "missing picture" red x on
white. Old pan shows two buttons for wrapping text. One's an on/off
toggle, "Wrap Text". The other's a single-fire "Rewrap". Kinda makes
sense. New pan labels them "Wrap Text" and "Wrap Now". Hmm... isn't
"Wrap Now" what the "Wrap Text" toggle is supposed to turn on? Odd.

There are some good features too, don't get me wrong... but I suspect a
lot of folks who liked the way Pan worked before aren't going to be all
that thrilled about the new look and feel.

Post by Kier

Post by flatfish+++

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
updating software in Windows look like it was designed by a retarded
child.

Disagree here.
Yes it is one stop shopping, but there are many rough edges. I prefer
the Windows method of setup.exe.

You have to put a lot of trust in that installer, though.

There's that... and rough edges? Anyone who has ever had to take a bare
bones Windows box and get it up to "final usable state" will soundly and
thoroughly curse the idiocy of the Windows approach, where every app needs
a separate installation, each has its own Wizards - most of which are
completely pointless - and so forth. A single, unified, "select from the
list, click twice and go for coffee" approach is a hell of a lot better
than Windows will ever manage.

Post by Kier

Post by flatfish+++

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Amarok. Hands down eats anything I've seen in Windows-land for lunch.

Too slow, still, with thousands of files. It does do a lot of things
though.
I'm just not getting the playlist based players at all.

How d'you mean? You don't like using playlists? Or just don't find them
useful?

No idea. I use 'em all the time. Set 'em up for, say, what sort of mood
I'm in - is this a calm, peaceful evening, or do I want to blast the
death metal while I crank some code?

Also, no idea what he means by "too slow". It's a music player. If it
keeps up with the bitrate of the sound file, it's fast enough, isn't it?

Post by Kier

Post by flatfish+++
The help system is useless.

Help systems often are, unfortunately. Linux needs someone whose mission
in life is to write great help files.

Yeah, well, with an audience of how many hundreds of millions of people,
Windows still hasn't managed it. Windows help is pathetic.

[Kier]

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
[snips]

Post by Kier

Post by flatfish+++

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Pan. Although, that said, as of 0.119 they've moved to a different
codebase and, IMO, seriously crippled the app in the process.

+1.
I don't like the new direction pan is taking at all.

Could you enlighten us on it? I've only heard the rumours. What's been
done that's detrimental? Surely there's not a huge amoutn you can *do* to
a newsreader?

<snip info>

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
There are some good features too, don't get me wrong... but I suspect a
lot of folks who liked the way Pan worked before aren't going to be all
that thrilled about the new look and feel.

Thanks for the heads-up, Kelsey. I think I prefer the older version, too,
from the sound of this. Wonder why they altered it.

[Kelsey Bjarnason]

[snips]

Post by Kier
Could you enlighten us on it? I've only heard the rumours. What's been
done that's detrimental? Surely there's not a huge amoutn you can *do* to
a newsreader?

Just found another nit. Suppose you've got N articles in a group. You
want to delete anything older than, oh, 5 days. So you create... what?
You can't delete based on a scoring rule. And sorting by date doesn't
work unless you deselect View/Header Pane/Thread Headers, then sort, then
delete, then turn the threading back on.

Ick.

And where the hell has the "edit scorefile" option gone?

[Kier]

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason

Post by Kier
Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much to do
with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been done before,
numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good for a few posts.
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and why?
What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves and what
do they hate?

What do I treasure? The whole blinkin' lot, even when sometimes it drives
me batty.
Take Gnome. I don't use it, I can't stand it. Something about it brings
out the "ick" factor in me. On the other hand, it does represent a
choice, an option, a competitor to KDE which can hopefully keep spurring
the KDE folks on to bigger and better things - and vice-versa.

Now me, I love Gnome, even though I still use KDE sometimes. There are
things it doesn't do that KDE does, but I still feel comfortable with it.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Specific tools or apps I like in particular? Kopete. Small, quiet,
unassuming, yet does things with MSN and Yahoo that MSN and Yahoo's own
clients can't do - despite sucking up something like three times the RAM.
Pathetic little tools, those.

Don't do messaging, so I can't comment there.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
xchat. Love it. mIRC for X, minus the endless security holes.
Pan. Although, that said, as of 0.119 they've moved to a different
codebase and, IMO, seriously crippled the app in the process.

Oh? I vaguely recall hearing someone else mention pan had taken a wrong
turn. I hope it's not so. I really like pan and wouldn't want to switch to
anything else.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
mplayer. Why can't Windows-based media players work this well? WMP
persists in the incessant "downloading codec... failed" nonsense, instead
of just doing it right.
apt/synaptic/etc. Package management in general. Makes installing
and updating software in Windows look like it was designed by a retarded
child.

Apt is amazing. There was a time when i'd never used anything Debian
bases, so I didn't know apt.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Amarok. Hands down eats anything I've seen in Windows-land for lunch.
Including that abomination iTunes thing which is a pig and offers bugger
all Amarok doesn't. Oh, yeah, tie-ins to the store. Whoopee.

A paion. Understandable from their point of view, I suppose, but still a
pain.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Apache. 'Nuff said.
KDE. In toto. Love the design, the "feel", the apparent mindset of those
working on it. It just "feels" right.
Konq. Where else can I get an app that, in a consistent file-management
interface, lets me manage files - whether they're audio CDs to copy as
oggs, or remote files to be accessed via ssh? It is an extraordinarily
well thought out tool.

There are things I do miss that it has, and nautilus doesn't. And I had
MEPIS installed a while back, and for some reason there was no split-pan
function in their version of konq, and I *really* missed that.

Post by Kelsey Bjarnason
Of course there are many more... php... firefox... mysql and pg...
openoffice... however these are more "portable" than LGX-based so I didn't
include 'em.
What have I given up moving to Linux? Hmm. Games, but I was never much
of a gamer in the first place, so not much of a loss. Aside from that,
all I've really lost is the headaches, hassles and worries that my system
is going to be eaten alive by a virus or worm, or that the latest patch is
going to cripple some piece of core functionality.
I can live with that.

Me too.

[ray]

Post by Kier
Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much to do
with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been done before,
numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good for a few posts.
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and why?
What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves and what
do they hate?

I've found things to like with ufraw, bibble and lightzone. I'd kind of
like some tax software though it's not pressing, and my wife still misses
her greeting card programs.

I'm content, for the most part, with gimp and gnucash - I no longer have
to export a quicken format for the CPA.

[Kier]

Post by ray
I've found things to like with ufraw, bibble and lightzone. I'd kind of
like some tax software though it's not pressing, and my wife still misses
her greeting card programs.

There's kreeting kard, though I don't know how useful it is. But it's a
start :-) Since such programs are popular, I'm surprised more aren't
available now that Linux is becoming more popular on the desktop.

[Oliver Wong]

Post by Kier
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and why?
What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves and what
do they hate?

ffmpeg2theora

Converts video files from formats that my media player doesn't like into
Ogg Theora (which my media player likes just fine). As an added bonus, you
can expect filesize to drop from 700MB to 250MB, without much of a quality
hit -- in fact, ffmpeg2theora seems to apply some sort of contrast filter
which actually improves perceive quality (even if the resulting video
therefor has lower fidelity to the original).

- Oliver

[Kier]

Post by Oliver Wong

Post by Kier
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and why?
What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves and what
do they hate?

ffmpeg2theora
Converts video files from formats that my media player doesn't like into
Ogg Theora (which my media player likes just fine). As an added bonus, you
can expect filesize to drop from 700MB to 250MB, without much of a quality
hit -- in fact, ffmpeg2theora seems to apply some sort of contrast filter
which actually improves perceive quality (even if the resulting video
therefor has lower fidelity to the original).

I might investigate that app then, it sounds useful. Thanks.

[AB]

Post by Kier
Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much to do
with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been done before,
numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good for a few posts.
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and why?
What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves and what
do they hate?

Too many that I like. But, I like filerunner, midnight commander, K3B,
slrn, Firefox (sometimes Opera or Konqueror), d4x, mplayer and Xine
(for different reasons), Sylpheed-claws, gv and xpdf (for different
files), and Kopete. Also JPilot, The Gimp, xv, Amarok, xmms, nano and
joe. For starters. There are many more.

I like Frozen Bubble, Armagetron, Xgalaga and several of the breakout
games. I like SuperTux, Icebreaker and Powermanga. Not being a big
gamer, those more than satisfy my need to waste time every now and
then.

I don't like most of the addon KDE toolbars. I'm not all that enamored
with KDE itself, but it has a lot of stuff with it that I do use, and
they tend to load slower unless some bits are preloaded.

I like having shortcuts. Lots and lots of shortcuts. Keyboard
shortcuts, so I can keep my hands mostly on the keyboard instead of
klicking like a Windummy for everything. I can manage to get most of
what I want in native KDE. For other WMs I often have to resort to
something else. So I use xbindkeys.

As much as I try, I can't get myself to like Gnome. I like the sparser
appearance of it. But it doesn't have much with it that I like to use
as default. And getting keyboard shortucts the way I want is this side
of impossible. I still use it as the default, though, for using Ubuntu
as my travel disk (along with a 5G pocket hard drive).

If I could get IceWM to play nice the way I want it, I found I can have
some of KDE preloaded, some of Gnome preloaded (both of those I've done
through loading the panels, but there might be a better way), use less
resources, get a nice looking desktop and use something like xbindkeys
for shortcuts. Unfortunately, it wants to list the KDE and Gnome
toolbars in the taskbar. That would be fine, except they show up in
Alt-Tab, which means they're too easy to select by accident. I'm still
trying to work out a way to make it all available (partially preloaded)
and not have to deal with that little "feature".

I don't like Evolution. It don't have much need for some of what it
does, and it reminds me too much of Outhouse for me to deal with it.
But I can use Thunderbird in a pinch.

Isn't choice grand?

What have I given up? I presume you mean moving from Windows to linux.
Nothing. Once upon a time I thought I'd left something behind. Perhaps
I did in the early days. But everything I want and need resides in
linux now. It's not a case of becoming accustomed to less, as the
Windufii would claim. It's a case of linux growing and growing since I
started using it back about 10 years ago.

There are so many things I would *need* to give up if I moved in the
other direction: slrn; screen; the ability to buy hardware, plug it in
and use it instead of having to read useless directions translated from
Chinese to English (by a guy from French Polynesia who had it dicatated
to him by some other guy from Kazakhstan, presumably) before installing
drivers to make sure I didn't do things in the non-blessed order; a
decent mail client; my own webserver; my own news server; my own ftp
server; my own streaming music server; the opportunity to learn
something about what's going on with my own machine instead of trusting
people who can't be trusted; a commandline worth using; money to buy
new hardware (which I haven't done in awhile) instead of tossing it out
the windows on less than optimal garbageware to supplement the meager
offerings on a base Windows install, and so on.

But the one thing I'd have to give up to move the other direction is
peace of mind.

I'd have to worry about defragging, scanning for malware, trying to
play shoot-em-up with popups, having to check constantly to see if I
could determine if my machine had joined the zombie brigade, having to
reboot for stupid updates, having to worry about whether I would become
infected by that bug just discovered in Word or IE that won't be
patched until a month from yesterday at the earliest, having to reboot
ocassionally to get back memory that wasn't release by programs, having
to reboot once in awhile to overcome the slug-like behavior Windows
gets itself into for no apparent reason, reboots to make the network
reconnect after a minor glitch makes it drop, so forth and so on.

*NONE* of those things do anything to help with peace of mind. And
that's a cost that just isn't worth it to me.

[Kier]

Post by AB

Post by Kier
Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much to do
with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been done before,
numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good for a few posts.
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and why?
What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves and what
do they hate?

Too many that I like. But, I like filerunner, midnight commander, K3B,
slrn, Firefox (sometimes Opera or Konqueror), d4x, mplayer and Xine
(for different reasons), Sylpheed-claws, gv and xpdf (for different
files), and Kopete. Also JPilot, The Gimp, xv, Amarok, xmms, nano and
joe. For starters. There are many more.
I like Frozen Bubble, Armagetron, Xgalaga and several of the breakout

Pathological. Great game. Must get it installed on SLED if it's available.
I reeealllly like pathological.

Post by AB
games. I like SuperTux, Icebreaker and Powermanga. Not being a big
gamer, those more than satisfy my need to waste time every now and
then.

Recently we've had the big rows here about gaming; Linux sux 4 games and
all that malarky. But unelss you're a dedicated gamer, IMO, Linux is fine
for games. It has lots of small fun games to pass time with. Having fun is
not all about whizz bang graphics, or no one would ever sit down and play
a game of cards or monopoly or something. The simplest stuff can hook you.
And there are sims-type games, like LinCity, or Free Civ, too.

Post by AB
I don't like most of the addon KDE toolbars. I'm not all that enamored
with KDE itself, but it has a lot of stuff with it that I do use, and
they tend to load slower unless some bits are preloaded.
I like having shortcuts. Lots and lots of shortcuts. Keyboard
shortcuts, so I can keep my hands mostly on the keyboard instead of
klicking like a Windummy for everything. I can manage to get most of
what I want in native KDE. For other WMs I often have to resort to
something else. So I use xbindkeys.

I'm a mouser. And I use my wacom drawing tablet pen quite a bit now too. I
practice with it so that when I want to use it for graphics work it'll be
second nature.

Post by AB
As much as I try, I can't get myself to like Gnome. I like the sparser
appearance of it. But it doesn't have much with it that I like to use
as default. And getting keyboard shortucts the way I want is this side
of impossible. I still use it as the default, though, for using Ubuntu
as my travel disk (along with a 5G pocket hard drive).

Now that is one thing I would like, a mini-hard drive. They're getting
pretty cheap now, too.

Post by AB
If I could get IceWM to play nice the way I want it, I found I can have
some of KDE preloaded, some of Gnome preloaded (both of those I've done
through loading the panels, but there might be a better way), use less
resources, get a nice looking desktop and use something like xbindkeys
for shortcuts. Unfortunately, it wants to list the KDE and Gnome
toolbars in the taskbar. That would be fine, except they show up in
Alt-Tab, which means they're too easy to select by accident. I'm still
trying to work out a way to make it all available (partially preloaded)
and not have to deal with that little "feature".
I don't like Evolution. It don't have much need for some of what it
does, and it reminds me too much of Outhouse for me to deal with it.
But I can use Thunderbird in a pinch.

I like thunderbird (and its cousin icedove - I was trying Knoppix 5.1
which includes icedove instead of thunderbird). Don't currently have it
installed on this box, but it's usually my default KDE mail client.

Post by AB
Isn't choice grand?

Yes. And I don't understand it when people fid that strange. All right,
maybe it can confuse some inexperienced newbies, but that's something
which passes with time. One isn't a newbie forever.

Post by AB
What have I given up? I presume you mean moving from Windows to linux.

If you want to talk about that. Also, anything you've dumped in Linux.
Either one is interesting.

Post by AB
Nothing. Once upon a time I thought I'd left something behind. Perhaps
I did in the early days. But everything I want and need resides in
linux now. It's not a case of becoming accustomed to less, as the
Windufii would claim. It's a case of linux growing and growing since I
started using it back about 10 years ago.

I agree absolutely with that. I do keep a Windows box around, but I
haven't used it for some time - in fact, it's busted right now and I
haven't been highly motivated to get it sorted out.

Post by AB
There are so many things I would *need* to give up if I moved in the
other direction: slrn; screen; the ability to buy hardware, plug it in
and use it instead of having to read useless directions translated from
Chinese to English (by a guy from French Polynesia who had it dicatated
to him by some other guy from Kazakhstan, presumably) before installing
drivers to make sure I didn't do things in the non-blessed order; a
decent mail client; my own webserver; my own news server; my own ftp
server; my own streaming music server; the opportunity to learn
something about what's going on with my own machine instead of trusting
people who can't be trusted; a commandline worth using; money to buy
new hardware (which I haven't done in awhile) instead of tossing it out
the windows on less than optimal garbageware to supplement the meager
offerings on a base Windows install, and so on.

Yup.

Post by AB
But the one thing I'd have to give up to move the other direction is
peace of mind.
I'd have to worry about defragging, scanning for malware, trying to
play shoot-em-up with popups, having to check constantly to see if I
could determine if my machine had joined the zombie brigade, having to
reboot for stupid updates, having to worry about whether I would become
infected by that bug just discovered in Word or IE that won't be
patched until a month from yesterday at the earliest, having to reboot
ocassionally to get back memory that wasn't release by programs, having
to reboot once in awhile to overcome the slug-like behavior Windows
gets itself into for no apparent reason, reboots to make the network
reconnect after a minor glitch makes it drop, so forth and so on.

Silly stuff happens in Linux too, we shouldn't deny that :-) But it's far
easier to sort out, in my experience.

Post by AB
*NONE* of those things do anything to help with peace of mind. And
that's a cost that just isn't worth it to me.

Nor me.

[t***@tux.glaci.remove-this.com]

Post by Kier
Recently we've had the big rows here about gaming; Linux sux 4 games and
all that malarky. But unelss you're a dedicated gamer, IMO, Linux is fine
for games. It has lots of small fun games to pass time with. Having fun is
not all about whizz bang graphics, or no one would ever sit down and play
a game of cards or monopoly or something. The simplest stuff can hook you.
And there are sims-type games, like LinCity, or Free Civ, too.

From a purely technical standpoint, Linux is a great platform for modern,
network intensive, multiplayer games. The only thing it lacks is many
of the actual games. Some of the more popular FPS games have been ported,
and there is a wealth of free puzzle games and the like, but that old
Windows inertia applies double to the gaming world. Still, I've seen
steady progress even on that front, and the move toward multi-platform
engines can only help. Hopefully Sony will pull things around with the
PS3 and create a little more incentive in that area. From a purely
hardware perspective, the PS3 is interesting, though their choice of
leaving out a hardware video scaler may be a big mistake. Launching
with so few killer titles didn't help either.

Later,

Thad

[Kier]

Post by t***@tux.glaci.remove-this.com

Post by Kier
Recently we've had the big rows here about gaming; Linux sux 4 games and
all that malarky. But unelss you're a dedicated gamer, IMO, Linux is fine
for games. It has lots of small fun games to pass time with. Having fun is
not all about whizz bang graphics, or no one would ever sit down and play
a game of cards or monopoly or something. The simplest stuff can hook you.
And there are sims-type games, like LinCity, or Free Civ, too.

From a purely technical standpoint, Linux is a great platform for modern,
network intensive, multiplayer games. The only thing it lacks is many
of the actual games. Some of the more popular FPS games have been ported,

And that's down to the relatively small user base. I don't suppose it's a
particularly easy matter to port/create games, and it must be expensive,
therefore a good return needs to be guaranteed.

Post by t***@tux.glaci.remove-this.com
and there is a wealth of free puzzle games and the like, but that old
Windows inertia applies double to the gaming world. Still, I've seen
steady progress even on that front, and the move toward multi-platform
engines can only help. Hopefully Sony will pull things around with the
PS3 and create a little more incentive in that area. From a purely
hardware perspective, the PS3 is interesting, though their choice of
leaving out a hardware video scaler may be a big mistake. Launching
with so few killer titles didn't help either.

True. That seems a shortsighted decision they may regret.

[Linonut]

Post by AB
I like having shortcuts. Lots and lots of shortcuts. Keyboard
shortcuts, so I can keep my hands mostly on the keyboard instead of
klicking like a Windummy for everything. I can manage to get most of
what I want in native KDE. For other WMs I often have to resort to
something else. So I use xbindkeys.

fluxbox let's you use a key for just about everything.

XFce seems pretty key-able, too.

Post by AB
What have I given up? I presume you mean moving from Windows to linux.
Nothing. Once upon a time I thought I'd left something behind. Perhaps
I did in the early days. But everything I want and need resides in
linux now. It's not a case of becoming accustomed to less, as the
Windufii would claim. It's a case of linux growing and growing since I
started using it back about 10 years ago.

Most of the "missing" items are Microsoft-inspired.

The rest are corporate lapses due to perceived sales numbers versus the
difficult of porting, probably made more difficult by using Microsoft
APIs.

[Tim Fairchild]

Post by Kier
Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much to do
with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been done before,
numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good for a few posts.
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and why?
What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves and what
do they hate?

Hmm. My new favourite app of the moment is ffmpeg. It took a couple of hours
to get the command line options right for my setup (and learning about the
whole process) but it's nice and fast and easy. Great for converting and
compressing video files (from the camera) and for capturing the tv card
video stream of course. Cool.

The windows tools that came with the tv card were crap, but linux saved the
day and did the job. Much like when I first got a cd burner years ago...

[Kier]

Post by Tim Fairchild

Post by Kier
Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much to do
with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been done before,
numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good for a few posts.
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and why?
What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves and what
do they hate?

Hmm. My new favourite app of the moment is ffmpeg. It took a couple of hours
to get the command line options right for my setup (and learning about the
whole process) but it's nice and fast and easy. Great for converting and
compressing video files (from the camera) and for capturing the tv card
video stream of course. Cool.

Ahhhhh... if I could just get my Pinnacle video capture card to work with
Linux, I could chuck away my Windows install.... NOt that I've used ti
lately anyway (power supply is on the blink, gotta get that fixed).

Post by Tim Fairchild
The windows tools that came with the tv card were crap, but linux saved the
day and did the job. Much like when I first got a cd burner years ago...

Linux to the rescue, as ever ;-)

[Tim Fairchild]

Post by Kier

Post by Tim Fairchild

Post by Kier
Beings somewhat sick of reading about stuff here that isn't much to do
with Linux, thought I'd start a Linux discussion. It's been done before,
numerous times, but what the hell, it's always good for a few posts.
So, what apps do posters here treasure? What have they given up, and
why? What new software have they taken up using? What are their faves
and what do they hate?

Hmm. My new favourite app of the moment is ffmpeg. It took a couple of
hours to get the command line options right for my setup (and learning
about the whole process) but it's nice and fast and easy. Great for
converting and compressing video files (from the camera) and for
capturing the tv card video stream of course. Cool.

Ahhhhh... if I could just get my Pinnacle video capture card to work with
Linux, I could chuck away my Windows install.... NOt that I've used ti
lately anyway (power supply is on the blink, gotta get that fixed).

I was lucky. There was a cheap card on sale and I just bought it. Luckily it
had a Conexant CX23880 chipset which seems nice and common and supported.
Unfortunately the kernel I was using only had the older btt whatever
driver.

Anyway, I've been needing an excuse to update the kernel. I was still using
the mandriva kernel that came with the distro, now the latest 2.6.18
I'll patch up to 2.6.19 later maybe...

Very impressed with the card anyway and ffmpeg. Lots of options compared to
the windows gui apps I saw, and fast. Now need some extra drive space.
Again.

Post by Kier

Post by Tim Fairchild
The windows tools that came with the tv card were crap, but linux saved
the day and did the job. Much like when I first got a cd burner years
ago...

Linux to the rescue, as ever ;-)

I've been screwed a few times in the past with crap software that comes with
hardware. I don't know if it was the software, windows, or a combination of
the two. The first cd burner I got never did burn a working cd in windows.
So I used linux to burn exclusively from then on.