Thread: Linux and College?

Originally Posted by cpjust

Have you tried other Linuxes like Ubuntu...? Maybe it's just something with openSUSE on your hardware?

Ubunto has problems with the nvidia drivers right now. openSUSE works fine, just takes jumping through loops to get stuff done.

Originally Posted by MK27

I barely ever use windows -- mostly for validating things in IE -- but if you have it installed, I would not remove it unless you really need the space. Which even then it would probably be better to just buy a small HD for <$50.

$50 for a "small" HD. . . my my my.

For 50 USD you can get a BIG HD.

I run Ubuntu on 3 computers all with nvidia cards. What problem?

Do people consider 320Gb big ?

That's the same thing I was thinking when I read that.

Originally Posted by Mario F.

Those who are into illegally downloading movies will not. Definitely.

Ha ha, but AFAIK most movie downloaders don't keep them there long, as they put 'em on DVDs.
Actually, I know more than one person who's bought new HDs/computers because they packed out their existing "big" drive with photos.

Originally Posted by cyberfish

I run Ubuntu on 3 computers all with nvidia cards. What problem?

With Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, there are problems with the nvidia drivers, and when you run an install, when it boots you get a black screen. I had that problem when I tried to install it. Just to get to a shell you have to change Grubs settings to nomodset and some other stuff. And after that people are having to save info running Windows and trying to transfer it to the Linux side with some program to get the settings right, or you're stuck running your OS through a shell. As far as I know the earlier versions do not have this problem, and if you're running 10.04 then I don't know why you didn't have the problems. You can google "ubuntu 10.04 and nvidia drivers" and you'll have all results of the issues.

My second distro choice was a tie between openSUSE and Slackware. Just went with openSUSE because I haven't ran Linux in about 6 years, and if I remembered correctly, Slackware isn't very friendly to learners. So I went with openSUSE because there was no hardware compatability issues I could see. My only problems were generally getting software to install, I destroyed my Xorg.config trying to get 3D running using the Control Center manager.

My biggest problem right now was I tried to install snort. What a damn trainwreck that went. For snort, I then had to download Flex, libpcap, m4, and tcpdump. And of c ourse when I tried to make and install them, I was naturally missing required libraries and other stuff I in turn had to download. It's been such a pain in the ass. I'm still trying get it to work just for the reason that I can't get it to work. I don't even really want to software anymore. I just tried to download it to have it, and now I'm on a mission to make it work right.

But, it's the story of my life.

Originally Posted by MK27

Yeah, this is one of the dumber "improvements" incorporated by the major distros. I do not see the point of a graphical login other than the fact that it looks pretty. What's wrong with watching the kernel boot, watching the init scripts run, then leaving all that on screen in terminal mode. Then you log in and type "startx".

Xdm (the GUI login) was meant for institutions with sys admins to take care of everything. Making it a stand-alone desktop default is truly "devolutionary", as this example demonstrates. Everytime I install a new distro I have to go hack around in /etc/init.d to disable the stupid xdm setup. You cannot just "de-install" it any other way, meaning it is effectively mandatory for most users if you are running X.

I see a viscous circle here: new users demand linux prettify itself as a PR imperative to challenge windows (I think you, lpaulgib, were doing this in a previous thread, irony), and in the process the distro geniuses want to defang everything so the new users don't hurt themselves. They both end up with a gimpy interface that is equally opaque and useless, only making real issues worse and more difficult to deal with.

My previous threads comments were in regard to Windows being friendly to the masses and that its not really that terrible. I said many times that I have no issues with Linux. There's no real irony in me saying that people want usability out of their OS. Better usability is progress. Linux can't stay in the command line forever. As technology evolves, so should Linux.

Linux makes it really easy to get to command line. And dont forget the virtual terms.