new year new OS

Well as has now become tradition with me when the new year comes around I backup my previous year to a DVD and re-install with a new OS. I decided to move from Fedora Core 5 to Fedora 7 on my laptop (and Fedora 8 on the Desktop). I only have the Fedora 7 DVD install and so have to upgrade to 8 over the internet and this can be a bit dodgy - so I avoid this with my laptop unless I have to...

and what determines "have to"? Well in my books if I am installing I only install current versions (not one's that are no longer recommended by the Fedora team and ones that are still getting regular updates from the community) which is at the moment Fedora 7 and Fedora 8. So bye bye Fedora Core 5 - you served me well in 2007.

btw - you can set up a very nice little desktop with Fedora (howto) with all the bells and whistles.

So now I am up to date with my OS and ready for the new year with the latest... and I am very impressed with the improvements since last year this time (when I installed Fedora Core 5).



From Fedora Project Wiki
(What *is* Fedora?

An operating system, a set of projects, and a mindset.

What is Fedora? Fedora is a Linux-based operating system that showcases the latest in free and open source software. Fedora is always free for anyone to use, modify, and distribute. It is built by people across the globe who work together as a community: the Fedora Project. The Fedora Project is open and anyone is welcome to join. The Fedora Project is out front for you, leading the advancement of free, open software and content.

The operating system is Fedora. It comes out twice a year. It's completely free, and we're committed to keeping it that way. It's the best combination of robust and latest software that exists in the free software world.

The mindset is doing the right thing. To us, that means providing free and open software and content, at no cost, freely usable, modifiable, redistributable, and unencumbered by software patents.

)

I'm thinking of switching over to linux. A few things hold me back:

Firstly, I'm so damn comfortable using windows xp. I have all the software I need. I use open source / free software wherever possible.

Secondly, we have to compile with minGW for our assignments, and I don't feel like a learning curve to switch between gcc and minGW. Actually, if there are more *nix users that move between the two, we could share on the forum how to do that.

Lastly, my biggest obstacle is my internet access. I access through a 3G pcmcia modem. If the distro supports my device, how do I configure it? How much bandwidth will I spend maintaining my linux version?

My reasons for moving to linux would be:

To increase my programming knowledge by messing about with "stuff" within linux Also, I would probably squeeze more performance from my single core laptop.

I think gcc is the required compiler for Unisa?
I think minGW provides/uses gcc?
For example in COS340 all code was expected to compile under gcc/g++ and not under some other c++ compiler. That's why I could write my code under Linux and then just recompile it on their funny ide before uploading to unisa.

I just looked and the minGW collection of programs actually provides 2 versions of gcc/g++. heh.

What's the difference between gcc.exe and mingw32-gcc.exe?

The mingw32-gcc, mingw32-g++, etc. binaries exist as an aid to cross development. They are created in a typical build of gcc. They are therefore distributed as the maintainers of GCC meant them to be. The gcc.exe indicates that the binary produces binaries for a target equal to the build, while the mingw32-gcc binary produces binaries to be executed on the mingw32 target.

 
  ,= ,-_-. =.
 ((_/)o o(\_))
  `-'(. .)`-'
      \_/

http://ilanpillemer.com
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem

I use ndiswrapper to wrap the windows drivers for my wireless cards/usb/laptop into a module that I can then load into the Linux kernel.

It took me a while to learn how to do this.. but I have grokked it now.

This may work for your 3G card - but you can probably google if its supported by ndiswrapper or not... I am not really sure what a 3G card is though.

 
  ,= ,-_-. =.
 ((_/)o o(\_))
  `-'(. .)`-'
      \_/

http://ilanpillemer.com
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem

I am aware that mingGW is a gcc port to windows. I'm just not sure if I can use the mingGW32-make.exe in linux to compile an assignment project. It seems to be a schlep to recompile in a different OS, instead of recompiling for a different OS
Thanks for the info concerning ndiswrapper!
I found another potentially useful link for installing 3G cards in linux. It's for fedora. There are links for gentoo and suse too.
http://en.wikinerds.org/index.php/HOWTO:_Installing_Vodafone_3G_PCMCIA_cards_on_Fedora_Core_GNU/Linux

Here is a picture of that problematic rapscallion:

Dang, Ilan! You've got me going now I tried a few times in 2007 to get a few distro's from the local freedom toaster at Tuks. They seem to be very capable in maintaining that toaster with the latest goods. I grabbed Ubuntu and openSuse. Wasn't thaaat impressed with Ubuntu, mainly 'cos I'm stingy with bandwidth The suse distro covered 5 cd's (I didn't have a dvd with me) and, lo and behold, the first cd of the set was incorrectly burned . Since then, the distro has upgraded and I haven't been able to marry my time, the availability, uptime of the toaster into one glorious download of many distro's. I'll try again in Feb, when those lazy tuks students get around to uni again Also, I'm too stingy to pay R150 for the delivery of a distro. I'd like to try a few and see what they're about.

I don't like Ubuntu cause they don't package gcc and make into the distribution. (That's like saying - "Ilan, stay away."

 
  ,= ,-_-. =.
 ((_/)o o(\_))
  `-'(. .)`-'
      \_/

http://ilanpillemer.com
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem

I am staying with Mac OS for my laptop

My opinion is that nothing comes close, like most vain mac users....but just my humble opinion. My mission yesterday was to get Fink up and running to manage all my open source software. It started when I was looking for Gimp for photo editing, as I got my new spiffy camera last week

Dont want to change the topic, but anyone know of any nicer photo editing software, especially Lycium? Adobe photoshop cs6 is R7500, and photoshop elements only supports mac on version 4, and is still about R5500.00 I read that Gimp comes close, and they even have a Gimpshop out, with the same look and feel and menus as photo shop, so that you can use books aimed at photoshop on gimp

I prefer Fedora Core when it comes to open source OSs. I bought Fedora Core 8 from fosscds for around R68.

I don't like Ubuntu because I have to get the packages from some or download them. Suse has a very heavy feel and I jus don't like it. Knoppix was nice. I did install it a few times and was impressed. I installed freeBSD twice but didn't know how to start and use it

Rick try out VMware or MS Virtual PC. I use MS Virtual PC 2007 (its free) to setup any OS I want to test out. Very useful and I want to get myself a high-end pc sometime in the near future so that I can run Linux and Windows without a dual partition and run them smoothley.

shauntir, you can ask canonical to send you cds, they do this for free (!!). i got a bunch of ubuntu cds for myself and some friends back at uct this way.

I actually did do that a sometime ago. I think it was ubuntu 5.10. I wish they could send a cd/dvd with the packages as well

I want to try out Ubuntu on my webserver this year in an upgrade from WAMP to LAMP. I'm concerned a bit about my dynamic DNS but I'm sure there is a way. I also want to set up the mail server part (which I've never done for fear of security).

Riaan, for photo editing try a software package called PhotoImpact (v12). Available at Macro I think for around R500. I've been using it since around 1998 and it just keeps getting better. It's completely intuitive with lots of built in Macros and effects so that it's easy to drag-and-drop an effect or fix lighting etc. I try to use open-source where I can, but they do such a good job, I'm happy to pay.

I'm still trying to break my last xp install. Experimentation I like to call it. My desktop is quite old (+- 2 years), so when I upgrade I will format the old one as a Linux server (slackware) and other os/tcp research. My new desktop will have a nvidia 7950GX2 (at least). This year some great new game titles are being released. So I'm forced to stick with windows for that reason only. I hugely dislike vista though, just for the record.

urgh, don't get the dual-gpu cards, at all costs. they are not only overpriced, but under-performing; don't get one because "i need an agp card", that's throwing good money after bad ideas.

get a motherboard supporting pci express (really cheap+good gigabyte boards) and a geforce 8800 gt - that thing even outperforms my 8800 gts 640mb sometimes, and runs cooler etc.

-------
'I don't care anymore what a bunch of atheists (or whatever they want to call themselves) want to believe. Its pointless to try and convince someone of your own belief if all they care about is the bliss of their ignorance.'
'i think both subjectivity and objectivity equals in meaning'
'Hey all you satanists.'
'harsh? sorry, i don't have the basic understanding of such a word.'
'I though zombies were living dead corpses walking around trying to eat young virgin girls'
'But perhaps we just transfer into another dimension. If you lived a good live you transfer into say, the 7th dimension, and if you were bad you transfer into the 6th dimension. And if your state of being is not very well defined you only get to the 5th dimension, being closest to our current 4 dimensions of perception, explaining the whole ghost thing.'
'If I kill a snail, would that be considered as murder, because in a million years that snail might be a human?'
- Randal Flag

I thought all cards these days were pci express only? I just thought the 7950 was cool because of the 1gb memory. I saw some ratings on tom's harware. Looks like I'll rather go for the 8800 gt. As for cpu, what do you suggest? intel or amd?

it doesn't have 1gb of memory, that's just poopy advertising because there are two overpriced, overheating geforce 7900s in there each with 512mb. since they don't share memory, you only really have 512mb.

right now intel are crushing amd go for a dualcore and you'll get much gaming joy (can be overclocked a bit further than a quadcore).