Linux Neophyte

I’ve decided, after going back and forth over this for a while, that I’m dropping Fedora on my work machine. I’ve gotten to where I just can’t be bothered with yum and the limited (in comparison to Debian based distros) package selection anymore. Those are my main reasons, but there are others, the amount of time it took for the Fedora team to fix the ATA kernel problems following the release of Core 6 for instance.

I’m not happy about forsaking Fedora, I would prefer to have some level of experience with an RPM based distro. I just can’t justify the time it’s taking to become a knowledgeable user with Fedora. Maybe some day, when I’m more familiar with the internals of more Linux applications and more experienced with compiling what I need from source I can go back.

I’ll be installing Feisty on the machine some time this week or next and will be strictly a Debian (or its derivatives) user for a while. I’ve had almost no problem installing whatever applications I want on a Debian machine. There have been a few times when I needed to compile from source and on Debian I’ve been able to get the job done (my success rate on Fedora is abysmal).

So to me, this feels like a failure. Disappointing but necessary.

written by M@ \\ tags: FC6, Fedora, Feisty, News, Ubuntu

Here come the Dell Linux desktops, laptops http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS8436091466.html

To me this is a HUGE step for getting Linux onto family computers. I’m fully aware that Linux is not for everyone, and many shoppers will stick with Windows (cool with me). The beauty of this is not only that people will have the option of purchasing a computer with Linux on it, but if sales are up, more OEMs will want/need to develop Linux drivers (or make hardware specs available to kernel hackers). How sexy is that?? If this is something that’s important to you, take a look at this article. We don’t have all of the details yet, but it’s certainly something to think about and look forward to.

Note: There are already vendors shipping computers with Linux pre-installed, take a look at http://www.system76.com/ (among others). I’ve heard nothing but good about System 76 and when I’m in the market for a new personal laptop, they are on my list of vendors to evaluate. I mention this because Dell won’t be the first vendor to make Linux available, but they will be the most well known.

I just wonder, how MS will attempt to punish Dell for this bold move. I personally believe that it’ll happen, I just wonder how public it will be. Time will tell, this is a great time to add some tech news sites to your RSS aggregator if they aren’t already there

written by M@ \\ tags: Desktop, News

I need to take a new approach to learning. I’m at a point where I’m exploring more complex programs and utilities, things with long configuration files and long man pages. I need to actually learn how to use the programs properly to use them effectively.

From here on, I’ll be devoting at least a month to a particular topic. This is the basic rule, some topics may require more or less time. If something requires less, I’ll be spending some extra time practicing and honing the skill. If it requires more, I’ll keep going until I feel that I understand what I’m doing and have time to practice.

Why a month? Doesn’t that seem like a lot of time? To me it doesn’t, I’m finding that to learn how to use one tool you need to expose yourself to others. This is what happens when you’re using such a modular OS and toolset, programs build on each other. For example, if you want to use procmail (a mail processing tool) effectively, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with regular expressions (which are fascinating, this wikipedia entry is a good place to start). Giving myself *at least* 30 days to roll with something, helps me to actually learn and not just get past something in order to do something else.

What this means is that my blog postings may not be as frequent, but I believe they’ll be better.

I believe my first 30 day course will be implementing LVM. I’ve decided to start here because I’ll be setting up a new personal server shortly and I feel that configuring it properly now will save me a headache later on. I’ll be posting about the guides and tools I’m using to learn how to use LVM on a fileserver and then about the success and failures I encounter while putting everything into practice. Should be fun, more soon

written by M@ \\ tags: Musings, News

I just read an announcement from Linspire (http://www.linspire.com/lindows_news_pressreleases_archives.php?id=212) stating that they’re opening up Click ‘N Run (CNR) to several popular Linux distributions. My knee-jerk reaction to this is EXCELLENT!

I’ve only heard/read wonderful things about CNR, so I can’t give any details past what’s included in the press release. It should be interesting to follow the reactions of the distros mentioned and see if/how they plan on embracing CNR.

If this is something that the better known distros will latch onto, the argument that software installation on Linux “sucks” could be a thing of the past. If played well, this could do A LOT to push Desktop Linux into the foreground.

This might be a good time to download Freespire and see just how nice CNR is.

written by M@ \\ tags: Apps, News