Linux
Contents
My Linux-experience
OK, to fill some pages I will write down something about my experience with Linux, what I am doing with it and things which are still missing from an end-users point of view.
First of all, I have created the most recent version of this page with Linux tools alone. Some images and older sediments of my site may incorporate Windows-generated images, but nowadays I have switched to Open source tools to create everything I want to show here.
Until recently I have been developing Web-based applications on Linux- and Apple-machines, using Mozilla, PHP, Perl, Python, Webware, PostgreSQL, MySQL and Eclipse to program distributed bioinformatics database-applications.
Beside that I was heavily depending on a stable machine to do my Ph.D., which was one of the two main reasons for switching from Windows NT to SuSE-Linux and finally Fedora.
Pictures
Because people always want to see screenshots here are some of my home-desktop. They are slightly recursive, the first one shows an editing-session of this HTML-page, running SuSE 7.3/KDE 2.2 with an IceWM-theme, the second one shows the upload of the homepage, running SuSE 8.1/KDE 3.0 with the Quartz theme and some nice tools. The third one is SuSE 9.1 KDE 3.2.1 and Gimp 2.0 the next is from the Fedora Core 3 installation on my AMD Athlon64 running Gnome 2.8 and finaly a few shots from the following FC6 install with 3D effects enabled and the current Fedora 10 Linux. Apparently I like blue backgrounds...
Installing Linux on Laptops.
During my work for Exelixis, I had an IBM R32 laptop running SuSE 8.1 and during my stay back at the university, I had a Toshiba M30-344[pdf-file], which I used with SuSE 9.0 and 9.1.
Short note: Both pages will not get updates, as I don't own those laptops any more.
Blue pill or red pill...
Gentoo Linux on Small Systems
Installing one of the more recent distros on an old system (aka my 300 MHz PII) is not really fun.
Except for the fact, that a small hard disk is quickly filled up by a load of gunk you might not need at all (but which is installed anyway, if you don't select rpm-packages by hand), those distros tend to be painfully slow (the current version of Quanta IS dead-slow even on my AMD Duron 700 (yess, CPUs have arrived ad 6.0 GHz meanwhile, I know)), and take eons to load the desktop (why? I was running Linux on my 486 ages ago).
There seems to be no real hope for a fast-and-small version of SuSE, therefore I had to look for something else.
Enter Gentoo-Linux: (I have to admit, that almost everything which follows, has been stolen from an email I got from a friend, who setup all this on his machine ;-)).
Anyway, if you are interested in my installation-notes for a small-footprint Gentoo-system, read on.
Fedora
Several years ago I switched from my long-time favorite Linux-distribution to Fedora Core 3.
- Installation notes for Fedora Core 3 Linux
- Installation notes for Fedora Core 6 Linux
- Installation notes for Fedora 8 Linux
- Installation notes for Fedora 10 Linux
- Installation notes for Fedora 13 Linux
- Installation notes for Fedora 14 Linux
CentOS
Some time ago I had to setup a 64-bit 4-way server and decided to give CentOS a shot. Having ordered a floppy-drive ("who really needs that nowadays") immediately paid off, because the RAID-Controller was not recognized and a newer kernel-module had to be installed from a boot-floppy (not a problem, unless you can't use one).
- Installation notes for CentOS 4.3
After everyone decided, that the new GUI for Linux should look like a Smartphone, I moved from Fedora to CentOS 6 (which also has a longer life-time and does not force you to install a new OS every 1,5 years or so).
- Installation notes for CentOS 6.2
Ubuntu Linux
It's .... "brown" (yes, now it is more like orange, but it was brown back then...)? Besides, it has some strange glitches regarding the console and special signs. Font size problems crop up in Firefox after installation. So what should I say: I'm not too impressed and really don't get the hype surrounding this distro (as compared to SuSE or Fedora). Installation went pretty painless, but so did the installation of FC3 and most SuSE versions. Feature-wise, you need to add a lot of stuff to get a usable system afterwards, which is not exactly easier or more difficult than in any other well-maintained distro. Disabling the ugly default brown theme (including login and stupid branding logos) was kind of a pain in the ass. If only they could provide an alternative look-and-feel...
Installing Ubuntu 7.10
Read my review on installing Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon. I did this recently for one of my older machines, because the old Ubuntu-version was no longer supported.
Gaming
There are some decent games out there, which run natively on Linux (see above :-) ).
Read this for one of the more important opinions regarding gaming and Linux -sad but true. On the other hand, now there are some people, who beg to differ. So we may see quite a few new native Linux games in the next years...
Running Windows games on Linux is mostly not fun. Read my Wine and Cedega rant for more on that.
