Thread: Linux apps

I have had good success with SuSE 10.2

It's still got a few minor teething problems I am trying to work out but otherwise I'm happy with it.

Very good support forums for it as well.

Originally Posted by El Gibbon

Acrobat is a potential issue, will have to look at it carefully as I do some tech manual editing etc. and need total compatability with the source. PDF files aren't the problem but the conversion to an editor (Word is the basic export target)

File >> Export as PDF in the OO menu and it's done.

My main problem with moving to Linux is that I use 3 PCs and XP doesn't give me any problems. I also rely on Photoshop and Illustrator too much. I don't think Gimp can do what Illustrator does.

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

My main problem with moving to Linux is that I use 3 PCs and XP doesn't give me any problems.

It should, just ask Frankie

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

My main problem with moving to Linux is that I use 3 PCs and XP doesn't give me any problems. I also rely on Photoshop and Illustrator too much. I don't think Gimp can do what Illustrator does.

Interesting.

photoshop cs2 and 7 work under wine in Linux. I was reading about it the other day.

Maybe CS3 does. I had that before I changed but it's some seriously bloated software.

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

My main problem with moving to Linux is that I use 3 PCs and XP doesn't give me any problems. I also rely on Photoshop and Illustrator too much. I don't think Gimp can do what Illustrator does.

Having transfered over about 2 weeks ago the only thing I've gone back for is Illustrator. It might run under Wine my online poker software does but I haven't tried yet. As far as I can see and I haven't used it much yet Gimp is equal to Photoshop.
There are vector based packages under Linux, Karbon14 court my eye but Illustrator is streets ahead. If you have financial charting software try it under Wine (Windows emulator for linux) it will probably work, only the graphics might throw it but as long as that is coded in a fairly standard way you should be OK.

In the past, I used VMWare with WinBlow$ running as an application. There are a few other emulators around - Bochs, etc.

Originally Posted by lom

It should, just ask Frankie

I just setup windows on a AMD 64 X2 with mirrored Drives you really don;t wanna get me started. Fuckin' Windoze
No Floppy, OK got the Nvidia RAID drivers sets up just fine. BSOD Ah, fuck it reformat reinstall. everything goes smooth, Fucking Windozes can't find isapnp.sys to load from install disks... OK nice install screen. No mouse no keyboard.... Ok one more time, no error on isapnp or any other files.
(Same damn CD BTW) Ok forty mnutes later, installed. Boot. BSOD. Ah, fuck it. GO into the RAID setup break the mirror.

Windoze installs OK. Download Firefox, grab a torrent client got a x86_64 version of a decent OS coming down. Figure I may as well set up some kinda DVD burning software... Had a copy of Nero with the burners somewhere.

Chuck that baby in the Liteon All-write drive. Nuthin. OK click on the "DVD-RAM" drive. WTF??? can't read the disk... Ok go in disable recording on this drive... I can see the CD, wrong one. pop it out. Pop in the right one. Can't read it.
Fuck this I'm gonna have a beer, or three. OK Found a DVD burner on the net. Download still fucking around with it found windows recognizes writable media just fine. Closed CDs or DVDs with data on? Fuck no. Now this is a fuckin' "Feature." OK back on the net (Oh yeah, BTW, windows completely missed the netcard had to do a manual install and the video and the audio and Ah yuo get the picture) download a firmware upgrade for the writer, the writer was working it's about 6 months old, it would boot my MB CD and any other CD DVD I put in. Windoze just can't see closed media. Anyway, flashed the firmware, HEY LOOIT THAT! winsows found new hardware!!! Hardware that was already registered in the DM...

ten more fucking hours, I'm re-formatting, re-mirroring and installing a real fuckin OS. Thing is all operating systems can give you nightmares. Windoze just throws way to many wrenches in the works even after you've set up your machine. Automatic updates fuck with your default save paths fragmented swap files, nag screens, helpful hints you don;t fuckin want...

They change the interface and path to utilities with every new OS, same shit different place. The software and OS doesn;t play nice with other applications, their stadards compliance is nil, in fact they are absent from most stadards symposiums and discussions. THEY DON'T WANT to BE standards compliant, Then you would have a choice. Too many people are too heavily invested in MS to try and convert. For the most part Windoze and MS products are easier to install, You could train a monkey to do most installs, Just look at al them MCSEs out there Once setup though by the less experienced the machines become a maintenance nightmare.

I would heartily encourage anyone to get a linux installation on their PC The more user the more software willbecome available. Microsoft has forced their product down the throats of the computing public they now have such a large base they and are so strongly entrenched they feel quite comforatable tightening the reins Automatic updates that check your license? Free software that reports unlicensed installations? Crippling your PC because you got a digit wrong in the key-code? Call Redmond? or Houston? Sit on hold for an hour and get some PFY with a fuckin attitude?
Fuck microsoft.

^ You've got my number if you need a hand, mate.

Originally Posted by Wallace

I've found that downloading torrents is slower

Which client are you using?

So Frankie, which of the problems with that Windows installation was Evil Bills fault?
You can't blame him for your shortcomings..

My Shortcomings? You know better. If you've never experienced this kind of install before you really haven't done much IT work.

My point is with any system install with out a connection to the net or an array of drivers handy etc. you can have problems. People that are afraid of Linux because Big-Daddy Bill and his partners in crime have convinced people that setting up a machine is simple with windows and a dark art with Linux should take another look.

Billy-boy is lying and spreading dis-information. This is the MS MO. Setting up a machine requires preparation and planning, irregardless of OS. Why pay for the privilege when it's not necessary?

My HD crashed. No time to prepare for a new install. I bought the Hardware by going out finding the newest, fastest shit in stock buying it. lot's of new whiz-bang chip-sets, Now I'll prepare a cd with all the drivers for linux. This machine will not have windoze When I get to the setup I'll be ready.

Still pissed off about losing that very important 5 - 10MB of data, though. Now THAT was a shortcoming; coulda been backed up on a thumb drive easily enough. Email addresses, Bookmarks, everything I've written in the last year (not the code; that is safe).

Debian had a reputation for being a little tough to set up - but that may very well have changed.

I've worked with SuSE from the getgo & have been comfortable with it in terms of being a platform for scientific computing. I found that Red Hat never had the packages I needed.

Basically, you should try a few distributions until you become comfortable with how to set them up. Give Debian a go - it is a good learning exercise.

Debian is the oldest running distro. Have never used it. SuSe is so much like installing windows as to be a brain dead install. just click OK accept the recommended parameters and you'll be fine. You may need to know your hardware but this is true of any OS install. The list of out of the box supported (read detected) hardware is long but no OS has a complete one. Many packages are included with the distro if you can't get a binary package for what you want, you can install the gcc compiler you should be able to find sources and can "configure," "make" and "make install" easily enough.

Originally Posted by watterinja

Debian had a reputation for being a little tough to set up - but that may very well have changed.

I've worked with SuSE from the getgo & have been comfortable with it in terms of being a platform for scientific computing. I found that Red Hat never had the packages I needed.

Basically, you should try a few distributions until you become comfortable with how to set them up. Give Debian a go - it is a good learning exercise.

I used Quantian for scientific computing, it's a knoppix variant with lots of extras for numerical and data analysis - very easy to install it does the job its designed for very well. It's very easy to cluster if you need to do some serious number crunching.

------------------------
What does Quantian contain?

Quantian differs from Knoppix by adding a large number of programs of interest to applied or theoretical workers in quantitative or data-driven fields. The added quantitative, numerical or scientific programs comprise

• R, including essentially all packages from CRAN (excluding only non-Unix packages such as MimR, or ROracle which needs special headers and libraries) and BioConductor; the snapshot was made February 25, 2006) as well as some from other R package repositories, out-of-the box support for the powerful ESS modes for XEmacs, the Ggobi visualisation program, the Rpy RPy Python interface, the RSPerl bi-directional integration with Perl, the award-winnning JGR Java GUI for R, the Rserve headless R server, the Rpad interactive web interface and initial support for the RKward gui for R.
• bioinformatics tools such all packages from the BioConductor project, as well as bioperl, biopython and applications such as blast2, clustalw, ImageJ, and hmmer;
• Octave, with add-on packages octave-forge, octave-sp, octave-epstk, matwrap and Inline::Octave as well as other matrix language environments;
• Computer-algebra systems Maxima (including the X11 front-end and emacs support), Pari/GP, GAP, GiNaC, YaCaS, Axiom, Mathomatic and Calc;
• GSL, the Gnu Scientific Library (GSL) including example binaries;
• the QuantLib quantitative finance library including its Python interface;
• the Grass geographic information system;
• the OpenDX and Mayavi data visualisation systems;
• TeXmacs for wysiwyg scientific editing as well as LyX and kile for wysiwyg (La)TeX editing;
• various Python modules including Scientific and Numeric Python;
• Cernlib, a large number of programs and libraries from the CERN particle physic lab;
• the bochs, wine and qemu emulators;
• office suites such as OpenOffice.org and KOffice as well as Abiword, Gnumeric and the Gimp;
• and various other programs such as apcalc, aplus, aribas, autoclass, DrGeo, euler, evolver, freefem, ftnchek, gambit, geg, geomview, ghemical, glpk, gnuplot, gperiodic, gri, gmt, gretl, ImageMagick, IPE, lam, lp-solve, mcl, mpich, mpqc, multimix, rasmol, plotutils, pgapack, pspp, pdl, rcalc, SQLite, Tclsh, yorick, xaos, and xppaut;

For those of us just getting used to the idea of flushing MS but afraid to make the commitment due to 'programs' available;

I found this site this morning

Linux software equivalent to Windows software - LQWiki

Gives the rough equivalent for Windows to Linux. Seems you get a lot more choices with Linux.

If you want games they are there, Google for 'top 10 linux games'

E. G.