Linux Mint

[soapbox]

Well, I'll be damned!

As in, I'm right?

[funkyb]

vi is superior to emacs and nano in every way. :a30:

:biggrin:

no disagreement here, I fell in love with vi over a decade ago and never liked emacs much. Just sayin' for people who can't come to terms with taking the time to learn vi, I usually find they're less resistant to nano.

[RichGem]

As in, I'm right?

As in, "I've just realized that I've got a whole lotta repenting to do." :eek:

:lol:

[blackfoot]

hmmm. good idea.

Or, we could just tell Blake that he broke something and move on. :ihih:

:lol::lol::lol::lol:


As in, I'm right?

That is it. It is crazy! It has a patterned background. The letters are not there! What is up with that? :001_rolle

[soapbox]

I'm not a gamer, so I have no idea how fast or even IF a particular game will run. But, anytime you virtualize there's going to be some slow down. How much, I cannot say. I think theres a data base on the wine site that will tell you what works and what doesn't.

But... I don't use wine. Never have and probably never will as I have no need to.

Some applications (read: Microsoft Office 2000) run great under Wine, but for two reasons that don't apply to modern games. (a) it was meant to run under DOS--er, I mean Windows 98-- and so it's very very easy to virtualize the applications; and (b) the CPU load for Office 2000 was meant to only strain computers with 2000-vintage CPUs, so again, your modern Core 2 Duo won't exactly feel the burn when running Word 2K.

[soapbox]

:lol::lol::lol::lol:



That is it. It is crazy! It has a patterned background. The letters are not there! What is up with that? :001_rolle

This is the same problem I had with Red Hat on my Big Video Wall that made me throw up my hands in disgust. Firefox, Konqueror, GIMP, you name it.

Blake, would you open a Terminal and see if the performance is similar, as in, the fonts are screwed up there too?

[RichGem]

:lol::lol::lol::lol:



That is it. It is crazy! It has a patterned background. The letters are not there! What is up with that? :001_rolle



"You've reached Microsoft technical support. Your call is marginally important to us. Please hold for the next available support staff. While you are holding, please take a moment to completely wipe your hard drive and reinstall our product so that we can serve you better. Your approximate wait time is 2e*i minutes."

[blackfoot]

This is the same problem I had with Red Hat on my Big Video Wall that made me throw up my hands in disgust. Firefox, Konqueror, GIMP, you name it.

Blake, would you open a Terminal and see if the performance is similar, as in, the fonts are screwed up there too?

Two questions:

1) You have old ladies in red hats on your video wall? :blink:

2) How do I check that?

[soapbox]

Two questions:

1) You have old ladies in red hats on your video wall? :blink:

2) How do I check that?

One of the menu options in the Main GNOME menu, under System Tools or something, will be a Terminal. Open it. It should bring up a command-line (pure text) interface, with a command prompt that looks like

mymachine:~ blake$

And when you type a command like

top

and press enter, you should see a list of text lines that describes what's going on at the moment on your machine.

[RichGem]

One of the menu options in the Main GNOME menu, under System Tools or something, will be a Terminal. Open it. It should bring up a command-line (pure text) interface, with a command prompt that looks like

mymachine:~ blake$

And when you type a command like

top

and press enter, you should see a list of text lines that describes what's going on at the moment on your machine.

hmmm... what are you thinking?

[blackfoot]

One of the menu options in the Main GNOME menu, under System Tools or something, will be a Terminal. Open it. It should bring up a command-line (pure text) interface, with a command prompt that looks like

mymachine:~ blake$

And when you type a command like

top

and press enter, you should see a list of text lines that describes what's going on at the moment on your machine.

Okay, entered Top. It gave me a what you said, which keeps changing. Now what?

[soapbox]

Okay, entered Top. It gave me a what you said, which keeps changing. Now what?

But you CAN SEE the text. OK, now go to the menu above the terminal window. Select "Profiles" and double click on the default profile.

Uncheck the box that is keeping you from selecting a color scheme (something like "use system colors"; I'm not at a linux machine right now). Select the Green text on black background color scheme.

Did the text "go away"? or can you still see it?

Rich: I'm trying to suss out if his problem is related to how one or two applications plays with the fonts, or if it's GNOME or something system-wide.

[soapbox]

Okay, entered Top. It gave me a what you said, which keeps changing. Now what?

Oh, and top is supposed to keep changing. It's just a list of the most active processes (programs, services, and daemons) that are currently running on your machine.

[blackfoot]

But you CAN SEE the text. OK, now go to the menu above the terminal window. Select "Profiles" and double click on the default profile.

Uncheck the box that is keeping you from selecting a color scheme (something like "use system colors"; I'm not at a linux machine right now). Select the Green text on black background color scheme.

Did the text "go away"? or can you still see it?

Rich: I'm trying to suss out if his problem is related to how one or two applications plays with the fonts, or if it's GNOME or something system-wide.

Yes, I can see it. It is that awesome 80's style computer terminal look.

[blackfoot]

Oh, and top is supposed to keep changing. It's just a list of the most active processes (programs, services, and daemons) that are currently running on your machine.

I thought so, but I thought you were going to ask what it said. I wasn't sure how I was going to do that. :blush:

[soapbox]

Yes, I can see it. It is that awesome 80's style computer terminal look.

Good. if you can still see the text, it's a problem with how Firefox and other browsers (and possibly other programs) are using fonts and font-rendering on your machine.


I thought so, but I thought you were going to ask what it said. I wasn't sure how I was going to do that. :blush:

Heh, I wish it were as easy as "is the suck application running? You need to kill that process right now..."

[blackfoot]

Good. if you can still see the text, it's a problem with how Firefox and other browsers (and possibly other programs) are using fonts and font-rendering on your machine.



Heh, I wish it were as easy as "is the suck application running? You need to kill that process right now..."

:lol: Never is. :001_cool:

[OldSaw]

Happy Linux Thanksgiving everyone.

I'll be home for a few days, so I'll try to post a little.

[Confuzius]

Skklog: Check out the Wine AppDB to see if the program/game you want to play runs on wine: http://appdb.winehq.org/

Blake: Try installing the microsoft core fonts. "sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts"

Rich/Soap: So what's the difference between vi and vim? I've only ever used vim, once I figured out they commands, before that it was nano/pico.

[OldSaw]

I'm having trouble getting Ubuntu updates. The error message I get looks like this.


W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/t/tzdata/tzdata_2009m-0ubuntu0.8.04_all.deb
404 Not Found


W: Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/x/xulrunner-1.9/xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support_1.9.0.14+build2+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1_i386.deb
404 Not Found


W: Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/x/xulrunner-1.9/xulrunner-1.9_1.9.0.14+build2+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1_i386.deb
404 Not Found


W: Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/f/firefox-3.0/firefox-3.0-gnome-support_3.0.14+build2+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1_i386.deb
404 Not Found


W: Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/f/firefox-3.0/firefox-3.0_3.0.14+build2+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1_i386.deb
404 Not Found


W: Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/f/firefox-3.0/firefox_3.0.14+build2+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1_all.deb
404 Not Found


W: Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/f/firefox-3.0/firefox-gnome-support_3.0.14+build2+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1_all.deb
404 Not Found


W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/l/linux/linux-headers-2.6.24-24_2.6.24-24.60_all.deb
404 Not Found


W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/l/linux/linux-headers-2.6.24-24-generic_2.6.24-24.60_i386.deb
404 Not Found


W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/l/linux/linux-libc-dev_2.6.24-24.60_i386.deb
404 Not Found


Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

[blackfoot]

I'm having trouble getting Ubuntu updates. The error message I get looks like this.



Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

I see your problem. It was unable to fetch Ubuntu updates. :001_cool:

[OldSaw]

I see your problem. It was unable to fetch Ubuntu updates. :001_cool:

You sound like this fellow in Newark, NJ, who walks up to my truck and informs me that I need to back up, as I was half way through a right turn when I discovered I couldn't make it without taking out a row of parked cars. However, the big difference was that the fellow in Jersey turned out to be a good Samaritan who knew how to stop traffic(including a city bus), guide me back without hitting anything, AND lead me back to the highway. :thumbup:

[blackfoot]

You sound like this fellow in Newark, NJ, who walks up to my truck and informs me that I need to back up, as I was half way through a right turn when I discovered I couldn't make it without taking out a row of parked cars. However, the big difference was that the fellow in Jersey turned out to be a good Samaritan who knew how to stop traffic(including a city bus), guide me back without hitting anything, AND lead me back to the highway. :thumbup:

You can't roll sixes every time. :lol:

[OldSaw]

I also see that flair was neglected at the 9K mark. :hand:

[blackfoot]

I also see that flair was neglected at the 9K mark. :hand:

Oh my, right you are.

[RichGem]

Dennis,

It looks like whatever files need to be updated are not being found in the current repository(-ies). This is probably an error on the part of the repo and not your machine. So either, try the same repos again later (say tomorrow) or try a different repo now (don't ask me how to change repos in 'buntu).

[soapbox]

Dennis,

It looks like whatever files need to be updated are not being found in the current repository(-ies). This is probably an error on the part of the repo and not your machine. So either, try the same repos again later (say tomorrow) or try a different repo now (don't ask me how to change repos in 'buntu).

open a terminal and type

sudo apt-get update

(then put in your password when it asks) and see what you get?

[OldSaw]

Dennis,

It looks like whatever files need to be updated are not being found in the current repository(-ies). This is probably an error on the part of the repo and not your machine. So either, try the same repos again later (say tomorrow) or try a different repo now (don't ask me how to change repos in 'buntu).

I was somewhat skeptical of this, as it started a few weeks ago. However, low and behold the Linux updates worked today.

Thanks.

[RichGem]

I was somewhat skeptical of this, as it started a few weeks ago. However, low and behold the Linux updates worked today.

Thanks.


:thumbsup:

[blackfoot]

Happy Linux Thanksgiving everyone.

I'll be home for a few days, so I'll try to post a little.


I was somewhat skeptical of this, as it started a few weeks ago. However, low and behold the Linux updates worked today.

Thanks.

You see? I was right. :lol:

[skklog]

http://bp0.blogger.com/_pte2XO66Nwg/Rnydz2fDMQI/AAAAAAAAAw4/LHUmaiSIiKo/s1600/Funny_Windows_Vs_Linux.gif

[blackfoot]

http://bp0.blogger.com/_pte2XO66Nwg/Rnydz2fDMQI/AAAAAAAAAw4/LHUmaiSIiKo/s1600/Funny_Windows_Vs_Linux.gif

:lol::lol::lol: :thumbup:

[skklog]

http://devin.dynalias.com/images/TheOSs.jpg

[skklog]

http://jaysolomon.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/linux.png?w=468&h=209

[blackfoot]

I have no brother! :angry:

[skklog]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_rdSmMMJJj5M/SbagTRiZv2I/AAAAAAAAAPs/qbCL5Mm281s/s400/Funny+Linux+2.jpg

[RichGem]

I have no brother! :angry:

Sure you do. He just happens to be working on a one-way ticket to the Czar's "special interview" chamber.

:cool:

[weshofmann]

So, have any of you ever walked into the middle of a conversation and had no clue what was being discussed?

Hi, I'm Wes. I'm a linux user and this is the single most ridiculously long thread I've ever seen. :)

I work doing both linux development and sysadmin, so if you guys ever have questions I'd be happy to lend a hand!

Nice meeting ya!

[RichGem]

So, have any of you ever walked into the middle of a conversation and had no clue what was being discussed?

Hi, I'm Wes. I'm a linux user and this is the single most ridiculously long thread I've ever seen. :)

I work doing both linux development and sysadmin, so if you guys ever have questions I'd be happy to lend a hand!

Nice meeting ya!

Guys, this is Wes whose avatar I noticed and told him about the thread and the shaved penguins.

@Wes, this thread wanders a great deal, but there's also a lot of good info / help here as well. Just jump right in.

Welcome!

[weshofmann]

Guys, this is Wes whose avatar I noticed and told him about the thread and the shaved penguins.

@Wes, this thread wanders a great deal, but there's also a lot of good info / help here as well.

Welcome!

Hehe, this my default avatar on pretty much any board. I figure it summarizes one of my big interests AND kinda looks like me (same general shape). :tongue_sm

[blackfoot]

Sure you do. He just happens to be working on a one-way ticket to the Czar's "special interview" chamber.

:cool:

:sneaky2:


So, have any of you ever walked into the middle of a conversation and had no clue what was being discussed?

Hi, I'm Wes. I'm a linux user and this is the single most ridiculously long thread I've ever seen. :)

I work doing both linux development and sysadmin, so if you guys ever have questions I'd be happy to lend a hand!

Nice meeting ya!

Every day I log on. :thumbup: This is indeed a ridiculously long thread. Awful useful though as far as ridiculously long threads go.

BTW, nice to meet you and welcome!


Hehe, this my default avatar on pretty much any board. I figure it summarizes one of my big interests AND kinda looks like me (same general shape). :tongue_sm

:lol::lol:

[soapbox]

Every day I log on. :thumbup: This is indeed a ridiculously long thread. Awful useful though as far as ridiculously long threads go.


Well said.

And Wes, welcome. It's a silly thread, but the tech support shines through when needed. And if you can contribute to the tech support...so much the better!

[soapbox]

Hey guys,

looking for other solutions, I stumbled across this forum post (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=318539) (and related thread (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202834)) that might be helpful for Ubuntu users. The title of this B&B post might even return some useful results when searched. :001_rolle

It's less about configuring wireless drivers, and more about wireless security, but still, worth posting here.

[blackfoot]

Hey guys,

looking for other solutions, I stumbled across this forum post (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=318539) (and related thread (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202834)) that might be helpful for Ubuntu users. The title of this B&B post might even return some useful results when searched. :001_rolle

It's less about configuring wireless drivers, and more about wireless security, but still, worth posting here.

This looks useful. I think there is something wrong with my wireless router. I have to go downstairs and restart it all the time. It averages out to once a day. Sometimes I can without having to, but other days I have to multiple times. So, I am wanting to get a new router. When I do, I plan on buying two in order to follow your suggestion and have my printer run off of it. I am sure I will have lots of questions then. :thumbup:

[weshofmann]

This looks useful. I think there is something wrong with my wireless router. I have to go downstairs and restart it all the time. It averages out to once a day. Sometimes I can without having to, but other days I have to multiple times. So, I am wanting to get a new router. When I do, I plan on buying two in order to follow your suggestion and have my printer run off of it. I am sure I will have lots of questions then. :thumbup:

Actually, I found a solution to the issue of wireless routers freezing up every few days or every day. From my experimenting, I think the router software freezes up due to the load placed on it by routing, not necessarily its functions as a wireless access point.

So, to solve the problem, I have a standalone router (non-wireless) that does all the routing for my home network. In addition, I took a linksys router (the kind that crashes all the time), turned off the actual routing components (the WAN port isn't connected to anything either) and have it plugged into my network via one of its LAN ports and functioning solely as a wireless gateway onto my network.

Doing the above made the wireless router go from crashing every day (or multiple times per day) to crashing about once every 2 weeks. And then when it does crash, only the wireless machines lose connection to the internet since the wired machines don't depend on the wireless router for their actual packet routing.

If you have two wireless routers, you'd just want to turn off the wifi components of one of them and have it act solely as a router, then turn off the routing components of the other one and have it act solely as a gateway. Anyway, it's worth a try if you run out of other options. :)

[blackfoot]

Actually, I found a solution to the issue of wireless routers freezing up every few days or every day. From my experimenting, I think the router software freezes up due to the load placed on it by routing, not necessarily its functions as a wireless access point.

So, to solve the problem, I have a standalone router (non-wireless) that does all the routing for my home network. In addition, I took a linksys router (the kind that crashes all the time), turned off the actual routing components (the WAN port isn't connected to anything either) and have it plugged into my network via one of its LAN ports and functioning solely as a wireless gateway onto my network.

Doing the above made the wireless router go from crashing every day (or multiple times per day) to crashing about once every 2 weeks. And then when it does crash, only the wireless machines lose connection to the internet since the wired machines don't depend on the wireless router for their actual packet routing.

If you have two wireless routers, you'd just want to turn off the wifi components of one of them and have it act solely as a router, then turn off the routing components of the other one and have it act solely as a gateway. Anyway, it's worth a try if you run out of other options. :)

This actually sounds pretty good. My big complication is my cable (Internet connection) comes into the house downstairs. but, my War Room (Computer Room) is upstairs. So, I have my Cable modem and wireless router downstairs.

[OldSaw]

Hi Wes. Welcome to B&B and the funnest long thread that is actually about something useful. As long as Cory doesn't attempt another border crossing.

[OldSaw]

...oh, and I need a method to increase my wifi range. My iPod and laptop just aren't making it into the server at most truck stops.

[skklog]

Yes, welcome!!

Linux

[OldSaw]

Yes, welcome!!

Linux

Crap! I forgot to say Linux.

[RichGem]

...oh, and I need a method to increase my wifi range. My iPod and laptop just aren't making it into the server at most truck stops.

try a coat hanger, a spool of wire, and a (metal) clothesline.... oh, wait, I was thinking of rabbit ears there. sorry.

edit: try opening a window and or hanging out it... you might be experienceing interference from the metal of the truck which might be acting somewhat like a faraday cage.

[blackfoot]

Crap! I forgot to say Linux.

:lol::lol::lol:

[soapbox]

This actually sounds pretty good. My big complication is my cable (Internet connection) comes into the house downstairs. but, my War Room (Computer Room) is upstairs. So, I have my Cable modem and wireless router downstairs.

You might also try dd-wrt (http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index) custom firmware. It is NOT hard to do. I was surprised how easy it was. For my second wireless router, I purchased one I was certain had hardware support from dd-wrt.

I've restarted my routers once since I moved to town in August.

[soapbox]

...oh, and I need a method to increase my wifi range. My iPod and laptop just aren't making it into the server at most truck stops.

Integral antennae are unfortunately (in your case) omnidirectional. You need either a more powerful transceiver (possible), or a directional antenna (also possible, with a separate wifi card/USB dongle).

You can sometimes boost the transceiver power of onboard chipsets, but it's more doubtful.

I suppose you could also set up a wifi router as a wireless bridge; that'd have plenty of power (see my reference to dd-wrt (http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index), above) and then you could plug in your laptop directly to the ethernet port on the router.

[weshofmann]

...oh, and I need a method to increase my wifi range. My iPod and laptop just aren't making it into the server at most truck stops.

The secret to this is googling for hardware that people typically use for "war driving", i.e. driving around looking for open access points and recording their locations.

Basically, what kills wireless range is that it's more-or-less omnidirectional, so you have fairly rapid signal dropoff as distance from the transmitter increases. To combat this, you need to use an antenna that's a bit more directed. Basically you want a waveguide antenna; back in the day, we called them pringles can antennas or "cantennas". Some googling should reveal some that you can buy that are premade (I'd recommend not trying to build your own).

Once you have one of those, you need a wireless adapter that has antenna leads on it. Your macbook's wifi card is internal and its leads are connected to the macbook's antenna which loops around the outer edge of the screen, so that's not really an option. You should be able to find a mac-compatible usb wifi adapter however that has antenna leads exposed, to which you can connect a waveguide antenna.

As far as distance goes, I had a friend in college who used a setup like this to connect to the university's wifi network from his apartment off-campus. If he pointed the cantenna in the right direction (directly at the campus), he could get a fairly strong signal at about 1/2 mile away.

Anyway, some googling should give you all the info you need to set something like this up.

[weshofmann]

You might also try dd-wrt (http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index) custom firmware. It is NOT hard to do. I was surprised how easy it was. For my second wireless router, I purchased one I was certain had hardware support from dd-wrt.

I've restarted my routers once since I moved to town in August.

I wanted to go this route myself, but my router didn't have enough ram to effectively run the ddwrt software. :-/ Evidently linksys has been putting less and less ram on their boards over the last few years.

So, if you're going to try dd-wrt, make sure you check your model number against their compatibility list here (http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices#Linksys).

[blackfoot]

I wanted to go this route myself, but my router didn't have enough ram to effectively run the ddwrt software. :-/ Evidently linksys has been putting less and less ram on their boards over the last few years.

So, if you're going to try dd-wrt, make sure you check your model number against their compatibility list here (http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices#Linksys).

I was wondering how to tell which ones would work. :thumbup:

[RichGem]

The secret to this is googling for hardware that people typically use for "war driving", i.e. driving around looking for open access points and recording their locations.

Basically, what kills wireless range is that it's more-or-less omnidirectional, so you have fairly rapid signal dropoff as distance from the transmitter increases. To combat this, you need to use an antenna that's a bit more directed. Basically you want a waveguide antenna; back in the day, we called them pringles can antennas or "cantennas". Some googling should reveal some that you can buy that are premade (I'd recommend not trying to build your own).

Once you have one of those, you need a wireless adapter that has antenna leads on it. Your macbook's wifi card is internal and its leads are connected to the macbook's antenna which loops around the outer edge of the screen, so that's not really an option. You should be able to find a mac-compatible usb wifi adapter however that has antenna leads exposed, to which you can connect a waveguide antenna.

As far as distance goes, I had a friend in college who used a setup like this to connect to the university's wifi network from his apartment off-campus. If he pointed the cantenna in the right direction (directly at the campus), he could get a fairly strong signal at about 1/2 mile away.

Anyway, some googling should give you all the info you need to set something like this up.

Guys? Is it too soon to tell Wes about the various "nerdliness swag" accoutrement that can be awarded and the competitions therefore? :biggrin:

(Wes, just ask Lou (dunedinranger) why his Michelin Man has a binary scarf on)

[Confuzius]

Curious. I only reboot my router whenever I need to change some settings, it seems that it's webserver crashes out fairly often, it still does all of it's other jobs, no problem, but I just can't log in to it until I reboot.

I've wondered if DD-WRT or Tomato would fix that, but have been hesitant to try it. Maybe the regular router + WAP is the way to go...

[soapbox]

Curious. I only reboot my router whenever I need to change some settings, it seems that it's webserver crashes out fairly often, it still does all of it's other jobs, no problem, but I just can't log in to it until I reboot.

I've wondered if DD-WRT or Tomato would fix that, but have been hesitant to try it. Maybe the regular router + WAP is the way to go...

dd-wrt was easy and quick to implement (again, on a supported router), and it's been fantastic. I've got a two-story house and rather than run wires (though I own the house, so I could do it), I just installed dd-wrt on another router and turned it into a wireless-to-wired bridge, so I could have a cluster of non-wireless devices upstairs, linked to the downstairs router wirelessly.

Oh, yes, it's very nice-a. (http://www.textfiles.com/media/SCRIPTS/grail)

[skklog]

http://www.gdruckman.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/linux_paper_model.jpg


Linux!

[weshofmann]

Guys? Is it too soon to tell Wes about the various "nerdliness swag" accoutrement that can be awarded and the competitions therefore? :biggrin:

(Wes, just ask Lou (dunedinranger) why his Michelin Man has a binary scarf on)

ooooooOOOOOooohhhhh. I think I'm pretty nerdy, so I'm interested!

Yay for swag!

[soapbox]

Linux!

Very nice (http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/haggar/paper/OpenTuxColor.png)!

[RichGem]

Very nice (http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/haggar/paper/OpenTuxColor.png)!

Art project for little H?

[soapbox]

Art project for little H?

If I made it out of masonite, maybe. (but after she's a little older, yeah, for sure).

[soapbox]

Well, as sometimes happens, a problem that had been flummoxing me for a week was solved by someone who just happened to drop by the lab today. On the one hand, it's a relief. On the other, I'm frustrated it took a week for serendipity to take over and fix my problem for me.

Basically: when running DHCP for an internal network, you should declare the firewall machine as a gateway for your internal machines. But on the gateway/firewall/DHCP server machine (my head node handles all these duties), no matter which ethernet interface you're talking about, you can't have a gateway other than the one on your larger network. The gateway CANNOT BE LOCAL; you only make it look that way for the machines on the firewalled LAN.

Ugh. One stupid line of code commented out, and the whole network thing works. Dammit.

[weshofmann]

Well, as sometimes happens, a problem that had been flummoxing me for a week was solved by someone who just happened to drop by the lab today. On the one hand, it's a relief. On the other, I'm frustrated it took a week for serendipity to take over and fix my problem for me.

Basically: when running DHCP for an internal network, you should declare the firewall machine as a gateway for your internal machines. But on the gateway/firewall/DHCP server machine (my head node handles all these duties), no matter which ethernet interface you're talking about, you can't have a gateway other than the one on your larger network. The gateway CANNOT BE LOCAL; you only make it look that way for the machines on the firewalled LAN.

Ugh. One stupid line of code commented out, and the whole network thing works. Dammit.

Yup. It makes sense too if you think about it. What "gateway" means is that it's a default route. Thus, in the kernel routing table, what you have is a "default" entry that is used if no other entry matches. (i.e. if the table doesn't have an entry that explicitly matches the destination of a packet, it will use the "default" entry to route it).

For example, here's the routing table ("netstat -rn") of a linux machine here at work:


Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags MSS Window irtt Iface
172.22.40.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth1
127.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo
0.0.0.0 172.22.40.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth1

In this case, the destination of "0.0.0.0" means "default" and is the last entry in the list so it will be used if the previous entries don't match. (you can also verify this by the "G" flag being present for that line... "G" means gateway!) :) So, if this machine needs to send a packet to an IP that starts with "172.22.40.*", it will use the first entry to route it, meaning it throws it out eth1 at whatever MAC address has the destination IP (yet another table in the kernel has a list of all MAC-address -> IP-address translations that the kernel knows about, called the "ARP table". You can view it by running "arp -en" in linux). If the machine wants to route a packet to an address starting with "127.*.*.*", then the first entry fails to match but the second one matches, thus it dumps the packet out interface "lo" which is the local loopback device.

So, if your default route is a local address, like itself for instance, then nothing can be routed outside of that machine.

Another interesting note: your default gateway is an IP address to which packets need to be forwarded, so the kernel still needs to figure out HOW to send the forwarded packets TO the gateway's IP. Thus, there needs to be a line in the routing table that tells the kernel how to route packets that have a destination of the gateway IP. In the above example routing table, the gateway IP in the "default" line can be routed to via the first line (172.22.40.*) in the routing table.

Now, when you're using a local network and having all traffic go through the firewall (whether or not you're using NAT), all of the machines in the local network use the firewall's IP as their default route. This way, all of the local machines will just throw packets at the firewall anytime they can't figure out some other way to route them (e.g. locally to a local address). When the firewall receives these packets, it will match them against its kernel routing table to see where to send them. Assuming no other routes match, it matches on the "default" route and sends the packets to the upstream router it is using as its gateway.

Now, packets coming BACK from outside becomes a trickier problem because it's very different depending on if your firewall is using NAT (network address translation, sometimes called "IP Masquerading") or not. If you're not, then the upstream router (whatever router is the gateway that your firewall uses) needs to have a routing table entry that lets it know that any packets destined for the "internal" machines' IP addresses need to be forwarded through your firewall in order to reach them. If, on the other hand, you are using NAT, then this is much simpler as all outbound traffic from your firewall (including traffic that the firewall is merely forwarding in behalf of your local machines) has a source IP of the firewall machine, thus any responses to those packets have a destination of the firewall and is thus trivial to route.

So, hopefully that paragraph made some sort of sense. :) Sorry, I tend to ramble.

Wes

[weshofmann]

Well, as sometimes happens, a problem that had been flummoxing me for a week was solved by someone who just happened to drop by the lab today. On the one hand, it's a relief. On the other, I'm frustrated it took a week for serendipity to take over and fix my problem for me.

Basically: when running DHCP for an internal network, you should declare the firewall machine as a gateway for your internal machines. But on the gateway/firewall/DHCP server machine (my head node handles all these duties), no matter which ethernet interface you're talking about, you can't have a gateway other than the one on your larger network. The gateway CANNOT BE LOCAL; you only make it look that way for the machines on the firewalled LAN.

Ugh. One stupid line of code commented out, and the whole network thing works. Dammit.

Just out of curiosity, what sort of lab do you work in? I was at a lab doing high performance computation and the term "head node" is something you often see with HPC clusters.

[soapbox]

It makes sense too if you think about it. What "gateway" means is that it's a default route. Thus, in the kernel routing table, what you have is a "default" entry that is used if no other entry matches. (i.e. if the table doesn't have an entry that explicitly matches the destination of a packet, it will use the "default" entry to route it).
...

So, if your default route is a local address, like itself for instance, then nothing can be routed outside of that machine.

You're right across the board. The point that tripped me up is this: when you run a DHCP server, you need to explicitly provide a set of information to the served machines (on a private network behind a firewall/router, which are all the same head node in this case). This information includes the gateway address.

My mistake was that I also included the 192.168.1.1 (internal) gateway address when configuring the routing from the internal network on the head node, which effectively clobbered DNS and some other networking traffic whenever I fired up the internal network routing, DHCP, and other network services. The head node has to know where to route traffic, and it was trying to use itself as a gateway, even though the served render nodes (that is, internal network PCs) are supposed to use the head node as a gateway.

I'm a statistician/programmer and political scientist by training. I won't ever claim ignorance of linux, because I can do a lot of neat things with linux, but advanced networking isn't my strong suit. I'm setting up (*sigh* again) PXE boot services and fast re-imaging for my render nodes so I can play fast and loose with the configurations if I want to, or if I ever want to add render nodes. If I screw up (obviously it happens), I can re-image the machines in a few minutes, rather than build one from scratch.

If you look back a few pages in the thread (generally this is a bad idea!), you'll see I'm working on a neat 12-screen display wall for a data visualization center that's totally new, building from scratch, and it's just me.

Once I get the whole damn thing running happily, I have to start virtualizing Windows on the machine, so I can run "other useful software" on the Ubuntu cluster.

If I do a good job, I'll get four more screens, one more render node, and one Quadro video card per screen, instead of one card for every two screens, which is what I run now. But that increase in bandwidth requirements will bring its own problems (like Infiniband). :cursing:

I had the whole thing working in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, except the performance of the video wall (including fonts, Blake) was crap. Static images were displayed very well, but moving windows or (God help me) video was very broken. AND, the U of Texas at Austin stopped using Red Hat for their massive video wall and went to Ubuntu. It's the right thing to do, but it's a lot of lost effort. Oh well, I learned a lot. :glare:

[weshofmann]

Wow, that sounds like fun! I've never worked with anything like that before (wall of display hardware) but I'm guessing it would present all sorts of interesting challenges, to say the least.

If you don't mind my asking, why did you guys settle on Ubuntu? Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely an Ubuntu fan but as a general rule I never trust it for anything overly important or mission critical; bugs present in its typically bleeding-edge packages have bit me one too many times. That's where either Red Hat Enterprise or Debian Stable comes in. :) And yes, I do hate RedHat, but for enterprise purposes, it has a LOT of advantages over Debian unfortunately. :-/

Ah, Austin... I was there for a summer many years ago doing an internship with IBM's Linux Technology Center. I love that town.

Anyway, sorry I went into so much detail! I have no idea what the experience/knowledge levels of the people who read this thread are, so I figured my explanation might help you and might help those who read your post and didn't know what you were talking about.

Besides, routing is a pretty complex topic that a lot of people don't really understand---even the relatively simple stuff. I feel that I don't really understand a subject until I'm able to adequately explain it to someone, so I tend to wax pedantic every so often. :)

Wes

[RichGem]

Wow, that sounds like fun! I've never worked with anything like that before (wall of display hardware) but I'm guessing it would present all sorts of interesting challenges, to say the least.

If you don't mind my asking, why did you guys settle on Ubuntu? Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely an Ubuntu fan but as a general rule I never trust it for anything important or mission critical. That's where either Red Hat Enterprise or Debian Stable comes in. :) And yes, I do hate RedHat, but for enterprise purposes, it has a LOT of advantages over Debian unfortunately. :-/

Ah, Austin... I was there for a summer many years ago doing an internship with IBM's Linux Technology Center. I love that town.

Anyway, sorry I went into so much detail! I have no idea what the experience/knowledge levels of the people who read this thread are, so I figured my explanation might help you and might help those who read your post and didn't know what you were talking about.

Besides, routing is a pretty complex topic that a lot of people don't really understand---even the relatively simple stuff. I feel that I don't really understand a subject until I'm able to adequately explain it to someone, so I tend to wax pedantic every so often. :)

Wes

I'm one of the 'buntu desenters around here. When I got into linux it was w/ RH 8 and I just followed through Fedora Core and I think my last update was to Fedora 8 (whatever one was the last one before KDE 4.x). I also use (the preloaded) Xandros on my eeePC.

[blackfoot]

http://www.gdruckman.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/linux_paper_model.jpg


Linux!

Very nice!


As far as knowledge, Oldsaw, Soapbox, Confuzous, and Richgem seem to be able to answer anything, especially when you put them together. At the other end is me. I do whatever they tell me and assume it worked. :001_tongu

[soapbox]

I'm one of the 'buntu desenters around here. When I got into linux it was w/ RH 8 and I just followed through Fedora Core and I think my last update was to Fedora 8 (whatever one was the last one before KDE 4.x). I also use (the preloaded) Xandros on my eeePC.

For my own home, I run Gentoo. I like Ubuntu/Debian, but the guys at UT dumped RHEL for Ubuntu (a long-term service release, 8.04), so I'm following suit. RHEL's performance stunk for what I was doing.

I used to run YellowDog, but that was a long, long time ago. And really, I'm still an Apple partisan, but there's some stuff the Mac OS doesn't do, and the Mac OS overhead is not trivial; GNOME is pretty good about getting out of the way when I'm frying my CPUs for days at a time.

[soapbox]

As far as knowledge, Oldsaw, Soapbox, Confuzous, and Richgem seem to be able to answer anything, especially when you put them together. At the other end is me. I do whatever they tell me and assume it worked. :001_tongu

Hey, you're a great (and patient) guinea pig...

[blackfoot]

Hey, you're a great (and patient) guinea pig...

:lol::lol::lol::lol:

I am noticing the lack of Ubuntu love here. Yet, that is what you guys told me to go with. :glare:

[Confuzius]

Ubuntu is still often seen as Noobuntu.
It's easy to install, it gets a lot of press, so people try it, people that would have never touched linux with a 10 foot pole try it, some like it and learn more about how to use and fix it, some like it and refuse to learn and want other people to fix things for them. (You guys have been good at learning) I think this is why Ubuntu gets some slack, that and their penchant for pushing out packages that aren't quite ready yet in order to have them more ready for the LTS releases. 9.10 is suffering from this right now with it's mash up of grub2, xsplash and the new GDM, all of which are arguably not ready for prime time, but their predecessors will all be old hat in two and a half years when 10.04 (LTS) is at the end of it's 2 year support cycle.

I'm thinking about going to a different distro, at least on a dualboot because after almost 3 years of troubleshooting Ubuntu I'm confident enough that I can take a step up to a big boy distro. The problem is that I'm totally hooked on apt and the sheer amount of stuff available in the official and 3rd party repos.

EDIT: oh yeah, I've also been hanging out a lot in #linuxmint-help on irc.spotchat.org (default for xchat on mint) helping out mint newbies, it's fun :-)

[weshofmann]

Ubuntu is still often seen as Noobuntu.
It's easy to install, it gets a lot of press, so people try it, people that would have never touched linux with a 10 foot pole try it, some like it and learn more about how to use and fix it, some like it and refuse to learn and want other people to fix things for them. (You guys have been good at learning) I think this is why Ubuntu gets some slack, that and their penchant for pushing out packages that aren't quite ready yet in order to have them more ready for the LTS releases. 9.10 is suffering from this right now with it's mash up of grub2, xsplash and the new GDM, all of which are arguably not ready for prime time, but their predecessors will all be old hat in two and a half years when 10.04 (LTS) is at the end of it's 2 year support cycle.

I'm thinking about going to a different distro, at least on a dualboot because after almost 3 years of troubleshooting Ubuntu I'm confident enough that I can take a step up to a big boy distro. The problem is that I'm totally hooked on apt and the sheer amount of stuff available in the official and 3rd party repos.

EDIT: oh yeah, I've also been hanging out a lot in #linuxmint-help on irc.spotchat.org (default for xchat on mint) helping out mint newbies, it's fun :-)

I'd highly recommend you try out Debian (upon which Ubuntu is based). You'll get to keep all your apt goodness and the packages won't be as unstable or bleeding edge. Be sure you use the "testing" branch though, as the "stable" branch is getting a bit long in the tooth, even tough it was just updated this last summer.

If you need more bleeding edge stuff, you can always upgrade to debian "unstable" after that. In fact, through smart use of "Apt Pinning (http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/ch-apt-get.en.html#s-default-version)" you can install only the portions of unstable that are required to support some of the more bleeding edge packages you'd like to graft into "testing". Basically, apt in addition to the 10000+ packages available through it are THE reason to use Debian or a Debian-derived distro, IMHO. :)

[soapbox]

I'm thinking about going to a different distro, at least on a dualboot because after almost 3 years of troubleshooting Ubuntu I'm confident enough that I can take a step up to a big boy distro. The problem is that I'm totally hooked on apt and the sheer amount of stuff available in the official and 3rd party repos.

OK, then, you're ready for Gentoo. You'll love it if you want to step up to a big boy distro yet continue troubleshooting... :lol:

[weshofmann]

OK, then, you're ready for Gentoo. You'll love it if you want to step up to a big boy distro yet continue troubleshooting... :lol:

But, But, But... that extra 1.01&#37; performance improvement you get through custom compiling EVERYTHING explicitly for your system and the HUNDREDS of man-hours you waste futzing with Gentoo is TOTALLY worth it. </sarcasm>

<disclaimer>
Ok, I'm about to ruffle some feathers here, so if you get easily offended by a stranger bashing your distro of choice (and your choice is Gentoo) then you should probably just ignore the rest of this post...
</disclaimer>

<rant>
Sorry, I did my time with Gentoo, thinking, "hey I'll learn more about linux". Not so much. You end up screwing endlessly with a lot of gentoo-specific issues (portage, gentoo's SysV init replacement, gentoo config scripts, etc). Then don't even get me started on the fact that the only platform on which you really need that extra performance is a 5-year-old laptop, but trying to compile it on said laptop will necessitate you leaving it plugged in, powered on, for 10s of hours at a time, thus completely destroying the whole point of having said laptop.

Oh, and you just gotta love that these custom-compile guys use compiler flags like "-O3" and "-funroll-loops". Sure, it can make the program execute faster theoretically but at what cost? You increase the chances of bugs and instability since the compiler is now playing really fast and loose with the opcodes it's generating (let's just hope it knows what you MEANT and didn't optimize it incorrectly). Oh, and you've just made your executables a whole lot bigger since everything is inlined where possible and loops are unrolled where possible! But, "I've got plenty of hard drive space now" you claim? Sure you do! But you've only got so much cache on your CPU and that space is precious! When you bloat your executables, you destroy your CPUs cache efficiency which is usually a HUGE hit to performance.

Basically, the best way I've ever heard gentoo summarized is that "Gentoo is Linux for ricers". If you admire the teenagers who spend tons of time on their cars and end up with a POS Civic covered in nothing but primer with a huge-ass wing on the back, a fart cannon under the rear bumper, a complete inability to pass emissions tests, and more gauges than a 747 in the cabin so Johnny Ricer can monitor the status of his 140 HP "street rocket" (hey, all the mods added 15 HP!!!), then Genoo is for you.

Otherwise.... stick with a sane distro. :thumbup:
</rant>

Sorry, evidently Gentoo and their community abused me when I was younger. :-/

[Confuzius]

I've got no problem with bleeding edge - what fun is a computer if there's nothing to fix :-P

I've actually been contemplating Arch or Siddux, but I'm worried that all the extra time put into making my computer work properly would frustrate my girlfriend even more...


EDIT: We've already covered Gentoo is Rice http://funroll-loops.info/ a few hundred pages back

[RichGem]

Basically, the best way I've ever heard gentoo summarized is that "Gentoo is Linux for ricers". If you admire the teenagers who spend tons of time on their cars and end up with a POS Civic covered in nothing but primer with a huge-ass wing on the back, a fart cannon under the rear bumper, a complete inability to pass emissions tests, and more gauges than a 747 in the cabin so Johnny Ricer can monitor the status of his 140 HP "street rocket" (hey, all the mods added 15 HP!!!), then Genoo is for you.

Otherwise.... stick with a sane distro. :thumbup:


Custom title alert!

[weshofmann]

EDIT: We've already covered Gentoo is Rice http://funroll-loops.info/ a few hundred pages back

Darn me and my misplaced, ill-timed, and redundant rants! :mad3:

[RichGem]

Darn me and my misplaced, ill-timed, and redundant rants! :mad3:

We rather enjoy linux-inspired rants around here. Oh, hell, any rants, actually. :lol:

[weshofmann]

We rather enjoy linux-inspired rants around here. Oh, hell, any rants, actually. :lol:

Sweet. :) Well, as long as you're not regretting that you invited me to join your little club.... :lol:

[RichGem]

Sweet. :) Well, as long as you're not regretting that you invited me to join your little club.... :lol:

Not at all. In fact, I think you might be getting ready to join the Czardom! In fact, head over to the "Czardom of Cheddar" social group to check us out. You can read without being a member.

[weshofmann]

Not at all. In fact, I think you might be getting ready to join the Czardom! In fact, head over to the "Czardom of Cheddar" social group to check us out. You can read without being a member.

Looks like a fun little group to me! I'd love to join you guys someday with the caveat that I'll most likely be far more active posting in the Linux Mint thread than anywhere else, as I'm pretty much a noob at wetshaving (about 3 months into it now). I tend to talk a lot more about topics in which I have a plethora of knowledge. :)

Now, unfortunate/fortunately, I've gone rather crazy about this wetshaving thing and have contracted a crazy case of AD. In 3 months I've gone from just Barbasol+Mach3 to having 4 brushes, around 2 dozen razors, and probably 2 or 3 dozen soaps plus another half a dozen creams. Oh, and a Georgetown G5 scuttle is on the way here! So yeah, I seem to be rather lacking in impulse control.

On the other hand, I can probably justify it two ways: 1) it's a really fun hobby. Not only do I enjoy my shaves now, I end up trying all sorts of new things (my recent exploration has been milling Arko together with less-latherable, great-smelling glycerin soaps... killer lather and scent). And 2) I don't think I'm spending significantly more than I would have spent since august when I quit smoking. So obsessing over this stuff probably helps me stay away from the cigs. :)

[RichGem]

Looks like a fun little group to me! I'd love to join you guys someday with the caveat that I'll most likely be far more active posting in the Linux Mint thread than anywhere else, as I'm pretty much a noob at wetshaving (about 3 months into it now). I tend to talk a lot more about topics in which I have a plethora of knowledge. :)

Now, unfortunate/fortunately, I've gone rather crazy about this wetshaving thing and have contracted a crazy case of AD. In 3 months I've gone from just Barbasol+Mach3 to having 4 brushes, around 2 dozen razors, and probably 2 or 3 dozen soaps plus another half a dozen creams. Oh, and a Georgetown G5 scuttle is on the way here! So yeah, I seem to be rather lacking in impulse control.

On the other hand, I can probably justify it two ways: 1) it's a really fun hobby. Not only do I enjoy my shaves now, I end up trying all sorts of new things (my recent exploration has been milling Arko together with less-latherable, great-smelling glycerin soaps... killer lather and scent). And 2) I don't think I'm spending significantly more than I would have spent since august when I quit smoking. So obsessing over this stuff probably helps me stay away from the cigs. :)

Well, the ADs do affect all of us, especially in the beginning. You're well on your way with this bunch of enablers, that's for sure.

To join the Czardom... profess your loyalty to the Czar and all things Cheddar, reject all things Pirate-based, and go to the social group and click on "join group." When I get the notification, I'll add you as a member.

[weshofmann]

Well, the ADs do affect all of us, especially in the beginning. You're well on your way with this bunch of enablers, that's for sure.

To join the Czardom... profess your loyalty to the Czar and all things Cheddar, reject all things Pirate-based, and go to the social group and click on "join group." When I get the notification, I'll add you as a member.

Um, "pirate" in what context? *glances nervously at his netbook running a less-than-genuine Windows XP*

:biggrin1:

[RichGem]

Um, "pirate" in what context? *glances nervously at his netbook running a less-than-genuine Windows XP*

:biggrin1:

Not in that sense. Pirate in the sense of "yo ho ho and a bottle of rum."

[weshofmann]

Not in that sense. Pirate in the sense of "yo ho ho and a bottle of rum."

Alrighty then! Request sent!

[RichGem]

Alrighty then! Request sent!

You're in! Congrats!

[soapbox]

But, But, But... that extra 1.01% performance improvement you get through custom compiling EVERYTHING explicitly for your system and the HUNDREDS of man-hours you waste futzing with Gentoo is TOTALLY worth it. </sarcasm>

Basically, the best way I've ever heard gentoo summarized is that "Gentoo is Linux for ricers".

The criticisms of Gentoo are not unreasonable. Your vitriol is a tad unreasonable. But yeah, every distro has its...problem children with "fart cannons."

Gentoo has performed admirably at several points in my life where other distros were unable to do so (try running anything else, besides Solaris, on a Sun Enterprise 250)*, or else I was unwilling to spend the extra effort to learn GTK's APIs and warp space-time.


I've got no problem with bleeding edge - what fun is a computer if there's nothing to fix :-P

EDIT: We've already covered Gentoo is Rice http://funroll-loops.info/ a few hundred pages back

:laugh: yeah. I really do understand the criticisms of Gentoo. I suppose I get tired of being lumped (funroll-looped?) in the same category as the Gentoo ricers. It does what I want. It does a good job. It runs on all the hardware I've ever thrown at it.** If you don't feel obliged to emerge every new package that appears the day it first breaks into beta, Gentoo is as rock-solid as anything I've ever used. I don't need a n00b-friendly distro.

</unruffle>


* If someone claims "SuSE will!" I will beat him to death with his own leg bones, because clearly he has not tried to use SuSE with SILO.

** I'm not claiming it'll run on everything NetBSD will, however. Those guys are [amazing|crazy].

[weshofmann]

Um, "pirate" in what context? *glances nervously at his netbook running a less-than-genuine Windows XP*

:biggrin1:

In my defense, I wouldn't have to do that if firmware updates weren't Windows-only for that machine.... but that's another rant for another day. :)

[RichGem]

You're in! Congrats!

Oh, and this thread (as well as "home buying advice" and "there's a new czar in town") contains much of our lore, mythology, and history.

[soapbox]

In my defense, I wouldn't have to do that if firmware updates weren't Windows-only for that machine.... but that's another rant for another day. :)

Yeah, I've had to pull out FreeDOS just to upgrade firmware on motherboards and SATA cards. I hear you.

[weshofmann]

The criticisms of Gentoo are not unreasonable. Your vitriol is a tad unreasonable. But yeah, every distro has its...problem children with "fart cannons."

Gentoo has performed admirably at several points in my life where other distros were unable to do so (try running anything else, besides Solaris, on a Sun Enterprise 250)*, or else I was unwilling to spend the extra effort to learn GTK's APIs and warp space-time.


Ok, if we're talking legacy hardware here than I'll take back my comments. I was speaking more about people running it on the latest-and-greatest quad core 3+ GHz boxes with SSDs and triple-channel ram. On older hardware (like the beloved SparcStation 5 I used to have), an optimized distro definitely has its place and I won't bash anyone for turning to Gentoo. :)

[weshofmann]

Yeah, I've had to pull out FreeDOS just to upgrade firmware on motherboards and SATA cards. I hear you.

Yeah, I have a DOS-booting USB stick just for that occasion. Unfortunately, many hardware vendors have stopped releasing that stuff in DOS-usable formats. My integrated camera, for instance, can ONLY be updated in Windows. :(

[Confuzius]

It's cool, I have a deep respect for your gentooism.

EDIT: Could you pull something like that (windows only firmware) off using a live windows boot cd based of Ubcd/BartPE?
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/livecd.html

[soapbox]

It's cool, I have a deep respect for your gentooism.

EDIT: Could you pull something like that (windows only firmware) off using a live windows boot cd based of Ubcd/BartPE?
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/livecd.html

Absolutely you could, provided the firmware installer doesn't try to use any system resources that aren't loaded under BartPE/etc. We use BartPE for ghosting Windows machines here, since, as noted above, not all drivers have DOS-compatible packages anymore.

[weshofmann]

You're in! Congrats!

Thanks!

[weshofmann]

Absolutely you could, provided the firmware installer doesn't try to use any system resources that aren't loaded under BartPE/etc. We use BartPE for ghosting Windows machines here, since, as noted above, not all drivers have DOS-compatible packages anymore.

Wow, I hate to admit I've never played with BartPE before. This is pretty freakin' awesome! Good find, gentlemen!

Wes

[blackfoot]

But, But, But... that extra 1.01% performance improvement you get through custom compiling EVERYTHING explicitly for your system and the HUNDREDS of man-hours you waste futzing with Gentoo is TOTALLY worth it. </sarcasm>

<disclaimer>
Ok, I'm about to ruffle some feathers here, so if you get easily offended by a stranger bashing your distro of choice (and your choice is Gentoo) then you should probably just ignore the rest of this post...
</disclaimer>

<rant>
Sorry, I did my time with Gentoo, thinking, "hey I'll learn more about linux". Not so much. You end up screwing endlessly with a lot of gentoo-specific issues (portage, gentoo's SysV init replacement, gentoo config scripts, etc). Then don't even get me started on the fact that the only platform on which you really need that extra performance is a 5-year-old laptop, but trying to compile it on said laptop will necessitate you leaving it plugged in, powered on, for 10s of hours at a time, thus completely destroying the whole point of having said laptop.

Oh, and you just gotta love that these custom-compile guys use compiler flags like "-O3" and "-funroll-loops". Sure, it can make the program execute faster theoretically but at what cost? You increase the chances of bugs and instability since the compiler is now playing really fast and loose with the opcodes it's generating (let's just hope it knows what you MEANT and didn't optimize it incorrectly). Oh, and you've just made your executables a whole lot bigger since everything is inlined where possible and loops are unrolled where possible! But, "I've got plenty of hard drive space now" you claim? Sure you do! But you've only got so much cache on your CPU and that space is precious! When you bloat your executables, you destroy your CPUs cache efficiency which is usually a HUGE hit to performance.

Basically, the best way I've ever heard gentoo summarized is that "Gentoo is Linux for ricers". If you admire the teenagers who spend tons of time on their cars and end up with a POS Civic covered in nothing but primer with a huge-ass wing on the back, a fart cannon under the rear bumper, a complete inability to pass emissions tests, and more gauges than a 747 in the cabin so Johnny Ricer can monitor the status of his 140 HP "street rocket" (hey, all the mods added 15 HP!!!), then Genoo is for you.

Otherwise.... stick with a sane distro. :thumbup:
</rant>

Sorry, evidently Gentoo and their community abused me when I was younger. :-/

This just about describes my little brother (Skklog) for a while. He had a Dodge Neon. Him and a friend did a lot of work to that stupid car. They cut it apart and widened it, carbon-fiber hood, huge a$$ wing, ground effects, but no fart cannon. It looked like a batmobile. Then, he bought a Z, and the neon was forgotten. :001_rolle


Custom title alert!

:lol::lol::lol: :thumbup1:


Looks like a fun little group to me! I'd love to join you guys someday with the caveat that I'll most likely be far more active posting in the Linux Mint thread than anywhere else, as I'm pretty much a noob at wetshaving (about 3 months into it now). I tend to talk a lot more about topics in which I have a plethora of knowledge. :)

Believe me, knowing what you're talking about is certainly not a requirement in the Czardom. In fact, the less you understand, the better. :lol:


Now, unfortunate/fortunately, I've gone rather crazy about this wetshaving thing and have contracted a crazy case of AD. In 3 months I've gone from just Barbasol+Mach3 to having 4 brushes, around 2 dozen razors, and probably 2 or 3 dozen soaps plus another half a dozen creams. Oh, and a Georgetown G5 scuttle is on the way here! So yeah, I seem to be rather lacking in impulse control.

Don't worry. You don't truly have RAD until you have over 100 razors. Unless I get a few more. Then, Rad won't hit until you get 150. :001_rolle

[QUOTE=weshofmann;1666070]Um, "pirate" in what context? *glances nervously at his netbook running a less-than-genuine Windows XP*

:biggrin1:

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

[Lynchmeister]

Hey guys! Figured I should chime in before I duck out again...:whistling:...you see, I just got two new toys last night. A new (my first) acoustic guitar and a new Fender amp (for my two electrics that I've had forever).

My (left hand) fingers are now making a bloody mess of the keyboard (which I've been neglecting as of late), so I'll part with these words of wisdom:

...nevermind...I forgot.

:thumbsup:

[weshofmann]

no disagreement here, I fell in love with vi over a decade ago and never liked emacs much. Just sayin' for people who can't come to terms with taking the time to learn vi, I usually find they're less resistant to nano.

So, I was browsing back over the thread and found this quote. I, being the argumentative brat that I am, am going to have to disagree somewhat.

LISP/Scheme are one of my favorite languages, and having seen the architecture of Emacs, it kills vi in terms of flexibility, capability, and power, hands down. As a programmer's editor, it's hard to beat Emacs.

Now, that being said, I learned vi when I first started using *NIX a long time ago. vim's keystrokes are burned in my memory and require no thought when I use it. Thus, every time I've decided to try learning Emacs, I conclude that it's far more capable, but far less efficient, and I give up and go back to vi. What can I say, I love modal editors. :)

Sure, you could argue that Emacs has a "viper" mode which makes Emacs behave more or less exactly like vim, but I've never bothered to use it.

So, while I'll acknowledge that all the guys claiming Emacs is more capable, more powerful, and in that sense "better" are completely correct. But, I'm a vi guy and that's what I'll be using as long as I'm editing pretty much anything. :)

[soapbox]

So, I was browsing back over the thread and found this quote. I, being the argumentative brat that I am, am going to have to disagree somewhat.

Excuse me, but real programmers use butterflies (http://xkcd.com/378/).

[soapbox]

And Wes, you're the first person I've met (virtually or physically) who I know uses Lisp. I never knew of applications for it (I use Perl, Fortran, bash, MySQL, and a slew of macro languages), but I've always been intrigued by it. What do you use it for? Do tell! :thumbup1:

[weshofmann]

And Wes, you're the first person I've met (virtually or physically) who I know uses Lisp. I never knew of applications for it (I use Perl, Fortran, bash, MySQL, and a slew of macro languages), but I've always been intrigued by it. What do you use it for? Do tell! :thumbup1:

Unfortunately I don't get to use it professionally, and it's been years since I used it for much of anything. Basically, back in school, I decided I wanted to take the plunge and really figure out LISP, so I did all of my projects for a year and a half or so in it while everybody else was using matlab (math classes), java/c/c++, python, perl, etc.

The first few moths was hell. If you're not a functional programmer, I think there really is a mental barrier you have to break to train yourself to think that way. Once you do though, it truly makes you think differently and program differently, even in other languages (especially languages like python, perl, ruby, etc. that have strong facilities for functional programming). It forces you to think about and approach problems in a different (I would aruge, better) way. In fact, you do so much thought before writing each line of code, that I experienced something regularly that I've never experienced before with any other programming language: I would write a few dozen lines of code and it worked. First time. No bugs. It blew me away.

Anyway, there will always be a spot in my heart for functional languages, especially Scheme (a cleaner derivative of LISP). Nobody uses it anymore, but it amuses me to see newer languages over the past decade moving programmers slowly back to where we were when LISP was king, before it was dethroned by C and the like. :) Hell, once you have a turing-complete XML standard (with xslt and the like) you're a short distance from LISP's S-Expressions. We have LISP to thank for a lot of the wonderful things that modern languages give us. Things like mixins, macros, closures, anonymous functions, higher order functions, dynamic typing, etc? Yeah, those all came largely from LISP and other functional/academic languages.

[weshofmann]

So, my title under my name on the board is "WWND". Any idea what that means?

[RichGem]

So, my title under my name on the board is "WWND". Any idea what that means?


"What Would Nair Do?"

:biggrin:





(actually, no one is telling... but common thought is "what would nick (one of the founders) do?")

[blackfoot]

Hey guys! Figured I should chime in before I duck out again...:whistling:...you see, I just got two new toys last night. A new (my first) acoustic guitar and a new Fender amp (for my two electrics that I've had forever).

My (left hand) fingers are now making a bloody mess of the keyboard (which I've been neglecting as of late), so I'll part with these words of wisdom:

...nevermind...I forgot.

:thumbsup:

:lol::lol::lol::lol: Glad to hear you are alive, Cory.


Excuse me, but real programmers use butterflies (http://xkcd.com/378/).

:lol::lol:


So, my title under my name on the board is "WWND". Any idea what that means?

There are entire threads about that around here. :001_rolle

[RichGem]

Who's Cory? :confused:

[blackfoot]

Who's Cory? :confused:

Some guy with no house.

[Confuzius]

ATTN: Programmer types:
While this may not be quite as divisive as emacs vs vim, can anyone recommend a good, simple (very basic) version control system? Preferably something that I can run on my home computer or webhost and ssh/sftp into.

I wrote a small very basic Print button extension for Chrome (http://www.jordanconway.com/blog/chrome-extension-simple-print/), but working on it in two different locations is making me realize that I need some sort of organizational skills to keep this all together, and it's only 4 files... Next semester I'm doing my "intro to programing course" at university, so I'd like to be familiar with some type of version control so I don't end up accidentally overwriting half an assignment with an old file.

Thanks!

[RichGem]

ATTN: Programmer types:
While this may not be quite as divisive as emacs vs vim, can anyone recommend a good, simple (very basic) version control system? Preferably something that I can run on my home computer or webhost and ssh/sftp into.

I wrote a small very basic Print button extension for Chrome (http://www.jordanconway.com/blog/chrome-extension-simple-print/), but working on it in two different locations is making me realize that I need some sort of organizational skills to keep this all together, and it's only 4 files... Next semester I'm doing my "intro to programing course" at university, so I'd like to be familiar with some type of version control so I don't end up accidentally overwriting half an assignment with an old file.

Thanks!

I think Linus prefers/uses "git" for kernel work, but I have no experience with it (or any other versioning program).

[soapbox]

I think Linus prefers/uses "git" for kernel work, but I have no experience with it (or any other versioning program).

Yeah, the heavy hitters have left CVS for GNU-approved git.

Note these heavy hitters are all Americans, since it's the equivalent of naming a package "dumbass" or "retard" for UK-English speakers.

[RichGem]

Yeah, the heavy hitters have left CVS for GNU-approved git.

Note these heavy hitters are all Americans, since it's the equivalent of naming a package "dumbass" or "retard" for UK-English speakers.


Funny. Sounds like something a computer nerd would do just to have a laugh.

[weshofmann]

ATTN: Programmer types:
While this may not be quite as divisive as emacs vs vim, can anyone recommend a good, simple (very basic) version control system? Preferably something that I can run on my home computer or webhost and ssh/sftp into.

I wrote a small very basic Print button extension for Chrome (http://www.jordanconway.com/blog/chrome-extension-simple-print/), but working on it in two different locations is making me realize that I need some sort of organizational skills to keep this all together, and it's only 4 files... Next semester I'm doing my "intro to programing course" at university, so I'd like to be familiar with some type of version control so I don't end up accidentally overwriting half an assignment with an old file.

Thanks!

Probably the most capable/powerful revision control system out there is one of the distributed ones like git (used by the Linux kernel devs) and Mercurial. Of the two, git is probably your best bet.

For what you're doing, however, a distributed revision control system is probably severe overkill so you should probably go with whatever has the best tools and integration with the OS and dev environment you use. For that, I would highly recommend subversion (http://subversion.tigris.org/). It's pretty straightforward, the server is pretty easy to set up, it's mature, and there are tons of good clients for every OS out there.

If you go with subversion, then here are the clients I'd recommend using:

For Windows, go with Tortoise SVN (http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/). Its integration with Explorer and other aspects of the windows shell is awesome!
For OSX, I've tried Versions (http://versionsapp.com/) and was really impressed with it. If it's not your cup of tea, you can find other Mac SVN clients here (http://theappleblog.com/2009/02/23/12-subversion-apps-for-os-x/)
For Linux there are a plethora of them you can find from your friendly package manager. :)
For development in Eclipse, I'd recommend looking at Subclipse (http://subclipse.tigris.org/). It's fully integrated into the Eclipse IDE and is really nice.


So yeah... git is awesome for developing projects with a lot of other people, but if you're just looking for quick and dirty version control that works great for just you or a few people, I'd go with subversion because of the tools available for it.

Hope that helps.

Wes

[Confuzius]

Cool, thanks guys!
I figure anything would be better than just sftping the newest version back and forth between the different locations.
Yet another weekend project to look at!

[soapbox]

Cool, thanks guys!
I figure anything would be better than just sftping the newest version back and forth between the different locations.
Yet another weekend project to look at!

Wes also makes a good point that if SVN or CVS is easier to implement and you aren't going to have a stroke from using non-GPL software, choose the one that's easiest to install and use.

If you have a friend who uses dreamhost for their hosting, they implement sftp, svn, and cvs by default, and maybe git too. Dreamhost is awesome, and this way you could put your various versions "in the cloud" and not have to sweat installing the software on a personal machine.

[Confuzius]

I use https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ for hosting. Since my traffic is very light, but they're pretty no frills. I have heard good things about dreamhost and will probably end up there if somehow I magically outgrow my britches at NFS.

NFS gets expensive for higher volume hosting, but small volume; I've hosted a basic Wordpress install with next to no traffic for around a year and it's cost me < $10

$0.01/day for a mysql process $0.01/day for domain privacy service $1.00/gb/month for storage space and $1.00/gb/month for transfer, only billed as you use it, to the byte. "Unbilled Storage 163,337 byte-days ($0.0001)"

Beats the hell out of $8.95/month for unlimited bandwidth on a site with no traffic :-P

[Swampfox]

So, my title under my name on the board is "WWND". Any idea what that means?

What Would Neil Do


PS I have no idea what any of you are talking about. :confused1

[blackfoot]

What Would Neil Do


PS I have no idea what any of you are talking about. :confused1

That's okay. Either do I. So, I just say, "Linux!" :thumbup1:

[Swampfox]

That's okay. Either do I. So, I just say, "Linux!" :thumbup1:

:blink:

[blackfoot]

:blink:

No, no, no. Linux!

[Swampfox]

No, no, no. Linux!

Red Hat!

[blackfoot]

Red Hat!

<facepalm>

[skklog]

Mac!

[RichGem]

Mac!

Is a first cousin to Linux. So, :tongue:

[blackfoot]

Is a first cousin to Linux. So, :tongue:

Double :tongue::tongue:

[skklog]

.









































































Linux

[Swampfox]

Unix.

[soapbox]

Mac!

FreeBSD!


Is a first cousin to Linux. So, :tongue:

Linux was written because Unix was expensive and closed source. The collection of software and kernels called "Linux" is often described as a Unix "work-alike", even though the kernel's source code is different; many of the utilities that make Linux "Linux" are the same, just recompiled.


Double :tongue::tongue:

:thumbup1:


Unix.

*nix.

Diversity is important.

[soapbox]

Diversity is important.

Even Windows has a place in the computer ecosystem,* but I don't like the way Microsoft does business, or most of their software.




*Like keeping antivirus software companies in business.

[blackfoot]

Even Windows has a place in the computer ecosystem,* but I don't like the way Microsoft does business, or most of their software.




*Like keeping antivirus software companies in business.

This was the deal for me. They have monopolised the world and take tons of money and assure you remained trapped. Until, you get brave and try something different.

[Swampfox]

This was the deal for me. They have monopolised the world and take tons of money and assure you remained trapped. Until, you get brave and try something different.

This is why my next system will be a Mac, and I want to learn how to use Linux.

[soapbox]

This is why my next system will be a Mac, and I want to learn how to use Linux.

Both have been rewarding for me. I've been using a Mac since 1987-1988, and now in 2009, you don't have to be a huge geek to run Linux and have a good experience every day. (Plus, Linux is free).

[Swampfox]

Both have been rewarding for me. I've been using a Mac since 1987-1988, and now in 2009, you don't have to be a huge geek to run Linux and have a good experience every day. (Plus, Linux is free).

That's the part I like the best. I'm a geek, but I am stuck on level 1, IMO. I just can't get past the guy at the end of level 2.

[RichGem]

That's the part I like the best. I'm a geek, but I am stuck on level 1, IMO. I just can't get past the guy at the end of level 2.

There's probably an app, er, Perl script, for that.

:tongue_sm

[soapbox]

That's the part I like the best. I'm a geek, but I am stuck on level 1, IMO. I just can't get past the guy at the end of level 2.


There's probably an app, er, Perl script, for that.

In no small part, Perl was the catalyst for my development into a serious computer geek. Perl appeared as the best tool (in 2000-2001) for a particularly ugly data manipulation task that would have been impossible, for me, by hand, Excel, SPSS, etc. The fact that there was only one way to get the end result I needed -- by learning Perl and achieving my goal -- definitely pushed me into the next level.

The Perl skills (and later, Fortran, SQL, bash, etc.) made it possible for me to do some monumental stuff for my dissertation. Never underestimate what you can do with the right tools. Ever.

[Swampfox]

There's probably an app, er, Perl script, for that.

:tongue_sm

:lol::lol::lol:


In no small part, Perl was the catalyst for my development into a serious computer geek. Perl appeared as the best tool (in 2000-2001) for a particularly ugly data manipulation task that would have been impossible, for me, by hand, Excel, SPSS, etc. The fact that there was only one way to get the end result I needed -- by learning Perl and achieving my goal -- definitely pushed me into the next level.

The Perl skills (and later, Fortran, SQL, bash, etc.) made it possible for me to do some monumental stuff for my dissertation. Never underestimate what you can do with the right tools. Ever.

:thumbup1: Who would ever think I would read something so wise in the Clown House?

[blackfoot]

:thumbup1: Who would ever think I would read something so wise in the Clown House?

Weird, isn't it? :lol:

[Confuzius]

I dunno if any of you guys are into dock bars, but AWN (avant window navigator) recently got what seems to be a ground up rewrite and it's great.
http://wiki.awn-project.org
Including a new panel mode, that looks to be "inspired" by Windows 7.

But for me, the kicker is that it finally works properly with dual monitors and maximized windows. Also from my experience it's faster than cairo-dock.

[weshofmann]

I dunno if any of you guys are into dock bars, but AWN (avant window navigator) recently got what seems to be a ground up rewrite and it's great.
http://wiki.awn-project.org
Including a new panel mode, that looks to be "inspired" by Windows 7.

But for me, the kicker is that it finally works properly with dual monitors and maximized windows. Also from my experience it's faster than cairo-dock.

Heh, this is where I probably deviate from most Linux enthusiasts. For my desktop machines, I pretty much use either Mac or Windows XP (recently Windows 7). I've tried Linux on the desktop, plus every form of translation/emulation/simulation layer out there to run windows and mac propriety apps, and for one reason or another they're all less than ideal. So, Mac or Win on the desktop with an ssh client and X server, connected to Linux servers are the environment I've found to be most useful.

That said though, I'm sure I'll try linux on the desktop again sometime soon down the road, so I'll give that dock a whirl when I do. :)

Wes

[Lynchmeister]

I dunno if any of you guys are into dock bars, but AWN (avant window navigator) recently got what seems to be a ground up rewrite and it's great.
http://wiki.awn-project.org
Including a new panel mode, that looks to be "inspired" by Windows 7.

But for me, the kicker is that it finally works properly with dual monitors and maximized windows. Also from my experience it's faster than cairo-dock.

Awesome, thanks Jordan! I've been looking for something better than Cairo-dock, which has been giving me some grief lately when trying to add and change themes.

I'm gonna check this out right now.

[Confuzius]

Make sure you follow the instructions to set it up from the ppa repository to get all the new features. Jaunty instructions should work on Gloria, Karmic for Helena.
http://wiki.awn-project.org/DistributionGuides#Testing_Package_Archive

EDIT: it is in the default repos, but not as cool as the new one in the testing repos.

[Swampfox]

Weird, isn't it? :lol:

Soapbox is probably just throwing out some disinformation to throw me off.....

[soapbox]

Soapbox is probably just throwing out some disinformation to throw me off.....

In some threads, I might. Linux is not one of those threads.

[funkyb]

Due to the mention of multimon support... I would just like to take this opportunity to shake my fist over the deprecation of xserver-xgl. Cries!

That will be all, thank you.


http://imgur.com/PnpwL.jpg

[Lynchmeister]

Make sure you follow the instructions to set it up from the ppa repository to get all the new features. Jaunty instructions should work on Gloria, Karmic for Helena.
http://wiki.awn-project.org/DistributionGuides#Testing_Package_Archive

EDIT: it is in the default repos, but not as cool as the new one in the testing repos.

Ok, I've got some free time and I've decided to devote it setting this up. I'll be sure to report back with my story of success or lack thereof.

[Swampfox]

In some threads, I might. Linux is not one of those threads.

:thumbup1:

[Lynchmeister]

So I've already run into my first problem. My Software Sources GUI won't open. :frown: Any ideas?

[soapbox]

So I've already run into my first problem. My Software Sources GUI won't open. :frown: Any ideas?

learn how to use apt-get?

[Confuzius]

Mint dosn't have the same sources GUI as ubuntu, you can do it through synaptic, add repository. or
gksudo gedit /etc/sources.list (or is it /etc/apt/sources.list)

[Lynchmeister]

learn how to use apt-get?

I know how to use apt-get...I'm looking to pull from the awn PPA repository and not the official one.

At any rate, I think I've found a solution to my problem. Looks like I was missing some packages.

[soapbox]

I know how to use apt-get...I'm looking to pull from the awn PPA repository and not the official one.

At any rate, I think I've found a solution to my problem. Looks like I was missing some packages.

Ah, my bad (mostly, I was being snarky anyway Cory! :blush:). But I'm glad you've found a useful solution! As always, as least post an outline of what worked, that others may follow it later. :smile:

[adl]

Unfortunately I don't get to use it professionally, and it's been years since I used it for much of anything. Basically, back in school, I decided I wanted to take the plunge and really figure out LISP, so I did all of my projects for a year and a half or so in it while everybody else was using matlab (math classes), java/c/c++, python, perl, etc.

I did much the same, writing all my own projects in Common Lisp while using other things in my day job. It certainly stretches the mind and makes you a much more rounded programmer no matter what language you end up using.

I do believe I may have reached nirvana, Lisp-discussion on a Linux thread on B&B :D Now, what cologne should the discriminating Lisp-lover be wearing in this holiday season. I imagine Eucris, but remove the underlying notes of motor oil and insert the rounded scent of never-cleaned IBM model-M.

[soapbox]

I did much the same, writing all my own projects in Common Lisp while using other things in my day job. It certainly stretches the mind and makes you a much more rounded programmer no matter what language you end up using.

I do believe I may have reached nirvana, Lisp-discussion on a Linux thread on B&B :D Now, what cologne should the discriminating Lisp-lover be wearing in this holiday season. I imagine Eucris, but remove the underlying notes of motor oil and insert the rounded scent of never-cleaned IBM model-M.

IBM Model M keyboards and shaving? Dude, WELCOME TO B&B. We are glad you are here.

[funkyb]

IBM Model M keyboards and shaving? Dude, WELCOME TO B&B. We are glad you are here.

+ :thumbup:

If I'm thinking of the same thing (the old 8086 defaults, right?)....Those things were great fun to mod, and their *CLACK* was to die for.

[soapbox]

+ :thumbup:

If I'm thinking of the same thing (the old 8086 defaults, right?)....Those things were great fun to mod, and their *CLACK* was to die for.

Yep. I bought a modern-production clacky (mechanical "buckling spring (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_keyboard)") USB keyboard for my Mac. My wife took it while she wrote her dissertation. I finally got it back. Love that thing.

[skklog]

windows

[soapbox]

windows

Oh, Blaaaaaaaake!

[skklog]

Oh, Blaaaaaaaake!

:lol:

[Lynchmeister]

Ah, my bad (mostly, I was being snarky anyway Cory! :blush:). But I'm glad you've found a useful solution! As always, as least post an outline of what worked, that others may follow it later. :smile:

No worries, Jesse.

I think I'll forgo the outline, though...while I did have some missing packages, it's still not working. :blink:

I found mention of this bug (the software sources not opening) in a few Ubuntu forum posts, but no real evidence of a solution.

I guess I'll have to settle for life without all the cool sh*t that Jordan said was only available in the testing repos. :lol:

[Lynchmeister]

Mint dosn't have the same sources GUI as ubuntu, you can do it through synaptic, add repository. or
gksudo gedit /etc/sources.list (or is it /etc/apt/sources.list)


I totally blew right over this post. :blushing:

[weshofmann]

I do believe I may have reached nirvana, Lisp-discussion on a Linux thread on B&B :D Now, what cologne should the discriminating Lisp-lover be wearing in this holiday season. I imagine Eucris, but remove the underlying notes of motor oil and insert the rounded scent of never-cleaned IBM model-M.

Wow, I never thought a shaving forum would make come that close to peeing my pants while at work. Nice. :)

[weshofmann]

Yep. I bought a modern-production clacky (mechanical "buckling spring (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_keyboard)") USB keyboard for my Mac. My wife took it while she wrote her dissertation. I finally got it back. Love that thing.

Yup, for anyone who's in the market, Unicomp (http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/keyboards.html) is who IBM sold all their keyboard (including Model M) patents to. They have kept the same basic style/feel but have brought the keyboards up to date with nice optional features like USB, trackpoint nubs built into the keyboards, different colors, full 104/105 keys, etc.

Here (http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/keyboards.html)is their storefront.

I would LOVE to buy one of those, but unfortunately I've found that I HAVE to use a split/natural/ergonomic keyboard (like the MS ones). The feel sucks compared to a Model M, but my wrists don't hurt like hell, so I guess it's worth it. :-/

[chickpea]

Hello, folks sorry for the long hiatus. But as I noticed that I was at my 1,000th post, I thought I would post it here and say that this is the best linux thread in any shaving forum I have ever been to.

You guys are champs, and [war on christmas] Happy Holidays! [/war on christmas]

[soapbox]

Hello, folks sorry for the long hiatus. But as I noticed that I was at my 1,000th post, I thought I would post it here and say that this is the best linux thread in any shaving forum I have ever been to.

You guys are champs, and [war on christmas] Happy Holidays! [/war on christmas]

Welcome Back! Everyone's coming home for the [war on Christmas]holidays[/war on Christmas]! :biggrin1:

[adl]

Yup, for anyone who's in the market, Unicomp (http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/keyboards.html) is who IBM sold all their keyboard (including Model M) patents to. They have kept the same basic style/feel but have brought the keyboards up to date with nice optional features like USB, trackpoint nubs built into the keyboards, different colors, full 104/105 keys, etc.

Here (http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/keyboards.html)is their storefront.

I would LOVE to buy one of those, but unfortunately I've found that I HAVE to use a split/natural/ergonomic keyboard (like the MS ones). The feel sucks compared to a Model M, but my wrists don't hurt like hell, so I guess it's worth it. :-/

Indeed, I'm sitting here at work clattering away on a three year old Unicomp while my co-worker to my left is typing on an original Model-M from 1987 (we had a 20-year party a while back). I found that my (mild) hand problems disappeared when I moved to one of these keyboards and a trackball. I'm going to order another soon enough as I can't concentrate at home using any other type of keyboard.

[skklog]

Dos

[RichGem]

FreeDOS



...

[skklog]

...

....

[blackfoot]

....

:rolleyes5

[skklog]

blitz basic

[RichGem]

blitz basic

Logo is better. It has a turtle.

[blackfoot]

Logo is better. It has a turtle.

Turtle for peons and peons?

[soapbox]

Turtle for peons and peons?

:crying:

[RichGem]

:crying:

<sigh><sniffle>

[blackfoot]

:crying:


<sigh><sniffle>

No, I just have something in my eye.

[weshofmann]

..... ?


I have no idea what happened on the last page or two of this forum. :huh:

[soapbox]

..... ?


I have no idea what happened on the last page or two of this forum. :huh:

Missing friend referenced. You're new here, never knew him, but you'll see "Chip" or "Limecat" referenced from time to time.

[Swampfox]

Missing friend referenced. You're new here, never knew him, but you'll see "Chip" or "Limecat" referenced from time to time.

I came on too late as well, but I have read the cat wrapper thread.

[weshofmann]

I came on too late as well, but I have read the cat wrapper thread.

Wow... I don't think you're talking about anything technical, but I swear it sounds like you are. :)

[Swampfox]

Wow... I don't think you're talking about anything technical, but I swear it sounds like you are. :)

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

[RichGem]

I came on too late as well, but I have read the cat wrapper thread.

And that was early on in the Legend that is LimeCat.

[Confuzius]

So who's going to step up to write the "Linux Mint Mythos" wiki page?

[RichGem]

So who's going to step up to write the "Linux Mint Mythos" wiki page?

I vote for Lynchmeister. :w00t:

[weshofmann]

So, I've been poking around and looking for deals, but I figured you guys might be the ones to ask...

I'd like to start straight razor shaving so I'm trying to find something affordable that will A) be a good way to learn proper technique and B) be a small enough investment that I don't have to continue with it if I don't like it.

What's the best deal on a razor (shave-ready) and strop I can find? Do you guys have any beginner-friendly stuff to sell, or can you recommend any vendors or deals?

Thanks a million!

PS: Since we're in a linux thread, I have to add: I like grub.

[weshofmann]

So, I've been poking around and looking for deals, but I figured you guys might be the ones to ask...

I'd like to start straight razor shaving so I'm trying to find something affordable that will A) be a good way to learn proper technique and B) be a small enough investment that I don't have to continue with it if I don't like it.

What's the best deal on a razor (shave-ready) and strop I can find? Do you guys have any beginner-friendly stuff to sell, or can you recommend any vendors or deals?

Thanks a million!

PS: Since we're in a linux thread, I have to add: I like grub.

Aw hell... of course, I missed the HALF-OFF sale (http://www.leesrazors.com/products/Day-7%3A-Dovo-Straight-Razors.html) 2 days ago!!! Gaaaah!

[Lynchmeister]

I vote for Lynchmeister. :w00t:

Oh man, where would I begin?

:w00t:

[RichGem]

Oh man, where would I begin?

:w00t:

"There once was an Irish-Lebanese maiden (sic) from Minnesota who moved to Wisconsin with nothing but the shirt on his back and a pocketful of dreams...."


:lol::lol:

[Lynchmeister]

"There once was an Irish-Lebanese maiden (sic) from Minnesota who moved to Wisconsin with nothing but the shirt on his back and a pocketful of dreams...."


:lol::lol:

Hmmm...that sounds about right!...well, except for the maiden part. :001_tongu

[gollum83]

Hmmm...that sounds about right!...well, except for the maiden part. :001_tongu

No, the maiden part sounds right too. :laugh:

[Lynchmeister]

No, the maiden part sounds right too. :laugh:

:lol: :001_huh: :tongue_sm

[Confuzius]

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2496/4180346514_df162ca990_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jordanconway/4180346514/)

[soapbox]

I thought everyone who took linux screenshots was required to have a terminal with top running, some music player (preferably with either a cool skin or a text-only interface) running, and multiple high-end applications (GIMP, Inkscape, Octave, etc.) open? :001_smile

[weshofmann]

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2496/4180346514_df162ca990_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jordanconway/4180346514/)

Cool wallpaper!

[weshofmann]

So, i figured you guys would appreciate my avatar for the holidays. I was looking for something red and green and found the coolest avatar ever. What's cooler than Tux, you ask? Why, Tux + Marvin the Martian! And it's red and green (christmas-esque)! Seriously. The. Best. Ever.

[RichGem]

So, i figured you guys would appreciate my avatar for the holidays. I was looking for something red and green and found the coolest avatar ever. What's cooler than Tux, you ask? Why, Tux + Marvin the Martian! And it's red and green (christmas-esque)! Seriously. The. Best. Ever.


And....it's Czar approved! :thumbsup:

:smile:

[SRock]

I thought everyone who took linux screenshots was required to have a terminal with top running, some music player (preferably with either a cool skin or a text-only interface) running, and multiple high-end applications (GIMP, Inkscape, Octave, etc.) open? :001_smile

Speaking of GIMP, I've only recently started fiddling with it. Does anyone have any solid GIMP photo editing pointers or know of a good resource/tutorial?

[RichGem]

Speaking of GIMP, I've only recently started fiddling with it. Does anyone have any solid GIMP photo editing pointers or know of a good resource/tutorial?

Linux Format (magazine) does a feature and/or tutorial on it every now and again. I'm not sure, but some of the older stuff (at least) should be available on line.

[SRock]

Linux Format (magazine) does a feature and/or tutorial on it every now and again. I'm not sure, but some of the older stuff (at least) should be available on line.

Thanks, I'll have to look around. I've seen some people do pretty cool things with Gimp so I'd like to learn more about it. I can do most of the basic functions but I know there is much more to it. :thumbsup:

[RichGem]

Thanks, I'll have to look around. I've seen some people do pretty cool things with Gimp so I'd like to learn more about it. I can do most of the basic functions but I know there is much more to it. :thumbsup:



I've found GIMP tough to use, but that's because I never sat down to learn it and have little understanding of graphics editing, layers, etc. to begin with. However, it's considered pretty much a drop in replacement for Photo Shop at this point. So, that says a lot. (In case you were unaware, GIMP is avail for all major platforms, not just Linux.)

[SRock]

I've found GIMP tough to use, but that's because I never sat down to learn it and have little understanding of graphics editing, layers, etc. to begin with. However, it's considered pretty much a drop in replacement for Photo Shop at this point. So, that says a lot. (In case you were unaware, GIMP is avail for all major platforms, not just Linux.)

I did know that. I installed it on a windows machine just before I bought my MacBook Pro but I didn't get much of a chance to mess with it on that computer either.

[Confuzius]

The Gimp site has a tutorial collection
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/

If you're more familiar with Photoshop, this is a very good place to look (even if you're not, it gives gimp a lot more power)
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/03/8-handy-tweaks-to-make-gimp-replace-photoshop/

30 Exceptional Gimp Tutorials
http://www.noupe.com/gimp/30-exceptional-gimp-tutorials-and-resources.html

gimp-tutorials.net user submitted tutorial website
http://gimp-tutorials.net/

That should keep you busy for a while. If you want to do any vector graphic stuff (logos, etc) check out http://www.inkscape.org/ and this awesome, mostly video tutorial website http://inkscapetutorials.wordpress.com/
http://inkscapetutorials.wordpress.com/

[soapbox]

There are a number of books available (http://www.gimp.org/books/) about GIMP too. The O'Reilly pocket guide was good, but unless they've updated it, it's long in the tooth now.

Also, I love Inkscape. Obviously aimed at a different service area than the GIMP, but Inkscape is a great, great tool. I bought every version of Illustrator from 6 through 10. My vector illustration needs are modest, and when version 10 was no longer supported on my Mac, I switched to Inkscape. I've got Adobe CS4 at work but I installed Inkscape too, since I like it so much.

[Lynchmeister]

Hey guys, today's the day that I hopefully have a successful upgrade to Win 7. I backing up right now and have read about some of the common issues with upgrading from Vista, so find some wood and knock on it for me!

Edit: Of course this will be a dual boot setup with at least one Linux distro on it.

[RichGem]

Hey guys, today's the day that I hopefully have a successful upgrade to Win 7. I backing up right now and have read about some of the common issues with upgrading from Vista, so find some wood and knock on it for me!

Edit: Of course this will be a dual boot setup with at least one Linux distro on it.

Saved yourself at the last minute there, buddy.

One tip: disconnect the external HD! DO IT. DO IT NOW. :wink:

[Lynchmeister]

Saved yourself at the last minute there, buddy.

One tip: disconnect the external HD! DO IT. DO IT NOW. :wink:


:lol: Thanks for the tip, buddy! You may have just saved my marriage. :tongue_sm

[RichGem]

:lol: Thanks for the tip, buddy! You may have just saved my marriage. :tongue_sm

No charge. :wink: Now... about those Christmas cookies... :whistling:

:lol:

[weshofmann]

I've never tried to upgrade from Vista to Win 7... In fact, I've never had a machine with Vista on it; I skipped from XP to 7. Anyway, 7 has worked pretty much flawlessly for me on every machine where I've installed it.

I hate to say it, but I'm actually impressed with something Microsoft has done. The quality of their stuff seems to be on the rise after years of releasing utter crap. Win 7 is very good, office 2007 was good, even the office 2010 beta is good--no crashes or anything, and it's free. :) Now, as a disclaimer, I spent a number of years using OpenOffice, so going to office is a de-facto step up in pretty much every possible way (except freedom, granted).

Yeah, not a fan of OpenOffice. All through college I used Latex to write my documents, and I loved it. When I got into the real world, I quickly realized (much to my chagrin) that the DOC format is the only thing you can use if you want anyone else to be able to edit your documents. Thus, I had to abandon Latex. At the time, i was still using Linux as my sole desktop operating system, so I had to make do with Open Office. There's no good reason that a piece of software should be as bloated, slow, and absolutely glacial as that thing is. At some point I noticed that a 3-page document I was editing in OpenOffice was consuming around 400MB of RAM at which point I realized I'd likely be using less system resources running XP in a VM with Office installed in it. Sad. Since then, I've started using Win7 as my desktop with Office 2010 installed (and 2007 before that) and they're great!.

Even if Linux never takes over the desktop like many (including myself) hopes it does, it will have still served a great purpose: forcing MS to pull their heads of of their a$$e$ and start paying attention to the usability, stability, and overall quality of their products. I'm sure without Linux, we'd still have stuff on the level of Win ME.


Hmm... evidently an unstructured stream-of-consciousness rant was what I needed to do today. Thanks for listening. :)

And of course, I'm very likely wrong with anything I say, so YMMV

[weshofmann]

You know, when I was younger I was very willing to sacrifice convenience for the ideal of libre sotftware (as GNU preaches). I could never have imagined that I would write a post like the one I just did in which I'm saying GOOD things about Microsoft and saying I'm actually enjoying their products instead of the free (as in libre) alternatives. I guess I've just gotten tired of screwing with stuff that doesn't work as well as the non-free alternatives (evolution vs outlook, gimp vs photoshop, openoffice vs office, etc, etc). :-/ I'm getting old and crotchety.

*sigh*

On the bright side, I still fire up vim even in Windows to do my text editing. :)

[Lynchmeister]

No charge. :wink: Now... about those Christmas cookies... :whistling:

:lol:

Do you have a photographic memory? :w00t: I suppose you still are expecting house and The Fleet pictures, too! :lol:

[Lynchmeister]

Wes, I was happy to read your positive feedback of Win 7. Vista had warped my outlook pretty quickly, so it's nice to know that I'm taking a step forward here, rather than back (as was the case with XP to Vista).

Disclaimer: My new PC came preloaded with Vista and Acer bloatware, so I managed with it for the last few months to be able to use my Netflix Instant Movie Player, which did work in an XP VM running on a Linux Mint host...just not very well.

I'm getting excited!

[Lynchmeister]

Well, not surpisingly, the upgrade up to this point has not been without its headaches. About half-way through, it decided that it didn't like some changes I had made and aborted. I can't imagine what changes it didn't like...*cough* a hard drive chopped up into several partitions, Linux operating systems, an absence of all its beloved Acer bloatware...

So I wiped it all clean, deleted the partitions, reformatted the whole sha-bang as NTFS, and re-installed my bloated, Acer copy of Vista. Without doing anything to this installation, I'm currently on round two.

Of course, once 7 is up and running, my typical hack job and bloatware stripping will most certainly commence.

[RichGem]

Do you have a photographic memory? :w00t: I suppose you still are expecting house and The Fleet pictures, too! :lol:

No, I've given up on the pictures, but the cookies? Well, let's just say I have my priorities. :lol:

As for a photographic memory, let's just say don't ask me what I had for breakfast, 'cause I couldn't tell ya. :sad:

[RichGem]

Well, not surpisingly, the upgrade up to this point has not been without its headaches. About half-way through, it decided that it didn't like some changes I had made and aborted. I can't imagine what changes it didn't like...*cough* a hard drive chopped up into several partitions, Linux operating systems, an absence of all its beloved Acer bloatware...

So I wiped it all clean, deleted the partitions, reformatted the whole sha-bang as NTFS, and re-installed my bloated, Acer copy of Vista. Without doing anything to this installation, I'm currently on round two.

Of course, once 7 is up and running, my typical hack job and bloatware stripping will most certainly commence.


Dang, where's the popcorn smiley when you need it?

[skklog]

don't ask me what I had for breakfast, 'cause I couldn't tell ya. :sad:

It doesn't last long enough to remember!

[skklog]

Dang, where's the popcorn smiley when you need it?

http://freesmileyface.net/smiley/Food/eating-popcorn-04.gif

[gollum83]

Not to get off topic or anything, but Cory is this guy (http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php?t=122323) related to you?



Oh, and Linux rules! :w00t:

[RichGem]

Not to get off topic or anything, but Cory is this guy (http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php?t=122323) related to you?



Oh, and Linux rules! :w00t:

hmmm... seems like Cory should at least know him.

[Lynchmeister]

Not to get off topic or anything, but Cory is this guy (http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php?t=122323) related to you?



Oh, and Linux rules! :w00t:


hmmm... seems like Cory should at least know him.


:lol: Crazy! Looks like we even have the same job! I'm a Senior Computer Operator...

...it seems I finally have my very own doppelgänger. Sweet!

[RichGem]

:lol: Crazy! Looks like we even have the same job! I'm a Senior Computer Operator...

...it seems I finally have my very own doppelgänger. Sweet!

OK, that does it. I"m reporting you to the mods for a TOS violation (you can have only one account here !). :lol:

[SRock]

The Gimp site has a tutorial collection
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/

If you're more familiar with Photoshop, this is a very good place to look (even if you're not, it gives gimp a lot more power)
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/03/8-handy-tweaks-to-make-gimp-replace-photoshop/

30 Exceptional Gimp Tutorials
http://www.noupe.com/gimp/30-exceptional-gimp-tutorials-and-resources.html

gimp-tutorials.net user submitted tutorial website
http://gimp-tutorials.net/

That should keep you busy for a while. If you want to do any vector graphic stuff (logos, etc) check out http://www.inkscape.org/ and this awesome, mostly video tutorial website http://inkscapetutorials.wordpress.com/
http://inkscapetutorials.wordpress.com/


There are a number of books available (http://www.gimp.org/books/) about GIMP too. The O'Reilly pocket guide was good, but unless they've updated it, it's long in the tooth now.

Also, I love Inkscape. Obviously aimed at a different service area than the GIMP, but Inkscape is a great, great tool. I bought every version of Illustrator from 6 through 10. My vector illustration needs are modest, and when version 10 was no longer supported on my Mac, I switched to Inkscape. I've got Adobe CS4 at work but I installed Inkscape too, since I like it so much.

Thanks guys! :thumbup:

[Lynchmeister]

OK, that does it. I"m reporting you to the mods for a TOS violation (you can have only one account here !). :lol:

Well that explains what happened to Chip...:bored:


:laugh:

[SRock]

Well that explains what happened to Chip...:bored:


:laugh:

I miss Chip. Talk to him from time to time but do wish he'd come home to B&B!

[RichGem]

Well that explains what happened to Chip...:bored:


:laugh:


I miss Chip. Talk to him from time to time but do wish he'd come home to B&B!

+1. :sad:

[Confuzius]

Psst, Cory, I hope it's not too late:
http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/clean_install_upgrade_media.asp

[Lynchmeister]

Psst, Cory, I hope it's not too late:
http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/clean_install_upgrade_media.asp


Awesome. I'm on something like hour 12 or 13 of my so called "upgrade" and it's hanging at 87% at the "gathering files, settings, and programs" stage. A quick google search of "Windows 7 upgrade stuck at 87%" revealed a discouragingly large number of hits...

Thank you for uncovering this article. I will most certainly be trying the methods described because this is getting rediculous...even for me. :lol:

[Lynchmeister]

Oh joy. I rebooted to get underway with the linked article and I'm staring at Vista now installing 47 updates. Only 31 more to go! :rolleyes:

[RichGem]

Awesome. I'm on something like hour 12 or 13 of my so called "upgrade" andit's hanging at 87% at the "gathering files, settings, and programs" stage. A quick google search of "Windows 7 upgrade stuck at 87%" revealed a discouragingly large number of hits...

Thank you for uncovering this article. I will most certainly be trying the methods described because this is getting rediculous...even for me. :lol:


"Yep, Windows 7 was my idea. Thank you Microsoft!"

:lol:

[blackfoot]

Wow... I don't think you're talking about anything technical, but I swear it sounds like you are. :)

:lol::lol:


So, i figured you guys would appreciate my avatar for the holidays. I was looking for something red and green and found the coolest avatar ever. What's cooler than Tux, you ask? Why, Tux + Marvin the Martian! And it's red and green (christmas-esque)! Seriously. The. Best. Ever.

Marvin was awesome!


Saved yourself at the last minute there, buddy.

One tip: disconnect the external HD! DO IT. DO IT NOW. :wink:

:w00t:


Do you have a photographic memory? :w00t: I suppose you still are expecting house and The Fleet pictures, too! :lol:

:whistling:


Dang, where's the popcorn smiley when you need it?

http://www.improvresourcecenter.com/mb/images/smilies/popcorn.gif


I miss Chip. Talk to him from time to time but do wish he'd come home to B&B!

+1


"Yep, Windows 7 was my idea. Thank you Microsoft!"

:lol:

:lol::lol::lol:

[Lynchmeister]

"Yep, Windows 7 was my idea. Thank you Microsoft!"

:lol:

Your idea, huh? Looks like I'll be hunting you down then, and not those poor suckers on the TV. :detective:

[RichGem]

Your idea, huh? Looks like I'll be hunting you down then, and not those poor suckers on the TV. :detective:

:eek:
*runs for the safety of the penguinators*

I mean, uh, "it was all for the glory of Linux!" (yeah, that's it.)

[Lynchmeister]

Update: Method 1 in Jordan's link looked promising. I treated the upgrade disk as an install disk and I made it about 99&#37; through, then it through some type of boot sector error.

Moving on to Method 2, I got into the registry editor, but lo and behold, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/

OOBE was not in there!

I've restored Vista, and, God help me, I hope it's within Vista's registry.

I'll be sure to let you know...

[Lynchmeister]

Crap. It's not in Vista's registry either. Any thoughts?

[RichGem]

Crap. It's not in Vista's registry either. Any thoughts?

here (http://www.fiveanddime.net/windows7-notes/index.html)?

Google has it as part of windows activation technology/genuine advantage, etc.

I did not read the page above, just passing it on to you.

[RichGem]

this (http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.windows.vista.gen eral&tid=66db2f0f-f6cc-4d4a-85b0-6c7d0ca7a03e&cat=&lang=&cr=&sloc=&p=1)too. scroll down to "change media boot" or soemthing like that.

[Lynchmeister]

My problem lies in the fact that OOBE is not in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup...

[RichGem]

My problem lies in the fact that OOBE is not in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup...




Can you manually create the key and then hope for the best???

[Lynchmeister]

Maybe? How would I go about that? :lol:

[weshofmann]

Awesome. I'm on something like hour 12 or 13 of my so called "upgrade" and it's hanging at 87% at the "gathering files, settings, and programs" stage. A quick google search of "Windows 7 upgrade stuck at 87%" revealed a discouragingly large number of hits...

Thank you for uncovering this article. I will most certainly be trying the methods described because this is getting rediculous...even for me. :lol:

So, it sounds like you keep trying to do an upgrade (i.e. installing your vista first and then installing win7 as an upgrade). Is that the case? If so, why don't you install Win7 directly on the bare hardware? Even if it requires an installed Vista on the harddrive for the installer to start, it should still let you delete existing partitions and create a new one for Windows 7, effectively doing a clean install.

I only ask because I've done the clean install on no less than 6 or 8 machines (first using the RC, then the actual release) and they've installed flawlessly for me.

Wes

[blackfoot]

Crap. It's not in Vista's registry either. Any thoughts?

Scrap Windows? :lol:

[RichGem]

Maybe? How would I go about that? :lol:


Sorry, bud, you're on your own.

[weshofmann]

Scrap Windows? :lol:

XP!!! Oh, wait....

[gollum83]

Maybe? How would I go about that? :lol:

Make a small sacrifice to Bill Gates? :lol:

[Lynchmeister]

So, it sounds like you keep trying to do an upgrade (i.e. installing your vista first and then installing win7 as an upgrade). Is that the case? If so, why don't you install Win7 directly on the bare hardware? Even if it requires an installed Vista on the harddrive for the installer to start, it should still let you delete existing partitions and create a new one for Windows 7, effectively doing a clean install.

I only ask because I've done the clean install on no less than 6 or 8 machines (first using the RC, then the actual release) and they've installed flawlessly for me.

Wes

I did try this initially, but it gave me some type of boot sector error. Maybe I should try again?


Make a small sacrifice to Bill Gates? :lol:

Screw that!

[RichGem]

XP!!! Oh, wait....

actually, maybe that reg key originates in XP???

[weshofmann]

XP!!! Oh, wait....

Actually, I will say that XP still has some distinct advantages over Windows 7. While Windows 7 feels much faster than Vista and even XP, much of that is illusory and misleading. Microsoft worked hard to tweak their kernel scheduler and other portions of their codebase that directly effect how responsive and fast the user interface feels. The truth is though, that Windows 7 preserved all of the additional plumbing for DRM and other technologies that Microsoft added in Vista, thus in terms of true throughput XP can be significantly faster. There's just a lot less overhead. And note that when I say throughput, I don't mean regular UI-centric tasks; rather, large file copies, very cpu intensive operations (encoding movies/music, encryption, etc), games, and the like. If you put XP head to head with Win 7 for those tasks, XP will come out ahead every time.

[weshofmann]

I did try this initially, but it gave me some type of boot sector error. Maybe I should try again?


Yeah, when the installer gets to the part where you can partition the drives, delete everything.

Then, create a new partition for Win 7. It should tell you it wants to create another really small partition for system files, and that's fine.