Adventures in Linuxland

[Phlegmak]

I decided to switch to Linux over Windows. It's ok. I'm using the latest version of Mandriva. There a few disappointing things. It also took a few hours of farting around with the sound configuration to get it to work. DosBox won't compile and I need SDL to do it; I have SDL already yet configure doesn't see it.

Overall, Mandriva Linux is configuration from hell.

It's unfortunate that the developers of KDE are making it so similar to Windows's desktop. It's like a total ripoff of Windows.

Also, I don't think it helps Linux acceptance to make the programs available from the KDE menus all have esoteric and meaningless names, like Kaffiene or KMag. Who the hell knows what those do by reading the names? In windows, something might be named such and such Media Player.

Oh well.

 

[Comraddict]

you can set KDE to provide description with each program, on "Start" aka. KDE menu. Right click on main toolbar, and play around until you see it.

Mandriva is good for a beginner, but IMO you should have kept Windows and performed installation of Linux on 2nd partition.

 

[Padma]

You have made the mistake that most Linux newbies make: You want to install software like you have to in Windows.

Most major distros of Linux use a package manager, and a repository containing thousands of software packages pre-compiled for that distro. Mandriva uses urpmi/rpmdrake. The SDL libraries are available in the Mandriva repositories, as is DosBox. You don't need to compile a thing to use Linux these days, unless you really want/need the "latest and greatest, bleeding edge" versions of software.

And yeah, KDE tends to use some ... strange ... names. But a lot of Windows apps aren't any better. What the heck is "WinAmp" for instance? (I know, but the point is you can't tell from the name.)

And the default KDE GUI is designed to be "familiar" to users who are comfortable with Windows. In actuality it is much more configurable than Windows' GUI. For that matter, IMHO, the Windows Vista desktop is more a ripoff of KDE - nearly all its "new, innovataive" functionality is already available in KDE.

 

[Phlegmak]

Mandriva is good for a beginner, but IMO you should have kept Windows and performed installation of Linux on 2nd partition.

That's what I have. I bought another harddrive and put Linux on that.

 

[Phlegmak]

I've been a user (and administrator) of Linux for years. However, it was always at the companies I worked for, and someone else was the primary sysadmin. This is the first time I've put serious effort into administering my own Linux with a graphical environment. The other Linuxes I worked on was primarily in a textual environment. This is also the first time I've had to deal with rpm, KDE, and getting some of my hardware to work right. Overall, it's a fairly new experience for me.

 

[Phlegmak]

Thumbnail:


This image is a screenshot of the program eDesk. eDesk is a spectacular virtual desktop for Windows. I use it on every Windows computer that I have to work on.

What eDesk does is it enlarges the screen. I'm inferring this based on my experience with it. The coordinates of some windows are modified based which desktop they are in. It's possible to have one window show up in more than one desktop.

Notice that a Word window is in 4 separate desktops in the upper right. I love the way this works. I can just click and drag on a window in eDesk to move one window from one desktop to another. Please tell me there is something just like it that I can run in KDE. I do not like KDE's virtual desktops.

 

[Phlegmak]

Anyone know how to record sound in Linux while playing a stream from the radio? In other words, play and record sound simultaneously. I'm using Mandriva Free 2006.

 

[Chairman Meow]

Anyone know how to record sound in Linux while playing a stream from the radio? In other words, play and record sound simultaneously. I'm using Mandriva Free 2006.

I'm not sure exactly how your radio card is configured, but Audacity (too lazy to locate link) should do the job.

 

[Phlegmak]

I'm not sure exactly how your radio card is configured, but Audacity (too lazy to locate link) should do the job.

Radio card? I should have been clearer. I listen to the radio from streams from web sites. So, basically, I want to have any kind of sound playing on my machine and record it simultaneously. I researched this a while back and I found that it's impossible. I was hoping someone might actually have found a way to do it.

 

[GVBN]

DosBox won't compile and I need SDL to do it; I have SDL already yet configure doesn't see it.

You need the development package

 

[Jamesds]

Radio card? I should have been clearer. I listen to the radio from streams from web sites. So, basically, I want to have any kind of sound playing on my machine and record it simultaneously. I researched this a while back and I found that it's impossible. I was hoping someone might actually have found a way to do it.

You found it was impossible, huh? Don't know how you got that impression, unless I have completely missed your point here. If I understand correctly, you want to listen to the radio, streaming from the Internet, whilst recording it. Easy - as suggested above, use Audacity - an opensource, and frankly quite powerful sound editor. You must select the recording source to "Stereo Mixer", and then any sound that is being directed to your speakers will be recorded. You can also save these to MP3 if you download the free LAME plugin (lame_enc.dll I think). Anyway, there are instructions for that on the Audacity homepage. Audacity can be obtained from here : http://audacity.sourceforge.net/.

You must have felt pretty confident to replace Windows with your Linux. I have tried a few Linux distros: Ubuntu, Suse, Fedora Core, SimplyMepis and found that Fedora Core and Ubuntu were both very good (and very similar actually....). I currently have Fedora Core 7 installed on a partition on my external hard drive. However, my laptop has a wireless card which has always had terrible problems working with Linux. So, currently, I am still trying to get the wireless working, cause without that, it is rather useless. I think Ubuntu and Fedora Core use ........ ...... .... darn - can't think of the name now , they use something else in place of KDE (or as default). Can anyone help me out here? I'm sure it begins with G... Anyway I find it quite self explanatory with icon descriptions and the graphics system. Have you got Beryl? - Beryl is cool, if you can get it to work on your Linux. Requires a bit of delving into the inner system, but the cool graphics effects it yields are very fun to see!

 

[Padma]

Some of us are very confident. I haven't had Windows on this machine since 2003. I don't need it.

(Okay, I do like to play Civ, so I now have a Windows image running in a VMWare sandbox for that express purpose....)

And you're thinking of Gnome. Some like it, I think it is too limiting. It dumbs the interface down too much for me. (IMHO)

Phlegmak: I don't know if audacity will do as James says, but it (and lame) will be in the urpmi repositories for Mandriva.

 

[Chairman Meow]

(Okay, I do like to play Civ, so I now have a Windows image running in a VMWare sandbox for that express purpose....)

Which Civ are you running in a virtual image? I've tried to get Civ3 running in a VM and it refuses to run; it spits out the error message "A debugger has been detected. Unload the debugger and try again."

 

[Padma]

I run Civ3 in VMWare (Server). I only see that error when I try to run it with Cedega.

 

[Chairman Meow]

I run Civ3 in VMWare (Server). I only see that error when I try to run it with Cedega.

I've only tried it with Qemu and KVM. I may have to try VMWare Server then.

edit - it works.

 

[Padma]

Glad to hear it!