Linux - R.I.P.

Here we go again, another anti-Linux rant ...

Well not _exactly_, but here is an illustration of how "naff" Linux is to a long-time Microsoft DOS/Windows user :-

When I set out to learn about Linux, I had two objectives. The first objective was to learn about Linux, obviously.

The second was to run a web server (ie host web sites on my own equipment in my own home).

Both of these objectives were achieved up to a point, but when it came to hosting web sites I also wanted to learn about the analysis of traffic associated with those sites.

To that end I installed "Webalizer" and that is where the problems with Linux really came to a head.

The darned program kept the access logs created by Apache so locked up that Webalizer was unable to access them. No matter what I tried the result was always the same.

For the sake of comparison I then decieded to load both Apache and Webalizer onto a Windows XP machine.

I got Apache up and running on the Windows machine in probably not much longer than half an hour (I was familiar with the way the Apache configuration files worked, so I wasn't exactly starting from scratch), and Webalizer was installed and activated in pretty much the same amount of time.

Webalizer on Windows is now happily producing the web stats I was trying to get from the Linux installation, all with about an hour's worth of effort.

Well at least I tried!

Linux seems to me to be a bit "exclusive", rather like a Golf Club.

Golf Clubs don't really like to see the "ordinary bloke on the street" cluttering up their courses and facilities, so they make membership difficult to achieve (by charging lots of money, or by imposing conditions on would-be members, etc etc) whilst pretending that membership is "open to all". The reality is different, it's a hobby for the "chosen few".

Am I referring to Golf Clubs or Linux in the last statment? I'll leave the reader of this to be the judge of that!

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Windows free for 30 days - Day 2

Day 2 of my Exam Revision Avoidance Strategy(tm)

I still haven't been to sleep yet, so this is still technically day 1, but whatever...

Linux & Gaming...
Tonight I decided to put some games on to play. Not the crappy card games that come with every OS, proper games, FPSes. I wanted to run Steam, and there's a this cool app called PlayOnLinux that handles all the fiddly bits for you. Basically you install it, and it handles all the Wine setup, etc, for you. Cool eh?

Installing POL was as easy as going to their website, adding their repository to my sources.list, and installing using apt. Installing Steam required even less effort - simply click on the "Add" button and select Steam from the list. Once Steam was installed, I shut it down, deleted the new steamapps folder, and created a symbolic link back to my normal steamapps folder. This saved me downloading the 6.9GB of games I'd already downloaded. Even cooler!

Running the games proved less fruitful. Source (the game engine) had a small brain hemorrhage (probably over my dual monitor, virtual space setup) and died a horrible horrible death. It's too late tonight to try again, but over the weekend I should get it sorted....


Linux Web Servers
If you've been exposed to Linux for more than 5 minutes you'll probably know they make the best web servers. There's even an acronym, LAMP, which stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP (WAMP is a Windows variant, but we don't care about that).

For the more nerdy among you, I've just spent the day recompiling php5 for Ubuntu to include GD2. This isn't normally included with the Ubuntu version of php5, and using apt to install it will not give you all the necessary image functions.

I've read a really good step-by-step on how to recompile php with the gd2 extension here.

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Windows free for 30 days - Day 1

Day 1 of my Exam Revision Avoidance Scheme(tm). I'm still Windows-free, and not missing it much.

Been mostly watching videos and working on revision today. Ubuntu's been great for that. Whenever I try to play a video and I don't have the codec for it, it just gives me the option to search and install it - don't even have to restart the player.

On a side note, I have a Windows server running in a cupboard in my flat. It's there mainly to run BitTorrent so we can download stuff and share files between all of us. The hard drives on it were full today, so I had the trouble of clearing them out. Luckily Ubuntu has a sexy little disk usage analyzer, which actually works across the network to the shared folders on the Windows server. This meant I could just look at the large folders and delete files from them. Easy peasy. I was even able to move and delete the files remotely from Ubuntu.


I encountered a few problems today. Mostly to do with calendars and contacts on my iPhone. All of my calendars and contacts were synced with Outlook via iTunes. Now I want to sync these with my Google account. I've found a new service called NeuvaSync (beta), that lets me do this over the air. Trouble is, in order to sync them with a new account I have to clear them from my phone for some reason. This isn't something I really want to do because I like having my contacts in my phone, and I don't want to have to put them in again by hand. Sod that. I'll wait to see if another solution presents itself



Update:
I've just received an email from my uni saying that we're in the running for the ATOS Origin prize for best project group. Happy times for us :). We have to do a presentation on Friday about our project, and it has to be done on PowerPoint. I'm hoping one of the guys in my group will be able to do the presentation so I don't have to touch Windows ;)

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Windows free for 30 days - Day 0

As part of my "Exam Revision Avoidance Strategy(tm)" I've come up with a challenge for myself - I want to go without using Microsoft Windows for 30 days. More than that, I want to avoid paid software altogether, and focus on open source alternatives instead.

I'll be using Ubuntu, a free, open source version of Linux. Ubuntu comes with all the tools most people need to replace Windows: Office software (word processor, spreadsheet, easy database, etc), image editing software, music players, internet browser, solitaire, etc.

I'll be keeping a blog in the hope that it'll encourage more people to use Linux (or other open source OSs). This blog will be mainly aimed at Windows users, whether they are experienced users or new to computers and didn't know there was an alternative to Windows.


Background:
I've been using Linux for about 2 years now, ever since we started using it in university. I'd always known about it, but never really found a way to get my foot in the door. It is only really recently that Linux has become user friendly enough for home users, especially with the new Ubuntu releases.

What really sparked this all off was the new Ubuntu 9.04 release, which I think equals or surpasses Windows XP in many features, including user friendlyness. I've had trouble setting up printers, dual monitors and my mobile broadband modem before, but these were all set up automatically when I installed 9.04

I'd like to point out now that I'm not a Microsoft hater. I was, in my more naive days, but Microsoft do make good products. In fact, as a Heriot Watt student I'm entitled to free licenses for MS Windows and MS Office, but I still prefer to use open source stuff.


Preparation:
The reason I'm calling this Day 0 is because I'll still be using Windows to make sure I have access to everything I'll need for the next month. This includes my calendars, contacts, music on my iPhone, etc.

Step 1 - Install Linux
As mentioned before, I'll be using Ubuntu 9.04. I've had this installed since the day after 9.04 came out, so I was already prepared on this front. I've set my computer up to dual-boot, which means when I restart my computer I can decide whether to go into Windows or Linux. This makes swapping between the two to set things up a lot easier (there are many, maaaany tutorials online about how to dual-boot Windows and Ubuntu).

Step 2 - Jailbreak iPhone
Syncing an iPhone in Linux is possible, but you generally need to jailbreak it. This has to be done in either Windows or Mac OS, and I don't have Mac OS, so Windows it was. I used QuickPwn by the iphone dev team, great software.

Step 3 - Have a shower
This step wasn't really necessary for the preparation, but I'm trying to be as accurate as possible

Step 4 - Say goodbye to Windows, say hello to Linux
If like me you're dual-booting with Windows, you'll already know that Ubuntu can still read all your files straight off your Windows hard disk (although Windows usually can't read files stored on a Linux hard disk). This means I don't even need to move my files around for them to be available to me

For the last time in a month, I've shut down Windows and booted into Ubuntu.

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