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3851

General Software Discussion / Re: Superboyac is throwing in the towel: I'm going to transition to Linux

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 30, 2012, 08:43 PM »

  And as soon as Microsux stops supporting XP, I'll be right behind you..... Win 8 is a big joke, just like Vista was.  I want a PC to work with, not a metro device.....

-Tinman57 (April 30, 2012, 07:49 PM)

Right behind me, looking for alternatives to Microsoft you mean? Hmm.

Meanwhile on the whole touch fad, I'm toying with the idea of laying my touch computer down flat on its back on my desk (if that doesn't have any evil side effects! I dunno!) Because then maybe I wouldn't need a mouse - just "tap with fingers" to open folders, etc. Only problem is it would fight the keyboard for primacy horozontal space, but it is an interesting idea.

3852

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: Open images without program window showing.

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 30, 2012, 08:37 PM »

Heh I just stumbled on this today and I like it! When I look at a picture lately it's for 7 seconds just recalling "what was THAT in my notes labled "Mouser-Cat"?!!

But different image extensions kept going to different and heavy programs like Paint.Net and Pale Moon Firefox.

So this is a cute little app!

3853

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: [Funding Project] - Low Budget PC's

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 30, 2012, 02:44 PM »

I type a lot, but I'm not naysaying per se. More of "take the following steps to avoid potential trouble".

3854

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: [Funding Project] - Low Budget PC's

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 30, 2012, 07:58 AM »

More notes:
"Free Gift" sounds too much like generic sleazy marketing. That's one of the reasons I asked if you get to change that ad-copy or if it's stuck there by Indygogo.

More generally what's bothering me is that unlike a loan, this is "gimme money", where the only payback is some percent off in the store - which means spending more. And the last two options don't scale well *at all* - someone can get an entire PC for $1000 and a Netbook/Budget PC for $500. So "an amazing gift" at the $1,000 level threatens to cross over into scam territory at worst and the appearance of scam territory at best.

My instinct at this point is not to try to outgun the big box stores on price alone, but maybe hit the custom service side - we know what a scam Geek Squad is, so that's expertise that customers really need, and at legit rates, not $60 an hour. I could have used some consulting in my linux adventure over on the other thread rather than just going the blind guess route. So that leads into my suggestion for your value for the Indiegogo - maybe 3 hours of consulting for the $25 level and 8 hours of consulting for the $50 level.

Edit: maybe that rate schedule is a bit too aggressive, but the more I think of it the more it can give the appearance of a scam if you weren't a DC member. Maybe I've read too much O. Henry but straight up it looks like you just get to sit on $4000 of money doing nothing "awww, shame, I didn't meet my goal, so I won't start my business". The reason I made that rate schedule above so aggressive is to create a Wow factor where the donor essentially can't lose with a tech support coupon like that. Let's say they all sell at the $50 block level. "Yikes - you're in the hole for 800 hours!" - so since we all know starting a business isn't 9-5, 10 weeks at 80 hours a week will drill off that consulting and then the money is yours.

This next part is a guess: Are you unemployed right now? (Why else would you kickstart a business if you had a better job funding it?) So that's 4 weeks you can spend serving off the coupons while the kickstarter runs. But not everyone will cash all their coupons in - I'd save mine until I really needed it, which could be months away.

3855

Living Room / Re: Android Tablets

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 30, 2012, 05:45 AM »

I haven't done any research on tablets, but the overall mood in the air for me is that this is still the "luxury" market, with the same "ramp up" feel of PC's in the early 90's. I try to get value in my tech purchases that will last me for years, and the impression I get from the tablet buzz is that this is about one generation too early for lasting value.

3856

Official Announcements / Re: The DonationCoder 2012 Fundraiser Has Begun!

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 30, 2012, 05:39 AM »

And so here is a post on April 30 saying so long to Fundraiser season and on to new adventures!

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Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: [Funding Project] - Low Budget PC's

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 30, 2012, 05:31 AM »

Stephen, did you pick the "ad copy" for the perks, or is that standard from Indiegogo? "Free Gift", "Free gift of a higher value", and "Amazing gift"? What are those?

And what are the specs and prices of a "Low Budget PC"? See my adventures with Linux vs Drivers over on the other thread. Turns out, some of the specs of that box were on the casing doubling as sales copy.

Survey says:
AMD Sempron 3400+
NVidia GeForce 6150 LE
512 Megs Ram
120 GB HD
2007 price about $350 with sales floor discounts from Best Buy.

Business plan wise I'd love to know what you will be able to do that Best Buy/your big chain can't.

3858

General Software Discussion / Re: Superboyac is throwing in the towel: I'm going to transition to Linux

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 29, 2012, 10:06 PM »

Well, let's agree to disagree! I'm done for the night on my project, and knowing me, likely for 3 months or more.

Every user has their cases, and I mostly filled mine.

3859

General Software Discussion / Re: Superboyac is throwing in the towel: I'm going to transition to Linux

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 29, 2012, 09:35 PM »

Hulu does not yet have HTML5? Now that's ancient. (OK, not quite serious.)
"Ancient is as Ancient does". Of course I know the theoretical arguments, but I want my TV-Online shows *today*, not in 2014 : )

Unix itself is not a generic desktop solution.

Neither is Linux itself. Putting a desktop environment over it does not make it a desktop operating system yet. Not even if it is called Ubuntu and has funny code names. On my FreeBSD (virtual) machine, KDE runs (theoretically) fine, so how is Unix less of a desktop OS that Linux?

You see?

So I don't need to get all theoretical, if I need 7 drivers, by golly I need 7 drivers, and I'd rather have a distro include them.

How can they be included better than in its repositories?

-Tuxman (April 29, 2012, 09:17 PM)

Okay, leaving aside Free-BSD, putting a desktop environment over Linux *almost* does make it a generic desktop operating system. Again as a "typical" user, (whatever that is) LXDE almost satisfies what I think a "desktop" should do, with a few quirks. The recent trend to Browser-Apps has reduced the load on OS'es.

As for the drivers, if they are included in the CD's, they "Just Work". I know, Linux advocates hate that, but sorry, for new users, that's how it is. If I can't even boot to a desktop, how the blazes will I diagnose which driver is missing and fire up a web browser that didn't load to go find it and somehow install it? That's why I am a good test case - I don't really ask for much, just get me a basically working system with sound and TV. Not that tough. Any CD that goes "will not load - invalid file system" is not something I need to deal with.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Superboyac is throwing in the towel: I'm going to transition to Linux

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 29, 2012, 09:12 PM »

Flash - Hulu and Chat Rooms.

And yes, Unix itself is not a generic desktop solution. It's become a back-end item.

The main trick of the Non-Free respositories vs drivers is that I don't have to go looking for them (today). So I don't need to get all theoretical, if I need 7 drivers, by golly I need 7 drivers, and I'd rather have a distro include them. I know full well what "modest" limitations there are for them being non-free, but ya know, once you set up your box, it sits there.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Superboyac is throwing in the towel: I'm going to transition to Linux

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 29, 2012, 08:35 PM »

Heh "Typical" is a little vague, but let's try a weak definition.

I'm decent on Windows, and I do light helpdesk as part of my official job at work. So I'm clearly no Turbo-Newbie. Yet all the assumptions of Linux break my instincts, so I am a classic mid line Windows user trying Linux for basically the first time. I could have picked any of 5 cores, I tried OpenSuse last year, it was okay. This year I decided to try to stay as close to Debian as I could, but all the pure FSF principles lose out to just getting a working box, even if that means Non-Free Codecs.

I believe I am representative of a big untold group of users out there. Get me at least as far as a desktop with Flash and Sound, and I'll slowly learn the other stuff later.

In a sense there's only three OS's, Windows, Mac OS X, and the Linux Family. (I'm skipping the outliers.) So I don't care to get stuck in Mac vendor-lock, so the remaining Non-Windows choice is Linux. Also, I like their philosophies.

3862

General Software Discussion / Re: Superboyac is throwing in the towel: I'm going to transition to Linux

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 29, 2012, 08:19 PM »

Well, maybe my terms are up for grabs - what's the difference between a Fork and a Mod? So however you term it, I got one that works. Me-As-Typical-New-Linux-User just wants to get to a desktop screen.

If I had tried for Debian Raw I bet (out of time) that I still would have gotten stuck on something, that's why I went looking for something that had special support for older comps.

It turns out I am really strong on Apps, but in fact I don't do all that much at a raw OS level. Long Haul, I don't know if I can make it to Windows 9 - Win8 with Metro is looking really ugly, even worse than Vista.

"All I do" 50% of the time is play on the web and make folders and save notes and files. That's cake. Linux can handle that. So yes one of these years if I really got serious I'd buy a new comp for Linux. This is a test case for now.

The drive failure has to be a minimum spec for some chip that my 2007 machine doesn't have, and no amount of "purity" in Debian will fix that.

This at least gives me some context rather than just cowering in a corner racing the clock between Windows 9 and my comp dying before I have properly exported everything.

3863

General Software Discussion / Re: Superboyac is throwing in the towel: I'm going to transition to Linux

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 29, 2012, 08:09 PM »

Bazinga all you want, I'm kinda offended at the LoLing.

Mint failed. Snow Linux Failed. TinyCore Failed. Legacy OS Failed. Galpon MiniNo I think worked but it looked funny. Upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04 regular (supposed to be LXDE) failed. None of them *booted*. Sorry. I won't deal with a package that doesn't *boot*.

So it became Zorin's LXDE sub-mod of Ubuntu's Mod of Debian.

3864

General Software Discussion / Re: Superboyac is throwing in the towel: I'm going to transition to Linux

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 29, 2012, 06:40 PM »

To be honest, I never gave any Ubuntu edition a run, it is enough to see how it fails - every new *buntu release floods Linux help forums.
I doubt Zorin's version is much better.

So I really wonder why you want reliability and *buntu....

-Tuxman (April 29, 2012, 06:36 PM)

Then trust 18 hours of work this weekend. Don't "doubt", here are my results. On this particular box, all copies of Ubuntu Natural from about October 2011 forward won't load because of some kind of driver problem. Zorin's copy loads. Lights out. Nothing else matters. Zorin-Ubuntu and Puppy-Racy are the only 2 out of 8 distros that loaded on this box.

Edit:
Flash works.
Sound works.
I found the file manager.

So that's almost a lock. I'm basically done.

3865

General Software Discussion / Re: Superboyac is throwing in the towel: I'm going to transition to Linux

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 29, 2012, 06:13 PM »

First important thing: Drop anything that includes Ubuntu stuff.
Really, Ubuntu is broken by design in a lot of ways, "full Debian" is the other direction.

If you want Ubuntu, use Ubuntu, but don't expect compatibility to anything aside Ubuntu then.

-Tuxman (April 29, 2012, 06:11 PM)

Oh, I have the figurative fire protection suit on, but three other Non-Ubuntu distros failed to load, so I don't have a lot of time left this weekend. (And I tend to lose my focus for this stuff on weekdays.) It takes me almost 2 hours to download and install a distro, so plus sleep that was 10 hours total lost.

Edit: Survey Says....
Ubuntu's "pure" upgrade didn't boot again, they have some standardized driver that conflicts with my system. So while I'm still half an hour out from downloading U-P 12.04 Lubuntu, it probably will have the same driver problem which means this is standard for all "regular" Ubuntu editions going forward despite desktop environment.

So I'm putting Zorin's copy back on, and then all I need to test is sound and flash. Then in X months whenever Zorin comes out with his Pangolin mod, I'll try that. So I'm almost done.

3866

General Software Discussion / Re: Superboyac is throwing in the towel: I'm going to transition to Linux

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 29, 2012, 06:09 PM »

I appreciate all your advice!

About mid way through the weekend some concepts clarified:

"Full Debian Software" became the top end goal, with the mercenary substep of "any double-triple mod necessary to get past ultra basic problems like booting up." Hence my comment that I'm no fan of Ubuntu tbe brand, it's only a mechanism to stay Debian-based when several other closer distros also refused to boot. I'm down to my last 3 tests - The "Counterweight" is Zorin Lite, a "double-mod" of Ubuntu aka fixing crap that Ubuntu didn't bother to do. But I think it's based on Oct-2011. So for conceptual reasons, I'm "going for the gold" to see if I can't "park" on Pangolin because it's the LTS release. (So far my mouse pointer mysteriously vanished, but we'll wait until it reboots.)

Crunchbang ended up in the other category, "Backbone distros for 3rd tier comps". The iso somehow ended up bigger than I thought it would be, maybe 450 megs, and by that point I'd already found Puppy-Racy which is the lead contender in that half. By that point I was out of time to download Crunchbang due to my slow net line I mentioned. I'm out of energy to decide if I prefer OpenBox-Crunchbang vs JWM-Puppy. Those were "Emergency fallbacks" earlier in the study before I made better progress with Zorin's copy of Ubuntu.

Looping back, You're right in that I'm not going to ditch my Windows machine, I worked too hard on it to just trash it. I just wanted something on hand to see if I could get a Linux entertainment machine going, just to dip my toes in the water.

3867

General Software Discussion / Re: Superboyac is throwing in the towel: I'm going to transition to Linux

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 29, 2012, 05:50 PM »

Right-click works like a charm in KDE. KDE 4.8 is usable after a couple of quite fucked-up versions before it.
If you want "pure Debian with some codecs", try Linux Mint Debian Edition.  

"Pure Debian", however, means Gnome which is bleh. Considering that you like JWM, you really should try IceWM though!

-Tuxman (April 29, 2012, 05:38 PM)

Heh - there were SEVERAL Fscked editions of KDE, with maybe only 3 out of 7 working in the 4.x series! (I saw the outrage over 4.0, maybe one update worked, a couple of the middle ones broke things again, and now it's 2012!) And yes I agree Gnome 3 is Bleh, though I keep hearing Gnome 2 was okay, but it's fading...

Meanwhile, I DID try Linux Mint Debian Edition, but sadly, that was one of the copies that failed to boot on my machine! (Maybe despite the Compaq label, it really has a couple of crappy specs, I dunno.)

I did come across IceWM, though I couldn't get it in any of the other right config-distros. (I lost my pack of DVD's and I don't even know how clean my drive will burn them, and then even if my test machine knows how to boot from a DVD), so several of the "Dvd-based" distros lost out this weekend. (Plus this is a one-time project, maybe with one followup. I have a purposely dreadfully slow ISP plan to save small dollars every month because I normally don't do anything interesting needing bandwidth.)

Whew!

3868

Living Room / Re: Kickstarter Highlight: PennyGems

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 29, 2012, 05:40 PM »

Yeah, it struck me as insanely silly too, and on the other side of the discussion fence people won't pay a thing for a lot of software. But Poly-urethaned Pennies?! "Let's open our wallets!"

3869

General Software Discussion / Re: Superboyac is throwing in the towel: I'm going to transition to Linux

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 29, 2012, 05:31 PM »

Lol, Ubuntu. The Linux for people who want Windows. Stick with Windows, you'll love it.
(Also, Ubuntu is the most-broken distribution I know, every upgrade brings new heavy quirks. I wonder why there are so many masochists around.)

That aside, there is no point in switching to Linux if you want random Windows applications ("Wine", mentioned several times in this thread).
There is a good reason for a dual-boot Linux, like for the lulz or something, but replacing Windows for the sake of replacing Windows is never a good idea.

That said, I currently operate a couple of machines, some Linuxes on them too. My main machine is a Win7/Fedora 16 dual-boot, and Fedora is hardly ever booted at all.

BTW TaoPhoenix, if you come from Windows, try KDE. It is better than people say about it, a lot of eye-candy and widget stuff.

-Tuxman (April 29, 2012, 05:22 PM)

Tried KDE, "Hated it". I'm a Right Click fan, so that's guiding my choices. I don't recall from a year ago, but stuff just wasn't where I wanted it. Meanwhile I think I'd rather be closer to pure Debian "but with Codecs that Just Work" but some 3-4 versions off DistroWatch didn't even boot, and I'm sorry, I refuse to put up with not booting. Given the millions of former XP boxes about to hit the streets I'd have thought a P4 Box would be prime time for linux, but it's proven tougher than I first thought.  So far I seem to mostly like LXDE (what little I saw of it before I took the upgrade plunge), Puppy's JWM wasn't bad, and the last to test is XFCE.

3870

General Software Discussion / Re: Superboyac is throwing in the towel: I'm going to transition to Linux

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 29, 2012, 04:58 PM »

Update:

With fingers crossed, I'm trying out (possibly partially modified) Ubuntu. Not because I think that's any great shakes, and I'm not interested in either Unity or Gnome 3, but just as an attempt to get back towards a fairly mainstream version of Debian, which I think is winning my conceptual race.

My problems with Ubuntu in the past stemmed from bad problems breaking my test box, but I just happened to notice that "P" 12.04 is the "Long Term Support" version, so I'm hoping they put a bit more care into it for once. I'm not demanding on my OS requirements, I really am not - I don't use Wifi and I don't print at home, (two of the more notorious funny spots in Linux), so if I were speaking to an anthromorphized OS, "Please just give me a stable picture and sound and play Flash videos and mp3's and radio channels, K? ThxBye."

Then I have to remember NOT to upgrade - (Ubuntu's October editions are a bit more skewed to have silliness). I'll just hunker down and wait for the next LTS. And maybe it will just sit there if the hardware finally proves too old. (Though I don't think I'm being unreasonable, a 2007 era Best Buy Pentium-4 Compaq box with an nvidia card isn't exactly third world obscurity, which is why I became grumpy last time when whatever edition it was of Ubuntu broke it and it quit booting.)  

I'll save for another day whether I prefer LXDE or XFCE for the front end window, vs software available, but the overall point is that my Boot problems occurred really early on in my prior bad experiences, so once the comp boots, solving point #1, then it's just down to any of 2-3 window environments that are Non-Unity. Then once I get it working I'll just leave it alone, because it seems to be a shade brittle on the specs side, and endless tinkering will likely break it again. (4 distros this weekend failed to boot.)

I really only do like 10 things in the OS level, so a simple window manager should be fine. I went with Debian-based though because I like innovative apps, and I'm curious at all the nook and cranny stuff out there once I get the OS side solved.

So I'm almost done with my survey.

Edit: My mouse pointer died during the upgrade from a sub-distro to 12.04. So I am down to a couple of steps left. 1a. Fresh CD of Lubuntu 1b. Fresh CD of Xubuntu, to test out those two desk environs. 2. Stick with the Zorin sub-distro that did load, and then bide my time for them to patch up a Pagolin edition to fix what Canonical can't seem to do on my lead linux machine.

Edit2: Mashed keys and fiddled with Tab, got past that particular dialog box.

3871

General Software Discussion / Re: Superboyac is throwing in the towel: I'm going to transition to Linux

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 28, 2012, 09:12 PM »

And here we go! Puppy Linux, "Racy" build for medium-older hardware, is climbing the rankings! We're at min 8/10 by this point, so that's def enough to have a contender! Sound works, flash works, I can get Hulu, I'm posting here, and there is an mp3 player, so this is my baseline comparison!

Heh - I'm getting greedy with success - I won't be ditching Windows, I have way too much stuff on my power machine, but I respect the daylights out of the Linux philosophy. So I might poke about for some kind of cool niche specialty distro, but otherwise, I broke the drought caused by the Ubuntu failures, so off I go!

Update: Having achieved the "minimum fallback" level of function with Puppy-Racy, per the post below I'm "going for the gold" on my lead Linux box with a Debian based setup. However, if I didn't break (or even lose it!) I may have a second tier laptop around that might make a good TV show/chat/DVD/Web machine that Puppy-Racy would work well on as a "third tier" machine designed to build it once and just goof off with.

3872

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 28, 2012, 07:04 PM »

Here is a nice inspiring picture of a train.

3873

General Software Discussion / Re: Superboyac is throwing in the towel: I'm going to transition to Linux

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 28, 2012, 12:54 PM »

Right Mahesh, I tried for an xfce build earlier, but some other part of Mint was misbehaving on my comp.

Current news: Galpon MiniNo looks cute, it loaded really fast because it's clearly taking shortcuts by skipping bloat. "All I have to do" for this step is to figure out how to change languages because the default is in Spanish! : )  Also, it's asking for a Root password to do certain things but I never entered one, so that's an issue too. But I'm on my way!

Edit: I found English - it's in the installer, I just kept walking into an optical illusion of "ES" vs "EN".

Edit2: Doesn't look like any of the apps behave right. Next distro.

3874

Living Room / Re: CISPA is the New SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/ACTA/etc. etc. etc.

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 28, 2012, 11:55 AM »

I can just see it like a Best Buy upsell plan too!
"Would you like to pay us not to sell your data?"

Edit: It's on a sliding scale! "How many days at a dime-a-day would you like to buy before we sell your data anyway?"

Damn, cynicism used to be social commentary. Now it's actual prophecy.

3875

General Software Discussion / Re: Superboyac is throwing in the towel: I'm going to transition to Linux

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 28, 2012, 11:37 AM »

Initially I tried to use a xfce based distro, but I think the problems are deeper, I think there are other hardware conflicts going on. So I'll keep your note in mind, and see how that cross links with the "distro" itself - this whole thing of distro vs environment is kinda like a logic puzzle.

Currently I'm surfing DistroWatch under the Old Computer category, basically the same concept you were headed toward, though my next couple of distros are using other environments. Stay tuned!