Win to *nix migration

[mubs]

I'm going to be a nitwit (I was going to say twit, but the word always makes me think that means "twin tits") and start a new thread for this.

With all the WGA crap, inevitable MS prodding to upgrade to Vista etc., I've reconciled myself to not getting any mileage from my proposed migration from W2k to WXP (and stupid me bought a retail version of WXP Pro. Serves me right).

I don't see any alternative but *nix. Of all these, it appears Linux has the best support / future for the consumer desktop. (I'm sure i/me/myself will beg to differ, but I am neither as smart nor as young as he is).

There's probably a ton of resources on the web, but I trust you guys more. Can we start something in the toolbox section for this, even if it is just a bunch of tips or links to known good sites? A list of Linux equivalents for Windows programs. Like for Photoshop (I know there's Gimp, but how good is it?), Premiere, etc. I guess WINE will be my next best friend (after you guys).

Thoughts, comments, flames? Fire away. TIA.

 

[Mercutio]

I'd evaluate SuSE and Ubuntu for a target platform.
And I wouldn't discount a Mac, either. You upgrade infrequently enough that it might be a better option.

For the most part, the Linux equivalents of Windows programs are 3 years or so behind in terms of features. On the other hand, a 6GB Linux install probably includes every program you'll ever need. Linux essentially has parity (maybe a slight edge, even) with Windows for Internet and Network software. Most other software is a few years behind the Windows equivalent.

Microsoft claims that OpenOffice is 10 years behind MSOffice. Of course, I can't think of any feature added to Office since Office95 that I've actually wanted or used, so who cares?

I'm not a big fan of Gimp. If Photoshop is a deal-breaker for you, install Vmware (since it's free and all) and Win98 or 2000 or TinyXP, and run it there.

For the most part, you can get by pretty well for day-to-day stuff just by loading Linux and *using* it. I've taught Linux classes where I focused on command line and server stuff, but to be honest, most of the daily sorts of things like Email, web browsing, word processing and playing music were blindingly simple and obvious for any decent Windows user.

 

[mubs]

Thanks Merc. A Mac would be too big of a wallop on the wallet.

Some Adobe sw requires Win XP SP2 - current versions of Premiere Elements & Photoshop Elements, for example. Even if I run XP in a virtual m/c, I have all the activation crap to deal with, and WGA if I want to keep it up to date.

I plan to install XP and a Linux distro in a dual boot config. Better to start getting familiar with Linux while there's still a bit of time.

 

[Mercutio]

I'm not sure why you'd bother with keeping a Virtual machine up to date, if you're just using it to run one particular program.
Nor do I see of an appreciable difference between various versions of Photoshop; I'd install a full copy of Photoshop 6 (which seems to do everything newer versions do) in my VM and be done with it.
Premier I'm less sure of. Surely an older version of the "real" product would work just as well?

 

[Mercutio]

A tiny bit of research shows that Photoshop will run under WINE. mubs, you'd probably want to get the Codeweavers Crossover Office product (comes with the commercial version of SuSE); it's substantially more polished than messing around with plain-old-WINE.

 

[mubs]

Thanks, Merc. Onwards and upwards!

 

[Mercutio]

http://www.suseblog.com/?p=141

 

[mubs]

Thanks Merc. I saw that link earlier today and have downloaded the PDF. I'm sure it'll come in handy.

Since you're preference is SuSe over Ubuntu, I'll try both and see how it goes. Is ver. 10 the latest / greatest Suse? Is a newer version on the horizon?

 

[Buck]

A tiny bit of research shows that Photoshop will run under WINE. mubs, you'd probably want to get the Codeweavers Crossover Office product (comes with the commercial version of SuSE); it's substantially more polished than messing around with plain-old-WINE.

I haven't been able to get Photoshop to work with WINE and SuSe 10.

Merc, when you mentioned using VMware, did you mean EMC's VMware Player? (I'm not familiar with virtual machine stuff, and am interested in learning.)

 

[Mercutio]

Actually, VMware Server is free now. You can install it on 2000 or XP or Linux and do whatever you want with it. Basically, once it's installed, you can just treat the VM session just like another PC and load whatever the heck you want in it.

Buck, were you working with WINE or with Crossover Office?

 

[Buck]

Actually, VMware Server is free now. You can install it on 2000 or XP or Linux and do whatever you want with it. Basically, once it's installed, you can just treat the VM session just like another PC and load whatever the heck you want in it.

Buck, were you working with WINE or with Crossover Office?

I started with Crossover Office (the program that comes with SuSe 10), but that didn't work. So I downloaded WINE and installed it; that didn't work either.

 

[Adcadet]

A while back (almost a year?) I asked for suggestions and Merc suggested SuSE. Luckily for me, SuSE just released OpenSuSE (10.0), which generally worked very well. I recently installed Ubuntu. Both work great for me, although I love apt and the active Ubuntu forums so right now I'm sticking with Ubuntu. In the future I may go back to SuSE and see about strapping apt onto it - something I believe Merc suggested that people do to make a very nice system.

For a word processesor so far I'm just using Abiword and KWord. Most of what I do does not require an advanced text editor. For the stuff that does I use my Office in my WinXP dual boot, laptop, or office computer. And for my infrequent PC gaming I use WinXP still. Otherwise I just use whatever OS I have up at the time - right now it's Windows.

 

[Mercutio]

Personally I can't stand Ubuntu. I'm willing to sudo lots of things, but there are times when I want to be logged in as root so I'm not constantly prompted for credentials. I'm not going to bitch about having to continuously re-enter a password when using Vista, then turn around and say "But I'm OK with that on Linux." It just isn't going to happen that way. There are other ways to get apt, if that's what you really want.

SuSE makes a far better desktop and RedHat/Fedora/Centos makes a far better server in my opinion.

 

[Adcadet]

other than having to sudo all the time, the much better color scheme, and the waaaay cooler name (Ubuntu sounds like the name of a retarded kid I helped take care of a few days ago, while SuSE sounds like high-tech German engineering that only the elite get to say or pronounce) what do you like better about SuSE?

 

[mubs]

Since you're preference is SuSe over Ubuntu

:rant:you're = your :cursin:

I still think we should make a Linux thread in the Toolbox section with all the info in one place.....

 

[Adcadet]

Boy, I usually don't make that mistake, and it annoys the crap out of me when I see it.

 

[mubs]

Merc, I've owned VMWare Workstation from the 2.x days thru ver. 4.x. I take it the free VMWare server is not much different?

The free VMWare server is on an http server, and I have been unable to download it. After about 60 MB, it craps out and in the meantime I've used that much bandwidth. This has happened 3 times. Can't understand why it's not on an FTP server with the resume feature.

 

[Mercutio]

I can throw it up on my server if you'd like, mubs. It's a 130MB download.
VMware server is more or less the same as Workstation, only better, because you can close the session window and leave the guest running, and if you have the client tools installed, you can remotely connect to the guest from another machine.

Adcadet: I think SuSE has a well-thought-out desktop for both KDE and GNOME and much better GUI management tools; Yast is great from a typical user's perspective. SuSE also has a vastly nicer installer IMO. The only argument in favor of Ubuntu in my mind is apt, and that's a fairly straightforward thing to fix in SuSE.

Both SuSE and Debian (Ubuntu) do things somewhat differently from RedHat, which in my mind is still the "standard" Linux. SuSE is kind of bad about putting files in nonstandard locations (look at /boot on a SuSE machine versus anything else that uses grub), but I'm happier with it as an OS to just sit down and use.

 

[mubs]

Thanks Merc, I'll let you know; my monthly renewal is almost due and it's better to do the download with the full 1GB bandwidth available. Another dimension to the problem is that I don't know if the problem is with my ISP. :twistd:

 

[Howell]

Personally I can't stand Ubuntu. I'm willing to sudo lots of things, but there are times when I want to be logged in as root so I'm not constantly prompted for credentials. I'm not going to bitch about having to continuously re-enter a password when using Vista, then turn around and say "But I'm OK with that on Linux." It just isn't going to happen that way. There are other ways to get apt, if that's what you really want.

Of course, you could just enable logins as root then you have the best of both. Also, sudo remembers your entered password for a while. I really don't see a legitimate complaint here.

 

[Mercutio]

Perhaps it's a matter of my ongoing dislike of things Debian.

 

[mubs]

I renewed my package, got another 1GB download for this month. After downloading 33MB, the VMWare server for Windows download died again. uke-l: :frusty:

What I need is:

a) VMware Server for Windows

b) VMware Server for Linux - don't know whether I need the TAR or RPM; I plan on trying out Ubuntu and Suse, and will stick to one or the other.

c) Management Interface

I've been able to download the Win and Linux clients.

If you're able to stick these on your server and if it's not going to cause you a bandwidth or TOS problem, let me know, Merc. The problem could very well be at my ISP, in which case I'm screwed for any large downloads.

Thanks.

 

[mubs]

I want to thank the several generous SF members who have offered to let me download the VMWare servers from their own sites.

Earlier today, I downloaded an open source download manager, and it is gasping and choking, but it got the Windows version of the server downloaded (MD5 hashes match!). So I should be able to download the Linux version as well.

Silly me thought http downloads couldn't be resumed, only ftp could; now I know better.

Thanks to all the kind folks. SF rules!

 

[Buck]

Okay. I downloaded the VMware Server RPM. Executed the RPM and installed it with YaST. The process completed. Now what? No new icons or programs.

 

[Mercutio]

Try typing "vmware" at a prompt?

 

[mubs]

Buck:

I've only used the Workstation product, and that too in Windows.

You start VMWare (just like any other program); tell it you want to create a new virtual m/c; reply to the prompts; start the new VM; install your virtual guest OS in the VM. That's it, in a nutshell. Networking between the virtual guest OS and the host OS can get tricky if you're running a firewall, but you'll figure it out.

 

[Buck]

Try typing "vmware" at a prompt?

I went to Applications>Run Applications>typed in "vmware" and nothing happened.

 

[Mercutio]

It's probably not in your path.

Try typing in

./usr/local/vmware/vmware

If that starts (which it should), you can make an appropriate application icon for it on your desktop or whereever you like.

 

[Buck]

I went directly to a terminal and type "vmware". The result was as follows"

linux:~ # vmware
vmware is installed, but it has not been (correctly) configured
for this system. To (re-)configure it, invoke the following command:
/usr/bin/vmware-config.pl.

linux:~ # vmware-config.pl
Making sure services for VMware Server are stopped.

Stopping VMware services:
   Virtual machine monitor                                             done

You must read and accept the End User License Agreement to continue.
Press enter to display it.

If I hit enter to see the EULA, it displays and I can scroll through it, but I can't continue with anything. I can close the EULA, but that doesn't solve the problem.

 

[Buck]

Oh, and there is no vmware folder under /usr/local/

 

[Mercutio]

Where it goes depends on how you installed it. I use the .tar.gz and put it in /usr/local along with everything else that doesn't come with the system.

I don't remember having to do anything more special than running config-pl and running the app to make it work, but it's been a while since I installed it, too.

If you can wait a few hours, I'll install it on something when I get home.

 

[Buck]

Thanks. I have time. I'm running SuSE 10 with Gnome.

 

[LiamC]

This post is brought to you by FireFox running on SuSE x64 10.1...

We now return you to your scheduled programming...

 

[LiamC]

Now all I've got to do is get folding running. How hard can that be?

And maybe that's for another thread...