KCLUG

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3253 discussions

Oracle to become an OS vendor
by Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO 18 Apr '06

18 Apr '06

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=technologyNews&story ID=2006-04-17T193320Z_01_L17720323_RTRUKOC_0_US-ORACLE.xml&pageNumber=1& imageid=&cap=&sz=13 Can you say big and bloated? Look at the bottom of the first page. I wonder what ties Oracle has to Goldman Sachs. I sense some not so subtle stock manipulation. Personally I'm tired of looking at Larry Ellison's face. He is definitely in the cult of personality club with Steve Jobs. IMHO

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Photoshop in Linux ... almost
by Shannon Miller 11 Apr '06

11 Apr '06

On Tue, 2006-04-11 at 12:00 -0500, kclug-request(a)kclug.org wrote: > Photoshop in Linux ... almost Have you tried f-spot for managing and editing your photos in Linux? For gimp tips and tricks related to photo editing and touch up I would recommend http://gimpguru.org To learn how to use the Gimp for the many other things it is capable of beyond simple photo editing you may find these links useful: http://gug.sunsite.dk/ http://www.gimptalk.com/ http://jimmac.musichall.cz/gimp2demos.php

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RE: Ubuntu and Kubuntu vs. Mepis.... Gentoo?
by Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO 11 Apr '06

11 Apr '06

Yep. That's it. Isolinux vs. syslinux. My newer boxes have no problem, but if I get the syslinux image, it will work anywhere. A distro like DSL (Damn Small Linux) and IPCop HAS to release in syslinux format because of the amount of people using it that have older PCs and laptops. I'm actually surprised that Ubuntu doesn't do the same, since they are trying to make a distro for everybody, especially 3rd world countries that take in a lot of the recycled hardware. >-----Original Message----- >From: On Behalf Of Charles Steinkuehler >Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 11:40 PM > > >Brian Kelsay wrote: >> This problem booting tips me off to one problem I've run >into on older >> PCs with newer distros. I was a frequent user of DSL on a laptop >> until a new version came out and it wouldn't boot. I skipped a >> version or two and then came back. It turns out that a lot of people >> had a problem. I don't recall the exact reason, but now they release >> two .iso files and the one that works has syslinux in the title and >>it has something to do with how the kernel is bootstrapped. >>Can someone else explain? > >Kind of grasping at straws, but there are several ways to boot >off of a CD. Syslinux is generally a floppy-based (or at >least FAT-12/16) boot loader, which would typically be used on >a CD-Rom in floppy emulation mode. In this boot method, a >chunk of data on the CD gets read into memory and used by the >BIOS to emulate a floppy disk. > >Other methods of making bootable CDs include using a hard-disk >image for emulation (instead of a floppy), or not using an >emulated disk at all. > >I suspect the newer images used isolinux or something that >does a no emulation (or hard-disk emulation) boot that older >BIOSes didn't generally support very well, while using >syslinux on an emulated floppy image should generally work >anywhere, even on older machines with wacky BIOSes (you're >just limited to a maximum 2880K floppy image). > >See the mkisofs man page for details on the -b, -hard-disk-boot, >- -no-emul-boot, -boot-load*, and -c switches (and probably others). > >- -- >Charles Steinkuehler >

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RE: Ubuntu and Kubuntu vs. Mepis.... Gentoo?
by Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO 11 Apr '06

11 Apr '06

Sounds to me like you may have CD burner problems or possibly many bad downloads. If I were you, I'd check MD5 sums on your .iso image downloads. Also, if you are talking about hardware issues with your laptop, then you may need to use some boot options, like noapic, noapm or nolapic. Since you didn't say what your issues were, who can tell. I've actually heard of some people finally having success with the OPL3Sax sound chips with some of the LiveCDs. Which is good news, but about 2 years and one Diet Coke too late for me. Anyone recall the Coke I spilled all over the perfectly fine, older, free laptop I had. For Apt-pin issues, I was referring to stuff pinned by Mepis. It would either keep me from installing or uninstalling software. Many times, just an upgrade would be impossible, due to some specific version being required. With the switch to Ubuntu repositories, and other internal fixes, some/most of this should go away. Does anyone have apt-get update/upgrade called in a cron job to stay up to date? >-----Original Message----- >From: On Behalf Of Jack >Sent: Sunday, April 09, 2006 7:58 PM snip >On the Ubuntu front. Every version I've installed has had >hardware issues, preventing a clean install. >I've totally failed to build a Kubuntu CD that would install >clean (whereas sometimes Ubuntu would install clean). It's >been a long time since I've had a distro that would flake out >on me on some hardware. I've run Mepis for many years and >never had much issues with it. >It's still a nice distro. > >As far as apt-get issues, I have a few apt-pin problems, but >if someone has apt-pin problems it is <<< always >>> the >fault of the person who is maintaining the system and has no >relation to the flavor of Debian or Debian itself. Basically, >you should never apt-pin, and if you do you should be prepared >to pay the price. The price being eventual apt-pin problems. >

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Photoshop in Linux ... almost
by Jack 11 Apr '06

11 Apr '06

Some maybe good news for Photoshopaholics. http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/pspi.html Gimp plugin that runs Photoshop plugins, kind of like double penetration ... I guess. It might actually be nice to do this; then maybe I could finally learn how to use GIMP by buying one of those plethora of Photoshop howto books. I'm still fighting with getting GIMP to fix the Redeye in some photos ... any photo ... I'm not picky ... well yes I am, but not in this case.

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things for sale at tomorrow's UMKC surplus auction
by David Nicol 10 Apr '06

10 Apr '06

Aside from the normal palettes piled high with CRT monitors and mysterious beige boxes, there are a couple dozen 866Mhz/512M Dell beige box systems with keyboards, montors and speakers; four flat-screen monitors (the most attractive thing there IMO), a small fridge, a comfy chair, lots of non-comfy chairs, two large but filthy aquaria, several PC systems that may be better than 866/512. They have also either rekeyed the whole damn campus or just cleaned out the locksmith shop, as there are vast quantities of doorknobs and locks. And televisions, and boxes of keyboards, and printers, and scanners, and copiers, and a big box of miscellaneous little things such as an external Jaz drive and PC cameras and cables and power strips. Bidding starts at 9:00 AM. http://fusion1.umkc.edu/Newsletter/UMKC_Announcements.cfm?NewsID=2319 is an announcement for last quarter's auction i think but the directions are valid. -- David L Nicol Should the bike shed have bunks? Or maybe cots?

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RE: Ubuntu and Kubuntu vs. Mepis.... Gentoo?
by Jeremy Fowler 10 Apr '06

10 Apr '06

Why has Gentoo fallen out of favor? Doesn't anyone use Gentoo anymore besides me? Gentoo's portage and emerge utility rivals that of Debian's app-get. 2006.0 LiveCD even has a graphical installer available, though any true Linux user should be ashamed of using such a thing. ;-) I find building and compiling a fresh Gentoo installation very satisfying. I would have thought there would be more people like me on the KLUG list...

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RE: Update on Ubuntu and my Church Laptop
by Jon Moss 07 Apr '06

07 Apr '06

I ran the easyubuntu script. However, I still can't play WMV and ASF files. Should I try running the script again? > > You should be able to get the windows codec package and be able to play > those with either mplayer or VLC (Videolan.org). For Debian-based > systems I've used a foreign repo called marillat or something close to > that, but since you are using Ubuntu, looks like you should be able to > get this via universe or multiverse repository. Look into that easy > Ubuntu install link that was sent in the original Ubuntu thread. > > I tried yesterday to download the DVD.iso of Kubuntu and I got a 550 > error, unable to change directory. I'm getting it now from the European > mirror. > > >>-----Original Message----- >>From: On Behalf Of Jon Moss >>Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2006 6:10 AM > >><Snip> >> >>I've been able to play DVDs, CDs, PowerPoints (via Impress of >>course) and some web media (but not WMVs or ASFs). Since we >>don't have Internet access at the church, I'm not too worried >>about the latter. >> >>The DVD playback is a little choppy so I need to investigate >>how much RAM was "donated" with the laptop. And that may not >>make a difference . . . >>may just be the age of the laptop or the norm for Totem Movie player. >> >><Snip> > >>Later, >> >>Jon Moss >> > _______________________________________________ > Kclug mailing list > Kclug(a)kclug.org > http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug > -- Thanks very much, Jon Moss jon.moss(a)cnonline.net

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RE: Microsoft and Malware
by Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO 06 Apr '06

06 Apr '06

I bet MS is going to try their hand at beating Ghost or other imaging software next. Look at the first 2 paragraphs. That and antivirus. Look out Symantec >-----Original Message----- >From: On Behalf Of Leo Mauler >Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2006 4:25 PM > >Saw this article through a /. link. Seems Microsoft feels >that people should adopt another operating system, such as >Linux, which rarely has trouble with malware. > >I mean, "Microsoft Says Recovery from Malware Becoming >Impossible [with the Windows OS]". > >http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1945808,00.asp >

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Ubuntu and Kubuntu vs. Mepis
by Justin Dugger 06 Apr '06

06 Apr '06

I'm currently running Ubuntu Breezy. It's fantastically simple to set up a desktop environment with, because they simply defined a virtual package "ubuntu-desktop" that pulls in a fair amount of tools you'd want. Of all the Debian based distros, I think this is one most likely to succeed in the long term, except perhaps Debian itself. Theres a repo in Ubuntu called universe that you might be interested in. Universe is a repo for porting debian unstable packages by people other than ubuntu developers. There's a group called Masters of the Universe that manage it and keep it semi working. Its possible that you'll still run into apt-pin situations should you decide that the MotU is too slow, but I havent had the need to try to run around universe yet. And since I you've asked about them, I'll also explain that multiverse is the set of packages typically found in debian's non-free, plus some they won't even distribute in there. Basically universe is the extras that nobody from ubuntu spent time porting and bringing into official "our support contracts require this be in main" repo. I don't believe security-updates affects main, although usually the motu try to keep on top of that. And multiverse is the closed source stuff like mplayer and acroreader etc that's useful but may not be legal or encouraged. Ive gone through two upgrades of Ubuntu thus far, with minimal troubles. Yes, there was a root password leak that wasn't caught until lately. However, it didnt affect me because the problem was in one of the newer installers. I'd suggest waiting perhaps a day or a week before upgrading. That way the traffic on the mirrors dies down, and the "oh shit" bugs are found. I'm told newer versions of Ubuntu are going to include an improved synaptic with an "upgrade distro" button, so you can move from Breezy to Dapper, or Dapper to Dapper+1. After the Sarge debacle, Ubuntu did a bang up job of pressuring Debian to make strides of improvement. Debian's always prided itself on being a jack of all trades and flexible -- Ubuntu stole a collection of Debian Developers and demonstrated that focusing on a single area (PC desktops) is just as valid and valuable. Justin Dugger On 4/3/06, Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO <brian.kelsay(a)kcc.usda.gov> wrote: > Who in our group is actually using these distros? I'm interested in > the ease of updating and stability after doing so compared to Mepis, HDD > installed Knoppix and regular Debian or any other Debian-based distro. > > I've tried tons of LiveCDs, used Mepis quite a bit and never had success > with plain old Debian installing as a desktop. I like Mepis out of the > box, though like any distro you find little bits that don't work or you > don't like. Mepis is switching to the Ubuntu repositories with the next > release, in order to get more stable updates. > > The point of this is, I still consider myself a Mepis user, but I'm > concerned about the quality of the Ubuntu repos if I stick with it. > Also, if I were to switch to Kubuntu, will I run into apt-pin problems > when I try to add software not included on the distro disks? That has > been a problem on Mepis with the Debian unstable repos. I tried the > 64-bit Kubuntu last week and it looks great on my newish desktop PC, but > I also wonder how it will do on a PIII-500 with lots of ram. An older > Mepis was OK on it after I turned off the flashing and bouncing > mouse-busy cursors. Haven't had the guts to try a newer Mepis or > anything else on that PC. I need a Linux with the games working for my > kids when they are over. > _______________________________________________ > Kclug mailing list > Kclug(a)kclug.org > http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug >

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