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Linux is easier to install than XP
Practical Technology for practical people ^ | 7/22/08 | Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Posted on 07/23/2008 5:54:47 AM PDT by twntaipan

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To: AFreeBird

I did look into it. I don’t like it. I am studying X-Plane though. It may be good enough to replace FSX, which I already own. Bah, I might have to dual boot Vista and have them both.


141 posted on 07/24/2008 3:49:05 PM PDT by Big Giant Head (I should change my tagline to "Big Giant penguin on my Head")
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To: Big Giant Head

Thanks for the input. I’ll keep that in mind but right now I’m sticking with Windows. Somewhere down the road I’m going to replace this PC and when I do I’ll see about a full Linux installation instead of Vista. But that’s down the road.

I’m basically tied to Windows right now because of a couple essential applications (to me). Quicken and Microsoft Outlook for my scheduling and syncing to my Palm. I’ve tried the scheduler that is compatible with Thunderbird, but it doesn’t sync. If it did, Microsoft Office would be gone.

Yes, I did try applications that allowed running Windows apps in Ubuntu. I wasn’t impressed. Nor was I impressed with the scheduling app (Evolution I think it’s called) that comes with the Ubuntu version of Open Office. It synced, but there were problems.

So, here I am in Windowland... :)


142 posted on 07/24/2008 3:51:10 PM PDT by bcsco (To heck with a third party. We need a second one....)
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To: bcsco

Could be a lot of stuff that impeded the printing. It was shared but did the restricted user have permission to print. Maybe something went wrong with the reinstall so printing itself was a problem.

As for where to set security forget control panel, the XP Users thing is junk. Right click My Computer, Manage, then you’ll find the NT style User and Groups that actually gets the work done. Remember XP was before MS decided security was important for non-servers so they didn’t make it easy.

It probably will work but there’s some goofy setting somewhere. Was the restricted account local to the laptop or part of the network? If it’s local to the laptop you’re probably going to run into all kinds of problems with resources on the other machines, though you can (through some annoying UI digging) share an object on one computer to user account local to a different one. It’s a huge pain in the butt and much easier to just use network account but it can be done.

No matter how you slice it security is a big pain in the butt. In newer Windows just dealing with the security is a pain (death to the UAC). In older Windows before MS accepted that security was important the pain is in just setting it up in the first place. I’m not going to nail anybody for flying as admin, for one thing I’m lazy and do it too, it’s just good to remember that it’s not safe and when something bad happens you shouldn’t be surprised, and don’t come around b#$%^ing and moaning about crappy Windows security afterwards.


143 posted on 07/24/2008 3:53:51 PM PDT by boogerbear
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To: Big Giant Head
Well, don't know when you last "looked into it", but they're up to their 1.0 release. More planes, more scenery, and fully customizable: Create your own planes!

Like I said, not as polished as FS - YET - but getting there, all w/out billion$ in resources.


144 posted on 07/24/2008 4:12:46 PM PDT by AFreeBird
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To: boogerbear
They all love to do that though. There’s always been good money in doing something the OS already does. Remember back in the DOS days there were half a dozen apps that did nothing more than tweak your config.sys and autoexec to use himem and free up space in the lower 640. None of them did anything that you couldn’t do in Edit for yourself, none of them even did it any better than a halfway experienced geek could, but the all made these products. And some of them made money at it. There’s always a market for a slightly better UI, or even a quicker to find but otherwise identical UI.

But all those arguments only justify Brother's making available their crap software on the primise someone might prefer it, which I would have no objection to. What pisses me off is designing their hardware so you have to use their software which has no actual function. I mean for God's sake, the thing has slots for memory cards so you can print pictures from your digicam, and when one's plugged in the unit has an FTP server so you can drill into the memory card from a networked PC. How hard would it have been to have the fax and scan storage look like a network share, or at least have it visible via the very same FTP server? But no, you have to run their bloatware.

145 posted on 07/24/2008 4:13:35 PM PDT by Still Thinking (Typical white person)
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To: zeugma
do you use Firefox? If so, "Xinha Here" is a great extension for posting to FR!

I'm using htmlExtra, but sometimes take advantage of FR's intelligent mode for a quick note. In that post you see the results of forgetting you already used one method and trying to mix in the other.

146 posted on 07/24/2008 4:17:19 PM PDT by Still Thinking (This post formatted with htmlExtra)
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To: Still Thinking

Well that’s monkey see monkey do. One printer company includes some stupid software that replicates Windows functionality, then one computer magazine includes that in the list of “features” when comparing various printers and of course nobody else has that checkmark and now EVERYBODY adds that to their next round of drivers.

It’s all about the checkboxes and the need to be all things to all people.


147 posted on 07/24/2008 4:17:39 PM PDT by boogerbear
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To: boogerbear

Again, it’s not the availability of the “software”, it’s being forced to use it, when it uses resources, doesn’t actually do anything I need, and being closed source could have any amount of spyware in it without me knowing.


148 posted on 07/24/2008 4:23:29 PM PDT by Still Thinking (This post formatted with htmlExtra)
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To: bcsco
But under Ubuntu I couldn’t get my second PC recognized no way no how

Took me an hour or two on the Ubuntu forums. Still don't know how I did it. Cut and pasted into terminal what people suggested.

149 posted on 07/24/2008 4:23:41 PM PDT by Stentor
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To: boogerbear
See, all the reasons you've mentioned would still be satisfied if they designed the hardware to look like a network share, so that knowledgeable/paranoid geeks like me could use it via normal networking.

That still wouldn't stop them from writing software to satisfy clueless customers who think useless software burning RAM and CPU time and phoning home without providing any actual functionality is a good thing to have. Then they could even sell it to you for $9.95 online instead of giving it away for free with the printer like now. Or still give it away if they're afraid of PC Mag giving them a rash for selling separately.

150 posted on 07/24/2008 4:28:59 PM PDT by Still Thinking (This post formatted with htmlExtra)
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To: boogerbear
Could be a lot of stuff that impeded the printing. It was shared but did the restricted user have permission to print. Maybe something went wrong with the reinstall so printing itself was a problem.

It wasn't the reinstall. I was able to print from the Administrator account after installation. No problem. But I could not print when switching to my Restricted account. Again, it would spool, but no print.

As for where to set security forget control panel, the XP Users thing is junk. Right click My Computer, Manage, then you’ll find the NT style User and Groups that actually gets the work done. Remember XP was before MS decided security was important for non-servers so they didn’t make it easy.

Been there, done that. It brings up a Computer Management screen. What's listed is: 1) System Tools: Event Viewer, Shared Folders, Performance Logs and Alerts, Device Manager; 2) Storage: Removable Storage, Disk Degragmenter, Disk Management; 3) Services and Applications: Services, WMI Control, Indexing Service System. Nowhere is there anything, even under these areas, that pertains to Users/Groups. Nothing.

It probably will work but there’s some goofy setting somewhere. Was the restricted account local to the laptop or part of the network?

Local to the laptop.

I’m not going to nail anybody for flying as admin, for one thing I’m lazy and do it too, it’s just good to remember that it’s not safe and when something bad happens you shouldn’t be surprised, and don’t come around b#$%^ing and moaning about crappy Windows security afterwards.

I understand. But keep in mind, your usual PC buyer will be totally clueless about security. Much more so than you or even I. I'm both hardware and software firewalled and running anti-virus software. I run Ad-Ware, and have Spybot running in the background. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've had few to no problems for quite some time.

I decided to look into changing accounts so I gave it a try. Well, I'm back to running as Administrator. There may be a threat, but it's a heck of a lot easier and hassle free from a user standpoint. And I can assure you, well over 95% of the PC public is likely doing the same.

151 posted on 07/24/2008 4:29:01 PM PDT by bcsco (To heck with a third party. We need a second one....)
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To: Stentor
Cut and pasted into terminal what people suggested.

Boy, you had to bring up Terminal, didn't you. Terminal and Sudo were my two main bugaboos with Linux. I think I've said that upthread so I won't go into it again here. Boy was that a pain, though.

152 posted on 07/24/2008 4:33:31 PM PDT by bcsco (To heck with a third party. We need a second one....)
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To: bcsco
Sorry, but Linux is not for everyone.

I agree with that mostly. For me, the bye bye to windows happened when I could finally convert AVI etc. to DVD files and burn discs that would play on standalone DVD players. Ubuntu does everything else I need.

153 posted on 07/24/2008 4:41:29 PM PDT by Stentor
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To: twntaipan

The problem is not so simple. I recently bought a machine for my mom to use Linux on (she wanted it for some reason). My computer science brother could not get Suse on it to run properly. Because Ubuntu only made DVD installation disks, that was not possible because the machine only had a CD drive.

My mother could def get XP on there on her own.


154 posted on 07/24/2008 4:43:15 PM PDT by mbraynard (You are the Republican Party. See you at the precinct meeting.)
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To: Stentor

I suspect many of us who’ve tried Linux have Windows based applications they missed GREATLY. I went through the throws of trying to run Windows apps in Linux. Simple apps worked alright. But others were a pain or didn’t work. And I bought software to do that with. No, not VMWare. I didn’t have the cash to throw at that one; especially for what little I’d need it for.

But it taught me a lesson. Windows is not perfect by a long shot. But it works, although yes there are issues. It’s been decades though since I’ve been involved with it. So it’s like an old pair of sneakers that’s seen better days, and may look kinda cruddy and let is a little puddle at times. But they’re still more comfortable than that new pair I tried last month.


155 posted on 07/24/2008 4:52:45 PM PDT by bcsco (To heck with a third party. We need a second one....)
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To: bcsco
There is very little or even any sysadmin stuff you have to do from a terminal window (unless you so desire) with sudo that you can't do in the GUI these days. The fact that you can temporarily use "root/admin" rights (after supplying the necessary credentials) w/out having to log off and back into admin/root and back again, is actually a feature, and a good one. And with the exception of kernel updates/modules, you don't even have to reboot your system when you update it or install new software.

Flexibility and working the way YOU want to is part of the appeal.

156 posted on 07/24/2008 4:55:06 PM PDT by AFreeBird
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To: AFreeBird

Uh, huh.


157 posted on 07/24/2008 4:58:37 PM PDT by bcsco (To heck with a third party. We need a second one....)
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To: bcsco
Boy was that a pain, though.

It is but I have the spare time to tinker.

158 posted on 07/24/2008 5:04:28 PM PDT by Stentor
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To: Still Thinking

Look I’m not telling you it’s a good thing, I’m just saying why they do it. That’s how the business works, that’s how the business has worked for a long time, and there’s no reason to think the business is going to run any differently in our lifetimes.


159 posted on 07/24/2008 5:26:52 PM PDT by boogerbear
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To: bcsco

You’ve got home edition. Forgot how different they are. That’s probably why you can’t hit the network printer properly. Home edition has tons of limitations on network access, especially on the restricted account.

I know the vast majority of Windows users are running in admin. That’s the problem. You can use all those defensive measures, and I run many myself, but in the end running as admin is like having sex with crack hos, you can limit your vulnerability with condoms and AV software, but you can’t yourself 100% safe. You and I are one exposure to a new virus that’s not in the database of our AV tools yet away from major trouble. Never forget the lessons of iloveyou, most successful virus in history, estimated at hitting 10% of the computers connected to the net at the time, every last infected computer was because somebody with admin privileges double clicked on the wrong exe. We the users are a significant part of the Windows security problem.


160 posted on 07/24/2008 5:34:58 PM PDT by boogerbear
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