My long-awaited Linux post
Jan. 17th, 2011 01:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
estiroseI am having a slight touch of insomnia, so... my long-awaited "Here is Linux, and kind of why I like using it" post. (If you are on dial-up/a slow connection, be aware that this contains a bunch of pictures and a video.)
I find it funny that I write this as I'm changing systems kindasorta (Windows/Linux to Mac/(Windows)/Linux), but I have to admit that I am pretty platform-agnostic and like choices in applications and OSes. My dominant OS will shortly be the MacOS, but I plan to be booting into Linux semi-regularly.
Linux, for those not in the know, is an operating system, like Windows and Mac OS. It's gaining popularity, but it's still not as popular as the other two. Which is a shame, because it's getting to be quite nice. There are issues, still, as any Linux user will tell you, especially with hardware. It's a pain in the neck to get hardware vendors to support the OS/to reverse engineer drivers so that people can use software in Linux. (To this day, my Wacom Bamboo will not run in Linux....)
To make things even more fun, Linux is not made by just one company, as the Mac and Windows OSes are. Instead, there are different "distributions", which vary in features and user-friendliness. There are literally hundreds of distributions, from well-known to obscure, and the only thing they have in common is the Kernel, which is the basis for every single version of Linux.
Yes, I realise this is confusing, but Linux has some distinct advantages over the two more commercial OSes: You can use most distributions for free (there are a few for-profit versions, and you can pay for support on some versions), they're free to try, and many come in so-called "live" versions, so you can try them out without wiping your machine. (That being said, they're kind of slow, so you have to be patient.)
My choice of distributions (or distros, as they're often called) is some variant of Ubuntu, considered one of the most user-friendly versions of Linux out there. I've used Ubuntu, Kubuntu (Ubuntu running a different "window manager" - I'll get back to that in a second), and Linux Mint, which is considered an even friendlier version of Ubuntu.
With Linux, you get a lot of choices - it's very tweaking-friendly. You have your choice as to window managers (how things are displayed), and how things are displayed within those window managers. In many window managers, you can set up start-up screens, too. It's no problem to move your panels/taskbars, choose what's on them, and even have multiple ones!
I switched distributions since I made this video, but the bootup sequence is very much the same, just a few minor differences between Linux Mint (what I used at the time) and Kubuntu (what I'm using now):
(Since I can't quite get Youtube to cooperate on the captions, and I mumble enough that even those who can hear okay might have problems, here's the text:
"Hi, all. Complete total dark shot here. The one thing I couldn't show via screenshots very well is the boot sequence. Now, this is a laptop; it dual-boots Windows 7 and Linux Mint. It boots up pretty fast, tells me what choices I have for booting, and then I log in and then it starts up the system I use, which is Linux Mint.
"And here we go. (silence, maybe some whirring noises) And it goes relatively fast. This is Grub; it gives me a choice of what to load. If you look very carefully, you can see the Windows 7 boot. The only really annoying thing on boot is that if you don't keep these things that say 'duh duh duh duh duh something something generic', um, you don't keep deleting them every time there's a kernel update, they start getting overwhelming on your screen. Otherwise Grub is pretty darn nice.
"So, I'm going to boot into Mint. I don't need to boot into Windows 7 because, uh, I don't run into Windows 7 too often, and, uh, here's Linux Mint's load screen. Uh, Linux Mint, as I mentioned, um, probably in the text, is a version of Ubuntu, which is a version of Windows (note: I meant to say Linux here), called distributions. Um. So. Just cheerfully waiting for this to come up! And there we go, here's the login. This is not the generic log in screen; I downloaded this from KDE-look.org, and if I wanted to, I could have a practically naked woman. But, uh, yeah, I prefer something a little bit more... girly. So, therefore, here it is. Um, basically, this is my login, um, I could shut down if I needed to, I could change out my window managers - I have... Gnome and KDE. I'm booting into KDE, so that makes it easy. Um. And by the way, this is in Esperanto, please do not laugh.
"Okay. So. And here the system goes, setting me up, logging me in. This is the default, normal login (sequence) for KDE, I could have changed to something else if I wanted to, I didn't. Um. Here my computer is pretty much ready to go. So I'm going to let the pictures go from here, and there is my login sound. Okay, back to text.")
As the video says, back to text!
Like most of you, I use my computer for things like email, web browsing, and playing games. These are all pretty darn easy, and in some cases, I use the same software that Mac and Windows users do.
(Click the pictures for larger versions)
This is my desktop. It normally does not have a black line, but I was resizing in GIMP (very very crossplatform) and didn't notice until I was putting things together that I'd accidentally drawn on it. As you can see, it's probably the same kind of desktop Windows and Mac folks are used to. Those things on the desktop are widgets (KDE calls them Plasmoids, but same idea) and they're on the desktop all the time. My tak bar/panel is at the bottom, and it tells me things like what programs I have open, gives me a shortcut to my desktop, a status bar, the time, and a character button (which I use for typing characters in Esperanto).
I run Firefox, and yes, mine shipped with the Flash plugin.
And here's Adobe Acrobat Reader for Linux. A lot of Linux purists don't seem to like Acrobat Reader, but I do.
This is WINE, which helps UNIX-based people run Windows programs. Yes, WINE works on Macs, too. For some reason, I'm having some problems with it running my games (above and beyond the normal problems Linux users have; I think I have to fix the config or something), but it likes Calibre just fine.
There are a few things on this screen, but to the left is the menu I use to access most functions - it gives me my favourite applications, my entire application list (it's like Windows in that regard), my computer, recently used items, and the logout/restart/shutdown options. In a way, this is a lot like the Windows menu, though it also has things in common with the Mac's Apple menu.
One of the things I like about Ubuntu/KDE is that I've got a very wide variety of free software to choose from. I mean, thousands of free software packages! All at your fingertips, ready for download! In the picture above, you can see my download manager, where I'm trying to redownload/revert WINE to get it to behave better.
This is my software manager, displaying some of the many pieces of software under "education". Behind it is Dolphin, one of my file managers, displaying the directory where WINE's stuff is located.
My settings window. It looks scary, it's not.
A listing of software categories on my menu, bottom left.
A selection of internet software.
So, now that I've dazzled you with images, what do I use my system for?
Well, probably most of the things a Mac or Windows user does. I boot up my system into Linux, open my web browser, check my mail. Check my flist. Watch a Youtube video, read fanfic. I plug my cellphone or Kindle into it and load or download things from or to them. To some extent I can do the same with my iPod, but it's not 100% because Apple is kinda idiotic in that regard (no iTunes for Linux) and iTunes really doesn't run well under WINE.
I open up videos in VLC, watch them. I can even run DVDs, though that's a little weird because I haven't found a really decent dedicated DVD player for Linux. I use MoviePlayer or VLC instead, but they're not perfect. I open PDFs in Acrobat, edit pictures in The GIMP (a free alternative to Photoshop), play games (I like Plants Vs Zombies, Civilization 4, and Alpha Centauri for WINE programs, and Tile World, which is a version of the old Windows game "Chip's Challenge", Freeciv, which is a freeware version of Civ II, Battle for Wesnoth, Gweled, a freeware version of Bejeweled, and Gbrainy, a wonderful brain-trainer. I used to, but don't currently have installed, a program called DOSBox that allows me to run DOS games, but if I did, I'd add the ancient "Agent USA" to the list.)
I play flash games in my browser, write fanfic in Openoffice and gedit, which is kind of like textpad/textedit. I even have edited video on this computer in Linux! (If you look at my "Life in a Day" stuff on Youtube, all the inside shots had to have audio and video edited together because the mike on the computer wasn't great and I used my cellphone for audio. And yes, all of that was uploaded in Linux, too.) I use Zim as a auto-save wiki-style program, and I like it a lot.
In other words, I'm going to be doing a lot of the same things when I switch systems, but I just want to say that I really do like Linux, and I hope other people will try it, too.
ETA:
I wanted to get one last screenshot of Openoffice.org Writer and Tile World - word processor and game, respectively.
I find it funny that I write this as I'm changing systems kindasorta (Windows/Linux to Mac/(Windows)/Linux), but I have to admit that I am pretty platform-agnostic and like choices in applications and OSes. My dominant OS will shortly be the MacOS, but I plan to be booting into Linux semi-regularly.
Linux, for those not in the know, is an operating system, like Windows and Mac OS. It's gaining popularity, but it's still not as popular as the other two. Which is a shame, because it's getting to be quite nice. There are issues, still, as any Linux user will tell you, especially with hardware. It's a pain in the neck to get hardware vendors to support the OS/to reverse engineer drivers so that people can use software in Linux. (To this day, my Wacom Bamboo will not run in Linux....)
To make things even more fun, Linux is not made by just one company, as the Mac and Windows OSes are. Instead, there are different "distributions", which vary in features and user-friendliness. There are literally hundreds of distributions, from well-known to obscure, and the only thing they have in common is the Kernel, which is the basis for every single version of Linux.
Yes, I realise this is confusing, but Linux has some distinct advantages over the two more commercial OSes: You can use most distributions for free (there are a few for-profit versions, and you can pay for support on some versions), they're free to try, and many come in so-called "live" versions, so you can try them out without wiping your machine. (That being said, they're kind of slow, so you have to be patient.)
My choice of distributions (or distros, as they're often called) is some variant of Ubuntu, considered one of the most user-friendly versions of Linux out there. I've used Ubuntu, Kubuntu (Ubuntu running a different "window manager" - I'll get back to that in a second), and Linux Mint, which is considered an even friendlier version of Ubuntu.
With Linux, you get a lot of choices - it's very tweaking-friendly. You have your choice as to window managers (how things are displayed), and how things are displayed within those window managers. In many window managers, you can set up start-up screens, too. It's no problem to move your panels/taskbars, choose what's on them, and even have multiple ones!
I switched distributions since I made this video, but the bootup sequence is very much the same, just a few minor differences between Linux Mint (what I used at the time) and Kubuntu (what I'm using now):
(Since I can't quite get Youtube to cooperate on the captions, and I mumble enough that even those who can hear okay might have problems, here's the text:
"Hi, all. Complete total dark shot here. The one thing I couldn't show via screenshots very well is the boot sequence. Now, this is a laptop; it dual-boots Windows 7 and Linux Mint. It boots up pretty fast, tells me what choices I have for booting, and then I log in and then it starts up the system I use, which is Linux Mint.
"And here we go. (silence, maybe some whirring noises) And it goes relatively fast. This is Grub; it gives me a choice of what to load. If you look very carefully, you can see the Windows 7 boot. The only really annoying thing on boot is that if you don't keep these things that say 'duh duh duh duh duh something something generic', um, you don't keep deleting them every time there's a kernel update, they start getting overwhelming on your screen. Otherwise Grub is pretty darn nice.
"So, I'm going to boot into Mint. I don't need to boot into Windows 7 because, uh, I don't run into Windows 7 too often, and, uh, here's Linux Mint's load screen. Uh, Linux Mint, as I mentioned, um, probably in the text, is a version of Ubuntu, which is a version of Windows (note: I meant to say Linux here), called distributions. Um. So. Just cheerfully waiting for this to come up! And there we go, here's the login. This is not the generic log in screen; I downloaded this from KDE-look.org, and if I wanted to, I could have a practically naked woman. But, uh, yeah, I prefer something a little bit more... girly. So, therefore, here it is. Um, basically, this is my login, um, I could shut down if I needed to, I could change out my window managers - I have... Gnome and KDE. I'm booting into KDE, so that makes it easy. Um. And by the way, this is in Esperanto, please do not laugh.
"Okay. So. And here the system goes, setting me up, logging me in. This is the default, normal login (sequence) for KDE, I could have changed to something else if I wanted to, I didn't. Um. Here my computer is pretty much ready to go. So I'm going to let the pictures go from here, and there is my login sound. Okay, back to text.")
As the video says, back to text!
Like most of you, I use my computer for things like email, web browsing, and playing games. These are all pretty darn easy, and in some cases, I use the same software that Mac and Windows users do.
(Click the pictures for larger versions)
This is my desktop. It normally does not have a black line, but I was resizing in GIMP (very very crossplatform) and didn't notice until I was putting things together that I'd accidentally drawn on it. As you can see, it's probably the same kind of desktop Windows and Mac folks are used to. Those things on the desktop are widgets (KDE calls them Plasmoids, but same idea) and they're on the desktop all the time. My tak bar/panel is at the bottom, and it tells me things like what programs I have open, gives me a shortcut to my desktop, a status bar, the time, and a character button (which I use for typing characters in Esperanto).
I run Firefox, and yes, mine shipped with the Flash plugin.
And here's Adobe Acrobat Reader for Linux. A lot of Linux purists don't seem to like Acrobat Reader, but I do.
This is WINE, which helps UNIX-based people run Windows programs. Yes, WINE works on Macs, too. For some reason, I'm having some problems with it running my games (above and beyond the normal problems Linux users have; I think I have to fix the config or something), but it likes Calibre just fine.
There are a few things on this screen, but to the left is the menu I use to access most functions - it gives me my favourite applications, my entire application list (it's like Windows in that regard), my computer, recently used items, and the logout/restart/shutdown options. In a way, this is a lot like the Windows menu, though it also has things in common with the Mac's Apple menu.
One of the things I like about Ubuntu/KDE is that I've got a very wide variety of free software to choose from. I mean, thousands of free software packages! All at your fingertips, ready for download! In the picture above, you can see my download manager, where I'm trying to redownload/revert WINE to get it to behave better.
This is my software manager, displaying some of the many pieces of software under "education". Behind it is Dolphin, one of my file managers, displaying the directory where WINE's stuff is located.
My settings window. It looks scary, it's not.
A listing of software categories on my menu, bottom left.
A selection of internet software.
So, now that I've dazzled you with images, what do I use my system for?
Well, probably most of the things a Mac or Windows user does. I boot up my system into Linux, open my web browser, check my mail. Check my flist. Watch a Youtube video, read fanfic. I plug my cellphone or Kindle into it and load or download things from or to them. To some extent I can do the same with my iPod, but it's not 100% because Apple is kinda idiotic in that regard (no iTunes for Linux) and iTunes really doesn't run well under WINE.
I open up videos in VLC, watch them. I can even run DVDs, though that's a little weird because I haven't found a really decent dedicated DVD player for Linux. I use MoviePlayer or VLC instead, but they're not perfect. I open PDFs in Acrobat, edit pictures in The GIMP (a free alternative to Photoshop), play games (I like Plants Vs Zombies, Civilization 4, and Alpha Centauri for WINE programs, and Tile World, which is a version of the old Windows game "Chip's Challenge", Freeciv, which is a freeware version of Civ II, Battle for Wesnoth, Gweled, a freeware version of Bejeweled, and Gbrainy, a wonderful brain-trainer. I used to, but don't currently have installed, a program called DOSBox that allows me to run DOS games, but if I did, I'd add the ancient "Agent USA" to the list.)
I play flash games in my browser, write fanfic in Openoffice and gedit, which is kind of like textpad/textedit. I even have edited video on this computer in Linux! (If you look at my "Life in a Day" stuff on Youtube, all the inside shots had to have audio and video edited together because the mike on the computer wasn't great and I used my cellphone for audio. And yes, all of that was uploaded in Linux, too.) I use Zim as a auto-save wiki-style program, and I like it a lot.
In other words, I'm going to be doing a lot of the same things when I switch systems, but I just want to say that I really do like Linux, and I hope other people will try it, too.
ETA:
I wanted to get one last screenshot of Openoffice.org Writer and Tile World - word processor and game, respectively.
