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

Originally Posted by jonyo Our mission is to give that sensation to as many people as possible. ok, what am i missing about the last bit here?

Seems like it says the sensation of waiting hours just to get your Firefox compile.
*Ran for cover.

hey that's cheating, this is the last bit

Our mission is to give that sensation to as many people as possible.

this part

as many people as possible

forget who said it but someone said it didn't matter whether 2 or a gazillion

i'm not sure yet but looked to me like there wasn't much about getting up an running quick

still, very impressive presentation at a glance with a ..i usually think of 'mission statement', but philosophy works, with a message i like and makes me want to check it out further

vm should be a piece of cake but i have run across some issues in the past, most i tried were lickety split

for all i remember i may have even had a look at gentoo in the past

anyone know which one i should try first here? ya know, bandwidth means forkin out some dough

http://www.vmware.com/appliances/dir...t/508?k=gentoo

prob gonna try the minimalist funtoo
http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/487103

ps, a shameless quick plug for the new pup that i wont repeat like this

UBUNTU FANS (and anyone else interested also), pls have a look at the new pup direction in the new upcoming forums! as i understand it is certainly focusing on you, nothing quite like folks teaming up and working together, no doubt you can give the new folks a pointer or two that would be much appreciated

matter of fact, i have some UBUNTU time under my belt,
can't say i know much of the details myself at this point but all are welcome

i expect to see a polished more professional approach,
no point in pulling the wool or going totally against the grain with the linux folks when it comes to their fundamental concerns or issues like updates, security or root, not to mention how you go about marketing your goods

Originally Posted by PrinceSharma Seems like it says the sensation of waiting hours just to get your Firefox compile. *Ran for cover.

Running for cover may be a good idea.

root@fireball / # emerge -p firefox | genlop -p 
These are the pretended packages: (this may take a while; wait...)

[ebuild   R    ] www-client/firefox-3.6.17 


Estimated update time: 1 minute.
root@fireball / #

Hardly hours to compile.

Originally Posted by dalek Running for cover may be a good idea.

My smiley said that all, pun intended .

Originally Posted by littlejoe5 Sumquy said: "Now I can see where you're coming from, though. Puppy is good for what it was intended for....but from what I know of it, it can hardly be compared to a full-featured OS -so comparing that to Windows, is like comparing a bicycle to a Chevy. But when you get into the bigger and better Linux distros, then you have a Mercedes or a Porsche to race against the Chevy!" end quote. Well, I'm using Mint10, (a dirivative of Ubuntu). It is truly a "full featured OS" I like it very much. But I also like Puppy a lot. Your quite right that comparing Puppy to windows is like comparing a bicycle to a Chevy. Windows is like a bicycle compared to Puppy (The Chevy).

I'll take your word for that, since I've never tried Puppy.

Personally, I like the lighter distros- which is one of the reasons I came to Linux- to get away from all the MS bloat. Even in Ubuntu 10.04, I don't use 90% of the stuff it comes with.

I tried Mint on a live CD...liked it very much. Wish I still had my old 500Mhz 'puter, I'll bet Mint would've been great on that. I was just saying what I did about "lighter" distros, because it seems that some with whom I was debating seemed to be comparing the light distros to full-featured Windows, and then saying Linux comes up short because it doesn't have all the bells and whistles. As far as that goes though, I'm with you.

Originally Posted by littlejoe5 Sumquy said: "Now I can see where you're coming from, though. Puppy is good for what it was intended for....but from what I know of it, it can hardly be compared to a full-featured OS -so comparing that to Windows, is like comparing a bicycle to a Chevy. But when you get into the bigger and better Linux distros, then you have a Mercedes or a Porsche to race against the Chevy!" end quote. Well, I'm using Mint10, (a dirivative of Ubuntu). It is truly a "full featured OS" I like it very much. But I also like Puppy a lot. Your quite right that comparing Puppy to windows is like comparing a bicycle to a Chevy. Windows is like a bicycle compared to Puppy (The Chevy).

hmmm what would you say pup was intended for?

how is pup a bicycle vs windows (the chev)?
that makes me think that pup is of ltd use, i'd say that depending why or how you use pup it can run circles around win, and you would then only use win when or if needed, as required

not sure what you mean exactly by

the bigger and better Linux distros

better how? even bigger, how? just to touch on that there are folks who have cd sized pup variants, lighthouse is one I tried long ago and liked that is still active

better might be because there is more software available, easier to install etc
that was certainly a pia area for me with pup vs great for some of the big dawg distro, bet even there, some were better than others

i figure depends alot on what you are after

if i was drawing a comparison i might say a bike (motorcycle)that is capable of much more vs a car and depending again why and how used, pup could easily become a primary OS as is and using the others (win or linux) to fiddle with or as required

there are certainly many to whom pup is their primary OS, especially to folks who know what they are doing

also, say what you like about pup or distrowatch rankings, for alot of folks who tune in for the first time from win, i'd say that stands out to them and even to plenty in the linux world

if this goes too far off the win vs linux topic, lemme know and i'll start another thread to keep on track here

here's the deal if this could be touched on a bit here

the gentoo philosophy finishes with

as many people as possible

which to me means they want folks and my first thoughts are good, i'm not too swift and am looking for that

so then at a quick glance i'm thinking whith where i'm at now, WOW and i def wanna look into it more but didn't look anything like easy to me, more like going to a foreign country with all these diff words

then you have pup that has an easy peasy theme, that i could certainly fire up quick, but even after recently going there and getting turfed, my head was spinning from info overload and where it was

i would expect something that clearly jumped out at the forums saying something like
HOW TO START EASY AND QUICK

One thing you should know about distros, Some are small and are intended to be that way. Some are large and bloated to the extreme One way to analyze this is to use desktops as a example. You can't really compare Fluxbox to KDE4. Fluxbox will run on about anything that has a video card. KDE4 requires quite a bit of memory and depending on settings, can hog up a lot of resources. Other than being a desktop, not much else is the same.

Another way to think of this. I have Gentoo installed with all the software I want. I also have a Knoppix CD that I can boot. I wouldn't even try to compare the two because the only things they have in common is Linux and KDE. Even if I install the Knoppix image to a hard drive, it still wouldn't be the same. I'm not putting Knoppix down either. I have used it and for something that can boot from a CD, it is dang nice.

The thing about Gentoo is choice. You can have a install that is small, even downright tiny or you can have a install that is huge and has every feature under the sun. There is even a guy that put Gentoo Linux on a guitar. I have read about Gentoo being on some pretty weird stuff.

I used to use Mandrake when I first started with Linux. It didn't have as many choices as I have with Gentoo. If I want a feature, I can turn the feature on. If I don't, I can turn it off. When I was on Mandake, I didn't have that choice. They compile the packages with the features they want to enable and you just have to deal with it or compile your own and install it. If you do that a lot, may has well have Gentoo.

For me, the appeal for Mandrake was that it was easy to install. It ended up being a real pain in the butt to upgrade but the install was easy and there were a lot of options to as far as partitions and all that. What appealed to me for Gentoo was the upgrade process. The install is NOT GUI based for Gentoo but the upgrade process is really nice. Another good thing is the speed of the updates. When KDE releases a update, I can install the updates in just a couple days. That wasn't the case with Mandrake. It may be a month or even longer. That said, they do test stuff a lot but still, I like the faster updates.

I hope that makes sense.

You guys are making me want to try Gentoo! Don't know if I'm capable enough- as I've gotten lazy using super-easy Ubuntu.....which is great for someone like me coming from Winders....but works so well, that it tends to keep one from really learning Linux.

Can Gentoo be used with a desktop environment other than KDE? (I don't like resource hogs!)

This is the beauty of Linux- there are so many things I'd like to try...including a light distro with Fluxbox...I may just have to buy an obsolete laptop to fool around on with various distros, just for fun!

Ya gotta love having all these options. (The only options with Windows are: Use the current monstrosity...or use an older one that is/becoming obsolete and non-supported)

Gonna go check out the gentoo site......

Can Gentoo be used with a desktop environment other than KDE? (I don't like resource hogs!)

With the "do it yourself" distros (e.g. Slackware, Gentoo, Arch), you can use pretty much any DE you want…or even just a plain window manager.

There's a lot more flexibility in general (IMO), but you have to know how to leverage that flexibility.

Originally Posted by Sumguy You guys are making me want to try Gentoo! Don't know if I'm capable enough- as I've gotten lazy using super-easy Ubuntu.....which is great for someone like me coming from Winders....but works so well, that it tends to keep one from really learning Linux. Can Gentoo be used with a desktop environment other than KDE? (I don't like resource hogs!) This is the beauty of Linux- there are so many things I'd like to try...including a light distro with Fluxbox...I may just have to buy an obsolete laptop to fool around on with various distros, just for fun! Ya gotta love having all these options. (The only options with Windows are: Use the current monstrosity...or use an older one that is/becoming obsolete and non-supported) Gonna go check out the gentoo site......

With Gentoo, you pick the desktop. You can use KDE, Gnome, Fluxbox and several others. I have both KDE and Fluxbox installed here. When I am updating KDE, I just log into Fluxbox. My rig is in my sig. You should see Fluxbox run on this thing. If you think about clicking something, it's done. lol Of course, KDE is pretty fast too. If you like to switch around a lot, you can have KDE, Gnome, Fluxbox and others installed at the same time. Just pick your poison when you login.

Gentoo doesn't have default install like other distros. You pick from a lot of options as you go through the install guide. Some things you may want to leave out but there may be things you want that isn't mentioned in the install docs. The install is console based, in other words text, and you do pretty much all of it by hand. For a beginner, it can be intimidating. It took me two tries to get the install done and three tries on the kernel. They have a thing called genkernel but I never could get that thing to work for me. I do my kernel by hand using menuconfig. I usually forget something on the first boot but once it is done and you have a working config, you just copy it to the new kernel and use oldconfig to upgrade. That is simplified and a brief description of how that is done.

One thing about Gentoo that I mentioned before. You need really good cooling. Gentoo requires a LOT of compiling and that means heat. If you look at my sig, you will see I have a tank of a rig. I have a case with large fans and a large CPU cooler. People do put Gentoo on lappies but you need to be careful. If I had a lappy and was putting Gentoo on it, I would put it on a A/C vent, just to be safe. I certainly wouldn't leave it somewhere it didn't have good cool air available.

If you really are thinking about installing Gentoo, read the install guide at least two or three times. Sort of get familiar with them and the steps. If you already have a Linux install, you can install it from there. The only commands you need are the normal mount, tar, chroot and such. Those are generally on most Linux installs. Even Knoppix has those on its CD.

One thing I like, once it is installed, you are done. On my old rig, the install is from back around 2003 or so. I just update it often and keep things running. You do need to prepare to upgrade on a regular basis tho. Gentoo likes to stay up to date. It is a rolling update process. There are updates to something about every day. They try to make it so you can go a year between updates but we have learned that going more than three months is going to cause issues. It sort of varies depending on what has changed and how major the change is.

I started out testing Gentoo. After a while, I stuck with it. I wouldn't change anything now tho. I think I picked the best. That's just my opinion. By the way, I have two rigs. Neither of them has ever seen anything M$. My CPU would most likely puke if I installed windoze. LOL

"Windows is like a bicycle compared to Puppy (The Chevy)."

When I said that back up there a ways,I was thinking several things.
1: Ease of installation. Many people have never installed windows - it just came on their machine when they bought it. But I have,and installing Puppy, believe me, is way easier, whether you are going to install it to the hard drive, or continue to boot from the CD, or even USB.

2: What you've got when you get it installed (in terms of programs). Puppy comes with several games; a few really powerful graphics programs; A really good word processor (Abiword), that will read and write to MSWord "doc" files; a Spreadsheet (Gnumeric) that will read and write to MSExcel format; (Being able to R/W to MS stuff may be important to some people.); Plus a whole lot of diagnostic programs and other programs.
After installing Windows, yo still have to collect and install nearly every sort of program that you might need.
But just in case you do need something in Puppy that isn't already there, you can almost certainly get it from their repositories. Now you can even use repositories from a couple of other (major ) distros.

3: What it is capable of: In most cases it's just a few easy steps to get it set up to use wifi. It gives you immediate access to all the partitions and drives installed on most any machine you put it on. And for just about everything there is 'pop-up' documentation that will tell you just how to use it to the best advantage.

4: How it runs: FAST! It runs almost (or altogether) in memory (depending upon how much memory you have - and it doesn't take much. I recently set up an old laptop with 6 Gb hard disk and 256Mg of memory with Puppy. It runs - what can I say? - really really fast.

Windows doesn't hold a candle to it. I'll still keep Mint 10 (or maybe go to 11) on my larger machines, but I'll keep Puppy around. If nothing else, it's a first big step in recovering a windows computer that has been abused by windows.

Originally Posted by Sumguy This is the beauty of Linux- there are so many things I'd like to try...

+100 .. too bad there's work, sleep and stuff..

Originally Posted by dalek One thing about Gentoo that I mentioned before. You need really good cooling. Gentoo requires a LOT of compiling and that means heat. If you look at my sig, you will see I have a tank of a rig. I have a case with large fans and a large CPU cooler. People do put Gentoo on lappies but you need to be careful. If I had a lappy and was putting Gentoo on it, I would put it on a A/C vent, just to be safe. I certainly wouldn't leave it somewhere it didn't have good cool air available.

maaan i was so focused on how to work with nothing or make the best of it, didn't even dream there was such a thing as linux where cooling was a concern

heard about many big dawg distros being or steering to being resource hogs like win but...

hmmm .. pardon me but i usually associate resource hogs with bloat?

Originally Posted by jonyo +100 .. too bad there's work, sleep and stuff..

Especially the stuff gets in the way