Ubuntu Sufferers

[mikedt]

There's another reason why I use Linux mostly these days. apart from games. Is that I know for a fact that the Communist Party of China can't have a backdoor into my computers and is spying on me. In fact I've encouraged a few of my friends here to try Linux for this very reason.

Microsoft puts backdoors into their software, that allows foreign government agencies free access to whatever you're doing.
Microsoft is helping the Chinese authorities spy on your Skype calls: Shanghaiist

I suspect MS co-operates with the US Government and other foreign governments as well, for backdoor access to their OSs and software. For the purposes of law enforcement or whatever.

As I said, I use Linux for peace of mind.

 

[9to5cynic]

@nick, have you thought about linux mint with a lightweight WM? That would give you a (in my opinion) hugely stable OS with a lightweight and fast environment...
[[ maybe give openbox, or dwm a try? ]]
EDIT > - or maybe give CentOS a spin. That has a 10 year support deal going. Can't beat that. And you could use a flash drive and Unetbootin (or dd) to burn the disk image (iso) to a flash drive if you don't have any cds.

@mike, I find your insight so valuable... seeing things from the point of view from the other side of the globe is something I really enjoy! :five:

 

[mikedt]

@mike, I find your insight so valuable... seeing things from the point of view from the other side of the globe is something I really enjoy! :five:

Thanks.

Thing is, I don't really like the idea of Windows, Skype, etc, giving everything I write or do to the Ministry of Public Security and/or Ministry of State Security. Nasty things could happen if you type something subversive, undesirable or illegal on your own computer with MS software here.

 

[nickdalzell]

i have not given up on Linux yet. i blew away Win7 on my Samsung, and the Toshiba runs Vector 7. i'm still not dead set on a particular distro yet and am still trying. downloading Macpup now. i used that once as a rescue distro when my Toshiba's drive died. i really liked that one. so far the only machine running Windows is my Windows 8 box that still has my games on it--they will not yet run in Linux yet and there is no replacement i can find for them (especially my favorite star trek game)

The 'failed to write data to disk/application' was due to some odd quota on the folder used by slapt-get. changed it and it downloaded fine.

 

[MoodyBlues]

Good, Nick, I'm glad you're still trying Linux. Macpup was one of the distros I tried on my old laptop last year, and I liked it a lot, but--as I recall--it wasn't really meant to be installed on the hard drive, but rather run from CD (or whatever medium it's on). I'm pretty sure that was why I dumped it, but honestly I was trying so many flavors of Linux I can't be 100% sure right now!

 

[nickdalzell]

that is part of my problem. fragmentation. too many distros and not enough time.

MacPup does have hard drive install provisions, but the one thing about it i didn't like was the proprietary package manager--it only accepts *.pet files. oh, sure you can compile sources but still....it does end up being a limit.

Knoppix, on the other hand, was a royal pain to install to hard disk. it seemed intent on running solely as a live CD

 

[Speed Daemon]

Microsoft puts backdoors into their software, that allows foreign government agencies free access to whatever you're doing.
Microsoft is helping the Chinese authorities spy on your Skype calls: Shanghaiist

I suspect MS co-operates with the US Government and other foreign governments as well, for backdoor access to their OSs and software. For the purposes of law enforcement or whatever.

Considering the staggering amount of liberty that the American people decided to give up after 9-11 (see "Patriot Act"), that's a given.

Prior to 9-11, Windows was known to be extremely chatty, trying to connect to numerous Microsoft IP addresses. Although I haven't done a thorough network monitoring run on more recent Windows versions, I believe the reports about Windows 8 sending everything to Microsoft. It's hardly a stretch that some 3-letter agency is colocated in Microsoft's Windows monitoring centers, just like they're in every major telephone exchange in the US. Not that it's anything new...

 

[TheAtheistReverend]

Anyone have anything to say about lxde? I was thinking about running it instead of xfce (I think that is what came with xubuntu, right?) but wanted to see what, if anything might be said about it here first. It doesn't change anything important to run a different desktop environment, does it? Just the UI, basically, right?

 

[MoodyBlues]

Anyone have anything to say about lxde?

It's okay. But your opinion may vary!

It doesn't change anything important to run a different desktop environment, does it? Just the UI, basically, right?

You can--like I do--install as many desktop environments and/or window managers as you like.

Although I'm a big-time KDE lover, and run it 99.95% of the time, every once in a blue moon I'll log in with GNOME, or IceWM, or xfce, or Unity, or Enlightenment, or...whatever, just because I can.

 

[Speed Daemon]

Anyone have anything to say about lxde? I was thinking about running it instead of xfce (I think that is what came with xubuntu, right?) but wanted to see what, if anything might be said about it here first. It doesn't change anything important to run a different desktop environment, does it? Just the UI, basically, right?

LXDE is nice. Some of their default programs are lacking, but you can always install others. I usually have two or more of every applet, like file managers, text editors etc.

LXDE is the evolution of the Blackbox window manager, which is a pretty nice (and very lightweight) window manager for X. (LXDE uses Openbox, which is based on Blackbox. If you like LXDE but don't want the GTK+ bloat, Fluxbox is a good alternative window manager-only. The ROX Desktop is another good lightweight desktop that also uses GTK+. I sometimes use the ROX file manager because of quirks in LXDE's PCMan File Manager.

 

[TheAtheistReverend]

Awesome. Yes, I just used that word.

This is the level of newb I am when it comes to Linux. Thanks for the replies!

 

[Speed Daemon]

In general you'll find veteran Linux users all too willing to offer their help. Sometimes to the point of ridiculousness!

 

[nickdalzell]

BTW anyone know what happened to the Linux.org site? i used to use that often when i was a newb long ago, but now it looks foreign and so different to be unrecognizable? did it change owners or something? i know i can pull the older more familiar site in archive.org but the data is obsolete.

 

[saptech]

Someone mention framentation with Linux. I think if you start off with one or two of these, you can't go wrong and will have a pretty solid distro. They may have a steeper learning curve but you'll have one that's been around and will be around for a long time to come. Most all other distros are based off one of these.

Slackware
Debian
Fedora/Red Hat
OpenSuse/SuSe
I used to say Mandriva/Mandrake but now I'll go with Mageia, though it's just going on 2 years old.

Just a thought!

 

[mikedt]

Considering the staggering amount of liberty that the American people decided to give up after 9-11 (see "Patriot Act"), that's a given.

Prior to 9-11, Windows was known to be extremely chatty, trying to connect to numerous Microsoft IP addresses. Although I haven't done a thorough network monitoring run on more recent Windows versions, I believe the reports about Windows 8 sending everything to Microsoft. It's hardly a stretch that some 3-letter agency is colocated in Microsoft's Windows monitoring centers, just like they're in every major telephone exchange in the US. Not that it's anything new...

One thing I've certainly noticed, is that Windows always seems to be much more busy with the internet connection than any Linux I've used. I wonder what's it doing, pinging and phoning home, sending to government servers in Redmond, Washington DC, Beijing, etc.?

BTW @MoodyBlues, I agree with your avatar. "Never trust an OS you don't have the sources for.". Windows is an opaque black-box to me, I don't know what it's doing. I like to have total control what my computers are doing.

 

[Speed Daemon]

Someone mention framentation with Linux. I think if you start off with one or two of these, you can't go wrong and will have a pretty solid distro. They may have a steeper learning curve but you'll have one that's been around and will be around for a long time to come. Most all other distros are based off one of these.

Slackware
Debian
Fedora/Red Hat
OpenSuse/SuSe
I used to say Mandriva/Mandrake but now I'll go with Mageia, though it's just going on 2 years old.

Just a thought!

Technically Mandrake/Mandriva/Mageia is based on Red Hat, and SuSE was based on Slackware. But they've diverged a lot!

Be thankful that Linux itself hasn't fragmented! I'm old enough to remember the bad old days when there was much infighting between 386/BSD (commercial) and FreeBSD (free) developers, resulting in splits that created much havoc and ill-will. That infighting is the #1 reason why Linux was able to swoop in and dominate the FOSS OS market.

Sure there are lots of Linux distributions, but at least they're more similar than different. The really different Linux distros are the ones that don't use the SYSV init / GNU utilities / X layout...like Android.

 

[MoodyBlues]

One thing I've certainly noticed, is that Windows always seems to be much more busy with the internet connection than any Linux I've used. I wonder what's it doing, pinging and phoning home, sending to government servers in Redmond, Washington DC, Beijing, etc.?

Scary, huh?

BTW @MoodyBlues, I agree with your avatar. "Never trust an OS you don't have the sources for."

Thanks. It's one of my designs on my web site.

Windows is an opaque black-box to me, I don't know what it's doing. I like to have total control what my computers are doing.

It's actually hard for me to fathom how people BLINDLY--and I mean that in every conceivable way--use m$ products.

My need to have total, absolute control of my computers and networks dates back to my earliest days of programming and system administration. That was on Tandy Xenix and then SCO Xenix, circa the mid-'80s. I learned everything about *nix from the ground up, and I was so aware--really, keenly aware--of its innards, and what evil people could do if they gained sufficient access, that I started out in this computer world hyper-aware of security. I remember LAUGHING when I needed to do something on a windows 95 box, and the "login prompt" came up...and I hit 'cancel' and off I went, able to do whatever I wanted on the whole machine. THAT was micro$oft's idea of multi-user? and security? Ha! :laugh:

 

[nickdalzell]

I found a perfect distro for my Samsung! It's called Pear Linux 6 (Moody you'll like this it is based on Ubuntu) and combines the beauty of open source with the comforts of Apple (for guys like me)

FYI that password dialog in Win9x was not meant to be security--it was meant to have customized desktops for different users, assuming you had one computer the whole family shared (oh, i remember those days, sharing the 386!) so if i say logged in as Nick, my personalized desktop would load. if mom logged in as 'Mom' she'd have her personalized desktop. hitting 'cancel' just loaded up the system default.

it's too bad all the good game devs and various other software devs pick Windows. it's the one thing keeping me from blowing away Windows 8 on my brand new Toshiba which i mostly use for games.

Someone mention Xenix? perhaps you can solve a bit of a mystery:

Bugchk: sckmd "Shut her down, Scotty, she's sucking mud again!"

What did that mean anyway???

 

[MoodyBlues]

I found a perfect distro for my Samsung! It's called Pear Linux 6

Yay!

(Moody you'll like this it is based on Ubuntu)

FYI that password dialog in Win9x was not meant to be security--it was meant to have customized desktops for different users, assuming you had one computer the whole family shared (oh, i remember those days, sharing the 386!) so if i say logged in as Nick, my personalized desktop would load. if mom logged in as 'Mom' she'd have her personalized desktop. hitting 'cancel' just loaded up the system default.

I actually know that--but I didn't at the time. I mean, I assumed--after all the hoopla surrounding the release of W95--that m$ had FINALLY entered the world of multi-user PCs. But I mean *TRUE* multi-user functionality, not just topical (hope that makes sense).

Someone mention Xenix? perhaps you can solve a bit of a mystery:

Bugchk: sckmd "Shut her down, Scotty, she's sucking mud again!"

What did that mean anyway???

Offhand, I didn't know about this specific error message, only that there used to be (and I suppose still are) all sorts of clever, funny, weird error messages buried in the *nix kernel. A bit of Googling yielded this:

On XENIX 3.0, in a really obscure hardware failure condition (the Z80 got back to the main operation dispatch loop with the stack at a different depth than it was on the previous pass), z80ctl would spit out:

Bugchk: Sckmud
"Shut her down Scotty, she's sucking mud again!"

"Shut her down Scotty..." was somebodys' sig line on USENET back around 1984 and the vision of Captain Kirk yelling this down to Scotty always struck Frank as very funny, so when Frank needed a message for this insanely implausable condition Frank had seen a few times in test, Frank felt you needed a special reward if you managed to get here, so Frank picked that message. The technical support documentation describing this message suggested that rebooting soon would be a good career move. (Frank Durda IV)

 

[nickdalzell]

yea, i was pretty surprised that the classic 'lp0 on fire' actually made it to the Linux kernel when i first played with it--it would do that if my printer was set offline (back in the dot matrix days) and i tried to print anyway.

My only recollection of Xenix was the ancient (circa 1978) mainframes dad used to run his medical office codes on at the time. it would send data to multpile 'WYSE' terminals in various rooms. that 'Shut her down Scotty' error would randomly spit out at times. usually requiring the entire system to be rebooted (and took days, for some reason...)

 

[Speed Daemon]

Someone mention Xenix? perhaps you can solve a bit of a mystery:

Bugchk: sckmd "Shut her down, Scotty, she's sucking mud again!"

What did that mean anyway???

It's a reference to the original Star Trek TV show. Scotty was the ship's chief engineer, and the one who would shut down the ship's systems in case of a malfunction.

 

[nickdalzell]

oh i understand the Star Trek reference being a Trekkie i just did not understand the actual error that it was referring to. specifically 'Bugchk: Sckmd' it would randomly spit out on all terminals and almost always brought the entire system to a grinding halt--it often happened during the overnight diagnostic (yes, that monster took THAT long to do a ledger!)

it was an ancient system i am not sure the name now, but the hard drive was huge. it probably weighed 70 lbs and it was loud. before he finally shut the medical practice down (and when i worked there) he had 'upgraded' to a ten-year-old 486DX2/66 running Windows 98 SE and Sco Unix (an upgrade compared to Xenix but still a 1970s port) the SCO UNIX was specifically for medical codes (like Xenix) but the Windows was for internet access so we could do FAA certification stuff which at the time 'required' Internet Explorer

it was the SCO Unix part that introduced me to the command line structure and part of why my past Linux life dealt in the CLI more often than X

 

[Speed Daemon]

I don't know all that much about Xenix; I started using SCO OpenServer long after Xenix was gone. I'm pretty sure that Bugcheck was the Xenix equivalent of a WINNT blue screen. (Contrary to popular myth, only a few blue screen events were the BSOD.) I couldn't find what the sckmd daemon did in Xenix, but in Solaris it's a security key service. Whatever it was, it was bad enough to send out a message to all terminals, but not enough to cause a kernel panic. Because UNIX was a transactional "time sharing" OS back when batch processing systems were still the norm, it's not surprising that early UNIX admins ran batch jobs. Between that and V7 being an ancient research version, it's not the least surprising that it died horribly on a regular basis.

The only places where I've seen SCO OpenServer in a medical context was in dentists' offices. Most of the "M.D." medical stuff like HL7 ran on either Digital Equipment Corp. VAX hardware running VMS or MUMPS, or IBM mainframes. I still have nightmares about the not-quite "web" applications that each required a certain version of Internet Exploder, and having 3-4 different IE versions running on the same Windows 95 desktops. Not fun!

Considering that Xenix was Microsoft's doing, and based on the ancient V7 UNIX (most of my UNIX work was done on SVR4 and 5) with its unique terminal protocol, it's not surprising that old V7 users want to forget about it, and therefore don't put a lot about it on the Internet.

 

[MoodyBlues]

I don't know all that much about Xenix;

Had it not been for Xenix, I wouldn't be the anti-micro$oft, *nix-centric snob I am today. I never thought of Xenix as having anything to do with m$, because what I used was Tandy Xenix [very briefly] and then SCO Xenix. Regardless, I have such fond memories of my Xenix days.

I couldn't find what the sckmd daemon did in Xenix

It's not sckmd, it's sckmud. As I posted earlier:

On XENIX 3.0, in a really obscure hardware failure condition (the Z80 got back to the main operation dispatch loop with the stack at a different depth than it was on the previous pass), z80ctl would spit out:

Bugchk: Sckmud
"Shut her down Scotty, she's sucking mud again!"

 

[nickdalzell]

the only memory i have of Xenix was the childhood bits and pieces glimpse of the mainframe upstairs and the WYSE terminals in every room. it specifically dealt with the medical billing/coding system. certain illnesses had a numeric code that was looked up and used to fill out electronic sheets that would either spit out on a monitor or on a 'teletype' which was basically a dot matrix printer with a keyboard. in the end we'd do what he called a 'ledger' where the monster machine would compile and print out all the forms from the month out on the teletype to send to patients. when you entered codes into the machine it would automatically fill in the pricing, fill out the form and during the ledger every form would automatically print--it was enough of an intensive process that the error would occasionally happen. sometimes it would just infinitely scroll on the WYSE units or lock up. that loud old hard drive though--that is one sound i will never forget....thing was huge--stored in a key-locked drawer on the bottom of the mainframe. the upper part had tape drives, i suppose for backup purposes, and another part had a few buttons and lights. the buttons had things such as 'power' 'restart' 'diag' and various lights for disk access, on-line, error, working, and others.