Linux

WaeV · Post by **WaeV** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 5:39 pm

Has anyone here messed around with linux?

Personally, it's my default OS - all the free office and internet apps I need! With WINE I get even better performance in World of Warcraft (not that I play it much anymore) than in windows. (What's up with that?) Halo PC can run, but very slowly, unfortunately. I keep XP around for photoshop and halo modding.

The compiz fusion package of special effects is a snap to install, if you have nVidia. Unfortunately ATI doesn't make linux drivers, and hours of configuration is required to get the same effects.

Here are a few pics of my desktop.

0m3g4Muff1n987 · Post by **0m3g4Muff1n987** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 5:41 pm

Well, it's a hell of a lot better than Vista.

You know, I've been thinking, Vista is pretty much ME2: M$'s second failure.

TomClancey · Post by **TomClancey** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 5:43 pm

Ubuntu is quite a dream, but you haven't even begun to explore the depth of Compiz-Fusion, though I'm not an expert on Ubuntu. I know who is: FleetAdmiralBacon. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't post in here before today's over.

I have Ubuntu and XP on a dual-boot, but mostly run XP, as I still need 3ds Max, Photoshop, and a few games.

WaeV · Post by **WaeV** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 6:03 pm

What other sorts of stuff is there?

The cube would have to be my favorite feature, and I manually added 3d windows so they pop off the surface. Snow and Rain are pretty cool as well.

I was looking for extra plugins but didn't see too much that was appealing.

TomClancey · Post by **TomClancey** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 6:08 pm

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ku-WVmuXGlE

That my shed some light on the other stuff, unless of coarse, you already knew about that. (Not my video, FAB recorded it.)

Kirk · Post by **Kirk** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 6:33 pm

That looks awesome, I might have to try it out (sick of XP and don't want to go Vista..).

EDIT: Actually I'm not saying that because of the special effects, it's just that I've been considering Linux for ages now and this is sort of convincing me, sort of...

WaeV · Post by **WaeV** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 6:51 pm

Hmm.. I noticed he has a dock there. It looks like AWN, but I can't really tell. I prefer toolbars, anyhow. If I remember correctly, google makes a toolbar for linux as well. I probably would have stuck with it, but it couldn't be moved to the top of the screen.

@ Kirk - I agree, the special effects are nice, but I stick with Ubuntu more because of the overall feel than the slick effects.

BTW - The new release (8.04) comes out in just 24 days , you might want to try upgrading then!

http://www.ubuntu.com/

TomClancey · Post by **TomClancey** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 7:13 pm

I'm ordering Hardy the moment it comes out.

(I like getting things in the mail.)

Kirk · Post by **Kirk** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 7:41 pm

Ah cool it's also within my bandwidth limits, thought it was going to be like 1GB+.

G.I.R. · Post by **G.I.R.** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 7:46 pm

Ubuntu is fine and all, and it has some cool features, but I don't like it more than Vista. Ideally, I'd run Leopard as my main OS with Ubuntu and Vista emulated in Virtualbox, or Parallels, or something.

Kirk · Post by **Kirk** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 8:23 pm

I'd be for my second computer, the one that is a PC. As soon as I get Leopard i'll be installing that here.

JK-47 · Post by **JK-47** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 8:31 pm

The only reason I'd change from XP to Linux would really only be for the aesthetics. XP works fine for me, and all the programs I need run fine on it too. If I wanted a theme change, or anything of the sort, I could probably find it on the internet.

It looks cool, nonetheless. But I wouldn't change my OS to something else because it looks cool.

Kirk · Post by **Kirk** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 8:35 pm

Yeah. I don't actually know if I'm going to do this. I rarely even use that computer, and it's probably just going to be too much of a hassle to make it worth it.

FleetAdmiralBacon · Post by **FleetAdmiralBacon** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 1:04 pm

TomClancey wrote:http://youtube.com/watch?v=ku-WVmuXGlE

That my shed some light on the other stuff, unless of coarse, you already knew about that. (Not my video, FAB recorded it.)

Remind me to record a new video, that one is *really old*.
The dock shown in that video is AWN, I've since started using Cairo-Dock, which I find to be much better looking and much more customizable (though it's fairly buggy at the moment).
I run Ubuntu 8.04 on my laptop and my server/desktop, but only for ease-of-use, I'm thinking of moving up the ladder to something a bit more involved.

I'm a Compiz Fusion (those awesome effects) developer, have been for a few months now. Best thing about Compiz is that it runs on pretty much anything, even down to a 4mb Radeon.

Yeah, I'll get a new video up, possibly recorded with my camera (seriously, taking full screen videos of 3d stuff on any OS slows things down a lot, especially on my low-spec laptop...)

shadowkhas · Post by **shadowkhas** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 1:25 pm

0m3g4Muff1n987 wrote:You know, I've been thinking, Vista is pretty much ME2: M$'s second failure.

Except that Vista is actually selling decently...

I tried Yellow Dog Linux once on my Mac, meh. Wasn't a big fan.

FleetAdmiralBacon · Post by **FleetAdmiralBacon** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 1:37 pm

shadowkhas wrote:I tried Yellow Dog Linux once on my Mac, meh. Wasn't a big fan.

The only thing Yellow Dog is good for is putting Linux on your PS3, it's not at all one of the big names in desktop distros. It uses a ton of outdated packages. It's only 48 in the DistroWatch rankings.
Current top five are Ubuntu, Mint (which is based on Ubuntu), Fedora, openSUSE, and PCLinuxOS (which used to be #1 many months ago, but steadily declined). They're the "big names". I've also heard good things about Arch. If you're looking for a challenge, Gentoo is the most hardcore of mainstream distros.

@TomClancey: Unless you're using CS3, Photoshop should work perfectly in Wine. And you can always spend the months it takes to convert to Blender XD

@WaeV: ATI does make drivers, that and there are FOSS drivers out there (which many in my field of "work" find to be far better)

uralllame · Post by **uralllame** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 1:51 pm

What version of Linux would you recommend for a first timer? I would like something more linuxy than XP, something that isn't to complicated, but not oversimplified.

FleetAdmiralBacon · Post by **FleetAdmiralBacon** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 1:58 pm

uralllame wrote:What version of Linux would you recommend for a first timer? I would like something more linuxy than XP, something that isn't to complicated, but not oversimplified.

Ubuntu is great. I'd wait until later this month though, as the new 8.04 is being released (it's in beta, and I personally keep up-to-date with betas, but I wouldn't suggest a new user do it). April 25th or something like that. Not to boast, but there's code in there by me (really small stuff in C-F, changing the color of the borders with "3d Windows" and fixing some bugs in "Cube Caps")

also, @WaeV, there is no "up-to-scratch" open-source driver for nVidia cards, so it happens to be more difficult to set up than an ATI card, which works out of the box with the opensource driver. And then there's the Intel driver, which is both provided "by Intel" and is open source.

CompKronos · Post by **CompKronos** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 2:07 pm

^^Ubuntu

oh by the way i have a question for WaeV how did you get such a good resolution because b4 i installed the nVidia drivers the resltuion was decent but i couldn't get any effects. Now with the drivers installed it went to hell in a handbasket so how did you do it?

[cc]z@nd! · Post by **[cc]z@nd!** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 3:29 pm

i've got a gutsy gibbon server running right now i mess around in a bit, and have backtrack 2 installed on an old hp pavilion i actually use pretty often. sadly i've yet to acquire a supported wireless card or working battery for it, so it's use is still somewhat limited. still learning linux stuff, too, but with my experience so far i like it.

edit: also, linux can trace it's roots back to UNIX in the early 70's, so i'd say it's been the OS of the future for a few decades now.