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Arcadia

Arcadia

Posted
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My husband (the computer guru in this house; I'm the luddite) is thinking of switching to Linux this summer.

Just take your slowest laptop or desktop, load any flavor of linux you like and give it a try. The graphical user interface is very easy and like windows. The command line interface is kind of like DOS 3.3.

 

We have tried many different flavors just for the fun of it. It does not hog the processor and heat up the laptop like windows does on a old slow laptop.

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Guest

Guest

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Cool! I didn't know there were so many of us here. :)

 

It downright HURTS to see someone I care about having computer problems, to know that I could help them, and yet to also know that they are not receptive to anything I am going to say and are only going to flame me and say "whataboutsocialization"!

 

I don't fit the "weird computer geek" stereotype at all: my husband didn't teach me because I don't have a husband. My degree is in English. I don't have any sort of IT certification because I learned from making mistakes and asking about them on user forums like this one.

 

Of course I came for the free beer, but I stayed for the free speech; would not use a Mac or windows now if you paid me.

 

 

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Guest

Guest

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How about ask someone who knows machine code.....

 

10010101011100100010000

 

LOL

 

There are 10 kinds of people in this world--those who understand binary and those who don't. :)

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Guest

Guest

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But that doesn't tell me anything!  

 

Of course not! It's a very ambiguous word in the English language. Free Beer is not the same thing as Free Speech.

 

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

 

It's not a religion or a relationship, but it is an operating system. It will make your computer go and change the way you look at human nature.

 

Not sure what kind of bandwidth and tech experience you're dealing with, Heels, but here's a quick, no-risk way to take a peek:

 

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

 

If you're running a Dell, you might need to unplug the power cable from your desktop, wait a minute, and plug it back in again when you want to boot back into your hard drive.

 

I'm so bummed that GNU WinII is completely down! Does anyone know of something similar for Heels? I need to get to my kiddo now.

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Guest

Guest

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Mmkay...I seriously need to get to my CHILDREN and my HOUSEWORK, but how's this for a short explanation:

 

Windows and Apple are products. They exist to make money for their stockholders. Their CEOs try to get consumers to buy them. And buy them. And buy them.

 

These:

 

http://www.mepis.org/

 

http://puppylinux.org/main/Overview%20and%20Getting%20Started.htm

 

https://trisquel.info/

 

and many others are projects. They exist because somebody found them useful, enjoyable to create, and wanted to share them with others.

 

The internet looks completely different to me (and very dystopic and disorienting) on my kid's windows machine, so I guess I can get annoyingly evangelical unless I start my own thread so you can shut me up by not-clicking. ;)

 

Apologies for the excessive silliness, Heels, and please keep asking questions.

 

 

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Alenee

Alenee

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I know that was silliness. ;)

 

I use Apple, so would it work with that?  What would be the reason I'd want to use it, if I don't need to code things?  What makes it so wonderful?

 

I'm not sure about using it on an Apple but the biggest deal of it all is again, it's free.  No buying new "products" because they updated and now everything you own is obsolete.  It's more secure.  We haven't had a virus since switching to Linux ten years ago.  You also don't get annoying updates that automatically begin when you fire up your computer, causing you to have to wait until finished.  You decide when to update what.  Another great feature I've appreciated is that I can save my docs as a .doc so that when I send it to a Windows/MS Office user, they can read my doc.  Free and Secure...pretty much sells itself.  :)

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idnib

idnib

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I know that was silliness. ;)

 

I use Apple, so would it work with that?  What would be the reason I'd want to use it, if I don't need to code things?  What makes it so wonderful?

 

 

OS X is based on a Linux-like system under the hood. You can access it via Applications/Utilities/terminal.

 

Try inserting a DVD or CD into the drive. Then start terminal and at the prompt, type "drutil eject" without the quotes and it should eject the disc.

 

This is an example of using a Linux-like system. But it's command line and most non-technical people who use Linux use a GUI (graphical user interface) in which they can point and click (like Windows or Apple) instead of typing all commands. 

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idnib

idnib

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woot...wow, thank you

 

 

You're welcome. I love that site and am using it to learn how to type. I'm pretty fast (at typing incorrectly) but I have to look at the keyboard and I use the wrong fingers for the wrong keys. I'd like to be able to look elsewhere like a document I'm keying. Once I have to look away I slow down considerably.

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albeto.

albeto.

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I know that was silliness. ;)

 

I use Apple, so would it work with that?  What would be the reason I'd want to use it, if I don't need to code things?  What makes it so wonderful?

 

It's like the difference between a friend giving you a recipe and you choose to make changes that appeal to you and your family, and having to purchase a new recipe every time you want to change more than one ingredient, or more than two measurements. My husband improves his mother's pumpkin pie recipe by adding more spice. This recipe I can pass on to you. Free. You can make changes to suit yourself and pass that along. And so on and so on. That's "open software." The conventional method is designed for profit. If you want a pumpkin pie recipe, you'd pay Iron Ethel Flint for it. If you want a recipe with more spice, or the newest trend, you pay for another one.

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Alessandra

Alessandra

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Just take your slowest laptop or desktop, load any flavor of linux you like and give it a try. The graphical user interface is very easy and like windows. The command line interface is kind of like DOS 3.3.

 

We have tried many different flavors just for the fun of it. It does not hog the processor and heat up the laptop like windows does on a old slow laptop.

Really? I think I know that DOS version! I have been thinking about getting an used PC to learn programming, but I had not thought of Linux. I am scared of programming on my Macs, even with a partition.

 

Can't link, but:

boyslife.org/ programming

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Arcadia

Arcadia

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Really? I think I know that DOS version! I have been thinking about getting an used PC to learn programming, but I had not thought of Linux.

 

You might want to check out the GNU compilers.  GNU C should be already preloaded with Linux. You probably can get a used PC for free that can run Linux without a problem.

http://gcc.gnu.org/

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Guest

Guest

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I use Apple, so would it work with that? 

 

Yes. You need to use a Mac specific .iso to run live, which I had remembered seeing but then had trouble finding again after not thinking about it for a lousy decadeish.

 

Here Ya go:

 

http://releases.ubuntu.com/saucy/

 

it's the third desktop image.

 

You might also find it easier and/or more fun to use virtualbox:

 

http://www.wikihow.com/Run-Linux-on-a-Mac

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Guest

Guest

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 What makes it so wonderful?

 

I think we've all had some experience with human economies outside of capitalism and dominance/submission heirarchies. Maybe you went to a skillshare instead of paying for a class, maybe you left your wallet at home and were pleasantly surprised when you had to check out Food Not Bombs instead of picking up a burger 'n fries like you'd planned, at the very least you must have exchanged childcare with a friend or taken a book out from the public library.

 

It might have piqued your interest in human nature and made you wonder if we would evolve to the point where someday this would seem normal, or it might have struck you as really not as lukewarm, flat, and stale, as you'd expected free beer to taste, and after all, beggars can't be choosers.

 

Even if you've had enough positive experiences with not being poisoned by free beer and being able to pay your rent on time because you could make do with free beer, you are not prepared for what you're about to see.

 

Welcome to the revolution.

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Guest

Guest

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I have not fully committed to using it.  In general, how different is your Internet experience?

 

In the first place, I can't figure out how to get the upcoming changes to the board to work the way they're supposed to no matter how hard I try...

 

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/511814-upcoming-change-to-the-boardsplease-read/

 

and I don't see all the flashing banners and pop-up virus warnings that make me think big ds's computer is about to blow up if I don't immediately do something I don't know how to do!

 

As far as browsing goes, I'm sure a lot of my positive internet experience could be recreated by a Windows user with enough time and tech savvy, such as getting rid of Adobe Flash and using the Greasemonkey HTML5 KISS script to stream videos instead, since the default browser on Trisquel is essentially a Firefox fork and there is a Windows port for Firefox.

 

However, I'm very excited by what Dillo (lightweight browser) has been up to since my D* Small Linux days, and think that it might be ideal to use it for little ds's default browser when the time comes and feel reasonably confident that he'll be ready to handle cookies, java, etc. in an intelligent and responsible manner after he's figured out how to change the defaults.

 

I don't use text browsers anywhere near as much as I could. yea, it's a pain in the butt to keep pressing the arrow keys and I can't post from eLinks here even though i can log into my account to see my subscribed threads, but it's SO peaceful not having to deal with all the visual distractions that have nothing to do with the content I was actually looking for in the first place.

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Guest

Guest

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It recently occurred to me that you may be thinking, "Who is this old lady and why does she call it Gnu/Linux? Doesn't she even know that my brother's roommate's hairdresser just calls it 'Linux' and he has a p*nis so he obviously knows more about computers than old ladies on homeschooling forums who call themselves Ethel?"

 

So I thought I'd post a link with answers to common question instead of derailing another thread about proprietary operating systems:

 

http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html

 

And to share the exciting news that if you genuinely don't like Linux, you might be able to use Hurd now:

 

http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/

 

but I don't have any tips, tricks, or first hand information about the user-friendliness of the kernel yet because, after all, I am just an old lady with a very young child who posts on a homeschooling forum and calls herself "Ethel". ;)

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