Reading Linux

%sudo /etc/init.d/network restart

Ooh, thanks for this info. Why do the obvious and simple ideas always come to mind the last?

Oh, and hi!

When life hands you a lemon, that's 40% of your RDA of vitamin C taken care of.

very Linux distro I've ever tried came with 43 text editors

so, in category of text-editors, does feisty come with vim or emacs? oowriter is merely a notepad.

some people hate feisty for awful wifi setup problems. mostly network-manager breaking more stuff than it fixes.

"Life is a queue. You come in, hang around for a bit, get some service, then depart."

so, in category of text-editors, does feisty come with vim or emacs?

vi is there, I haven't even looked for emacs yet. (I already have an OS, ha ha ha.) I must admit the editor of my choice is still my beloved UltraEdit; it runs quite well on Wine.

When life hands you a lemon, that's 40% of your RDA of vitamin C taken care of.

This post was edited by null on May 21, 2007.

As I think I mentioned in one of my previous posts, after having destroyed my poor Rudy by spilling coke on it, my dad was so generous to give me a new laptop for my birthday. This time, no liquids are allowed near it! (even though it was a mere accident that I couldn't in any way avoid) :P

Well, of course my new laptop has Vista on. I was even considering getting one with XP, but... it cost more!! Exactly the same laptop, with the same features, only with the older OS... I guess that's the way Microsoft convinces the users to choose the latest OS! :P

Anyway, at first I was quite upset with it. It is different than XP, or than any other Windows version for that matter. According to me (so from a non-geek point of view) while the ability to do more and more things increased with every new version of Windows (maybe exclude Millennium Edition :P), the look and the things in Windows remained more or less the same. I mean, I remember the main great difference in Win95, where they enhanced the way to look for things on your HD, by converting the file manager of Win 3.0 and following into something more (now, don't expect me to be able to explain that in English, because it happened too long ago, and in Italian (at least for me) :P). But the looks and everything was quite the same.

And it's been like this until Vista came along. When I first turn on this laptop, I found myself almost lost. I found that all the names had been changed! I didn't know where to look for my stuff :P I couldn't find the "Risorse del computer" anymore, because now it's called "Computer", and everything was misplaced, beginning from the start menu. At the moment I still don't like it so much, because I am still too used to XP, but I guess I am getting more and more used to the new OS every time I use my laptop.

At this point, I wondered if I was the only one who was crazy and thought that things had been messed around. So I started to search the internet, to verify what I was thinking. And on MS site I found some explanations. They basically said that things have been messed around to be more "usable", and easier for the average user. Well, hell it's not like that at all!! Maybe for those who never owned a computer before it is easier, but for me the result is that I get f***ing lost in this darn OS!!!

Well, these are the downsides. But let me tell you about a cool thing that happened. If the computer is switched off accidentally (ahem, I didn't do that on purpose, it's just that this Toshiba is so different from my Dell, and I hit the wrong button at the wrong time), Vista doesn't get all grumpy as WinXP. It will reboot, fix the reg files or whatever it fixes (as I said, I am not a geek), and then it will load the OS just like it was before. So, perchance you had Word open, you still have it open, and you find out that you have not lost your work. I don't know if it was just a coincidence, but it happened twice. One time because I hit the button, and the second time because I thought it was plugged in when it wasn't and the battery went dead. I thought that maybe this saving of things would be appliable to the second case if anything, but it seems that this OS is intelligent enough to understand if you made a mistake and the computer is switched off abruptly.

Italy no longer accepts illegal immigrants. Mr. B sink their boats!!!!!!!

It will reboot, fix the reg files or whatever it fixes (as I said, I am not a geek), and then it will load the OS just like it was before. So, perchance you had Word open, you still have it open, and you find out that you have not lost your work.

Not to spoil your enthusiasm, but are you sure this isn't just the "suspend to disk" feature?

(Also, your computer doesn't shut down properly when you hit the Power button? What century is it from? You can set Windows to display the shutdown dialog, but its default behaviour is to just initiate a quick shutdown.)

When life hands you a lemon, that's 40% of your RDA of vitamin C taken care of.

This post was edited by null on May 23, 2007.

Not to spoil your enthusiasm, but are you sure this isn't just the "suspend to disk" feature?

Ahem no. I hit the button long enough (I am talking about the hardware part, not the software to shut it down, and heck now I will look like a dumbass for having done this :P)

(Also, your computer doesn't shut down properly when you hit the Power button? What century is it from? You can set Windows to display the shutdown dialog, but its default behaviour is to just initiate a quick shutdown.)

You're saying that if you're in the middle of something, and you hit the power button long enough the computer will switch off properly? Somehow I don't think so... I remember having done it before on the older computer and then XP was breaking my balls with all the shit it had to do to fix itself up.

Italy no longer accepts illegal immigrants. Mr. B sink their boats!!!!!!!

This post was edited by andromacha on May 23, 2007.

You're saying that if you're in the middle of something, and you hit the power button long enough the computer will switch off properly?

Well, no. On most computers, if you press it briefly it will pass a "hey, somebody just hit the power button" message to the OS. If you press it for four (usually) seconds the power will be actually shut off.

When life hands you a lemon, that's 40% of your RDA of vitamin C taken care of.

So, perchance you had Word open, you still have it open, and you find out that you have not lost your work.

Uhm .. groovy. At least for windoze users. Session managment is something I've been enjoying with Linux since I dont know what times. ;->

You might want to read some of the stuff Sebastian wrote about having to use Windows "Fistfuck" Vista. On of the more annoying things was - at least for me it would be the case - that you basically have to buy 80% of all the software you have been using within WinXP once again. That might by not so expensive if its just about some ol' AV solutions, but gets quite tasty if we start talking about Adobe Photoshop, AutoCAD and similar high-priced state-of-the-art programs.

cu, w0lf.

beards are cool. every villain has one!

but gets quite tasty if we start talking about Adobe Photoshop, AutoCAD and similar high-priced state-of-the-art programs.

Photoshop runs fine with Wine. Heh.

Well, the good news about Vista is that it's apparently not always 30-40% slower than XP, as rumour had it. Only most games experience such a drastic slowdown, thanks to Microsoft removing OpenGL support from Vista. Regular applications are only up to 10% slower, unless your system boasts more than 1GB of RAM, in which case the applications you use often might start faster (but still run slower once they're started).
And of course a default install of Vista eats 3-4 times as much RAM as my current XP installation, but hey, that's the price you gotta pay for the many technical advances you get, right? Like e.g. the several MB of DRM code which will allow content providers (MPAA, RIAA) to comfortably restrict your use of media you bought in any way they want, and which is also quite possibly a convenient way for anybody to introduce new 'DRM' code into your system which, thanks to the concept of protected processes, you can't control.

When life hands you a lemon, that's 40% of your RDA of vitamin C taken care of.

Definitely I wasn't looking forward to buying a new computer with the new OS, I must admit this. But fortunately, not being a geek freak like you guys, I have to say that it is quite user-friendly. At least once you get used to it. Right now I am still in the "where is my stuff?!" phase, but I think it's because I still think that I have XP. I turn on the computer, and I am still expecting XP to boot up, but of course there is Vista, and every single time I am a little appalled :P

Honestly what I can't really get past (so far) is the fact that they changed names and in some cases also the appearance of the icon. So when I am looking for something, it is not a mechanical immediate action as it was for XP. I would say that this is really the only downside so far for me. But also keep in mind that I don't expect (or have the pretence of) to do so much as you do with your computer. I don't really tamper with it, I don't program, nor am I interested in performances so much :P I just don't want a stupid machine that takes a year to boot up, and I have to say that this one loads the OS quite faster than the other one, so if anything, I would give it a plus. Again, from a non geek perspective of course... but this one I am currently using has 1 Gb Ram, the other one, with XP had 512 Mb.

Let's see other techie stuff... hmm the other was an Intel centrino, I don't remember the clock frequency though. This is a centrino core 2, 1.66 GHz (I think that the other one might have been 1.4 something, but I am not sure). So I don't know if all this could lead this laptop to boot faster than the other (provided that this has Vista on, whereas the old one had XP). All I can say is that as far as I am concerned it has a good performance. But then, I use it mainly to study, work on my papers, and soon my final dissertation, surf the web (posting some crap here)... games... Well I happen to play Settlers, another game about pirates... I am into whatever is simulation I would say. So probably I don't need such high performances as other "serious players", and therefore I can't really give a faithful judgment.

Italy no longer accepts illegal immigrants. Mr. B sink their boats!!!!!!!