I’ve built an UBUNTU (LINUX) desktop here at the office. I spent a couple hours yesterday installing the OS and XWindows, then another hour or so this morning setting up (corporate) email, learning my way around the OS, and trying to figure out a way to pop my hotmail without referring to Google (I gave up, eventually, and learned from google that popping hotmail will take a little more work that I expected).
The only real drawback is that I can’t get the KRDP client working, otherwise I think I’d be migrating my laptop by now. It may be due to domain security, though it’s also possible that it’s just some simple setting I haven’t stumbled across yet. Nonetheless. It’s been a few years since I had a LINUX desktop to fiddle with.
I Kubuntued my new laptop after I tried Vista for 5 minutes. My wife is annoyed, because I didn’t install any games (minesweeper, freecell) initially.
But I love it. KIO lets me SCP onto my SME server and manage files like they are local, and I don’t have to use SSH and Vi. Once I get the MMC/SD card reader working and DigiKam supports ITPC/EXIF editing, I doubt I’ll use Windows (except as a VM).
Oh - did I just shift into TLA overload. :smack: I am really a geek.
btw, gotmail (a perl script) will pick up your Hotmail and post it to your mail-server. I run it from a cron job to check 5 or 6 mailboxes.
by coincidence i actually Ubuntu-ed myself up over the Easter weekend as well. Not completely by choice though - my hard-drive died and i didn’t have any windows discs where i was.
Almost-complete “mildly-funny if you like that kind of thing” account is here:
Do I lose geek points for admitting I didn’t understand most of si’s post?
I discussed the merits of several semi-naked chick sculptures with my brother the other day. Since they were gaming-related chick sculptures, Mom only had a middling fit. Which went into a full-blown fit when brother mentioned that one of the sculpted cups behind the chicks is identical to one I have. Mom stopped considering our gaming some sort of devil ploy years ago but she still doesn’t consider dragon-paw drinking glasses a proper decorative item. Or vamps in stilettos.
I was pretty impressed at how easy it was to install and configure. Of course, having another, fully-functional computer on the desk next to it was tremendously helpful. Do you know if there are any other XWindows interfaces for Ubuntu? I haven’t looked all that much, I’ll admit.
You will need to clarify your term XWindows interface
XWindows (or X) is the remote screen protocol used by unix systems.
Xorg is the X Server (software that translates requests into pixels on a screen) used by Ubuntu - you may be able to replace it with XFree86, but I doubt you would want to.
You can install X Servers on Windows to display unix applications on your windows PC - Cygnus X Server is one, there are other free X Servers.
The Window Manager is an X Client that controls the display of X Client applications, and is probably what you are referring to. It handles borders and buttons and menus and panels and behaviours. Ubuntu ships with the Gnome Window Manager and application set. Kubuntu is the same Linux OS with the KDE Window Manager and application set. You can install KDE on Ubuntu, and Gnome on Kubuntu. Both Gnome and KDE provide a number of services that are more than just Windows Management services, and the choice between Gnome or KDE is the source of flamewars aplenty - but there is a level of co-operation growing between the two that means that users are not penalized or restricted. Gnome apps do run in KDE and vice versa.
There are some pure Window Managers - XFce is one, delivered in Xubuntu. Again - you can use KDE and Gnome apps in other windows managers, but will need to install and run the required services to support the apps you want.
KIO is the KDE IO system - it lets me define a connection to my SME (a flavour of Linux used for servers) server over SCP (Secure CoPy - an encrypted protocol) by typing an address in the file browser bar , like fish://home/etc. That window is then like a normal browser window.
This means I don’t have to use a terminal program like SSH (Secure SHell - an encrypted terminal emulator) and Vi (the VIsual editor, much loathed by many people) to change things on my server.
The MMC (MultiMedia Card)/SD (Secure Digital) card reader should read my digital camera flash memory cards, and DigiKam (a photo management program for the KDE environment) needs to be updated to fully support ITPC/EXIF editing (both of these are ways of storing text data in a JPEG photo file - like comments, captions and tags), so I can classify 8000 photos and build photo albums based on those tags - and have those tags move with the photo and not be restricted to any particular software.
Once this happens, Microsoft Windows XP will only be used in a VM (Virtual Machine) - a way of running one operating system inside another - which will be Linux.
It is a generic term, but its meaning is more “something that implements the X protocol”. The term Desktop Environment describes the services supplied by KDE and GNOME. An example - DigiKam (my photo tool) is a KDE application - I can ask it to open a file using KIO style references (smb://home/photos/pic.jpg to get a file from my server called home via normal networking), it uses KDE themes and services. OpenOffice is a XWindows application, so it does not recognise the KIO style reference (well, it pops up a message and implements a workaround, but it does not use native KDE libraries). A XWindows application will run on any system that implements X Services - but may not utilise services supplied by the XWindows Manager (like themes, colour schemes etc). A KDE XWindows application will only run if both XWindows services and the KDE libraries and services are present.
Linux - used to mean an operating system - actually refers to the kernel - a piece of software loaded at boot that controls the processor, memory and hardware, and provides services that allow applications to run.
Your interface to the kernel services can range from a simple console - again, you can choose your preference in console interfaces (bash, ksh, tsh, csh) - to a full blown, all singing, all dancing GUI (like KDE or GNOME).
Linux distributions (like Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, SuSE) take a Linux kernel (usually with a few modifications of their own), add support software and services around that, and customise it in specific ways. They also add installers and other tools. Often, one distribution builds on another.
There are tools that let you roll-you-own distribution - you choose the software you want to add. These are also usually based on a parent distribution.
So Ubuntu is a linux distribution based on the Debian core system with a GNOME interface. Kubuntu is based on Ubuntu, but supplied with a KDE interface. SuSE is another KDE based distribution. Fedora supplies both KDE and GNOME, and you can choose at logon which environment you wish to use.
