Is anybody else using Linux?

[swee'pea99]

Trouble is, Windows has changed out of all recognition. And now it spies on you.

Everyone spies on me apparently. Must be staggeringly boring for them all.

 

[keithmac]

I'm going to give Linux a go on one of my old laptops, been meaning to try it for a while.

Would like to convert the workshop Laptop over as well but the diagnostic tools are tied to Windows unfortunately
.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

I just discovered something really nice I can do with Linux. I found out that I can play any audio (or video) file from the command-line using the 'mplayer' command. It has a large number of command-line options, and one of these is that it can connect to a named pipe (aka double-ended FIFO), and then listen to it for user commands. This is done as follows:
In a command-line, or even via a Java (or other) application, you create a named pipe, using:

mkfifo /tmp/my-mplayer-fifo

Then, in any available command-line, you run 'mplayer' with:

mplayer -slave -quiet -input file=/tmp/my-mplayer-fifo "an audio file name.ext"

Finally, in any command-line (or via an application), you send commands to the pipe, e.g. on the command line, you can pause/unpause playback, using:

echo pause > /tmp/my-mplayer-fifo

I tested the above, and it works really well. "Why bother", you may ask? Well, I quite fancy the idea of writing my own GUI (graphical user interface) for mplayer, so I can have my own music player, setup just the way I want it, not based on someone else's idea of what's good. So, given the above setup, wrapping a GUI around it is easy (at least for a software engineer like myself, anyway).

Pretty cool, huh? Unix / Linux makes this kind of interaction between processes really easy to setup, compared to Windows.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

I just spent several hours yesterday evening and a few more this morning, trying to find a way to play my MP3 files (because unfortunately most of the music collection on my PC is still in that format, rather than the Linux-friendly OGG format).
I finally found an application which can select and play multiple files, and also load the various playlists I'd created over several years. For OpenSUSE, it seems that installing gnome-mplayer (not the same as gmplayer) is a viable option. It has a very basic GUI, but it plays lists of tracks so that's all I really need.

I also verified that the PC will suspend to RAM after the specified timeout, so manual and auto suspend to RAM work fine, which is good for power management.

I want to convert all the MP3, M4A, etc. files to OGG format, but haven't yet got anything working. I've tried ffmpeg and soundconverter, but couldn't get either to work with the MPEG audio codecs.

I usually play music with the Amarok player, another good one is the VLC player

 

[martint235]

I've put Linux back as on a dual boot since I got the Readly app on my iPad. Unconnected except that Readly gives you access to loads of magazines including a couple of Linux ones.

 

[GuyBoden]

I currently use ubuntu, I have very few problems with it, that I can't fix, I think that's part of the fun. Many years ago, I used Unix at work (Software Dev) and Sco Xenix at home on a pc. I believe MicroSoft had a version of Xenix back in the 1980's too, but it wasn't popular.


For browsing only, Chromium looks interesting.
https://arnoldthebat.co.uk/wordpress/chromium-os/
https://chromium.arnoldthebat.co.uk/index.php?dir=special/

 

[Shut Up Legs]

I'm now downloading Arch Linux, in my continued quest to try several different Linux distros. I thought I might as well, given that I haven't yet copied all my data from the backups back onto the PC, so now is a good time to try different distros of Linux.

 

[KneesUp]

Do you not have a separate partition for data? It makes life a lot easier if you are dual booting - on my computer I have a Windows partition (because I need it sometimes - for example my SatNav needs Windows or OSX to run the application that lets me update the maps for reasons known only to Garmin) a Linux partition and a data partition, where I store all my actual data. Of course there are various other partitions (Windows restore, Linux swap) as well.

Anyway - even if you're not dual booting, sticking the data on it's own partition makes sense as you can re-install the OS (or mess about with it) without worrying about your data. Just create symlinks in Linux to point to the correct folders:

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2213043

 

[Deleted member 1258]

I haven't run windows for a long time, I'm on Lubuntu, I have a seperate Home partition for my personal stuff.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

Do you not have a separate partition for data? It makes life a lot easier if you are dual booting - on my computer I have a Windows partition (because I need it sometimes - for example my SatNav needs Windows or OSX to run the application that lets me update the maps for reasons known only to Garmin) a Linux partition and a data partition, where I store all my actual data. Of course there are various other partitions (Windows restore, Linux swap) as well.

Anyway - even if you're not dual booting, sticking the data on it's own partition makes sense as you can re-install the OS (or mess about with it) without worrying about your data. Just create symlinks in Linux to point to the correct folders:

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2213043

Yes, I have plenty of data stored on a partition on an internal HDD, and I'm familiar with using symlinks and mounting Linux partitions, but the majority of my data is on external media such as USB sticks or DVDs, and I only copy it back onto the PC when I know I'll be using a particular OS for some time.

I always have the same data on separate internal hard disks to the OS, and on external disks or other media, because it doesn't make sense to have your data only in one place.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

Well, I did it again. I installed a different Linux on my desktop PC, this time version 18 of Linux Mint. I had been using Linux Mint 17.3 for the last 7 months (except for the last few weeks playing around with other Linux types), so this one's quite familiar. Setup went reasonably well, and I've already

• copied my music, sounds, documents, and games from a backup.
  
• copied the Firefox profile from a backup.
• installed Thunderbird, and copied its profile from a backup.
• installed mplayer (because I still plan to try writing my own audio player GUI).
• copied the Amarok profile from a backup, and am now playing music with it.
• moved my /home directory to a larger (non-boot) partition. This is not as easy as it sounds, but works well enough, provided you do the steps carefully. If anyone's interested in how to do this, I'm happy to provide details.
• setup the desktop with my preferred colours, animations (or lack of, in my case, since I prefer not to use them), multiple workspaces, customisable panels, etc.
• installed the WINE Windows emulator, just so I can play some of my older games, which are Windows applications.
• setup the printer driver, and printed a test page to check it works.

 

[GuyBoden]

More Linux Distros.......
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/12/6-linux-distributions-2017

Ubuntu Budgie?
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=ubuntubudgie

 

[Grant Fondo]

I've just installed Linux on my old laptop and I'm amazed how fast it is. I'm going to install it on my new laptop as well as soon as the guarantee runs out. I prefer it to Windows 10. There aren't any swirling circles, it just works instantly.

I think i used it when i had a bad cold last week?

 

[mustang1]

Have it on my Asus Eeee that I still use daily.

Wicked (as in good) computer. The only thing I don't like is lack of balance (it seems to want to topple over).

 

[mustang1]

Trouble is, Windows has changed out of all recognition. And now it spies on you.

No it hasn't. It still has c/windows directory. You could always use windows 3.11 if you want something that hasn't changed.