10:26 p.m.
This meeting was kindly hosted by Peter Brooks at the Keele University. Four
people were present: Kris Douglas (webbox.uk(a)gmail.com), Stuart Bell (
sailing1(a)gmail.com), Peter Brooks (peter(a)theneb.co.uk), Peter "Dick Turpin"
Cannon (dick_turpin(a)archlinux.us).
The first thing we discussed was Compiz Fusion running on Arch Linux. It
seemed that the battery life wasn't affected too much, considering Peter C's
laptop was second hand. He said he could get at least two hours out of it.
The battery life on Linux still isn't up to the spec of Windows, but that is
because of the lack of companies releasing open source drivers, meaning its
harder to get full efficiency from hardware. On the long run, Linux is more
efficient than windows when it's used on fully compatible hardware.
We then went on to talk about how different revisions of Toshiba laptops
have many different features. Stuart was moaning that his Toshiba didn't
have the pointer, just a trackpad. Peter B then went on to say how Toshiba
made some of the best laptops. We all agreed that Tosh hardware runs Linux
well.
Next we were discussing about the good and bad of compiling software on
Linux, and how a required dependency 20 minutes into a compile causes a
total failure and the requirement to search for it.
We also discussed the best and worst features of package management systems
for Linux. Peter B explained how he liked Portage so much, as it had many
tools for blacklisting things you do not want to install. But Peter C went
on to say how he liked PacMan as it made installing software easy, and had
an easy to remember name.
Next we talked about how BSD wasn't really succeeding. Peter B mentioned how
BSD was caught stealing GPL'd code and using it under the BSD license.
Stuart said that he read about the OS, but didn't use it.
With the release of KDE4, the latest and greatest version of KDE's Desktop
Environment, we discussed how it isn't as good as the current KDE, and how
it would be worth trying. Nobody in the room wanted to install KDE, but we
did theorise about it.
We went on to say that Linux runs on most hardware, with very little or no
tweaking required. Stuart commented on the fact that there is probably a
distro for the Commodore 64. (Sadly, after looking up, there were no
distributions good enough to run on the C64's powerful hardware.)
Internet installation is available on many distros, Peter C said how much he
liked the fact you can do this, rather than downloading a full CD or DVD you
can just download an 18meg CD and get what you need for your OS from the
Repo. Everyone agreed that this was a very good way of installing Linux, BUT
only if you had broadband, this process would be a nightmare on dialup, in
which case you would order a CD. (These disks can be purchased by the tried
and tested store, www.linuxiso.co.uk)
Irssi is a terminal based IRC client for UNIX systems. It also supports SILC
and ICB protocols via plugins. The Peters talked about how useful and easy
to use it was. I havn't used it, but I definitely intend to check it out,
www.irssi.org.
We quickly mentioned Google Drive, which is basically a cross platform tool
for actually mounting your Google Mail account and using it as a hard drive.
It is an incredible tool and we all recommend you have a look.
http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm is the windows version.
http://richard.jones.name/google-hacks/gmail-filesystem/gmail-filesystem....
the Linux version.
Shrinking windows installations has become a reality, you can ditch all the
bloat, and just install what you need. Stuart mentioned how he really likes
the process, although it is easy to make mistakes on.
Are DAT tapes running out of time in the backup world? We talked about how
we can backup information onto anything. Rsync was mentioned by most of us,
and was said to be the best thing to use, especially as it is preinstalled
on Linux systems.
IRC channels are still here, but are some of them full of people that need
to learn to help themselves? Peter B said how the people in some of the IRC
channels are asking questions that can easily be found out on Google.
www.google.co.uk – Blimey, leave us alone.
The Gentoo Wiki is one of the best sources of information on the web for
System Admins. Peter B said how he used that wiki the most, for many
different operating systems. Check it out: http://gentoo-wiki.com/Main_Page.
The SUSE community IRC was said to be dead. Do they lack a real community?
We thought so.
The Ubuntu community is thought to be one of the best. But the wiki is full
of old and out dated information that is of no use to new users. This could
be the cause of the questions that we keep getting in IRC.
Partition managers were mentioned briefly. Is there one good partition
editor out there? Gparted was mentioned and some of the dedicated CD
solutions. But Peter B Seemed to think Fdisk did the job nicely.
A large topic was how some of the Linux coders were being lazy. You
shouldn't have to reboot your pc on installing software. You don't even need
to reboot to change an X configuration (Ctrl+Alt+Backspace) kills X and
restarts it for you.
Back onto the backup issue, we all agreed how backing up data was a very
important thing. Stuart said how he liked the mklivecd command in PCLinuxOS
that lets you create a total copy of your drive and settings and load it
into an installable CD.
Children shouldn't be allowed to use computers. They lack basic knowledge,
as do the parents, and end up compromising security by downloading files
like smilies and programs that cause damage. MSN isn't a good influence on
children.
We went on to say how viruses on Linux weren't a problem, but still, Windows
is a virus magnet. We all recommend that you use NOD32, which is one of the
smallest and most secure AV programs available. Forget about Norton and
McAfee.
Some of the "IT Technicians" in schools are barely qualified. Head teachers
and councils look out for the big shiny gold MICROSOFT CERTIFIED badge,
which is worth about as much as "dir" in Linux.
SVN is a good platform, one of the best ways of keeping up to date with
files. Stuart mentioned SVNUP which is his favorite SVN client.
--
Kris Douglas
Softdel Limited Hosting Services
Web: www.softdel.net
Mail: kris(a)softdel.net