Linux Corner

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

It's a start.

[Jimmy Buzaid 53]

I love Ubuntu. I also love Mint.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I love Ubuntu. I also love Mint.

So put both of them up. That's what GRUB is for. Put your /home directory on a separate partition accessible to both, and you can stay in sync across the décors.

  Edited July 16, 2012 by A Nonny Moose  

[Alejandro24 575]

Since my vacations are finishing, I add some news here.

LibreOffice 3.6 available for download. The new version of this office suite has been released.

Valve announces Steam for Linux. In the blog of Valve appeared the project to release Steam for Linux. The CEO of Valve, Gabe Newell, see Linux with more better eyes than Windows 8. The current project is to make work Steam in Linux as it do in Windows and modify it for better adaptation for the Kernel and OpenGL. And of course, the tests says that the Zombies runs more faster in Ubuntu than Windows 7, the tested game was Left 4 Dead 2. The project can be followed in the Valve's blog.

GNOME 4.0 and GNOME OS coming in 2014. This announcement comes with new objectives of the project and some critiques of its uncertain future since the fail of GNOME-Shell.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Current distro for Libre Office is 3.5.4.2. What are the advantages of 3.6?

The distro is fairly quick in evaluating and distributing new versions.

[Alejandro24 575]

Current distro for Libre Office is 3.5.4.2. What are the advantages of 3.6?

The distro is fairly quick in evaluating and distributing new versions.

According to the complete list, it comes more improved, the headers are:

• Support for SmartArt from Microsoft Office (Writer).
  
• Import filter for Corel Draw files (Draw)
  
• Support for color scale (Calc)
  
• Word counter added (Writer)
  
• New Splash Screen.
  
• Support for GTK in Linux and improved the look in Win Vista and 7.
  
• And a lot of bugs repaired.
  

Isn't in the updates yet, I hope so there will be soon. Also I hope so that problem with Cinnamon is repaired.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, if you are playing with Cinnamon, you are on the bleeding edge. I hope you get what you need there. I am not much of an office suite user any more.

---

13:24 hours.

Just got a massive update from the distro. Libre office is now at:

3.5.4.2 Build 350m1(Build2)

Wine got a new build of 5.1.10 Build 4 (3 was a real slug).

and a new version of my graphics driver fglrx (2:8-960-0) which I hope will make things better in general.

Much checking and testing to do.

  Edited August 14, 2012 by A Nonny Moose  

[Ocram's Razr 963]

What is the equivalent of applications in Linux? I play Towns and Simutrans (and I used to play LinCity) on my Windows Laptop but now that I use this Linux Laptop, all I really do is browse the Internet and view pictures.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

What is the equivalent of applications in Linux? I play Towns and Simutrans (and I used to play LinCity) on my Windows Laptop but now that I use this Linux Laptop, all I really do is browse the Internet and view pictures.

What version of Linux are you running, and what desktop?

If you are running GNOME 3 or Ubuntu you have this launcher thing on the left side that turns on a graphic panel with icons for your apps. If you have most other desktops you have a menu the probably reads "Applications Places". The first opens the programs menu, the second the file system.

Depending on your distributor there is a huge software catalogue that you can access. Failing that, try opening the Synaptic Package Manager (debian based systems) when you will be treated with a listing of all the bits and pieces available. Try and stick to the "Software Manager" as it is more people oriented.

---

The results from wine 1.5.10 were so bad even in software mode for SC4 that I backed out to version 4.1. Whatever they are doing right now in the development branch eats the processors.

[IDS2 3,344]

Hey all, I've recently become frustrated with my Windows laptop and a friend of mine recommended looking into Linux. I've tried to do some research on my own, but I'm sort of lost and don't know where to start. I know that Ubuntu can be run alongside Windows, but then what sort of system would I be looking at? Can anyone point me in the right (any direction, really - I'll wind up experimenting with it anyway) direction, or tell me what sort of setup you prefer/recommend?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Linux is much smaller than Windoze. It'll run on almost any current machine. There are several flavours, and you might want to do some experimentation. Hands on is the best way to go. You could start with Debian which is the base for Ubuntu and several others, or Linux Mint which is a kind of superset of Ubuntu. The middle ground is probably Ubuntu 12.04LTS (Long Term Support). This version will be supported for five years from April 2012 when it was released.

How to:

Go to http://www.ubuntu.com/ and look around. You will find the download page, where you should download the iso file for the Live CD. Burn the file onto a CD, validate the checksum from the site (you can get the MD5 checksum program if you don't have it), then boot your machine with the disk in the drive. Ubuntu will come up in memory only and you can play with it to see how you like the desktop and the ease of use. ++

You may not like the Dash/Launcher which has overtones of Windows8 (if you ever wondered where they got that idea) because it is a version of GNOME 3. However, you can logout and drop back to the GNOME Classic desktop (not sure if this works on the Live CD), and you'll be looking at a menu system similar to XP.

Later on, if you like what you see you can click on the install icon and follow the directions. It will insert beside Windoze and install GRUB (GRand Unified Bootloader) that lets you select the O/S. Default is Ubuntu, and you have ten seconds to move the cursor (turns off the timer).

I have tried free SUSE, Debian, and Linux Mint, but I came back to Ubuntu warts and all. The Dash grows on you. It is just a matter of getting used to a new technology.

With the Ubuntu distribution on the LiveCD you get a kind of fixed version from back in April 2012, but almost immediately you will get an automatic update to current, which will take quite a while. Go watch a movie while this one runs because it is very large. When it finishes you will have the most current version of your software.

You get a very basic version of the system. You have an office system (Libre Office), Internet (Firefox), and a work-group e-mail system which you may or may not want to keep. I switched to Thunderbird because I don't have a work group. Just use the Software Centre to add what you need. Most of the 50,000+ packages are free and either supported by the distributor (Canonical) or by community forums.

I currently have several development suites because I am doing some research on 3D graphics. I also picked up some games that I like.

If you intend to run any windows executables you will need the wine (Window INterfaE) layer for the operating system. This is not an emulator or virtual machine. it works by intercepting the windows calls and recompiling them into Linux calls. Very much like the just-in-time compilers for VS.NET.

To run a program created with the .NET framework you will probably want to run that under the ECMA execution package named mono.

Give it a try. It is worth the couple of days of effort to get a new perspective.

  Edited August 26, 2012 by A Nonny Moose  

[Ocram's Razr 963]

I currently use Linux Mint 12. I was finally able to get Simutrans to work on it though that was such a hassle that I did not try Towns. By the way, what type of Linux OS do you recommend?

--Ocram

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Mint is a superset of Ubuntu which is a superset of Debian. There is no arguing about taste in operating systems.

I tried all of these and eventually came back to Ubuntu because it is more to my taste.

[IDS2 3,344]

Thanks Nonny! I'm glad to hear it's free. Certainly a better option than another Windows upgrade (which I'm unhappy with anyway).

[Ocram's Razr 963]

Btw, does anyone know how to use KDEnlive properly?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Btw, does anyone know how to use KDEnlive properly?

No. What is it? The net seems particularly silent.

[Alejandro24 575]

Btw, does anyone know how to use KDEnlive properly?

I don't know too much of KDE systems, but I found something that could help you:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Kdenlive

[Alejandro24 575]

As I have not too much time, school and other things. But here interesting news in this topics of Linux:

GNOME 3.6 has been released.

Cinnamon 1.6 has been released too, some days ago, introducing Nemo, a fork of Nautilus.

Steam for Linux will come in october. The platform of PC gaming announces his future release with the Left 4 Dead and Serious Sam 3 as principall game titles releases. Personally I hope in the future I'll game SC4 without the need of Wine, sice SC4 exists in Steam.

The next edition of Ubuntu will be released in april of 2013. Ubuntu 13.04 will se the light in april 25 of 2013 (one day after my birthday )

Well I think it is all, the most important at least.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Alejandro, you should check your release information more thoroughly. Ubuntu release page. Ubuntu release are every six months. 12.10 will be out on schedule. Ubuntu releases are numbered <year>.<month>. Since the site you reference is in the UK, it is strange that they would say that, since the main site is also in the UK.

Unless Steam has the source for SC4, a Steam release of SC4 will still be the Windows .exe needing wine. It might be nice, but would you repurchase it?

[Alejandro24 575]

Alejandro, you should check your release information more thoroughly. Ubuntu release page. Ubuntu release are every six months. 12.10 will be out on schedule. Ubuntu releases are numbered <year>.<month>. Since the site you reference is in the UK, it is strange that they would say that, since the main site is also in the UK.

Unless Steam has the source for SC4, a Steam release of SC4 will still be the Windows .exe needing wine. It might be nice, but would you repurchase it?

Thank's for the correct Nonny, I should give me more time to read. Repurchase SC4 for Steam (only if it is in Linux)? Yeah, why not? Depends of the economy .

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I am updating my test copy of 12.04 to the current 12.10 Beta. Will let everyone know if there's anything significant.

---

1400 Hours.

In a word, it is not ready for people. Geeks like me, perhaps, but regular users should wait for the official release or the second Beta, which is due out today.

1. It didn't load my graphics driver. Apparently fglrx is not ready yet.

2. If you try to access some of the system settings it crashes with some kind of IPC error, and sends in an error report (2 so far).

I am glad that 12.04 is an LTS release, so there is no need to advance to this one. However, the new GRUB is rather nice.

  Edited September 27, 2012 by A Nonny Moose  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Tested wine 1.5.13 today on SC4.

Hardware mode is not playable with my configuration. It is very slow on both scrolling and zooming, and the animation is disjointed. This may be the a problem with my ATI/AMD 780 chip, but I don't think so because other things run fine.

Plays normally, now, in software mode. Whatever was wrong with the earlier betas seems to have been fixed. I am staying on this version and will update in step as revisions occur.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Busy day.

tested wine 1.5.14. Hardware mode seems a little better, but not ready for real use. Far too slow. Software mode is OK.

Put up Ubuntu 12.10 Beta2. So far, so good. Have yet to test the game.

[Alejandro24 575]

Busy day.

tested wine 1.5.14. Hardware mode seems a little better, but not ready for real use. Far too slow. Software mode is OK.

Put up Ubuntu 12.10 Beta2. So far, so good. Have yet to test the game.

I'm still using Wine 1.4. But, since I play SC4 in Linux with Wine, the hardware mode never worked well, I suppose is because Wine doesn't recognize the hardware propperly. Recently I've installed DirectX9 in Wine, also changed many options for a better performance. SC4 runs more better, more faster, also Scietific Workplace, Lame and AIMP3 Tag Editor too. This is the guide I've used, hope so you can translate it with google without problem (or you can ask me too ).

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Actually, I reverted to wine 1.4.1 for about a month because the beta for 1.5 was somehow messed up. However the current 1.5.14 seems better than wine has been for some time. I think I have DirectX 9.0 loaded, but I'll check ... Oops. Only had part of it. Rest is coming in now.

Haven't really explored GIMP 2.8. Have to try single window mode. This is the first I've heard of it because I didn't read the upgrade document yet.

I will probably stay on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS until the release of 12.10 at the end of October. The other partition is strictly test, and I simply have too much additional stuff to want to move it all over there. After the official release, I may or may not upgrade this partition.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Ubuntu quantal (development branch) (GNU/Linux 3.5.0-16-generic x86_64) -- Beta2

wine-1.4.1

SimCity 4 Deluxe 1,1,641

Test with software mode - OK

Test with Linux Default hardware mode - Slow starting up, but after full initialization, OK. Took about five minutes to settle down.

AMD driver for my chip set not loaded (not available as yet for this version). Who cares?? The default driver is amazing.

[Ionic-Elm 13]

Hey,

I started my Linux distribution project again. If you wanna see about it, look at http://simplewarelinux.org/.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Hey,

I started my Linux distribution project again. If you wanna see about it, look at http://simplewarelinux.org/.

Just tried it and got the Apache 2 test page. Something has gone sour over there.

[Ionic-Elm 13]

Hey,

I started my Linux distribution project again. If you wanna see about it, look at http://simplewarelinux.org/.

Just tried it and got the Apache 2 test page. Something has gone sour over there.

Server got screwed up, had to request an OS re-install. It'll be back in about an hour hopefully.

[Alejandro24 575]

@Nonny: Do you know why happens this with the lot editor?

I've been playing with it, but is something annoying how Wine show it, also the buttons are kilter -I must to place the pointer under the button instead place it over the button-. Do you know how to repair it?