Slashdot Mirror

here's an e-mail address:
guitar(at)imblaze(dot)com

courtesy of the CEO himself: (jb = Josh Bochner)
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/archive/10 /2004/02/3/145593

Part of the attractiveness of Linux is that you are not locked in to one particular vendor's way of doing things. This is also part of the problem for new users as the number of choices, while advantageous for the novice or expert, is absolutely daunting for the beginner. linuxquestions.org has a forums section dedicated to distribution reviews created by users. These can give you insight into what distributions might suit your preferences.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/

Very helpful community, and very active for a lot of distros. I have never, ever, seen an answer that was only "RTFM". I've seen answers like "Here's how you do it, and here's the section of the manual where this fix comes from", but never only "read the !@#$@#$ manual."

Ogg not advertised, but available here.

Bittorrent is here: http://mirror.linuxquestions.org:6969/index.html

Tracker - http://mirror.linuxquestions.org:6969/

Because unfortunatelly and for the embarrasment of the Linux community. Suse is hardly seen as a distro with good customer support.

However many Linux users are more than willing to spend their free time to help you out migrate.

First thing buy a few cheap Live-CDs to find out which distro picks up the wifi.
Check the wifi itself is OK.

There one of many online shops that sells cheap Linux CDs - like OSDisc.com
They cost about few dollars each.
Make sure you include a few classic Live CDs such as:

* Knoppix
* Kanotix
* Slax
* Mandriva - old name Mandrake (know to be good at hardware detection)

Check out forums:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/

Check out a Linux User group near you:
http://www.linux.org/groups/

If you end up liking Mandriva, their support is better and for a small subscription fee you can join their "Club" to get help.

Commercial distros such as Xandros specially and Linspire are known to have very excellent customer support. But I've never had direct experience this is what I keep hearing.

For Debian systems Libranet is known to have very good customer support also.

If all this is confusing, just make a list of what you need and I will try my best to help you out.

ANy torrents out there? I just TRIED to download the 46.3 MB mp3 but not-so-surprisingly stalled at 450KB

Guess they're slashdotted so Ill post the website text.

----

LQ Radio Episode #1
Filed under: LQ Radio -- jeremy @ 8:07 pm

It's finally here - the inaugural episode of the LQ Radio Show. We're still working through some technical issues, but we are interested in any feedback you may have. In this episode we have me, jtshaw, mcleodnine and rshaw. We covered a variety of topics and overall I think the show came out quite well for a number one. Thanks to John, Dave and Robin for being the first panelists. Let us know what you want to see on the next LQ Radio Show.

LQRadio-Episode1.mp3

-jeremy
Comments (4)

----
May 14, 2005
Site Clarification
Filed under: LQ Radio, LQ Podcasts -- jeremy @ 4:20 pm

I've received a few questions about the content here at the LQ Radio site, so I figured I'd take a couple minutes to clarify. The LQ Radio site will be the home to three distinct things:

1) The LQ Radio Show
2) LQ Radio Interviews
3) The LinuxQuestions.org Podcast

#1 and #2 will be posted to the "LQ Radio" category and the Podcast will go in the "LQ Podcast" category. It should also be noted that there are three different RSS feeds. One for the LQ Radio category, one of the Podcasts and one that includes both. Why three different RSS feeds? The Podcasts tend to be short, usually between 5-10 minutes while LQ radio content will be more like 45-90 minutes. This means much larger files in the LQ Radio feed. If you would simply like to get all content posted to this site, the combined feed is what you are looking for. If anyone has any questions, let me know.

A couple other quick updates. The first LQ Radio show should be available tomorrow if everything goes according to plan - stay tuned. Also, when we first started doing the LQ Podcasts, we really weren't sure how things would work out. With the Podcasts now being regular and LQ Radio coming into the picture, we are dedicated to making this site and the audio content, the best it can be. We will slowly be doing equipment upgrades in the coming weeks and months so please bear with us. The next upgrade will be to a new mic, probably a Shure SM7b. One thing we need to improve is your feedback, so keep it coming. Thanks again for listening.

-jeremy

ANy torrents out there? I just TRIED to download the 46.3 MB mp3 but not-so-surprisingly stalled at 450KB

Guess they're slashdotted so Ill post the website text.

----

LQ Radio Episode #1
Filed under: LQ Radio -- jeremy @ 8:07 pm

It's finally here - the inaugural episode of the LQ Radio Show. We're still working through some technical issues, but we are interested in any feedback you may have. In this episode we have me, jtshaw, mcleodnine and rshaw. We covered a variety of topics and overall I think the show came out quite well for a number one. Thanks to John, Dave and Robin for being the first panelists. Let us know what you want to see on the next LQ Radio Show.

LQRadio-Episode1.mp3

-jeremy
Comments (4)

----
May 14, 2005
Site Clarification
Filed under: LQ Radio, LQ Podcasts -- jeremy @ 4:20 pm

I've received a few questions about the content here at the LQ Radio site, so I figured I'd take a couple minutes to clarify. The LQ Radio site will be the home to three distinct things:

1) The LQ Radio Show
2) LQ Radio Interviews
3) The LinuxQuestions.org Podcast

#1 and #2 will be posted to the "LQ Radio" category and the Podcast will go in the "LQ Podcast" category. It should also be noted that there are three different RSS feeds. One for the LQ Radio category, one of the Podcasts and one that includes both. Why three different RSS feeds? The Podcasts tend to be short, usually between 5-10 minutes while LQ radio content will be more like 45-90 minutes. This means much larger files in the LQ Radio feed. If you would simply like to get all content posted to this site, the combined feed is what you are looking for. If anyone has any questions, let me know.

A couple other quick updates. The first LQ Radio show should be available tomorrow if everything goes according to plan - stay tuned. Also, when we first started doing the LQ Podcasts, we really weren't sure how things would work out. With the Podcasts now being regular and LQ Radio coming into the picture, we are dedicated to making this site and the audio content, the best it can be. We will slowly be doing equipment upgrades in the coming weeks and months so please bear with us. The next upgrade will be to a new mic, probably a Shure SM7b. One thing we need to improve is your feedback, so keep it coming. Thanks again for listening.

-jeremy

Michael Dell, Dell's founder and chairman, has droped $100M into Red Hat

drope, tr. v. [Scatterhead English, from drop]:

1. To refuse to accept, as in packets.

2. To apply for a mortgage

3. To host a web page but only in German.

4. To aspire to contribute to Wikipedia but only in French.

--Rob

Without being too pedantic... A multi-user system is one that allows CPU time slicing between users. I.e. the ability for more than one interactive user to execute instructions locally. From http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Common_Questio ns_and_Misconceptions Multiple Users: Linux is a multi-user system, Windows is not. That is, Windows is designed to be used by one person at a time. Databases running under Windows allow concurrent access by multiple users, but the Operating System itself is designed to deal with a single human being at a time. Linux, like all Unix variants, is designed to handle multiple concurrent users. Windows, of course, can run many programs concurrently, as can Linux. There is a multi-user version of Windows called Terminal Server but this is not the Windows pre-installed on personal computers. The last part is only mostly true, since Win2K and later all ship with Terminal Server or RDP for admin access. You can also add Cygwin or MKS and build SSH which will allow multiple simultaneous logins. Windows then starts to look more like a multi-user system.

" It has:
* No menu editor."*

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/history/30 8773

"You should be able to right-click items on GNOME sub-menus. This will bring up a list allowing you to add that launcher to the panel, remove it from the menu, edit its properties, or make changes to the entire menu such as adding new launchers."

*Snide remark#2406: You must be a KDE user.

- Ken Beyer (ILM production engineering manager): "Six hundred Linux desktops will be used for Star Wars: Episode III to be released summer 2005."
Sequence supervisor Robert Weaver noticed a tremendous performance boost upgrading from RISC (Sun/SGI) workstations to Linux PCs during Star Wars, Episode II:

AMD64 used for Episode III
Alias/wave Maya used for Episode II, Lord of the Rings, and Spiderman

Xp64 used on episode III. Don't know how much though.
Episode 1 hardware and software. Yes,Pixar's Renderman and Alias|Wavefront`s Maya . SGI computers.

The linux cluster used at Industrial light and magic.

I know the owner, and he's a good guy (not particularly technically cluefull) with a wife and kids, so perhaps you should think about throwing him in jail a little bit more. Also, according to this (look for imblazeceo) he's tried to resolve the issue...

evidently This Guy has. apparently its a bit of a mess.

good luck, i'm off to try it myself
Suchetha
(would it have killed them to NOT use rpms???)

Here's a copy of the CHANGELOG, as the original seems to have been taken down:

http://mirror.linuxquestions.org/pub/distributions /slackware/slackware-current/ChangeLog.txt

--jeremy

Here's a copy of the CHANGELOG, as the original seems to have been taken down:

http://mirror.linuxquestions.org/pub/distributions /slackware/slackware-current/ChangeLog.txt

--jeremy

The closest thing that I know of that you described is FreeBSD's included documentation, which includes a handbook, FAQ, articles, howtos, and manpages.

I started out with ZipSlack (a mini-version of Slackware that can be installed on a DOS partition alongside Windows) about nine months ago to get used to *nix before removing my Windows partition. ZipSlack didn't come with too much documentation other than manpages, but I found many resources on the Internet such as Linux Questions and the The Linux Documentation Project. Slackware also had some nice tutorials on their website, too, and I checked out Unix books from the library. Within months, I mastered some of the basics of Unix, and I was ready to get rid of Windows. Only things holding me back were a dial-up connection and a Winmodem.

Then, in September, I bit the bullet and deleted my Windows partition to install FreeBSD. My professor gave me a FreeBSD disk with some ports, too, so I decided to install that rather than downloading a Linux distribution (I have dialup, so that would take a long time). FreeBSD has a very good handbook that comes installed with the system. The handbook teaches a new user how to do things with FreeBSD, such as adding users, configuring a network, recompiling a kernel, etc. FreeBSD not only comes with the handbook, but it also comes with FAQs, howtos, and articles. FreeBSD's manpages are actually very readable. FreeBSD's mailing lists are also very helpful, too.

One of the advantages of free, open-source *nix is that there are tons of free resources on the Internet. I found so many tutorials on the Internet, from learning basic commands such as ls to learning Perl, that I cannot read them all. The Linux and FreeBSD communities are also very nice and very helpful. They want more people to move to their platforms, so they're willing to help those who are new to it.

Still, I wish there was a guide for Unix newbies (especially Windows-using non-geeks) that expressed the strengths of Unix over Windows, and show some of the non-geek types that Unix isn't that bad; yes, there is the command line, but you don't need to know every command (or even everything about a specific command), and that there are plenty of programs available that make Unix much more accessible (such as GNOME/KDE, OpenOffice, Mozilla/Firefox, and other great applications).

You are just bitter because your chick isn't as smart.

Go sit in the corner you insensitive clod.

Well, some of us aren't Free freaks or anything like that, we just like to use free (as in beer) software that is stable and not laden with spyware/nagware/etc. For someone who is planning on not using Windows (even for gaming), reading the Hardware HOWTO at tldp.org, checking various discussion forums and other resources, and then buying a nVidia card based on the number of questions/problems/complaints from other users would be the smart thing to do.

;no, no, no it's called bash .

;treehead

They could release the information they do own. We don't need "all the information". We just need the basics like opcodes and register addresses. That information is not patentable (they're just numbers) and is not copyrightable (not creative). That information is simply a trade secret that nvidia CHOOSES to not give us, presumably because they're *ssholes. Nvidia can keep their precious licensed code; that's not the stuff we need to write our own driver.

Well in the updates to the interview that was previously mentioned here they do state that it's to do with the IP involved.
Plus the real issue probably isn't with the driver developers, probably more to do with management or even with IP lawyers.

Also it matters very little as to whether the trade secrets really need to be kept secret. I suspect that someone in their legal (or financial) department is saying that stuff "like opcodes and register addresses" are things that they can't release for free - even though that's information that they do own. And, sadly, they're the ones whose decisions tend to stick.

Yes, it sucks. But unfortunately big businesses still like to play the "Intellectual Property" game. Until that changes (Soon, please God, soon) then we're stuck with things happening this way.

A couple follow up questions, including this one, have been posted.

while microsoft discontinues support for old systems, they go to extraordinary lengths... ... read raymond chen's blog...

Joel Spolsky wrote in his now famous article about two opposing camps at Microsoft, one of which he calls the "Raymond Chen Camp" and the other, the "MSDN Camp".

Flip. Flop. The strategic direction is the result of a tension amongst younger people that is arbitrated by a few central older characters.

Linux, seems to be organized along different lines. The unpaid authors are motivated by other interests and by different values. Linux may be akin to a spiritual journey for some authors. Such a force may result in a coherency over time that stems from a belief system rather than from a marketplace.

But that's just about the author geeks who create Linux. The marketing people may be on yet different journeys still.

IBM's doing well and plays a part in Linux community.

Meanwhile, the community exhibits a lot of diversity and that's both a sign of flexibility and a source of strength.

Link

Currently getting 10KBps.

For those of us who don't know what the hell VNC is, anyone care to explain?

It's like remote control.
http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/VNC

I got over Slackware dropping Enlightenment. Getting over Gnome being dropped from the distro should be easy.

The Linux Hardware Compatibility List at http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/index.php already contains over 1500 products and comments on their compatibility. It's an automated system where people can submit their own entries.

This is not to say that one is better than the other, but for the sake of the Linux community, I hope that we minimize duplication of effort. It would be a pity to have information split between two sites with neither one being authoritative (or tending toward such).

Having said this, objectively is there any particular reason why one would choose the wiki at linux-driver.org to list hardware compatibility? (No argument that drivers themselves can be discussed at linux-driver.org since linuxquestions.org doesn't cover that.) Is there an advantage to it being a wiki rather than a database of forum posts (which is essentially what the linuquestions.org list is)? Is it, for example, easier to automate the retrieval of information from a wiki if one were to (say) dynamically generate/update a Linux hardware database? If not, then I'd say support the older site (which came into being earlier). But if for whatever reason linux-driver.org became more massive, then we should all make that site the one with critical mass. Not trying to be biased --just put all your stuff in one place, wherever it is.

In any case, I hope there will be heavy linking between the two so that people who go to one can easily go to the other.

Slightly OT: for the same reason of avoiding duplication of effort and achieving critical mass, I hope Linux knowledge can be funneled into the forum at linuxquestions.org as well as their wiki (yes, they have a wiki, just not specifically about drivers).

The Linux Hardware Compatibility List at http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/index.php already contains over 1500 products and comments on their compatibility. It's an automated system where people can submit their own entries.

This is not to say that one is better than the other, but for the sake of the Linux community, I hope that we minimize duplication of effort. It would be a pity to have information split between two sites with neither one being authoritative (or tending toward such).

Having said this, objectively is there any particular reason why one would choose the wiki at linux-driver.org to list hardware compatibility? (No argument that drivers themselves can be discussed at linux-driver.org since linuxquestions.org doesn't cover that.) Is there an advantage to it being a wiki rather than a database of forum posts (which is essentially what the linuquestions.org list is)? Is it, for example, easier to automate the retrieval of information from a wiki if one were to (say) dynamically generate/update a Linux hardware database? If not, then I'd say support the older site (which came into being earlier). But if for whatever reason linux-driver.org became more massive, then we should all make that site the one with critical mass. Not trying to be biased --just put all your stuff in one place, wherever it is.

In any case, I hope there will be heavy linking between the two so that people who go to one can easily go to the other.

Slightly OT: for the same reason of avoiding duplication of effort and achieving critical mass, I hope Linux knowledge can be funneled into the forum at linuxquestions.org as well as their wiki (yes, they have a wiki, just not specifically about drivers).

The Linux Hardware Compatibility List at http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/index.php already contains over 1500 products and comments on their compatibility. It's an automated system where people can submit their own entries.

This is not to say that one is better than the other, but for the sake of the Linux community, I hope that we minimize duplication of effort. It would be a pity to have information split between two sites with neither one being authoritative (or tending toward such).

Having said this, objectively is there any particular reason why one would choose the wiki at linux-driver.org to list hardware compatibility? (No argument that drivers themselves can be discussed at linux-driver.org since linuxquestions.org doesn't cover that.) Is there an advantage to it being a wiki rather than a database of forum posts (which is essentially what the linuquestions.org list is)? Is it, for example, easier to automate the retrieval of information from a wiki if one were to (say) dynamically generate/update a Linux hardware database? If not, then I'd say support the older site (which came into being earlier). But if for whatever reason linux-driver.org became more massive, then we should all make that site the one with critical mass. Not trying to be biased --just put all your stuff in one place, wherever it is.

In any case, I hope there will be heavy linking between the two so that people who go to one can easily go to the other.

Slightly OT: for the same reason of avoiding duplication of effort and achieving critical mass, I hope Linux knowledge can be funneled into the forum at linuxquestions.org as well as their wiki (yes, they have a wiki, just not specifically about drivers).

yap yap yap, try it b4 you critisize.

so many people here are saying this is NOT that great but have not tried it. so here

http://iso.linuxquestions.org/download/http/www.tl m-project.org/yos-i686-2.1.0-4.iso.torrent

a nice torrent for you to play with

Yes, you're right, but that is not the problem.

The problem is that there is no feasible way to prove that the instructions in main memory on every voting machine corresponds, without exception, to the source code on a piece of paper.

You can't trust the compiler:
http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Back_door
You can't trust the hardware - it would be trivial to implement instructions that dump the "right" code from memory while running something else.

Never in history has society had a need to mistrust their computers. They have always been tools built and instructed to help us out. If it fucks up, well we must have misused the tool. Electronic Voting is an entirely different use for computers and very few people understand the subtle difference. This is the first time in history where something critical is being trusted to computers while someone else has something to gain by misusing the tool.

A hammer is a hammer, but when for the first time I'm holding the nail with my fingers and giving you the hammer. And what the fuck for? Because a handful of people can't handle the paper system? Hell, let that handful of people use the electronic voting system. I'll be voting by paper (absentee if necessary) until I die.

Install one distribution (I'd prefer Fedora Core 1), then http://www.tldp.org/, then http://www.linuxquestions.org/. Free, but takes time.

The best place for questions:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/

More reading:
http://www.tldp.org/

------
You've seen the posts, now see the website!
http://hiddenuniverse.blogspot.com/

With the new XFree86 policies and their general idiocy involving not accepting submitted patches/changes/extensions - what is happening with the major distros. I'm a Debian user, and a search for "x.org" or "xorg" packages yields no results (in both stable/unstable). I've heard rumor that the X.org packages are actually named as XFree86 in deb, but XFree86 -version still shows XFree86 4.3.

It seems that other users are asking similar questions.

Let's try googling for DVD burning linux free

That's a poorly-crafted search term. Too many words in the query means fewer good responses. In this case, the word "free" is basically redundant with "linux", and "burning" is just extra-syllables onto "burn" (try to use the root form of words whenever possible). "Linux DVD Burn" would've been better.

But regardless of that, the page of results given by your query is indeed useful. Two of the results go to forum discussions on LinuxQuestions.org, where a person has asked almost exactly the same question, and gotten almost exactly the same response ("Get K3B") as Asking Slashdot produced.

There are friendly Linux web forums out there.

One wish I have is that one of them turns out to be a premier forum where most people can gather for questions and answers; the more people that gather, the more likely someone can answer questions specific questions well. It's like Slashdot achieving the critical mass for being a tech news site.

I've found a forum that fits the bill at linuxquestions.org http://www.linuxquestions.org/ They have a forum for each of the major distributions (Mandrake, Red Hat, SuSE, etc.) as well as a Hardware Compatibility List. Good response time (for replies to your questions), moderated forum, and you don't need a registration to read.

I used to go to linuxfornewbies (or something like that), which later became justlinux.com, but I would prefer to keep to one useful Linux forum. Linuxquestions.org seems to be gaining mass, and I'm glad for that.

First, you have to obtain a copy of GAY NIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it.

Second, you need to succeed in posting a GNAA "first post" on slashdot.org, a popular "news for trolls" website

Third, you need to join the official GNAA irc channel #GNAA on EFNet, and apply for membership.
Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today!

If you are having trouble locating #GNAA, the official GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA irc channel, you might be on a wrong irc network. The correct network is EFNet, and you can connect to irc.secsup.org or irc.isprime.com as one of the EFNet servers.
If you do not have an IRC client handy, you are free to use the GNAA Java IRC client by clicking here.

About S

apt-get [name-of-program] (Debian + others)
urpmi [name-of-program] (Mandrake)
yum [name-of-program] .. etc (Yellowdog?)

tar xfz [program-source code].tar.gz
cd [program]
./configure
make && make install

It plays havoc with people wanting a linux compatible Wifi card as well. Basically no wifi manufacturer has released a card that at one stage had say a nice prism or orinoco chipset in it that hasn't changed it for something uncompatible like a Broadcomm or TI.

eg:
Netgear WG311 was an Atheros supported by the madwifi driver but is now a Texus Intruments which is yet to have a stable driver (partial success has been had with this one, just not by me). At *least* Netgear had the kindness to call the TI version "WG311v2" and change the box slightly (documented here it still makes it really annoying when you see "supported" next to "wg311" at places such as here, then you buy one and find out it's changed from 4 weeks ago)

The (in)famous Linksys WMP11 used to be a linux-friendly prism but is now a Broadcomm or inprocomm (I think it's been both according to The List

Many other wifi cards have undergone such massive (I consider a chipset change massive) changes without there model numbers changed and it makes getting a wireless card for linux *VERY* difficult and frustrating.

Linuxquestions.org usually has tons of info. You can try most linux oriented IRC channels as well, very good info FAST. I was pleasantly surprised by the #debian channel. Lots of help from those guys... I owe them a lot.

This is something that wasn't answered in the release of 10.0 Community Edition, and I think it's kind of major. Simply put, installing the Community Edition changes things in one's MBR when it tries to install a bootloader in the MBR of /hda (no confirm dialog at all, it just does it). You can make changes to the bootloader options AFTER it changes the MBR, but these changes cause Windows XP to blackscreen, and are a major pain in the ass to fix, if at all. Using sfdisk doesn't work. Using DISKPART doesn't work. Using anything other than a complete format of the NTFS partition will not work. Be sure to back up your data. I really hope the installer fixed this, but you never know.

This link at LinuxQuestions addresses this problem in more detail.

On configuring sound, here's a link.

There is a post about half way down on how to set up sound. It's for Slack 8, so you might have to play with it a little, but it has worked for me up to this point.

Take a look at the LinuxQuestions.org HCL

Seems thats somewhat the case with Realtek. They had a huge showing with the RTL8139 series chip released to the Open Source Community, however their chip RTL8180L for wireless is falling through the floor. It's a part binary part source module, that wont run on a kernel greater than 2.4.21, and uses the private extentions(iwpriv) instear of the regular ones (iwconfig). Numerous e-mails have been sent from the lq.org community and no response at all. Theres a large thread about this, and when I say large, I mean large.... 816 replies, and 100947 views large... Seems as if Realtek doesn't want to release the source... if they did... they might make big bucks with it. Thats ok, not our loss.
I got my card working with slackware... though I think I am gonna ditch it, works like crap anyways..

Well, a quick googling didn't turn up a howto, but here are a couple of related links for your perusal:

ATI's Radeon 9800 Pro technical issues page

A LinuxQuestions.org thread on ATI with the NForce2 on Mandrake 10.0.

Actually, it sounds more like wiki.linuxquestions.org, which I've contributed to from time to time.

Yeah, this does sound like it's reinventing the wheel.

Try going to LinuxQuestions.org > Wiki > Samba. Now ask yourself, how much of what you see is going to be useful to a new user who doesn't speak some dialect of unix/Linux? The emphasis of GROCDOC is on the non-technical new user...

--hsm

Yes, LinuxQuestions.org's Wiki almost has 1600 articles and is pretty great.