GeekDamage

Now that I have pretty much all of the base setup of my desktop complete, I decided to post about it.

As mentioned before, my distribution of choice is Debian’s testing branch. When I first installed Debian I used Gnome as the desktop environment/window manager, and then I switched to XFCE to see how that worked out. While I really like both of those, after trying out Openbox at the recommendation of a friend I have fell in love with it. It’s very minimalistic and lightweight.

In addition to Openbox, I use fbpanel as my panel software, and conky to display the little bit of system information you can see in the screen shot on the left side.

Conky is a very powerful system information viewer. It let’s you print the information to the desktop, or in it’s own window. The configuration options are pretty easy to get the hang of, although I think it should be documented a little better. Conky has support for tons of information already such as CPU usage, Hard Drive statistics, uptime, and the ability to execute any command you normally would in a terminal and have the output displayed.

I’m still experimenting with various programs and such to figure out what works best for me, but as a running tally of what I am currently using:

1. Openbox (window manager)
2. Fbpanel (panels)
3. Conky (system information/statistics)
4. alsaplayer (audio)
5. VLC Media Player (video)
6. XChat (IRC)
7. gFTP (FTP Client)

On an ending note, I get most of my wallpapers from Interfacelift. It’s a really nice collection of crystal clear high resolution wallpapers.

I finally made the switch from Windows as a primary desktop to Linux. My distribution of choice is Debian. It’s a great distribution and their net-install disc makes for a quick ISO download and burn. Then you can choose how much you want to install, instead of just downloading a huge image file, and removing things you do not want or need.

I’m currently using Gnome for the environment. I haven’t played around with the different pre-installed themes or anything yet, but that is just because I’ve recently finished setting up the basic stuff on the system. I’d also like to venture off into other window managers sometime, but for now I think I’ll stick with what I have, at least until I get bored with it.

For a little more information, I still plan on being an active Windows user. My current laptop (as mentioned in a previous post) is still running Vista, but I am thinking about putting XP back on it, as I believe it to be more stable than Vista will ever be.

I enjoy debates on various topics, but sometimes it just needs to be put to rest for awhile. I am specifically talking about the on going storm of which operating system you should use, and which one sucks. Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but neither is the best. Both platforms have their upsides and downsides.

The one area I really want to discuss is Linux and Windows in the desktop aspect. Microsoft Windows has dominated the market in providing a easy to use GUI environment for it’s users. It’s backed by a huge corporation, and for software developers that wish to remain in the market and stable, it’s a good thing. Considering the free and open source nature of Linux, and its communities it’s no surprise it is a late bloomer in this field. I wouldn’t have expected it not to be, it does after all rely on communities volunteering their free time away from work and family to create such programs.

Only recently has anything user-friendly in terms of Linux Distributions been released, and that is Ubuntu. If something as simple as that was created around 1995 (Windows 95 release date) the operating system community might be drastically different today. Because of the late start of newbie-friendly desktop environments in Linux, of course there is going to be hundreds of Windows-only programs and games, and of course the majority of the users are going to stick to Windows so they can continue to use the programs and games they are accustomed to.

The number one debate point I hear about switching main desktops from Windows to Linux is their programs they have used for years on Windows. There are some really great Linux alternatives to many different programs you would normally need on Windows for things such as business, graphics design, and video editing. But, and there’s always a but, for the corporate world, most things of this nature are centered around proprietary applications for proprietary operating systems (Hello Windows, and Mac!). I don’t think you’ll be able to change the entire corporate world’s mind on this either.

As for home/personal users’ desktops and one of the greatest reasons I still keep Windows machines in the house is gaming. There’s some games designed specifically for the Windows operating system that will not run under Linux using emulation software such as WINE. And it is this reason I have Windows desktops still. A common argument against this is there are similar games of the same genre created for Linux desktop gaming as well. Yeah, that’s great. But is it [my] game? I don’t want to play [alternative game], when I can not change anything and still play [current game]. For Linux zealots attempting to convert Windows users using this argument, stop. It’s invalid, no matter how you look at it, it is a matter of personal preference for which games users like to play, it does not matter what operating system they are coming from.

Now that we have the desktop world out of the way, the one thing I can agree on about using Linux is for servers. I use them, this website, and my other websites are all hosted on Linux based operating systems. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. When it comes to server hosting, Linux is definitely what you need.

I’ve just been a bit annoyed lately by people attempting to forcefully push others towards their operating system because their closed-minds cannot comprehend why someone would not want to immediately jump over to a completely new environment without another thought. It’s sad, but I have seen it happen in several places I have visited.

My current setup includes a Windows desktop, Windows laptop, and a broken Linux server. When I get everything fixed I should have A Linux desktop, a Windows laptop, and a working Linux server (or two, maybe). We’ll see.

I have used Linux in both environments (Desktop, and Server). Linux is a very great platform for many reasons with reliability being one of top features I use it for.

There are a couple of distributions that I alternate in use, or have more than one machine running either as the host or using a program to run one ‘inside’ of another, such as VirtualBox.

Debian is one of my favorites. I have only used it for servers so far, but I must say it does a great job. They have several different downloads you can choose from. The one I use the most would be the netinst (net install) ISO file. It contains only the minimum needed to get Debian up and running, and provides you with a method to download and install packages, so you are only putting on there what you want, and don’t have to spend time removing applications that you never intended to have on there.

Arch Linux was both my server and desktop operating system for awhile at one time. I originally downloaded and tried it at the request of a friend, but after using it I liked it more and more. It’s pretty quick to install, and once you get the hang of it, fairly easy to use and maintain.

Currently I am using Windows as my desktop operating system, but when I made the change I didn’t have another machine good enough to run Windows around. Unlike then, I have a laptop with Vista preloaded on it. When I get around to it I will be putting XP on my laptop, and Debian back on my desktop, which is currently running XP.

A friend of mine posted something similar to this titled Why I use Linux. I thought it was a great idea to tell others about my reasons for liking and using Linux too.

Hey guys, I found a great set of Linux tools ported to Windows. If you’re a Linux geek at heart, but have to use the dreaded Windows operating system for some reason, check out GnuWin32. They have a lot of the good ones including wget, gawk, grep, and tar. I myself have only tried wget so far, but I’ll be getting more of them soon.

http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net

One of my favorite VPS providers I’ve come across so far has been making the switch to the Xen system for their virtualization platform. Xen is reportedly faster in most aspects compared to other solutions out there.

Xen has less overhead compared to UML. Xen Linodes have 4 processors. We’re running the latest Xen version (3.2.1) which means we can support paravirt_ops kernels (pv_ops), which means we can have kernels newer than 2.6.1 (…..) In short, Linodes will be much, much faster under Xen.

Here’s hoping Xen brings for happier times at Linode!

http://blog.linode.com/2008/03/28/linodes-in-xen/