RE: Linux killer!
by Styma, Robert E (Robert)
> ----
> Anticipation that a Linux Desktop is a easy swap replacement
> for Windows
> Desktop is simply a matter of expectations. It is what it is and where
> it is any given place in time. Railing here on this list is the
> equivalent to pissing in the wind.
>
> The thread began with issues relating to proprietary software using
> proprietary codecs and if more people were using Linux, there would be
> more pressure to adopt codecs that Linux users could utilize without
> doing technical tango.
>
As you said, "It is what it is" and that seems to apply to the
proprietary codecs also. The mplayer developers have done a marvelous
job integrating the windows codecs. Searching out this information
is non-trivial (without some luck) and difficult for the uninitiated.
This mailing list has a pretty good cross section of current Fedora users
and has some extremely intelligent and knowledgeable people on it.
It may well be that since software installation does and should require
some sort of administrative account (eg. root) and putting the root
account in the hands of the uneducated can be a terrible thing, a
different model is needed to further encroach upon Windows.
Bob Styma
18 years, 5 months
RE: Linux killer!
by Styma, Robert E (Robert)
>
> If they are not supposed to be watching the videos on the school
> computers, then block them at the firewall as our business
> does. When
> they cannot watch them on Windows it won't make any difference.
>
I think the point is that if Linux is to make a bigger dent in the
Windows desktop, more things have to "just work". In a similar experiment
to the one which started this thread, I slowly converted a non-technical
family with three computers from windows to Linux and recorded the
issues which came up. (http://www.swlink.net/~styma/LinuxForTheMasses.shtml)
The current distributions of Linux still need a technical person
to get things working. The technical person would still have no clue
as to how to get these things working. Many of them require a fair
amount of research on the web. I understand the reasons mp3's and
wmv's don't play right out of the box, but to get "Joe Sixpack" using
Linux requires an update process simple enough for "Joe Sixpack" to
use to get this functionality working.
If making Linux really simple is not working out, another model might
be to have pay subscriptions to remote maintenance services. The FC3
and FC4 boxes I maintain for my friends I can access remotely via
SSH and VNC. On a Windows box, if tech support cannot talk you through
the problem, the user ends up taking the box in and paying big bucks.
ssh, /etc/hosts.allow, and iptables could provide a very effective support
mechanism. On my friends boxes, I am the only one with the root password,
not that they would understand what root was anyway.
Just my 2 cents worth. My point is that Linux needs to be simple in
addition to being better.
Bob Styma
18 years, 5 months
Re: not able to make xmms
by Ian Malone
sujit sugathan wrote:
> i have fc4 installed on my system. i wanted to install xmms onto it .
> but when i tried to "make" the file there were some errors due to
> which i couldnt compile the program. anyone please help me since
> i'm relatively new to linux
As others have said, what you probably want to do is install
xmms from one of the repositories.
# yum install xmms
^(as root) will do this for you. This is if all you want to
do is use xmms and listen to music. Also google for
'unofficial fedora faq' for issues related to mp3 files with
the standard fedora xmms.
If you are for some reason bent on building it yourself there
are a stack of dependencies (mainly libraries and header
files which are used when building xmms) you need. Among
them are _probably_ gtk+-devel, libogg-devel, libvorbis-devel
and alsa-lib-devel, but the ./configure script you run before
doing make will tell you what you're missing. These can
mainly also be installed via yum, eg.
# yum install gtk+-devel libogg-devel
... etc
You *do not need* those packages unless you are going to be
compiling from source.
(A note on shell instructions notation, because it's an
unspoken convention which might confuse if you're new to
Li/U-nix:
$ something
indicates a line run as a normal user, because this is
what the bash prompt will typically look like.
# something
indicates a line run as root, for the same reason.
It's a bad idea to do everything as root.)
--
imalone
18 years, 5 months
X Server Configuration?
by Nathaniel Stickney
Yesterday afternoon I installed Fedora Core 4 on my main desktop, and as far
as I can tell, everything is working correctly, but I cannot get any GUI
sessions started, and I get a message "I cannot start the X server (your
graphical interface). It is likely that it is not set up correctly. Would
you like to view the X server output to diagnose the problem?" when I
reboot; choosing <Yes> leads to a text login prompt; <No> does the same. I
have not used Linux in a few years (due to being on a restrictive DoD
network), but the Suse 9.0 that was on my computer before and a Knoppix disk
both worked fine with my hardware -- relevant parts listed below.
ABIT NF7-S v2.0 motherboard, bios 27
3x 512MB Corsair PC3200 ram
ATI Radeon 9800XT video card
Western Digital WD740GB and WD2500JB hard drives
Any ideas would be tremendously appreciated!
--
-Nathaniel H. Stickney
Amendment II:
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,
the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
18 years, 5 months
RE: how to view an animated gif
by Yordanis Tornes Medina
> From: Claude Jones <claude_jones(a)levitjames.com>
> Subject: how to view an animated gif
> To: For users of Fedora Core releases
> <fedora-list(a)redhat.com>
> Message-ID:
> <200510312142.54447.claude_jones(a)levitjames.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> I'm trying to open an animated gif - I can't seem to
> find a tool in the
> graphics programs that will play the animation. Can
> someone point me to a
> viewer that will play the animation?
> --
> Claude Jones
> Bluemont, VA, USA
I use gThumb to view .gif files.
Greetings
______________________________________________
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Nuevos servicios, más seguridad
http://correo.yahoo.es
18 years, 5 months
2 Projects -- Need advice/suggestions
by Timothy A. Holmes
Good Morning Everyone:
I have 2 projects on tap this week (among a ton of others) that I could
use your input on.
First is setting up music sharing for iTunes and my iPod on a fedora
core server. It has been suggested that the proper way to do this is to
use HOWL and Daapd. I have looked over the websites for them, and it
seems ok, I was wondering if anyone had done this, and any comments /
suggestions / gotchas that I need be aware of. Also, if you know of any
good "cookbook" style procedures out there, id appreciate it.
The second one is Jabber, We need an instant message system in our
building, and as far as I can tell Jabber is the way to go. The server
will be Fedora Core 3 (my production web server) I have dug around the
net and found a large number of jabber implementations, I am looking
for one that is simple to set up, maintain and use. We will be
interfacing with either Trillian (free) or Gaim. If anyone knows of
another server / service that would be better, please let me know, im
open to pretty much anything at this point, again as above -- any
problems etc and any good procedures are always welcome.
Thanks
Timothy A. Holmes
IT Manager / Network Admin / Web Master / Computer Teacher
Medina Christian Academy
A Higher Standard...
Jeremiah 33:3
Jeremiah 29:11
Esther 4:14
18 years, 5 months
Running KDE on VNC
by Mark Brummett
I have an issue where, when I have both Gnome and KDE installed as my
windows, I would like to select one on or the other. I've gone through
several different websites telling me to change some settings in the
startup script, with no luck. It always launches Gnome. Here is the
configuration logging in with Gnome.
#!/bin/sh
# Uncomment the following two lines for normal desktop:
unset SESSION_MANAGER
exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
[ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup
[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
xsetroot -solid grey
vncconfig -iconic &
xterm -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &
twm &
I've changed the last line to startkde, but no luck. I've done several
other things.
Thanks for any help in advance.
MB
18 years, 5 months