Recent Posts

301

General Software Discussion / Re: Which Linux For Non-Techie Windows Users?

« Last post by urlwolf on March 10, 2010, 09:22 AM »

I would never put linux on a non-techie machine. No matter how much linux has improved, you need to do some sysadmin... impossible for a non-techie on his own.

There are two other important factors

• Flexibility makes it possible to break the system in creative ways. There are errors that would take hours of reading and days of troubleshooting to fix, even for an advanced user.
• Buggy software. It's the norm. Not the exception. Add shared libraries, and the situation gets harder. Plus of course, even the more recent distros will have outdated software for fast-moving targets. Trying to have the latest version of everything (easy on win, as long as you like to click 'next') is extremely hard and dangerous.

I had a laptop that didn't take linux. A dell 1720. It has sucked many hours out of my life and two sysadmins. We changed hd trice. Win 7 works fine, and we stress-tested it for a week.

Still, I need some advanced stuff that is not easy to get working on win, but mainly for programming. Even though I'm full-time linux, I have to admit, there are huge quality problems.

[/list]

302

General Software Discussion / Re: tree-style notes - TreeDBNotes - Keynote-NF - AllMyNotes Organizer and more

« Last post by urlwolf on March 08, 2010, 11:49 AM »

I was using keepnote, but now I'm using lyx. You can have it portable on win (LyTeX). Great outliner, and features you don't find in notetakers (tables, equations). Even if you don't ever use it as intended (producing nice latex docs), it's a killer tool. All files are plain text, no vendor lock-in. and autocompletion built-in...

-urlwolf (March 07, 2010, 02:22 PM)

I dunno much about win. but I think miktex is better there...

? Can you recommend which to download, with texlive or miktex ?  Miktex was uploaded more recently

• LyTeX-1.6k-bin.exe   1.6k stable release -- with texlive
• LyTeX-1.6s-bin.exe   1.6s stable release -- with miktex

 
http://code.google.c...lytex/downloads/list

-tomos (March 08, 2010, 09:06 AM)

303

General Software Discussion / Re: tree-style notes - TreeDBNotes - Keynote-NF - AllMyNotes Organizer and more

« Last post by urlwolf on March 07, 2010, 02:22 PM »

I was using keepnote, but now I'm using lyx. You can have it portable on win (LyTeX). Great outliner, and features you don't find in notetakers (tables, equations). Even if you don't ever use it as intended (producing nice latex docs), it's a killer tool. All files are plain text, no vendor lock-in. and autocompletion built-in...

304

General Software Discussion / Re: Why OpenOffice? Why Microsoft Office? Each one makes their argument

« Last post by urlwolf on February 22, 2010, 04:10 AM »

In linux, I don't like OO. I found 3 bugs on presenter in about 2 hr of use.
Softmaker 2010 beta has huge kerneling problems. And scroll is jumpy full screen. it feels like a wine app.

I'm happy with lyx because it's plain text, fast, crossplatform, and renders beautifully. Best integration with zotero I could find too.

305

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Resolver One (BDJ 11 Feb for 60% Discount)

« Last post by urlwolf on February 08, 2010, 12:55 PM »

It doesn't like big datasets. That'd be a killer use of resolver...

306

General Software Discussion / Re: Wanted: SysAdmin-focused Account Information Keeper

« Last post by urlwolf on February 08, 2010, 09:57 AM »

to those stranded users of keynote, keepnote is a great alternative, and crossplatform.

307

General Software Discussion / Re: on OS updates and breakage

« Last post by urlwolf on February 07, 2010, 06:03 AM »

I've broken the system many times being my own fault (btw this is a lot harder to do on a windows box too). This time, I doubt it. There where two users and none of us was touching the system when this happened. We were about to launch a large simulation. Noone sudo'ed anything.

308

General Software Discussion / on OS updates and breakage

« Last post by urlwolf on February 06, 2010, 06:42 PM »

When using windows, I never think twice about accepting updates.
Worst case, I have to reboot.

But on linux, I don't know anyone that doesn't pause before accepting suggested updates.
Linuxes break things with updates. Mind you not only kernel updates... minor, unrelated things.

I just lost ssh. Was it an update? Who knows... but, is Linux really a superior, more reliable tech? I cannot say this with a straight face. It's extremely fragile...

Thoughts?

309

General Software Discussion / Re: is there any file manager that doesn't enforce sort order?

« Last post by urlwolf on February 06, 2010, 03:14 PM »

Total Commander has an unsorted mode, Ctrl-F7, if that's what you mean?

-rjbull (February 06, 2010, 02:52 PM)

nope... doesn't let me rearrange items, AND remember their positions next time I open that folder. But thanks!

310

General Software Discussion / is there any file manager that doesn't enforce sort order?

« Last post by urlwolf on February 06, 2010, 07:21 AM »

is there any file manager that doesn't enforce sort order? I mean, if I reorder files by hand, it remember that config the next time I open it. preferrably for linux also

311

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Web-Browser Review: Opera 10.00

« Last post by urlwolf on February 02, 2010, 07:40 AM »

I'd flag this as spam if I could. What have you learned after reading the review?

312

General Review Discussion / Re: similar to todoList, but open source and for win and linux?

« Last post by urlwolf on January 30, 2010, 09:12 AM »

hmm, nope, but close.
It was about todo lists, no charts.
taskwarrior looks great though.

What I need is something where one can assign time estimations and it sums them on the parent category....

313

General Review Discussion / Re: similar to todoList, but open source and for win and linux?

« Last post by urlwolf on January 29, 2010, 03:13 AM »

tried wine, needs a lot of tweaking.
That one I remember was pretty good, and crossplatform.
Had a very general name, like 'project' too

314

General Review Discussion / similar to todoList, but open source and for win and linux?

« Last post by urlwolf on January 28, 2010, 03:20 PM »

I remember seeing here something similar to todoList, but open source and for win and linux?
I cannot remember the name.... can you?

315

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by urlwolf on January 26, 2010, 08:19 AM »

I was stuck with oneNote because of the same wonderful features described here. However, I Jumped ship to linux partly thanks to keepnote.

It saves html, so you are free from vendor lockin and can do version control.

Many good design decisions here, maybe worth a post of its own,...

316

Developer's Corner / Re: Python Language Annoyances

« Last post by urlwolf on January 26, 2010, 03:35 AM »

Plus, having implicit variable declaration quickly teaches you to write tests everywhere 

Actually, I see very little python code out there with tests. Ruby, on the other hand... even pastie clips have tests!

317

Developer's Corner / Re: Python Language Annoyances

« Last post by urlwolf on January 25, 2010, 05:57 PM »

I'm on the same boat.
I don't like many things about python, ant this is why I'm looking at scala. Type inferencing is good.

318

General Software Discussion / Re: Is ubuntu's windowing/redrawing slower than windows? Is this X, or Gnome?

« Last post by urlwolf on January 19, 2010, 10:43 AM »

it's definitely the nvidia 190 series of drivers.
I tried opera, and it has a similar problem.
It's hard to describe.
The bottom part of the page (that has to be redrawn when scrolling) just moves up, and then one can see the redrawing happening. It's only milliseconds, but definitely makes for a horrible experience.

series 185 were working a bit better... but it doesn't let me change the resolution on the native lappy monitor (and plug an external thing at the same time) so it's useless in conference scenarios (where you have to plug in the lappy and start talking.

Linux is a game of compromises. This is just one (185 scrolls right but no projector, 190 projector but no good scroll). It starts to get cumbersome.

319

General Software Discussion / Re: Is ubuntu's windowing/redrawing slower than windows? Is this X, or Gnome?

« Last post by urlwolf on January 19, 2010, 08:11 AM »

it's a decent adapter GeForce 8400GS M.
Moved to sabayon, scroll in FF still sucks...

320

General Software Discussion / ubuntu's worrying decline in quality

« Last post by urlwolf on January 18, 2010, 03:10 AM »

Is it just me or, There's been a sharp decline in ubuntu's quality?

For example:

http://www.mail-arch....com/msg1969132.html

Confirming, I was able to reproduce the issue by plugging in a brand new
Sandisk Cruzer 8G.

Also, I'm marking this one as Medium since it *will* affect a
substancial number of users, because most USB keys for sale at this
point are already formatted in FAT32 and will trigger this bug.

** Changed in: usb-creator (Ubuntu)
       Status: New => Confirmed

** Changed in: usb-creator (Ubuntu)
   Importance: Undecided => Medium

--
Error "Unable to mount #.#GB Filesystem. A job is pending on /dev/sd?#"
displayed when inserting fat32 drive while usb-creator is open
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/506577
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu.

That means, the OS cannot mount a new USB stick.
If that's not sucking as an OS, I dunno what is...

321

General Software Discussion / Re: recommendation: sabayon linux

« Last post by urlwolf on January 09, 2010, 12:02 PM »

I've never gotten a RTFM on #sabayon irc, nor being ignored.
This is why I mentioned community as an advantage.

I agree with most windows problems posted here:
http://mssaleh.wordp...s.com/2008/04/14/11/

and this is why I think it's worth it to keep plugging.
At some point, things may just work with minimal maintenance. Faster filesystems is another virtue. Yet another, most of the software I use is OSS, and it just works better on linux (example R, python). Your reasons may be different.

322

General Software Discussion / Re: recommendation: sabayon linux

« Last post by urlwolf on January 09, 2010, 07:54 AM »

linux for the laptop is even worse. Since I put it on mine:

• I had to reinstall the OS (ubuntu) 4 times, as decribed above
• I had to google a lot. and spent about 16hrs on diff irc channels
• Had to forget that modern laptops should know how to hibernate
• plugging a external screen or projector is an excercise in sysadmin-fu
• cannot connect to PPPoE
• I actually broke sabayon package manager. Got help in IRC, but these things should not happen. ever.
• Had to dedicate 25% of my brain CPU to think what to do and not to do to have a stable, sane system.
• The natural state of a linux system is broken. If it's not broken, just wait till the next batch of updates...

I'm still sticking to it though... when my list of annoyances reaches a page-long, I wil abandon it yet again.

323

General Software Discussion / recommendation: sabayon linux

« Last post by urlwolf on January 07, 2010, 04:54 PM »

I moved to full-time linux (yet again) ~ 2 months ago, and of course went for ubuntu.
But somehow, ubuntu didn't like my lappy. It didn't unmount the filesystem right, and fsck stopped being able to fix it.

All cues pointed at faulty hardware.

However, another distro wouldn't hurt before buying a new HD.
I tried sabayon linux because I didn't want a debian derivative, which may carry the same error.
It's based on gentoo, but with binaries.

see:
http://sabayon.org
http://forum.sabayon.org/index.php

The sabayon linux live CD picked everything right, with latest version of nvidia drivers.
It operates fine on the supposedly faulty HD. My guess: ubuntu unmount scripts are not that good.

Main advantages over ubuntu:

• rolling release
• more up-to-date packages
• better settings by default
• equo package manager is way better than apt-get
• killer communuty of very advanced and helpful users

324

General Software Discussion / Re: Best Python IDE

« Last post by urlwolf on December 10, 2009, 02:38 AM »

IntelliJ IDEA is a fantastic commercial editor, and now they are releasing it open-source (with the paid version having features I don't need). Great news.

Good python support, no debugger but it has very good test integration, and the navigation in general is outstanding.

325

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 — first impressions

« Last post by urlwolf on December 01, 2009, 12:27 PM »

All those people annoyed by uAC should give linux a try. sudo su is all it takes to have a shell in which to be admin, while the rest of the system is user-owned. I couldn't find a way to do this the time I was on windows.