Because Shiny Things Are Fun - The New New Windows v Linux Thread

Best of both worlds, is it hard to put startx and Linux==limitless-possibilities (thought I was gona put !=winblow$ right?)

Things like mplayer can play videos on the framebuffer device and many image viewers exist for it as well so if you are physically at the computer you can watch videos
and view pictures just fine.

Originally Posted by jamison20000e Not to mention the best of both worlds you don't have to type startx if you don't need to like for Gimp and video, etc., I use Links2 for my email and often posting here.

Originally Posted by TobiSGD [/COLOR]On my main system (Gentoo/OpenRC) booting to the CLI is about 2 seconds faster than booting to the SLiM display manager (12 seconds vs. 14 seconds), I wouldn't call that "much" faster, but that may of course be different on your distro/init system. Since I almost always use X anyways (I am just more comfortable with having a graphical browser and using a tiling WM instead of screen/tmux) I don't see any advantage in booting to the CLI and then starting X manually.

I do admit I like using the CLI more than the GUI, but I do use X when I need to. What's funny is, even when I am inside of X, I still open the terminal window and do my command line stuff because I just love doing stuff from the command line.

Originally Posted by linuzfreak I do admit I like using the CLI more than the GUI, but I do use X when I need to. What's funny is, even when I am inside of X, I still open the terminal window and do my command line stuff because I just love doing stuff from the command line.

I find myself doing the exact same thing...

The repairman came and replaced my mobo again. Let's hope this one works...

A little off-topic: (was I even on topic to begin with?) I currently have 4 or 5 gently used Windows product keys laying around from this laptop. Every time they replace the mobo, for whatever reason they give it a new product key. I heard that a Win8 key is valid for Win7 as well, and I actually liked 7. So I might attempt to triple-boot. Does anyone know if the Win7 installer can not take up the full HDD? (as in shrink the current win8 partition, then try to install 7. Then install Linux)

EDIT: How insecure will Windows 8 become if I never update it again? I want to uninstall the updates that slowed everything down, but I think that it won't update anymore unless it has those updates.

Originally Posted by enine Wicd is easy enough to figure out, just install and make sure its running. You just click on it and a list of wifi networks comes up.

I just did that, and it works! I wish you could connect to a secured wifi from the ncurses interfaces, but I can live with that.

I just ran video in CLI using MPlayer LOL it's like looking at the Matix, now I what to set smaller text size for more def.

Originally Posted by jamison20000e I just ran video in CLI using MPlayer LOL it's like looking at the Matix

But that's what makes it so fun!!! Try doing that in an environment where nobody knows that much about computers and see what people think.

In grade school, every now and then during "computer class" (read: MS Office) I would open a command prompt and type

cd \
tree /f

Basically, "tree" prints a directory tree of the current directory. "/f" includes files, so the output is even longer . People had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

Today in high school, during Computer Science (C++ programming, it was an elective), when I'm finished and everyone else has no idea what to do (seniors thought it would be an "easy" class), I use Putty to SSH into my server. People stare even when all I do is

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Also, SSH tunnels are useful for bypassing the school's filters...

~$ sudo echo 'FONT="Uni2-VGA8.psf.gz"' >> /etc/default/console-setup
~$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup

nice!

Originally Posted by jamison20000e ~$ sudo echo 'FONT="Uni2-VGA8.psf.gz"' >> /etc/default/console-setup ~$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup nice!

What will that do? From what I see, it looks like it would change the console font, am I right? What is the new font?

Also, I just tried my first CLI web browser, lynx. It was...well...interesting. Very linux-ish. At first I was lost, but the last 2 lines saved me. I'm not sure if I like it or not. On one hand, even my Atom netbook can run it without complaining (no X session helps) but then nothing looks like it used to. But then again, that's what I thought when I booted my first Lubuntu LiveCD, and look at me now. (Well, you can't look at me, but the stats on the left might give you an idea...) The websites just look so different when CSS isn't there the way it usually is...My website looks just fine since all I know is basic HTML and how to change the color in CSS. But that will change next year; I'm taking a web design class as one of my electives.

I have a feeling that the new font won't help the CSS problem...but then again, Linux is full of surprises

Originally Posted by maples What will that do? From what I see, it looks like it would change the console font, am I right? What is the new font? ...

Yes and the video is even cooler now.

Wow! Thanks for the tips about viewing vids and pics outside of X, guys!



I really didn't think it was possible! (I see that it pays to ask even what I feel are "dumb" querstions, sometimes- rather than making assumptions!)

Funny thing was, from the time I started using Linux four years ago, until quite recently, I was ascared[sic] of the CLI- since I didn't use it often enough to retain much of what little I learned about it from reading/watching vids [There are some great terminal tutorials on Youtube- which come in handy for us old farts who when we went to school, "word processors" had erasers on the top.... ]

Just now starting to fool around with Slackware, is achieving exactly what I wanted it to: It's forcing me to use CLI...and now that I'm getting a little proficient at it, I LIKE IT! It really is easier and faster and more convenient than GUI, once you at least know some basics of using it. It's like: Once you lose that crutch of HAVING to use GUI, a whole new world opens up. And it's fun learning something new! It's hard for me to tear myself away from the computer at night, because as I read/watch one thing, I learn of yet another thing I want to explore...ad infinitum... As soon as I get a little more proficient with the CLI and the ins and outs of Slackware, I'm going to start learning some basic scripting.

I love the fact that Linux unleashes the power of your computer, and lets you do all sorts of things which you would have needed special software to do in Windurs or GUI...if you could do them at all!

Maybe one day soon, I'll be able to live up to the expectations that my thick glasses confer!

Ok, I'll try the font. It better not be permenant...

Arch is a good distro for forcing you to use the CLI...When you install it, you start off with the pacage manager and a few things like nano and vi, and everything else you have to install manually. It's great for minimalistic uses, like servers, though I have yet to switch my server, right now it runs Ubuntu Server.

Right now, I'm SSHed into said Ubuntu Server and am posting using lynx. I feel accomplished. Everyone else is trying to write a class in C++. At first, I was confused, but once I actually looked at it, it was easy.

What distro did you do that on? Debian? I'm on Arch, and the 'console-setup' file didn't exist, so I created it. Then when I tried to run the second one, it told me that the command wasn't found. I just tried 'dpkg' all by itself, and I don't have it, whatever it is. I looked on the Arch wiki, and apparently there is not a dpkg for Arch, which makes me think it involves something distro-specific, like packages.

I would try it on my ubuntu server, but mplayer doesn't quite work on it. The audio works fine, but the video runs really slowly, and after a few seconds the difference is obvious, and it only gets worse the longer the video goes.

My Crunchbang doesn't have fbi installed.....but I can't wait to try it on the Slackware laptop!

Yes Debain. I think in ~/.bashrc or /etc/rc.local or perhaps GRUB you could add

setfont /usr/share/consolefonts/<some-font>

but we really need a new thread if that doesn't work?