Do we have any Linux users in the Audience tonight?

[GammaPiSigma]

I have a LAMP (Linux, Apache, Mysql and PHP) server running Ubuntu at home as a dev enviroment (as it matches the hosting enviroment for a couple of my clients). Have played with many flavours of Linux for many years but was mainly a Red Hat man, well that was until I found Ubuntu.
<br><br>
You can get Ubuntu from Pacific Internet Mirror site. As a bonus, if your ISP supports peering via Pipe Networksthere is a good chance the download would not be included in your download traffic.
<br><br>
Cheers,<br>
Mike.

[EcoTeam]

Still not convinced? I have a pile of Ubuntu CDs that let you take a test drive before installing. There are also VMWare images [15] available so that you can run Linux within windows.

How do I get one of those CD's Rog?
Or can I simply download it from a site somewhere and burn my own?

OMG, I've found myself downloading the Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS (Dapper Drake) CD

EcoDave

[Geof]

Wa hoo First post in the forum from Ubuntu 6.06 LTS.

Finaly worked out that I had to use sudo to get pppconfig to work.



Next thing how to work out how to free up all this stuff firefox loads up over half the screen.

[Mind Socket]

Tech question. Does Ubuntu/Linux read/write external USB NTFS hard drives?
e.g. If I had an XP machine and a Linux laptop could I simply (i.e. seamlessly) exchange the drive between machines?

EcoDave

Good question! I think it is possible, but not out of the box as NTFS read/write support is somewhat new, and being USB may add a layer of complexity. Alternative is possibly to reformat FAT32 (this is well supported for USB devices) if you're not too attached to NTFS. Interestingly, I've not come across an NTFS formatted external device yet amongst a number of USB keys, flash cards and portable HDDs.

Re: Bronze's point about vmware, yes I should have mentioned that it will allow you to run linux under windows, and vice-versa if you're really attached to a particular application under Windows that Wine won't do quite right. And the VMWare player is indeed free now, even if Windows isn't.

- Rog

[EcoTeam]

Tech question. Does Ubuntu/Linux read/write external USB NTFS hard drives?
e.g. If I had an XP machine and a Linux laptop could I simply (i.e. seamlessly) exchange the drive between machines?

EcoDave

Good question! I think it is possible, but not out of the box as NTFS read/write support is somewhat new, and being USB may add a layer of complexity. Alternative is possibly to reformat FAT32 (this is well supported for USB devices) if you're not too attached to NTFS. Interestingly, I've not come across an NTFS formatted external device yet amongst a number of USB keys, flash cards and portable HDDs.

Thanks Rog.
I just had to check my external drive actually as I just assumed it was NTFS , but yes it is indeed NTFS, it came from an older Win machine and I simply whacked it in an external 3.5" USB drive case not giving any thought to what file system it was using. I use it as my backup drive.

If Linux can't read NTFS out of the box then that's a fairly big minus in my book , but I guess I could simply reformat it and transfer the data back.

Dave

[Bronze]

...even if Windows isn't.

- Rog

Check again - I think you'll find it is. I read it in APC last weekend. Both VMWare and the Windows VM is now free for download. Now you have a choice. Most will now choose them over wine.

B.

[riblit]

...even if Windows isn't.

- Rog

Check again - I think you'll find it is. I read it in APC last weekend. Both VMWare and the Windows VM is now free for download. Now you have a choice. Most will now choose them over wine.

B.

I think Rog meant the windows operating system, not Microsoft's VM.

VMWare will run on linux as well as Windows.

[riblit]

If Linux can't read NTFS out of the box then that's a fairly big minus in my book , but I guess I could simply reformat it and transfer the data back.

Dave

You can always load the linux NTFS drivers from <a href="http://www.linux-ntfs.org/"> linux ntfs</a> either as an RPM for Red Hat and Fedora flavours or follow <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ntfs-3g">this</a> guide for Ubuntu

[Papa Bear_Left]

Finaly worked out that I had to use sudo to get pppconfig to work.

You may have seen this, but it amused me so I'll post it here:



(It's on this site, if you'd like to see his other cartoons.)

[EcoTeam]

If Linux can't read NTFS out of the box then that's a fairly big minus in my book , but I guess I could simply reformat it and transfer the data back.

Dave

You can always load the linux NTFS drivers from <a href="http://www.linux-ntfs.org/"> linux ntfs</a> either as an RPM for Red Hat and Fedora flavours or follow <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ntfs-3g">this</a> guide for Ubuntu

Like I said, I don't speak Penguin, so that only made partial sense!

To me Fedora is the type of hat worn by Indy, and it ain't red

This is not encouraging:

Support for reading and writing to NTFS partitions under Linux has always been a problem; most existing projects are experimental and often buggy. However, a new project called ntfs-3g is capable of unlimited file creation and deletion. Note that although many people have had success using this driver, it is still in beta stage. Make sure you back up all valuable data before using it!

I think I'll give it a wide birth!
If I want to lose data I'll go back to using an S-100 bus computer and a cassette drive

EcoDave

[CraigRat]

Or talk MS into opening up the NTFS specs (thats the real issue)....... A lot of the NTFS support is the product of reverse engineering (hence some distros don't include it out of the box for legal reasons).

[Papa Bear_Left]

NTFS support is really only an issue if you need files sizes >4GB or need to read media that you don't have control over.

Otherwise, FAT32 is portable and transparent.

(It's a bugger for backing up a drive onto an external drive with Microsoft's backup.exe, though, since the file size probably _will_ be over 4GB! I had a USB box that would only allow FAT32. Note the tense: had!)

I just bought a cheap PII laptop and I'll be playing with Ubuntu on it, which might be fun. Or I might end up with Win2kPro!

[Phlosten]

Linux rocks!

I am pretty much a full-time Linux user and probably responsible for giving poor old Bronze much to learn.

I use Ubuntu Dapper 6.06 full-time and at present there is only one application that I use in Windows, and that is a VoIP application as the Linux equiv is yet to catch up with the quality codec.

My experience with NTFS has been easy. I went from win98se to Ubuntu as an upgrade path as I just did not see any value in Windows XP. Therefore I never had to worry about dealing with NTFS. I do know Ubuntu has read access to NTFS drives, its the write part that is tricky. I know Ubuntu 6.06 can be told to write to NTFS, but with a word of caution that you may trash your files. If you dont want to go Fat the alternative is using an ext3 partition as a go between as there is a plugin for poor old Windows to be able to read/write to this fantastic filesystem.

[GammaPiSigma]

From the ubuntuguide.org site:<br>
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Dapper#How_to_mount_Windows_partitions_.28NTFS.29_on_boot-up.2C_and_allow_users_read_and_write_access
<br>Note the warning on write support.
<br>Mike.

[setsujoku]

Notice that there is a new release of ubuntu overnight. Seems to have gained a few new features that will be worth the upgrade.

Accouncement here

Download here (for those not so computer literate people thinking of giving it a go, you will probably need to download the PC (Intel x86) desktop CD version)