Thread: Losing Microsoft

AIX is like a bad wife, can't believe you would go with such a poorly designed Unix on a Production system. Of course smit is not helping

DigitalUNIX used to be the shit

Originally Posted by DrB0b

I liked Digital, TOPS-10

The very first OS I hacked my way into using a home made 300Baud acoustic coupler
Gave away way too much system info before you were logged in..

After a few days of SuSE 10.2 I am convincved more 7 more this is a very good alternative to Microshit's Windoze. The install went smooth (I have issues with sit down, shut and watch installs but this one came out OK) the installation of new packages is OK. Things to watch out for mp3 support. Most SuSE supplied packages do not support it Juk (a mp3 player) does but on installing Xine (video player) ALL multimedia support for mp3 went out the window, in all apps!

Easy? I think so. In the default config you have access to the utilities to change the system and directory structure these ustils prompt for the root password. By logging in as a normal user and only authenticating as needed you are protecting yourself.
From yourself. Everything is polished and just as fuckin slick as Microsoft ever dreamed it could be. The main admin util is Yast, it's on the menu use it. There is a configure menu that allows you to install system software. Another nice thing about linux you can install anything you want into your home dire and use it. No need to register with the system. any user can do this unless you make the effort to lock that out. Won;t go into that here plenty of docs on the net.

By default the KDE window manager is loaded, I had to edit the inittab file (as Dr B. mentioned above) to get to a fuckin prompt but most of you won't want that, Imean you;re looking for a replacement to windows not DOS, right?

Installing software is a snap, unless you can;t find a package. For most of you everything you need is out there. SuSE uses a variant of the RedHat RPM package manager (replaced by Yum [no fucking kidding!] in Fedora core 7). You'll have a few repositories registered, you should disable all of them (opinion). There are better package repositories than the default CD or OpenSuSE.org repos.

By going into Yast and selecting Software, then "Installation Source" you will get a list click on each click edit then disable. When you;ve done that you want to "Add." Click the "FTP" radio button, then "Next" enter 'mirrors.kernel.org' as the server (leave the quotes off) and '/opensuse/distribution/10.2/repo/oss/suse/' for the directory on server. Leave anonymous checked. Click "Next." It willprobe the source coma back with some kind of message and you should be able to click "Finish." Now you have access to Open Source Software not limited by SuSE/Novell's Idea of what is legal/good for you.

After getting a few things worked out (like a good mp3 player) I was able to debug my 99% finished project and work on some design for the next one. I had a few minutes so I installed Windows XP Pro & Slackware on my old machine. The Wondoze install was uneventful, the ol' lady can now read email and play on-line games to her heart's content.

Fuck me, I love Slackware. Booted the DVD, asked for "Boot Parameters" (all installs do) I just hit enter. The system came up I logged in a 'root' (No password) and was informed, ":You may now partition your hard drive (if needed) and run setup."

Mother-fuckin sweet. I used the menu-driven cfdisk and had the partition schema I wanted in a minutes. Now you can manually run the mkfs utility, or let setup run it for you. Remember dos? Remember how uncomplicated the installs were? I typed "setup" and hit enter. 20 minute later I had a fully functional OS with X-windows properly configured and ready to go (yes, it boots to a command prompt). There were many questions about my system I accepted either defaults or recommended settings throughout, the only thing I had to know was the horizontal & vertical refresh rate of my monitor, DO NOT fuck this up! You can toast your monitor if you over-closk it, most LCDs will tell you you have an invalid setting CRTs will die, dramatically. your monitor's owner's manual will have these figures if you don't have it get on the net an get them from the manufacturer's site.

Slackware does not have a package manager to speak of. It is not a idiot proof system. I hate to be the one to tell you but there is no such thing. Windoze has set the bar by lying to you and telling you it exisits, like Sanny klause, the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy these are all fuckin lies. Slackware is not for everyone. But the init file setup is much simpler and direct, BUT not completely linux spec compliant!

most of the major distros (Mandrake, Fedora, SuSe Gentoo, Debian) are as easy as Windoze, if not easier. The applications available for FREE will blow your mind. There is no big brother inspecting your computer, there are very few script kiddies writing macro viruses and as long as you keep Samba disabled you have much a less exploitable system. There are full-on graphical utilities to install, manage and configure services, software and users. You won't be any more lost that you would be in Windoze. AND you won't be trying to fly under anyone's radar.

LOSE MICROSOFT Godammit!! The Open Source systems out there are as good as (I submit better) WinDoze. They even read MS format files Open office saves in all MS formats as well as Open Document compliant formats.

I've got a new 19 inch monitor on my new system the old 17 incher on the old one, with my two machines networked enough to exchange files and will be moving back to my old, 32-bit system and setting up the new one with some 64-bit distros. I will try a few desktop oriented distros (back to Gentoo, then Debian, Mandrivia maybe Ubuntu [consider ubuntu a half-distro but capable of great things]) Ultimately I'll either go to a BSD install or a roll-your-own Linux From Scratch install I may lose a few of you on some of the more technical shit, Fuck it let it go. I hope to have a very good idea the major distros.

I've been a systems architect/engineer for a good few years. My policy with a new a OS or software package has always been "dummy mode = on, first." This means stick in the CD/DVD and fuckin install it, don;t read no goddam documents except the README file, go from there. This is "hacking" you beat it,break it, read about it, then; fix it, modify it; you make it work. This is the only way to learn the pitfalls & how to avoid them.
Then when doing an install or setup for production you want to know what needs attention, what to tell your techs and engineers when they go out to make things work over-night.

Hopefully, I'll be able to make some more astute recommendations/warnings over the next few weeks. I won't try to get you ready to cluster 36 machines to crunch seti-like data or crawl the net, but how to Lose Microsoft as painlessly as possible.

Originally Posted by Butterfly

I will need to get SUSE desktop a new try again, I remember seeing Novel (or Corel) doing a nice job with another distro for their Windows desktop, all based on Linux.

SuSE is Novell's Distro.
I remember Corel had a Linux a few years ago, wondered what happened to it.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Corel Linux, also called Corel LinuxOS, was a Debian-based Linux distribution made by Corel that was released in late 1999. Corel later discontinued the distribution, but did not remove the former Corel Open Source Development website until March 2002.
Corel did not use the standard KDE file manager. It instead used its own file manager, CFM. This, along with other modifications Corel made, meant that Corel Linux suffered at being incompatible with other versions of Linux much more so than other competitors in the industry. At a time when there was relatively little Linux software available, this was a serious hurdle for Corel and its users.
Corel LinuxOS Second Edition was released in download, regular and deluxe editions, the latter of which bundled Corel WordPerfect Office for Linux.
Xandros purchased the Corel Linux source code and development team when Corel scrapped its Linux business in August 2001. However, the Corel Corporation is a stockholder of Xandros

And now I know.

Originally Posted by Butterfly

Slackware used to be very popular when Linux started, now it's being ignored

I downloaded slack 11 the other day, about a week later Slack 12 was released. It is still being developed but there is no 64 it version. Slack is Ideal for folks that want a basic linux to add to, not a super desktop they need to remove garbage from. Software Installs mostly require compiling source working out the dependencies on your own. Many applications will require you to download several lib packs and compile them before you can compile the target app. It's not for everyone getting a software package you want to test on your machine can require several hours many people do not want to spend.

Once you get a Mac you never go back.

Originally Posted by The Gentleman Scamp

Once you get a Mac you never go back.

have had tons of Macs And I will never go back, to Mac.

^ well spoken.

Macs are for computer pussies