yet another linux post (updated. again.)

For those of you who were intrigued by my efforts to convince you to try Linux, I present the following links, which may be useful, intriguing, interesting, or some other adjective which implies that it's worth your time to check them out:

Choosing the Right Linux Distribution (via Linux.com)

In this beginner introduction, Jethro Carr presents helpful tips for choosing the right Linux distro for your needs. He provides details regarding: purposes of different flavors, package management, stability, and personal experiences with numerous versions.

This is really useful, and is a great starting point if you're serious about switching. I always tell people that the right one is the one that does what you want it to do, and this actually includes all operating systems, not just *nix ones. For example, if you're a hardcore gamer, you need Windows, even though there are ways to play games in Linux, for the average user, it's not worth the headache to make it work.

Learn Ubuntu Linux with freely available e-book

As you might expect from the title, the 931-page book covers everything you need to know about installing, configuring and using Ubuntu. It teaches you groups, graphics, gaming, spreadsheets, e-mail and much more . . . You'll need a password to unlock the pdf (Wil: What?) which is easy enough: [Deleted]

Updated: So apparently the "freely available e-book" was never intended to be free, a fact that eluded both Lifehacker and myself. Hey, people who think it's cool to pull this sort of bullshit, and rip off a publisher? Die in a fire. When you do asshole things like this, you set back the efforts of those of us who believe that making freely available e-books is a great way to market and build audience. Great work, shitcocks.

However, the book is available for purchase online.

Updated again: In comments, Stephen says:

For anyone wanting a book about Ubuntu, the Official Ubuntu Book is
licensed under a Creative Commons License, and a download is available here . This is easily viewable under Windows, to read in Linux you need to install the gnochm package.

If you like the e-book, they also have a print version available for a reasonably-priced purchase. I really like this idea: a 900+ page e-book isn't exactly practical for me really use, but offering it for free lets me see if it's going to be a useful addition to my library and print out the pages that I know I'm going to refer to while I wait for my dead tree copy to arrive. Related to this: has anyone made any serious efforts to do away with paper in the workplace? I get my Legion scripts as .pdfs now, and I rarely print them at home (they print them for us at the studio) but I'll still print out articles from the online versions of newspapers to read later or share with friends and family. When I edit my writing, I always have to print it out double-spaced so I can make notes and corrections, but my editor and I (who are separated by several states and two time zones) have begun using OpenOffice.org to make notes and changes on my upcoming book. It's sort of a CVS system for text that's very cool and useful, and saves us the time and expense of printing, shipping, and returning paper manuscripts. Oh, and writers? Skype is so awesome for working with an editor: you chat or type in one window, make changes on a document in your desktop and then just drop it into the box to send it back and forth. It's not quite a flying car, but it's still teh futar.

The Perfect Desktop - Part 3: Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft (via technocrat)

With the release of Microsoft's new Windows operating system (Vista), more and more people are looking for alternatives to Windows for various reasons. This tutorial is the third in a series of articles where I will show people who are willing to switch to Linux how they can set up a Linux desktop (Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft in this article) that fully replaces their Windows desktop, i.e. that has all software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that runs also on older hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge.

As always, I'm interested to hear the experiences WWdN readers are having with the great Linux experiment; previous Linux posts on my blog have turned into cool advocacy (not the ponytail kind, the helpful kind) and technical support discussions, so it's a cool resource to use, if you're interested, or intrigued, or some other adjective which implies that it's worth your time to check these threads out.

Comments

[Pisco Bandito]

Not topic related, but did everything turn out ok last night after the emergency?

[Wil]

Yeah, Pisco, everything's okay. I'll post about it later today.

[Rebecca]

I just posted a link to your blog on our got linux? forum. You're great, Wil!

[Eric Aitala]

I really like Ubuntu, but I am having one real problem. I can't get WPA setup for wireless networking. I won't use WEP in my apartment building and dragging a 50 foot Cat 5 able between rooms is a pain.

Dr Eric

[hlynna]

I currently dual-boot Ubuntu and XP (because I am a Sims addict) on an AMD 64 bit processor. I have very few headaches. A couple are related to 64 bit processing and Firefox. There's also some weird Drama between Debian and Firefox (and since Ubuntu is based on Debian, I don't run Firefox 2.0). My other headache is that my machine spontaneously reboots (when I'm not looking so I DON'T KNOW WHY).

But the freedom inherent in open source software and absence of DRM and the stability (other than the spontaneous reboots) of the OS and desktop environment, are worth the headaches.

[MJBUtah]

We are currently trying to get serious about the paperless thing in our office. We are an accounting firm, and the tax prep program we use archives the returns as PDF files when we prepare them. The source and supporting documents are then scanned and saved as PDF files associated with the return files. Unfortunately, the adaptation to having nothing on paper in the file is not really going well. We have to refer so often to the prior years' information that we end up going in to the archive program and printing a copy which we then discard when we are done. So it turns out just to be delayed tree murder. The theory is to bring up a copy on the screen and refer back and forth, but it really isn't there yet, technology-wise. The programs conflict or suck up so much memory that frequent re-boots are required. (Or turning off my music and email programs which is entirely unacceptable when I am working 14 hour days.)

[BOCK]

Copy of my comment in a recent lifehacker thread on paperless-ness:
I am extremely anal/paranoid about the following:
- maintaining good files
- having documents in a place where anyone with the mildest malicious intent might find them
- having easy access to any document I might need

My system works like this:
- any invoice, bill, or statement that can be downloaded as a PDF, I download
- similar documents that show up as paper get scanned as PDFs
- Everything is "filed" in one of a few categories (Bills, Credit Reports, Earnings Statements & Work, Statements_receipts, Taxes) then stored on a USB drive that I have on my person at all times
- The drive is backed up once a week to a TrueCrypt partition on my server

I'm also thinking about digitizing all my other paper files (old college notes and papers, mostly) but maybe not treating them with such insane security. I think when we went to a paperless filing system @ work, it really opened my eyes to what a time (and space) saver such a system could be...

RE: Linux--
I found these links helpful as well in the course of my err---"assimilation":
http://makethemove.net/ - for the ultra-noob
http://www.linuxeq.com/ - Good reference for Linux alternatives to Windows apps

[Giladani]

I'd love to jump on Linux. Two problems --

1. I'm a C# developer. I need VS.
2. I'm a gamer, I need games (no, the 30% performance hit you take with WINE isn't going to cut it).

Linux is just one of those things that philosophically, I can get behind. But practically I have to put food on the table, and not so practically I need games to Just Work.

[riv]

Eric: have you installed network-admin (it's apt-get-able)?

[Jabbertrack]

Linux itself is the easy part. The hard part is that a lot of the applications require non-noob skills.

For example when I wanted to do a quick Ubuntu/MySQL server at work it turned into a pretty confusing project. Getting both things installed was super simple and pretty neat but then I couldn't figure out why the MySQL server wasn't working.

I finally found a blog on the internet that mentioned the same problem and it was that MySQL binds itself to the local home ip and you had to dig into a config file and change it.

Well this tidbit wasn't really something I saw in any of the guides or public documentation on the myriad of Ubuntu and MySQL web pages and this dude's blog was on page 5 of about the 50th Google search I had done that day.

The main problem with all the guides about getting MySQL up and running is that they were written by people who apperantly don't bother running it for real on a network. I guess for the guide's sake it was running on the server and you could create a database on it so "done and done".

Long story short... in my limited noob Linux experience all the basic computing aspects are really very easy. Beyond that you are at the mercy of open source foulups for more advanced apps (the admin program for MySQL still has many bugs) and long-winded and technically challenging documentation that can sometimes be intimidating but is written by well intentioned people.

In the end though it runs a lot better on the hardware we had to work with than Windows2k server and MSSQL server, was free, and provided a fun learning experience.

Hope this is the kind of thing you were looking for as feedback Wil.

[Macharo]

That freely available e-book wasn't supposed to be free according to the link you posted.

[Frac]

On reason for password protecting that book is that it ensures you can't forget where it came from if you want to read it. The password is the URL.

I just set up an Ubuntu LAMP (Linux / Apache / MySQL / PHP) and found it pretty easy.

It's an uphill battle trying to learn to configure everything at once, but I find it easier than a Windows server.

[altjira]

Yeah! Another Linux post. Ye gods, I miss The ScreenSavers.

What kept me from using Linux for a long time was trying to get my cheapo wireless cards working - without using ndiswrapper. Now I love it, but would use it more if it were easier to plug in to my company's Windows network, especially without IT's support.

I'm trying to get GRASS installed on my FC5 so I can parade it around as a reason to make the company network tolerant of Linux - at thousands of dollars a seat for commercial GIS, free is a very nice alternative. But I've really struggled. Even the prepackaged rpms don't work, and trying to understand why is just as bad as reading an interesting article on Wikipedia with lots of links. You look up, and all of a sudden 4 hours have gone by.

[joshua m. neff]

Wil, have you tried Google Docs (formerly known as Writely)? My wife and I have collaborated on a doc using that, and the docs can be saved in multiple forms. It could be a little more convenient than sending a file back and forth between people.

[Villainiss]

I'm happy to hear about others who are going paperless too. I work in the technical department for a large bank (I'll just say the name rhymes with LaMoo...), and many of our departments have changed from using paper files to faxed-image files, and although now every user needs 2 monitors, the savings in paper, supplies, storage, time and information loss has been amazing. It was a hard transition at first, but now it's practically second nature! Yay for saving the trees!

[Spartica]

The paperless Office:

I get paperless credit card statements (um....only because they offered money, sorry)....um, I communicate with my clients via internet often which prevents the pointless waste of paper. I often turn down clients who want me to make junk mail brochures and draw stupid pictures of their babies,(assholes). Please forgive my tourette's fingers. Wow, I just saved a forest. Of course Brazil is back to mowing it down like a pack of termites.(fuckheads). I instead, choose to make fine art and make a lot of my money on the web making artwork for websites. Since this often involves doing web advertising I suppose I prevent others from destroying, unfortunately urban sprawl and over population offsets that gain. Damn, just can't get ahead here. I planted several acres with trees. Forgive me for being pesimistic but someone will probably offset it. Damn.... Carbon Credits(guilt relief for the rich). Back to the drawing board,....to use some more paper.

[Eric Aitala]

riv: I have found multiple documents explaining how to set up WPA via wpa-supplicant and other bits, but so far no luck. I'm thinking of doing a complete re-install of Edgy since I've not done much so far...

Dr.E

[timelady]

http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/index.php

its a linux distro wizard - it asks some simple questions about what you want to do, level of skill etc, then recommends a distro or two.

for ubuntu users, the ubuntu forums are a mine of info. thus, for firefox users on ubuntu, the ubuntu forums plugin is a must have. https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2302/

irc is another resource. yes, linux fanboys have a reputation to overcome there, but on the network, irc.freenode.net, there is a number of channels devted to new users, and i happen to know the ubuntu ones are very good - especially #ubuntu+1 for feisty users, or #ubuntu-au, or #ubuntu-women

[timelady]

oh, one must also mention the good work of LUGs (Linux User Groups). http://www.linux.org/groups/

[Plainsong]

I'm about to trackback you again to a blog posting of mine, that's the complete opposite of Linux Luuuv - but no, I'm not blogstalking you, that kind of thing isn't my bag. ;)

But for all the Grumpy Old Woman talk from me about Linux, I really do want to like it and I really do think it's come a long way. I just want to see it develope a little bit more.

As for those asshats that posted the book online, yeah, we get our share of that as well. I've browsed warez forums full of praise for our skins from the jerks that don't think it's worth the 5 bucks to pay for. As if we'd make anything like that pay-for that didn't take a ton of work and didn't include a ton of stuff.

[Kathy]

I'm fairly paperless.

If I order something on line, I make a PDF of the confirmation, then just trash the PDF when the order arrives.

And I earn extra money as a freelance proofreader and editor. Clients e-mail me a PDF of the file at the end of their work day. I edit and annotate the PDF and mail it back to them overnight. This eliminates all the paper printouts, gives us both an electronic version of what got marked up when, and resolves platform, font, and software issues (their file is in a Mac version of InDesign; I'm on a PC with different fonts--and no InDesign).

Oh, and my invoice gets e-mailed to them at the same time--another PDF.

[SandieK]

Still the same problems from the last time. The Ubuntu LiveCD is being incooperative and acts like its a demomode program, wanting me to actually install the OS first. Cant do that yet.
Apparently I dl'ed/burned PSLinuxOS wrong because it does nothing on boot up. Up until now, Knoppix was my most succesfull attempt, despite not reading my wireless. Now, even THAT is being pissy. Whereas I used to be able to change little things like desktop and bacgrounds, it claims theres no directory/file/whatever to get anything from. I find where I can enable/disable my wireless.
It pisses me off that Ive read most of the material presented through these posts, and I understand the bulk of it, but nothings working like it should, and for the life of me I cant fix it. :(

[Stephen]

Dr Eric - for what its worth, here's how I got WPA working with Ubuntu . However, it may be best just to wait for the next release, due in April. I've just downloaded the latest candidate and it has Gnome Network Manager enabled by default, which takes care of WPA security for you.

[Stephen]

For anyone wanting a book about Ubuntu, the Official Ubuntu Book is licensed under a Creative Commons License, and a download is available here . This is easily viewable under Windows, to read in Linux you need to install the gnochm package.

[Drev]

This weekend I'm going to my sister's house, and she wants me to look at their computer because she thinks they have a virus. Which is totally plausible, since their intartube surfing habits are much less than sanitary.

I'm going to try to get them to switch to Ubuntu, I think. I'll bring a LiveCD with me, and make my pitch. I think Ubuntu would be fine for them, because all they do with their computer is surf the tubes and write a few reports. I think the Big U would be more than enough for them. Plus, it has that whole security thing going on.