Well I spent the best part of 2 years running OpenSuse 11.x and found it was really good, fast and easily understood and very capable (if you are willing to put in a bit of effort or even ask people). The big problems that I had with Linux was were twofold - games and iPods. Linux has games, some of them quite good, but not the ones I wanted to play (doh!), and my iPod - well Banshee dealt with it quiet well, album art etc, but.....no gapless playback (oh dear oh dear...).
So when Windows 7 appeared, and was meant to be way better than Vista I thought that I would give it a go. So far it has been a good choice, fast (ish), stylish, and capable, and the games I want and the iPod support (iTunes - does its job, but Banshee, Amarok, Songbird etc are better - mostly).
At the moment I have Win7, and a lot of purchased software (Linux is so much cheaper.....) and can do most of what I was able to do under Linux (so I now have OpenSuse 11.2 running in a Virtualbox for all those things I cant do without).
I don't actually want to like Windows 7 but it is very good. As I type I am watching a film on TV in Windows Media Centre, and have all the other stuff running that I normally have with very few glitches or pauses.
There are a few things to get used to like Libraries, virtualised directories, which of course are a virtualised presentation of the files anyway......one can only hope that this is a sort of parallel abstraction rather than a doubling up......
Windows 7 - for the moment it has me hooked.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Me and Linux
I've played with Linux over the years and have generally found that once it is installed there is not much to be done with it that Windows (hawk-spit) can't do better. Why is the thing I detest the most so good at being good at most things.
However, I have recently tried again to install Linux (openSuse 10.3) and get it to do stuff that might be useful.
Boy oh boy have things come along in the few years since I last looked at Linux! Lots of toys to be played with - but could I get it work on my PC - no chance. GRUB doesn't like the size of my disks, so drew a blank several times. Also, having downloaded the installation media and having checked it (even during the installation), the install program kept telling me I have errors in the media at random places. Never the less, I finally got a clean install only to find it won't boot due to GRUB error 18. Oh well, my PC is 4 years-ish old.
So I installed it, finally, straight off onto my laptop. First time, no issues. Then was faced with the fact that although SUSE thought it supported my wireless card, it actually didn't seem to. After an evening of searching I found that Linux needs to load some firmware (gosh!) to make the WiFI card work - but how? Finally found some page that told me how to. There was a program to download the firmware and install it. Suddenly I was connected. Next problem was what to do next?
Do an update. Unfortunately the update program told me I was upto date. Odd. The install media could not be completely upto date. Eventually I stumbled on the fact that I had to configure an update server for the update program to find the updates.. Oh well, only two things so far to get in the way of a smooth install. However, for a Unix freak, it is fun.
Next was to see if I could connect to a remote site using VPN. The remote site uses a CISCO VPM concentrator of some sort. So I downloaded the CISCO program, for the correct Linux kernel, and tried to install. It was very hard. Error after error. Even though it was supposedly for my version of Linux, it obviously wasn't. I then stumbled on vpnc. Good grief. So easy to install (already supplied on the install media), then with a bit of playing (some better help would have speeded things up, but the joy (?) of Linux is there are so many people willing to help, and hence so many web pages with that help if you can find it) I was connected.
Using standard tools supplied I could then access the servers on the remote site, and let me say that the X support provided by GNOME is so much faster than what I've got under Windows. Remote X support is now totally usable. What a difference it makes to using Linux to access remote Unix rather than Windows.
Then I discovered VirtualBox. To cut it short - I now have openSuse 10.3 running in a VM on my Vista PC. I can even use the VM to access the remote site and manage all those lovely Unix servers whilst still having windows (well what can I say to excuse myself) running doing other stuff. The performance is not bad.
Well loads more to play with, so I'm off.
However, I have recently tried again to install Linux (openSuse 10.3) and get it to do stuff that might be useful.
Boy oh boy have things come along in the few years since I last looked at Linux! Lots of toys to be played with - but could I get it work on my PC - no chance. GRUB doesn't like the size of my disks, so drew a blank several times. Also, having downloaded the installation media and having checked it (even during the installation), the install program kept telling me I have errors in the media at random places. Never the less, I finally got a clean install only to find it won't boot due to GRUB error 18. Oh well, my PC is 4 years-ish old.
So I installed it, finally, straight off onto my laptop. First time, no issues. Then was faced with the fact that although SUSE thought it supported my wireless card, it actually didn't seem to. After an evening of searching I found that Linux needs to load some firmware (gosh!) to make the WiFI card work - but how? Finally found some page that told me how to. There was a program to download the firmware and install it. Suddenly I was connected. Next problem was what to do next?
Do an update. Unfortunately the update program told me I was upto date. Odd. The install media could not be completely upto date. Eventually I stumbled on the fact that I had to configure an update server for the update program to find the updates.. Oh well, only two things so far to get in the way of a smooth install. However, for a Unix freak, it is fun.
Next was to see if I could connect to a remote site using VPN. The remote site uses a CISCO VPM concentrator of some sort. So I downloaded the CISCO program, for the correct Linux kernel, and tried to install. It was very hard. Error after error. Even though it was supposedly for my version of Linux, it obviously wasn't. I then stumbled on vpnc. Good grief. So easy to install (already supplied on the install media), then with a bit of playing (some better help would have speeded things up, but the joy (?) of Linux is there are so many people willing to help, and hence so many web pages with that help if you can find it) I was connected.
Using standard tools supplied I could then access the servers on the remote site, and let me say that the X support provided by GNOME is so much faster than what I've got under Windows. Remote X support is now totally usable. What a difference it makes to using Linux to access remote Unix rather than Windows.
Then I discovered VirtualBox. To cut it short - I now have openSuse 10.3 running in a VM on my Vista PC. I can even use the VM to access the remote site and manage all those lovely Unix servers whilst still having windows (well what can I say to excuse myself) running doing other stuff. The performance is not bad.
Well loads more to play with, so I'm off.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
I hate Windows but can't live without it
I have finally been driven to blogging. Over many years I have worked in IT (about 24 years), and have increasingly become frustrated with technology, primarily IT but not necessarily confined to IT as it is so prevailant in contemporary life.
I have used Windows in all its versions (version 3.0 - wow - it almost made using it worth while). Even version 1 was fun, having been used to CP/M and MP/M PCs, it made MS-DOS interesting. However, more and more I have been made to use Windows in work. This initially was not a problem as for a while I was employed to support large networks of PCs which were just beginning to move from MS-DOS to MS-DOS + Windows, and so it paid my bills. However, over time I have become increasingly frustrated with the environment.
If you bother to read on you will find that I repeatedly rant on about how annoying Windows is. My main problem is how so many program grab focus. Those of you who have programmed for Windows will know that you can make your program become the focus for the interaction between the user and the computer. However, I have become increasingly frustrated with this capability, as quite often now I will be typing an email, or writing a letter, or typing something into a web page when another program will suddenly decide that it will display a window infront of the program I am using and consequently all my typing will be directed at this new window and not the one I was using. This results in alot of retyping and fairly occasionally alot of shouting. This problem can be exacerbated if the new window is asking for a decision to be made about something problematic like "Do you want to erase everything on your PC and in the whole world?" and I happen to press enter at the end of the line I was typing. This probably is the biggest issue I have with Windows and even with windowing environments - by the way enven Linux appears to suffer this, although not as much. Come on programmer - display your windows but don't grab focus!
Why can't I live without Windows? Well - its actually quite good at simple things. Web browsing is particulary good do to the font support. Games - all the decent games are one Windows (sorry ignoring consoles for the moment). Also, my family have been turned into Windows zombies. The schools that my kids have attended forced them to learn how to use Windows (they don't know that there is an alternative). My wife just wants to use what they use. My parents use it because it comes with the PCs that they have bought. They want me to communicate with them using Messanger. I'm stuck.
It is getting worse though. Vista. Pretty, but very very annoying. Start - click on program - do you want to run this program - this program is trying to run do you want to let it. Yes, yes! YES! Also - why is it so much slower. It really makes XP look fast.
I have used Windows in all its versions (version 3.0 - wow - it almost made using it worth while). Even version 1 was fun, having been used to CP/M and MP/M PCs, it made MS-DOS interesting. However, more and more I have been made to use Windows in work. This initially was not a problem as for a while I was employed to support large networks of PCs which were just beginning to move from MS-DOS to MS-DOS + Windows, and so it paid my bills. However, over time I have become increasingly frustrated with the environment.
If you bother to read on you will find that I repeatedly rant on about how annoying Windows is. My main problem is how so many program grab focus. Those of you who have programmed for Windows will know that you can make your program become the focus for the interaction between the user and the computer. However, I have become increasingly frustrated with this capability, as quite often now I will be typing an email, or writing a letter, or typing something into a web page when another program will suddenly decide that it will display a window infront of the program I am using and consequently all my typing will be directed at this new window and not the one I was using. This results in alot of retyping and fairly occasionally alot of shouting. This problem can be exacerbated if the new window is asking for a decision to be made about something problematic like "Do you want to erase everything on your PC and in the whole world?" and I happen to press enter at the end of the line I was typing. This probably is the biggest issue I have with Windows and even with windowing environments - by the way enven Linux appears to suffer this, although not as much. Come on programmer - display your windows but don't grab focus!
Why can't I live without Windows? Well - its actually quite good at simple things. Web browsing is particulary good do to the font support. Games - all the decent games are one Windows (sorry ignoring consoles for the moment). Also, my family have been turned into Windows zombies. The schools that my kids have attended forced them to learn how to use Windows (they don't know that there is an alternative). My wife just wants to use what they use. My parents use it because it comes with the PCs that they have bought. They want me to communicate with them using Messanger. I'm stuck.
It is getting worse though. Vista. Pretty, but very very annoying. Start - click on program - do you want to run this program - this program is trying to run do you want to let it. Yes, yes! YES! Also - why is it so much slower. It really makes XP look fast.
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