Trying *nix again

[mcdonc]

[EverythingIBM]

Show Image

I actually could install some unix thing on my 300PL -- people at the vintage computer forums were.

But I like DOS games, thanks. Unix and mac are for non-gamers. Amiga & DOS is where it's at, so forget red hat.

[hyperlinked]

ch: i wasn't accusing anyone of starting an argument, I was just trying to prevent one because I noticed two of the biggest MS proponents on this site make back to back DOS comments.

I admire your sensitivity to other people's feelings, but trolls don't have feelings and they're not people.

[EverythingIBM]

I admire your sensitivity to other people's feelings, but trolls don't have feelings and they're not people.

Are we talking about trolls or mac users?
=)

[mcdonc]

Kim Jong Il agrees....  DOS is the best.

[Oqsy]

and here we go...

[kishy]

Kim Jong Il agrees....  DOS is the best.

Best OS for Best Korea?

[mcdonc]

Best OS for Best Korea?

Here he is providing his stamp of approval to the Vista Control Panel.

[Oqsy]

Best Korea uses Best Red Star System for Operatings.
lil' kim ill thinks it the dopest of dope time for computing mad hacksing skilled.

[EverythingIBM]

Show Image

Kim Jong Il agrees....  DOS is the best.

Actually, if I'm not mistaken, the CRT in the lower left corner shows XP. And those are horrible CRTs, BLAH. Needs MOAR 1996ish.

DOS is only used by an intellectual minority. Such as myself!


KIM LIKES MODERN OPERATING SYSTEM!

[majestouch]

A mission was born; to discover a linux distro that suited my needs, and use it to further develop my linux skills for whatever purpose I may need them down the road, or even just for the fun of it.

A mission for developing skills?

Stop being a wimp. Just install Slackware or a *bsd and get on with it.

Ultimately all of those hand-holding "professional" layers of the more glossy distros are going to prevent you from understanding what is really happening.

Well, maybe you're all talk "Mr. Mission", don't mind me...(poke, poke;)

[ch_123]

Yeah... DOS is MS Word, and unix is notepad.

I'm glad we're thinking on the same page

Boring and predictable. 2/10.

[Oqsy]

A mission for developing skills?

Stop being a wimp. Just install Slackware or a *bsd and get on with it.

Ultimately all of those hand-holding "professional" layers of the more glossy distros are going to prevent you from understanding what is really happening.

Well, maybe you're all talk "Mr. Mission", don't mind me...(poke, poke;)

alright you got me...  that was actually a bit tongue-in-cheek when I said it, but I said it nonetheless



I've made my choice after researching and indulging myself for the last couple days.  I'm going to add 2 distros on opposite ends of the spectrum, and leave winxp as well.  
I'm installing arch AND debian (kde) to get a taste of what a finished linux system can do, and to also get the sense of accomplishment of building my OS up from the basic code myself.  

The arch build will most likely take me MONTHS, but majestouch hit the nail on the head, time to stop being a wimp and dive right in and do it.  I read quite a bit on the arch website last night, and I really dig the idea that everything is in my hands.  I'm in control, but also totally responsible for mistakes.  It's a very libertarian distribution, and that suits me perfectly

Debian will just be a toy for the most part, but a really cool toy

Thanks for the input guys, I'll be back soon for my multiple boot questions :O

[ahmad]

You may find yourself pleasantly surprised.

But Debian..  Oh, my, you really are jumping in at the deep end!

[Oqsy]

How am I jumping in at the deep end?

arch will be a personal build for my own purposes, and Debian(stable) is a fairly generic distro (well equipped, though generic it may be) just to putt around with.  I don't plan on trying to write code that will forever shape Debian distros, just use it some for giggles, you know GIMP, email, browsing, posting on this trollerific forum, etc.

[Oqsy]

ok, I'm ready to start setting up partitions, MBR, or maybe using a boot utility depending on which seems to work best for my scenario.  I'm going to divvy up my hdd into 3 partitions (at least, swaps, etc not included)  The one that already exists with WINXP, one for Debian, and one for arch.  I would like to be able to boot to each OS via a USB flash drive (I have one with Super GRUB Disk on it already, so that might work out).  I want the system to default boot into WINXP with no flash drive inserted.  Is GRUB the answer here?  

Should I just make an extra partition when installing debian for the arch partition and add arch to that partition and GRUB after I get the debian / xp dual boot situated?

[majestouch]

ok, I'm ready to start setting up partitions, MBR, or maybe using a boot utility depending on which seems to work best for my scenario.  I'm going to divvy up my hdd into 3 partitions (at least, swaps, etc not included)  The one that already exists with WINXP, one for Debian, and one for arch.  I would like to be able to boot to each OS via a USB flash drive (I have one with Super GRUB Disk on it already, so that might work out).  I want the system to default boot into WINXP with no flash drive inserted.  Is GRUB the answer here?  

Should I just make an extra partition when installing debian for the arch partition and add arch to that partition and GRUB after I get the debian / xp dual boot situated?

If you're going to double or triple boot on a desktop then you might consider having a separate disk for your data and partition it into 3 areas: NTFS data, *nix /home, and swap. This will keep your data safely away from the OSes while you mess around with OS/Program drives and bootloaders like GRUB, LILO, etc. I'm not sure of the benefit of using a USB key for loading other OSes, unless you want to hide them from other users, so I'd just use the MBR or the superblock of one of OS drives. However, if you're limited to using one HDD or using a laptop then make a Linux USB key for recovery and backup your data before you do anything. And good luck;)

[Oqsy]

My current setup is:



WinXP and all data *except* media files reside on the single partition on the 500GB disk, or F:

All mp3s, movies, iso files, itunes library database, etc. reside on the single partition on the 75GB disk, or M:
(I used this setup so that sharing the itunes library throughout my house was easier and more logical as far as paths, etc.  I can go into detail but it's really not necessary at this point in the game.)

Ok, so to keep my current WinXP installation, add an arch, and a debian installation, what would be the ideal setup for protecting data and minimizing problems?

[D-EJ915]

move your music to the big drive and use the small one just for linux, that way you don't have to worry about blowing up your MBR or anything

[Xuan]

I'd recommend you to use testing for Debian, it's stable enough and it keeps updated, stable gets old fast.

In Arch do frequent upgrades, I had problems waiting too much and partially upgrading after some time.

[ch_123]

Yeah, Debian Stable is often referred to as "Debian Software Museum". Testing is as up to date as the more mainstream distros.

[British]

Stop being a wimp. Just install Slackware or a *bsd and get on with it.

That, and ditch the fancy UI, it's a waste of disk space and CPU :wink:

[JBert]

But I love my Gentoo, that way I can finally get some use out of my quadcore.

[velociraptor]

I'd have to agree with D-EJ915 on moving Linux to it's own drive.  Windows [XP | 7 ] is very possessive of it's MBR.

Speaking as a *NIX sys admin (Mac on the desk, Solaris in the data center), I'd encourage you to try out an OpenSolaris live cd as well, ZFS FTW as far as modern file systems go.

=V=

(I've also admin'd CentOS, RHEL, FreeBSD, and Ubuntu server, but I prefer Solaris.)

[ch_123]

If you want ZFS, FreeBSD has a good implementation of it. I cannot possibly imagine why you'd want Slowlaris as a desktop OS...

[D-EJ915]

lol slowaris, runs better on my computer than vista does haha (and actually can use the wireless I had in it)

[HaaTa]

I actually run the testing repo from Arch, and have been for the last 6 months. Quite stable actually, no hiccups I can remember (I don't really recommend it though, unless you can either fix the problems or plan on reporting bugs).
But yeah, update OFTEN.

Second piece of advice, when doing updates, take note of what's updating. Especially the stuff that you use often. I'm always wary of updating MySQL or Awesome WM, due to potential breakages (which is fine, but I don't always have the time to fix them before using them).

Oh, and if you find that a package doesn't exist in the Arch repos, check AUR (using something like yaourt). Chances are, it'll be there.
Probably the main feature (other than pacman, and the build up philosophy) that keeps me with Arch Linux.

[microsoft windows]

lol slowaris, runs better on my computer than vista does haha (and actually can use the wireless I had in it)

Just about anything runs better than Vista.

[instantkamera]

I didnt bother reading through all 6 pages of (likely) ubuntu and fedora recommendations. Just go with arch. You wont regret it, unless you are an idiot.

great package repos, great package/dependancy management (including community driven wrappers/tools like powerpill), great installation, great community, great user experience (REAL configuration experience, not "click here click there, OH something broke but you have no idea what because all you do is click in ****ty interfaces all day" experience), great BSD style itit (read: simple), rolling release (****ing great).

Or go with Ubuntu, whatevs.

[pikapika]

i went through knoppix/gentoo/debian/netbsd/ubuntu/arch/debian from 2000

and finally i stick with debian unstable, bleeding edge, not much broken (if you don't do full-upgrades), far better than arch, which i tried a few months ago

if you want bsd style, try freebsd

if you're really adventurous, plan9 ;-)

[instantkamera]

far better than arch, which i tried a few months ago

Please qualify this highly generalized statement.

if you want bsd style, try freebsd

Not a BSD-style OS, a BSD style INIT - I realize that I wrote "itit" in my last post, so perhaps you just misunderstood.

if you're really adventurous, plan9 ;-)

I have tried plan 9 from bell labs, it sucks (in the sense that it's a pretty sparse installation ATM), about as useful as Hurd. Both have a liveCD that works fine in vbox, so go see for yourself. The most useful "random OS to name drop and look cool on geekhack" I can think of is Haiku. It actually runs a full desktop(not that I necessarily equate GUI to useful) with networking and a browser, among other tools.

[Superfluous Parentheses]

I have tried plan 9 from bell labs, it sucks (in the sense that it's a pretty sparse installation ATM), about as useful as Hurd. Both have a liveCD that works fine in vbox, so go see for yourself. The most useful "random OS to name drop and look cool on geekhack" I can think of is Haiku.

Does QNX still provide disk images? It used to have working desktop POSIX-style OS on a single floppy image including a graphical web browser.

Anyway Plan 9 looked interesting, but that editor they provided really was a triumph of mouse-oriented thinking over actual usefulness. And some of their networking stuff worked similarly (as in: looks cool, is actually quite stupid).

[instantkamera]

Does QNX still provide disk images? It used to have working desktop POSIX-style OS on a single floppy image including a graphical web browser.

Anyway Plan 9 looked interesting, but that editor they provided really was a triumph of mouse-oriented thinking over actual usefulness. And some of their networking stuff worked similarly (as in: looks cool, is actually quite stupid).

not sure as I have no experience with QNX - or real-time kernels/embedded os'. Isn't/wasn't QNX a commercial endeavor?

[Superfluous Parentheses]

not sure as I have no experience with QNX - or real-time kernels/embedded os'. Isn't/wasn't QNX a commercial endeavor?

As far as I know it still is a commercial outfit. But since their market is/was mostly embedded software and such, with strong UNIX/POSIX components, it probably made sense for them to release a fully working PC OS based on that just so that interested developers would have something interesting to play with/develop for/test on.

[ch_123]

AFAIK, all development is done on PCs then cross compiled to the source machine. The PC one is probably the associated development environment.

[Superfluous Parentheses]

AFAIK, all development is done on PCs then cross compiled to the source machine. The PC one is probably the appropriate development environment.

Sure, but I for one prefer (in descending order of preference)

1. develop on some Unix type system and deploy on the same system

2. develop on some Unix type system and deploy on some other Unix system

3. develop on some Unix type system and deploy on something else.

4. develop on something else.

In the first two scenarios I can at least try to test basic stuff (if not everything) on my development machine without having to transfer images and stuff around. In a good development environment that will make a ****load of difference in the time it takes to develop and debug stuff. Also, having a target OS you can just dump into VMWare/VirtualBox/Whatever means you (the developer and the manufacturer) will get a ****load of development/communication tools for free.

[ch_123]

From what I have heard, compiling big programs on a low power RISC CPU running at >500MHz is something you really don't want to do to yourself.

[pikapika]

far better than arch, which i tried a few months ago

Please qualify this highly generalized statement.

about arch, i found it fun to use, though i had many segfaults with a lot of apps. packages were not great quality as in not much tested. AUR is a nice idea though done by kiddies without testing.
the community is a bunch of 2 neurones fanboys, it reminded me gentoo fanboys and mac fanboys

so fun to try, but boring to use
 

Not a BSD-style OS, a BSD style INIT - I realize that I wrote "itit" in my last post, so perhaps you just misunderstood.

the thing is i don't understand why so many people are found of bsd and use linux. when i wanted bsd style *, i used bsd.

I have tried plan 9 from bell labs, it sucks (in the sense that it's a pretty sparse installation ATM), about as useful as Hurd. Both have a liveCD that works fine in vbox, so go see for yourself. The most useful "random OS to name drop and look cool on geekhack" I can think of is Haiku. It actually runs a full desktop(not that I necessarily equate GUI to useful) with networking and a browser, among other tools.

the plan9 suggestion was mostly a joke. plan9 has a lot af neat ideas, like namespaces for everything, but is mostly unusable for common usage.
debian gnu/hurd is a bit usable, i had a server with it for a few months.

haiku seems nice i should try it

[ch_123]

about arch, i found it fun to use, though i had many segfaults with a lot of apps. packages were not great quality as in not much tested. AUR is a nice idea though done by kiddies without testing.
the community is a bunch of 2 neurones fanboys, it reminded me gentoo fanboys and mac fanboys

I've used Arch for years and haven't had any of those issues. My experiences with Debian, on the other hand, are well documented on this thread and others.
 

the thing is i don't understand why so many people are found of bsd and use linux. when i wanted bsd style *, i used bsd.

BSD doesn't have the same hardware support Linux has, and Linux has more packages.

[pikapika]

maybe i'm too used to debian like systems, and getting aged i tend to go the less bothering solution ;-)

freebsd has quite a lot of packages though the hardware support problem is real

[ch_123]

I have the opposite problem, Arch was the first Linux I learned how to use properly, and consequently other ones seem confusing or annoying. The Arch documentation is also excellent.

[pikapika]

gentoo was my first real distro for years, though at a time it crashed so much and was so boring to set up that i finally learned debian

i think gentoo would be one of the distro i wouldn't want to use anymore, maybe i'll give arch another try one day

[keyboardlover]

I use Kubuntu/Ubuntu at home and love it. I think all the variants of Ubuntu are great. They have an incredibly dedicated community behind them (and no, I don't work for canonical; simply a fanboy)

[mike]

(a bit late)

If you're going to try plenty of different distributions and/or *BSD, OpenSolaris, it's worth trying them under VirtualBox or something similar. LiveCDs are fine but don't really indicate what the installation process is like or what kind of performance you'll get after installation (relative to other VMs of course).

[Oqsy]

a worthy consideration, but I personally have no use for any VMs at present.  If I want to run more than one OS, I'll just install them and multiple boot.  I tried VM once and it was a real PITA.

[ch_123]

Depends on what VM software you are using. But with some of the less mainstream open source operating systems won't work reliably with VMs. One of the reasons I didn't start using Arch earlier was because it didn't work with whatever version of VMware Workstation I had at the time.

[mike]

Well if it's a choice of using a VM to run the occasional bit of Windows software (such as the Vthingy interface to my ESX server) or rebooting, VMs are a lot less hassle for me.

I'm surprised that any VM had a problem dealing with _any_ Linux distribution; I've never encountered a similar situation since Vmware 1.x and I have dealt with many odd Linux distributions. Admittedly not ArchLinux until recently.

[keyboardlover]

Personally, I've found that I don't really like multi-booting or VM. Everytime I've done this, I've found that I either never use the VM or the other os that I'm booting. Maybe it's laziness, but I prefer one platform per computer.

[mike]

I know what you mean ... I have an XP VM to run a handful of games which I haven't gotten around to firing up for at least 6 months. I'm either using VMs to experiment with different os's (no more than a weekend) or the VMs are sitting on the ESX server under the stairs so I can run more than one server (OpenSolaris, ArchLinux, FreeBSD, Server 2008, and Server Core 2008 at present).

(soaking some newly arrived double-shot keycaps including some mild pink function keys)