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SlashNET Forum with Marcel Gagne
weebl writes "SlashNET is pleased to announce an upcoming forum with Marcel Gagne. He writes the 'Cooking with Linux' column every month for Linux Journal magazine. His first book was the acclaimed Linux System Administration: A User's Guide. Recently he wrote a book called Moving to Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye!, which is intended for consumer desktop users who are curious about Linux and want to give it a test run. The forum will be held on Monday February 23, 2004 at 8PM US Eastern Standard Time (-0500). As usual, the forum will be held in #forum. You will be able to submit questions both before and during the forum which will be used to guide the discussion."
...Say Hello to the Installation Screen of Torture.
you bring the bottle of wine, I'll bring the bag of...
I tried getting Linux to work and I ran out of intelligence.
I can imagine the shit in the pants of a neophyte who sees "kernel panic" on their screen.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
I'm fairly new to regular Linux use, and as such am probably one of those readers for whom his work is intended.
./ers could offer their suggestions as well. Sorry if this isn't quite on topic.
Lately, I've been trying to get moved over to Linux (from WinXP). But damn near every distribution I've tried to install gives me problems. From SuSE to Knoppix (installed, not live) I cannot get it working. One of the attractions is that it doesn't cost me anything to try out.
How do you handle the recurring debates over distributions? What would you recommend to someone who wants to try moving to Linux but can't afford to spend countless hours getting it to install - installing Windows XP only takes me 30 minutes and everything works.
Perhaps some other
no... you obviously haven't had a go at installing any of the "user friendly" distros anytime in the last oooo ummm 4 years? Redhat/Fedora has a great installer which is so easy to use.. but by far the winner has to be Mandrake whose isntallation makes Windows look like Slackware 4.0.. Linux is ready for the desktop - the desktop just isn't ready for linux.
tim
His wine choices at the beginning if his articles!
--Im an oven mitt, not an engineer! (SLArbys Radio Commercial)
I honestly don't remember the last time that I or anyone I know had a blue screen of death with windows 2000 or windows XP. It's time to stop complaining about the stability of windows.
There are plenty of other things to focus on (for example: security, closed standards, cost, etc.)
I am not saying that the current windows operating systems are the pinnacle of stability, but for most purposes, they are definitely good enough.
"Linux System Administration: A User's Guide" was one of my first Linux books. It was fairly informative and very easy to read. Now, mind you, I'm still addicted to Windows, but I thought that he had a very realistic slant on the strengths and weaknesses of various Linux options.
Mandrake is absolutely THE easiest to install, and works on almost all platforms (Laptop compatibility rocks!). Give it a roll!
Make him stop using the CORNY FRENCH shtick. It make interesting articles unbearable. French is a beautiful language, but Marcel's French waiter doesn't belong in my firewall configuration article.
Quack, quack.
I was spammed about this on Orkut. That, in itself, has put me off it.
I recently upgraded some servers to Win Server 2003 and it's very quick, but I'm pretty sure it flashes the BSoD every other time I reboot. I'm going to hook it up to a VCR to check it out, because it's too short to notice anything but the color of the screen and writing. It's just eery...
I hate windows now, after using linux. Windows is like the stereotypical woman. You never know what's really wrong with it, and you have to keep on trying different fiddling games. Then suddenly, it will start working fine again.
I do NOT want something that is as mystical and mysterious as windows when I need to get something done. Thank god I've got linux, which just works (And if it doesn't, I can figure out why it doesn't...)
All metaphors aside, I still think the registry and drivers system of windows (especially XP) is one of the most mysterious and confusing arrangements I've ever seen.
For some reason, nobody ever bothers to mention where the logs of the Slashdot IRC forums get posted. After the IRC interview with CmdrTaco and Hemos a few months ago, it took me some digging to figure out where the log wound up.
For those who can't make the chat, the log will eventually be at http://www.slashnet.org/forums/
Editors: After the chat is over, any chance of having the log URL linked to the story text as an update?
Linux is ready for the desktop - the desktop just isn't ready for linux.
/usr/bin versus some /usr/local/bin or that documentation will be found under /usr/share/doc (or /usr/local/share/doc) and how to correct symbolic links pointing to outdate lib files I don't think its ready.
I've got 2 Linux boxes at home (no Windows partitions). I'd have to disagree though. Until Windows users know what emacs is or why some application binaries go under
The way I'm seeing it now is Linux is two distict operating systems: desktop user system and POSIX *nix server. To truely be ready for the desktop we are going to have to cut out some of the cruft (at least for default) and thats going to REALLY piss some people off.
Quack, quack.
I quit reading his LJ article because of his annoying Quebequa (I think he's Candian) phrases like 'mon ami'. Either write in French or English, please... I beg you.
Yeah, I was joking around, but I got modded troll - twice.
And when I'm being serious I get modded 5-Funny.
There was a point in my original post, not one that hasn't been repeated a million times over, but I find that the only people who enjoy Linux are the ones who like a challenge getting stuff to work. Personally I'll stick with my BSoD, at least there is the "restart" button.
Is he going to keep up the annoying French persona, having his stuffed penguin fetch obscure bottles of wine for the readers? It's a failed bit, in my opinion.
I have found there are just two ways to go.
It all comes down to livin' fast or dyin' slow. -REK, Jr.
I am biased. I've been using Slackware since 1995. I've tried Debian, SuSE, Red Hat and certain commercial UNIXes. When it comes to my own personal machine, Slackware is never beaten.
Stick Men
I see some commentary about the difficulty of installing Linux. If this book is for the average Windows user, then it needs to include some Linux distro that is practically guaranteed to install with no hassle (or at least no hassles not described in the book!).
If THAT can be accomplished, then Microsoft can start kissing itself goodbye.
I thought they already had toasters that run linux. Or is he talking about high-end machines, like ovens?
That comment deserves at least a 3 score.
Quick! What words rhymes with Gagne!?!?!?
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
In my opinion, Marcel provides an intelligent, readable, and most importantly FUN introduction to Linux. A first line of support for many Linux newbie's is their local LUG mailing list where more often than not (but not always) they're berated by the local alphageeks for asking a question that's been answered 100 times previously on the list or in scads of documentation. Unfortunately, newbies just want things to work, they don't want to know how it works. These types of responses usually result in their retreat back to the safety of Windows. Whether we like it or not, the latter situation is only going to increase, as more and more users migrate to Linux. Marcel's book stands as an excellent resource for anyone newbie's who don't mind doing a little reading. And for those who don't, Marcel offers both a mailing list and an IRC channel (#wftl on server: www.marcelgagne.com) for painless, alphageek free help.
then it needs to include some Linux distro that is practically guaranteed to install with no hassle (or at least no hassles not described in the book!). If THAT can be accomplished, then Microsoft can start kissing itself goodbye.
There is a hell of a lot more to a good distro then the install process. Linux has excelled well beyond Windows in this regard already. Take my personal favorite: Mandrake. Not only does it look good installing, but it will configure and install most of your drivers in less then 10 minutes. But that doesn't make it time to kiss Microsoft goodbye. There are a lot of areas that still need work (configuration suites/desktop integration/filesystem layout/rational system application naming/menus).
Not to rain on anyone's parade, but we need to look at this pragmatically if we would like this to succeed.
Quack, quack.
Somebody had to say it - thank you. That shit's NOT FUNNY! It's annoying as hell! And it's pissing off the French! Just tell me about compiling the kernel module for my toaster, or whataver the article is supposed to be about that week. If I want uninspired ethnic humor I'll go down to the bar.
Je m'appelle Marcel. Stop zee Weendows from eenvading your computer, just like we (oui?) wanted zee Americans to not eenvade Iraq. Bah, we (oui?) French no notheeng of, how do you say..."warfare." I weel help you zees time. But if you eenvade another countree (Mon Dieux, not France AGAIN), I weel veeto your Leenux installation, just like we (oui?) veetoed your UN rezolution.
Puns intended!
Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
...but I want to know when we get a forum with anime fanfic writer Stephen Gagne. :)
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Not just knoppix. So if you're concerned about mandrake compatibility with your system, download the MandrakeMove cd (bittorrent or the download page) and try it out on your machine!
I gather that, given enough time, most /.ers could write working binaries with nothing but a pencil, some paper, and a case of Jolt cola, but I guess this is the place for my first post: an old thread where my almost-complete ignorance works in my favor. Mod me redundant, but if there are any other newbies reading this, let me second NtroP's recommendation of Arklinux.
Other than Knoppix, ARKlinux is the only distro I've ever tried*. It has installed smoothly on both of my machines (a Compaq laptop and a home-baked system built around a 1.2G Athlon), using an interface that makes installation easy for newbs. It can either be installed by itself (be careful - this option overwrites your drives), or it can be installed parallel to an existing OS using unpartitioned disk space (it co-exists with Win98 nicely on my machine) or space that it clears for itself (if I'm understanding correctly, and I'm really not a reliable source). It's still in Alpha stages, so I wouldn't recommend trying to put it on the machine that has the only existing copy of your almost-finished doctoral thesis, but it's easy enough and stable enough that I've switched to it completely as my home OS.
If you're a newb looking to get your feet wet, have the obligatory one-night stand with Knoppix and then give Ark a try. YMMV, but I have nothing but good things to say about it (and I am a reliable source by virtue of my cluelessness).
The Dalai Llama
* Ok, there was that time I tried to use BasicLinux on a 286 laptop and learned the hard way that, unlike Windows, anything saved in the "temp" directory goes away when you cut the power. That doesn't count.
My sig could be your sig!
The machine is a dual Opteron 240, 2 GB of DDR333 and two 15K SCSI-drives controlled by the on-board 133 MHz PCI-X U320 controller.
The owls are not what they seem
I find tres dificile the technical stuff, so I get real joy de vivre every time I read Monsieur Gagne's articles in le magazin.
But there are some people around here that take life tres seriouse and would jump to the Seine from the Eiffel Tower beacuse a fly flies close by.
Ces't la vie I suppose.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.