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From: Theo Markettos on 22 Apr 2008 16:19 Ian <ian.groups(a)btinternet.com> wrote: > On 21 Apr, 00:21, Theo Markettos <theom+n...(a)chiark.greenend.org.uk> > wrote: > > I want to upgrade a machine from Xandros 3 OCE (which seems to be > > entirely neglected by its vendor) to Ubuntu with KDE. The machine is on > > expensive dialup and I rarely have access to it so having something that > > needs minimal post-installation updates is important. > > If it's not online, why does it need any updates? Security ones won't > matter, and most functionality ones are just minor glitches... It is online, on dialup. It could be argued that the half an hour a week it gets online is unlikely to be enough of a chance for a virus gets in, but it's not impossible. I've had an ssh worm on Linux before, which makes me paranoid. Functionality-wise I might want to download a new Firefox or something (Hardy ships with a Beta Firefox, which strikes me as a bad idea). But if that pulls in 50MB of other updates then that's not feasible; 50MB at 44Kb/s is phone bill ouch! time. Theo
From: Nick Leverton on 22 Apr 2008 16:34 In article <fuglms$m0c$1(a)lust.ihug.co.nz>, Thor <thor(a)valhalla.enzed.corn> wrote: > PS I probably will not be going to kde 4, I have had a look and found it >to be a silly lot of useless eyecandy with little to recommend over kde 3 KDE4.0 is not yet a complete replacement for KDE3, many things are missing such as kdepim. AIUI KDE4.1 is planned to be a complete version of KDE. With all respect for the developers, in the normal way of "release early and often" I would be surprised if it is fully stable much before KDE4.2. Unless one is a dedicated version junkie, it's probably worth staying with KDE 3.5.9 for the time being. Nick -- Serendipity: http://www.leverton.org/blosxom (last update 2nd April 2008) "The Internet, a sort of ersatz counterfeit of real life" -- Janet Street-Porter, BBC2, 19th March 1996
From: Theo Markettos on 22 Apr 2008 16:42 Thor <thor(a)valhalla.enzed.corn> wrote: > A pity you couldn't have a similar machine at your place, set it up to get > the updates regularly then burn them to disk and take the disk with you or > post it to where the computer is with instructions on how to use it. I do plan to do a regular CD run every time I'm there. I want to minimise the necessity of me doing this - in other words I'd rather the distro was stable rather than having regular functionality tweaks. I could probably contrive to make a qemu image or something to grab the updates - but is there no other way to know what's been updated since $DATE? Or is the answer 'many DVDs worth' and thus impractical? (I'll probably want a bit of universe, multiverse and non-free but will attempt to keep these to a minimum. It's only a basic wordprocessing and web browsing machine, but will probably want Flash, Java etc) > Ubuntu is basically is the cutting edge of the home user aimed distros > these days and as such probably not really suitable for the situation you > are in. Isn't that the point of the LTS versions? I'm running Dapper (6.06 LTS) on a machine at work and it's stable and has very few updates. I was hoping Hardy would be the same, except for the KDE problem and that I'm too close to the release date for it to have settled down. > Debian etch has rc3 out now and I have had little difficulty setting it up > on a variety of different machines from pentium 1G to the latest system > that was running vista up to that stage. What's the desktop environment of etch like? I run it, but only via VNC which doesn't have a proper desktop set up (I had to fiddle around to even get a window manager running). Is it as user-friendly as Ubuntu? (For example, when I install a program it shows up on the relevant menu. When I run a Windows installer with Wine the program shows up on the 'Other' menu). As to the suggestion of Mepis elsewhere in the thread, I'd never considered that. Originally I picked Xandros off Distrowatch or somewhere like that as the most Windows-like distro. The trouble was the vendor's terribly interested in commercial tools to run MS Office and there's little user community. Ubuntu has user community in spades, and has the advantage that I run it myself. What's the user community of Mepis like? I'm a bit worried that since Mepis seems to be an initiative by a few people and might end up as a dead end like Xandros did. For comparison: mepislovers.org (main Mepis forum) has about 120,000 posts ubuntuforums.org has 4.7 million posts > It's a matter of opinion of course but I have never seen the point of even > the stuff in kde3 such as animated windows and icons that leap out at you, > so adding more of that rubbish is not going to appeal to me anyway :) KDE and GNOME appear to be locked into a Windows mindset and productive new UI features seem to be stifled. They don't seem to be coming up with ways to use computers more efficiently, just clone those other people have thought of. It seems like Apple is the only one doing innovation. (But this is another thread). Theo
From: Thor on 22 Apr 2008 18:48 Theo Markettos wrote: > What's the desktop environment of etch like? I run it, but only via VNC > which doesn't have a proper desktop set up (I had to fiddle around to even > get a window manager running). Is it as user-friendly as Ubuntu? (For > example, when I install a program it shows up on the relevant menu. When > I run a Windows installer with Wine the program shows up on the 'Other' > menu). > Up to you gnome, kde, xfce all have install disks. Pretty much as you want, never had any problem with wine programs showing up where they should either. Thor
From: Chris on 23 Apr 2008 04:34
Theo Markettos wrote: > As to the suggestion of Mepis elsewhere in the thread, I'd never considered > that. Originally I picked Xandros off Distrowatch or somewhere like that as > the most Windows-like distro. The trouble was the vendor's terribly > interested in commercial tools to run MS Office and there's little user > community. Ubuntu has user community in spades, and has the advantage that > I run it myself. What's the user community of Mepis like? I'm a bit > worried that since Mepis seems to be an initiative by a few people and might > end up as a dead end like Xandros did. > > For comparison: > mepislovers.org (main Mepis forum) has about 120,000 posts > ubuntuforums.org has 4.7 million posts Size isn't everything, you know! ;) The community has been one of the reasons I've stuck with Mepis for over four years. It is the most friendly, helpful and informative lot you'll find. There's a hardcore which are extremely knowledgeable and willing to help. Head on over to mepislovers.com and find out. With regards to longevity, there is an issue at the moment with the distro maintainer having to do a day job to pay the bills which Mepis isn't covering. Thus, things have slowed since 7.0 was released, but he is still committed to Mepis and the community is very keen in keeping Mepis going forward as it still has a lot to offer. However, as Mepis is based on Debian etch you will always get the updates from debian as a matter of course it's just the Mepis specific ones which may be a bit slow. What some people have done is to install Mepis and then do 'dist-upgrade' to Lenny/testing, which then turns it into a full-blown debian distro, but keeping the Mepis functionality. > KDE and GNOME appear to be locked into a Windows mindset and productive new > UI features seem to be stifled. They don't seem to be coming up with ways > to use computers more efficiently, just clone those other people have > thought of. It seems like Apple is the only one doing innovation. (But > this is another thread). I feel KDE4, although not fully working now, will be quite a serious contender in the UI stakes when everything has been implemented and people have ported their apps to the new apis. My 2 penneths... |