What's Interesting?

[seppalta]

Hello Everyone,
Thought I'd try to stir up some exchange with a non-technical social thread. So what is happening in your computer life? Summer is winding down here in the northern US Rocky Mountains and things are quiet, which is nice.

You might like to try the new WattOS R6, which is due out in the next few days. It has a minimal LXDE desktop and is based on Lubuntu - Watt is a kind of refined Lubuntu - has a friendly, low-key forum with frequent participation by the developer himself.

Was trying to download a big, multiple component torrent yesterday, and Transmission couldn't seem to hook it. So I went back to my old Windows favorite, Utorrent, and saw that it now has a Linux version. However, I couldn't get the Linux version to immediately work, so I downloaded the Windows version, made the .exe executable, opened it with wine windows program loader, and, bang, everything was up and running. Utorrent has been improved since the old days. It had a control for choosing or rejecting sub-items (guess it always had this) - I managed to half the download by checking off the parts that I didn't want - and to my great delight, the download rate was half again faster than anything that I ever got from Transmission. This is important when you live in the boonies and your internet provider has a monopoly.

Cheers, Seppalta

[Rex Bouwense]

OK, Fall is in the air here in Georgia as well. I did download the the new Watt OS and have made a live boot disk. Besides the slow boot (which comes with booting into live mode) I liked the OS. My main OS is Lubuntu and you could say that I am a refuge from Unity. I guess this is the place to talk about non-tech stuff since it is called LXDE Social Network. So who else is out there and what are you using. I have two computers. One is an old Dell Inspiron 1000 and the other is an ASUS EeePC 1000h. Both work very well with LXDE systems on them. I have been toying with Bodhi Linux and may install it on the Dell.

[rokytnji]

Been Playing with SolusOS on one of my Netbooks. Been busy working out Bugs (before release) in the Macpup 529 and AntiX 12 which were released Just recently. Still painfully hot here in West Texas.

Siestas are a survival tool here during the hottest part of the day. My 64Bit Ubuntu 10.04LTS computers are getting long in the tooth. My AntiX installs on Netbooks and Laptops are purring like kittens.

Transmission 2.52 has been rock solid for me in AntiX. I am not on the Ubuntu box right now to check the version number of Transmission on it.

Latest install adventures this summer on a old IBM M41 Desktop.

http://antix.freeforums.org/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=3862

Posting from it now.

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$ uname -a
Linux biker 3.5.0-antix.1-486-smp #1 SMP Sun Jul 22 18:29:55 EEST 2012 i686 GNU/Linux


I am kinda getting tired of reinstalling every time a release comes to end of Life.
I might just go 64bit Debain Unstable on my 64bit gear and just apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade till those computers die of natural causes. Put a small Puppy frugal partition (dual boot) to fix breakage when needed.


Edit: Gas company just knocked on my door and said I have to evacuate the house. I guess I'll kennel my 6 pets to the dog pound since my wife is the Animal Control Officer there. Broken gas line under the street in front of my house.Was wondering where the stink was coming from . Guess I am motel bound for the next few days. At least they are paying for it.
Time to grab the eeepc 900. Hope they don't blow my place up.

[seppalta]

I am kinda getting tired of reinstalling every time a release comes to end of Life.

I've, more or less, came to that conclusion without being into Linux long enough for a release to die. I appear to have found my home with an LXDE corruption of Mint Debian XFCE [http://lxlinux.com/debian.html]. I tried Siduction twice but couldn't get Wine to work, and that is a must for me. Too many good, free programs built for Windows available, and the Linux alternatives, if available at all, are sloppy and mediocre. LMDE fits me well because Mint puts a layer of protection between me and pure Debian Unstable. Just a few days ago I blew up one of my installs because I did an update without turning off the Sid repositories that I had used previously for a special application. I also like LMDE because it does not have the Ubuntu layer in it slowing everything down. So right now I see LMDE as a nice compromise between safe, modern and fast.

[rokytnji]

I hear all kinds of good stuff from forum friends about LMDE. I haven't tried Mint since Mint Fluxbox was available. Might give it a revisit but I wanna try Crunchbang in place of a AntiX 11 partition on that multi boot IBM Desktop. I am trying to stay away from dvd sized live distros also. Practicing core installs has been good for my user experience. Takes longer. But skill set gets improved in the long run.

I am sure Lubuntu is a fine distro. I am just drifting away from Ubuntu because of release cycles.

I have Semplice installed on another partition on that IBM M41. It is Debian Sid with Open Box from Italy.

Posting right now from Holiday Inn wireless on the eeepc 900 running

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System:    Host: Biker Kernel: 2.6.36-1-mepis-smp i686 (32 bit, gcc: 4.4.5)
           Desktop: IceWM 1.3.7 Distro: antiX-M11-686 Jayaben Desai 01 May 2011
Machine:   System: ASUSTeK product: 900 version: 0405


They got a heated indoor pool here plus a weight room. Glad I am staying on the Gas Companies dime though at $190.00 a night. Visited the dogs and cats (cats are freaked out right now) at the pound. Tried to let them know I knew where they were and had not forgot about em. We spoil our pets.

[seppalta]

LMDE has dealt a blow to their xfce version - no more support. My favorite distribution is the after market lxde on the LMDE xfce, a rolling release with relative safe updates. Xfce and lxde are very similar and combine nicely. But I am not inclined to continue LMDE now that updates are only directed towards the fat versions. So there appears to be two choices: switch update sources to Debian testing or find a new distro. Does anyone have any experience with Sparky Linux? Based on rolling Debian testing with lxde. Installed 64-bit version on a 16 GB flash drive and was pleasantly surprised that everything worked and the developers have a philosophy regarding applications close to my own - installed or a set-up to install for java, wine, multiarch, etc, something you do not usually get free with lxde. Survived the update. I'm tempted to put it on a hard drive and really test it. I'm also inclined to stay away from new, unknown, here-today-gone-tomorrow distros, but not much can go wrong with a release based completely on Debian sources because Debian is surely here forever relative to my lifetime. Right? Comments welcomed.

[rokytnji]

Does anyone have any experience with Sparky Linux?

Not yet. I have a spare 7gig quick change hard drive and caddy that I might try Sparky Linux out on in the
Laptop in my Signature, maybe. I'd probably change /etc/apt/sources.list from debian testing to unstable
though. Testing (which I do run) can be more stressful to run (at least in my experience) than unstable.

Been Busy doing bug fixing on new 64bit AntiX testing release for anticapitalista. Not enough hours in the day lately when my
winter is like most peoples Spring or Autumn. Got tired of the 100+ F heats outdoors, (where I spend most of my working and play time).

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Biker:~$ inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: Biker Kernel: 3.7.1-antix.3-486-smp i686 (32 bit, gcc: 4.7.2)
           Desktop: LXDE (Openbox 3.5.0) Distro: antiX-core--a1 20 June 2010
Machine:   System: Intel product: Montara Family of Chipsets
           Mobo: Phoenix model: RT786EX version: 41118 Bios: Phoenix version: MGM-ALL1.86C.1009.D.0604271130 date: 04/27/06
CPU:       Single core Intel Pentium M (-UP-) cache: 2048 KB flags: (sse sse2) bmips: 1196.12 clocked at 600.00 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device bus-ID: 00:02.0
           X.Org: 1.12.3 driver: intel Resolution: 1024x768@60.0hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel 852GM/855GM x86/MMX/SSE2 GLX Version: 1.3 Mesa 8.0.4 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card: Intel 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller
           driver: snd_intel8x0 ports: 1c00 18c0 bus-ID: 00:1f.5
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: k3.7.1-antix.3-486-smp
Network:   Card-1: Atheros AR5212/AR5213 Wireless Network Adapter driver: ath5k bus-ID: 07:00.0
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Realtek RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ driver: 8139too ver: 0.9.28 port: 2000 bus-ID: 02:09.0
           IF: eth1 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 30.0GB (19.6% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: IC25N030ATCS04 size: 30.0GB
Partition: ID: / size: 17G used: 6.8G (42%) fs: ext3 ID: swap-1 size: 0.58GB used: 0.08GB (14%) fs: swap
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 40.0C mobo: N/A
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 107 Uptime: 1:56 Memory: 167.8/492.0MB Runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 4.7.1
           Client: Shell (bash 4.2.36) inxi: 1.8.26
Biker:~$ inxi -r
Repos:     Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list
           deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
           deb http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main contrib non-free
           deb http://www.daveserver.info/antiX/debs testing full main
           Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jitsi.list
           deb http://download.jitsi.org/deb unstable/


[seppalta]

Isn't the conventional wisdom testing is more stable that unstable? The Sparky sources are exactly the ones your posted inxi -r shows, plus multimedia. Why would unstable be better?

Hey, want to cool off, get on your bike and roll north, -5F last night. Not as bad as Yakut, Russia, -50C and electrons froze! Where your at, better prepare for 120F and up for the future.

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me@me ~ $ inxi -Fxr
System:    Host me Kernel 3.2.0-4-amd64 x86_64 (64 bit) Distro Linux Mint Xfce Edition
CPU:       Dual core Intel Core2 Duo T9500 (-MCP-) cache 6144 KB flags (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 ssse3 vmx) bmips 10374.2
           Clock Speeds: (1) 800.00 MHz (2) 800.00 MHz
Graphics:  Card NVIDIA G84 [Quadro FX 1600M] X.Org 1.12.4 Res: 1920x1200@60.0hz, 1680x1050@60.0hz
           GLX Renderer Gallium 0.4 on NV84 GLX Version 2.1 Mesa 8.0.4 Direct Rendering Yes
Audio:     Card-1 Intel 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller driver snd_hda_intel BusID: 00:1b.0
           Card-2 Creative Technology Ltd  driver snd-usb-audio
           Card-3 Logitech Inc. Webcam C600  driver snd-usb-audio
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Version 1.0.24
Network:   Card-1 Intel PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN [Kedron] Network Connection driver iwl4965 v: in-tree: BusID: 10:00.0
           Card-2 Intel 82566MM Gigabit Network Connection driver e1000e v: 1.5.1-k at port 5000 BusID: 00:19.0
Disks:     HDD Total Size: 1090.2GB (60.9% used) 1: /dev/sda KINGSTON_SVP200S 90.0GB 37C
           2: /dev/sdb HDS721050CLA362 500.1GB 0C 3: /dev/sdc FreeAgent_Go 500.1GB 0C
Partition: ID:/ size: 82G used: 41G (54%) fs: rootfs ID:/ size: 82G used: 41G (54%) fs: ext4
           ID:swap-1 size: 1.64GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 68.0C mobo: 45.0C
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Repos:     Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list
           deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main upstream import
           deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest testing main contrib non-free
           deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security testing/updates main contrib non-free
           deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia testing main non-free
           Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/freetuxtv-freetuxtv-dev-debian.list
           deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/freetuxtv/freetuxtv-dev/ubuntu debian main
           deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/freetuxtv/freetuxtv-dev/ubuntu debian main
           Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/getdeb.list
           deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu debian-getdeb apps