Linux

I'm considering trying Linux on my old machine (currently Windows XP). I'm just wondering... can I expect the same problems I get with other freeware downloads I've tried? I've downloaded Windows versions of Font Forge and Inkscape, and they have a terrible tendency to crash quite frequently. I can't get Font Forge to even work at all... crashes before I can really do much with it.

Also, perhaps these programs will work better on a Linux system? I really have no clue.
 
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Manopolus said:
I'm considering trying Linux on my old machine (currently Windows XP). I'm just wondering... can I expect the same problems I get with other freeware downloads I've tried? I've downloaded Windows versions of Font Forge and Inkscape, and they have a terrible tendency to crash quite frequently. I can't get Font Forge to even work at all... crashes before I can really do much with it.

Also, perhaps these programs will work better on a Linux system? I really have no clue.
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Depends on what caused the crash, I suppose. Old hardware, a dozen year old operating system or perhaps your downloaded software. My wife has a new laptop with windows 8 malware on it (This is the linux thread so I will say M$ malware :D) and it has had several crashes. I run Mint and have had few problems.

Have a look at this-> http://www.linuxliveusb.com/

RIP Fuduntu
 
Manopolus said:
I'm considering trying Linux on my old machine (currently Windows XP). I'm just wondering... can I expect the same problems I get with other freeware downloads I've tried? I've downloaded Windows versions of Font Forge and Inkscape, and they have a terrible tendency to crash quite frequently. I can't get Font Forge to even work at all... crashes before I can really do much with it.
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The problem with most freeware is that the developers haven't put enough time and effort into it. After all, if they're giving it away for free, why bother spending the extra money for testing and tweaking?

But Linux has decades of development behind it. In fact, the major Linux distributions are probably more stable than windows.

I'm running Xubuntu on my desktop, and haven't run into any major problems yet. Puppy Linux is running on my notebook, not as reliable as Xubuntu but pretty good for an ultra-light OS.

ETA:

Manopolus said:
Also, perhaps these programs will work better on a Linux system? I really have no clue.
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A fair amount of freeware freeware is designed for Linux under the GNU General Public License, and then a Windows compilation is made so non-Linux users can use it. So in some cases that might be true.

I do have Font Forge running in Xubuntu on my desktop, and it's a terrible program to work with, but it does work.
 
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If you have never used Linux before, probably best to download a 'live' distro that will run off a USB stick, or a cd/DVD. This will be a LOT slower than a proper installation, but will give you a good idea of what to expect. Most modern distros will boot into a live system, but the 'daddy' of them all is probably Knoppix.

I think the dvd version has inkscape available to run from the DVD.
 
Brian-M said:
I do have Font Forge running in Xubuntu on my desktop, and it's a terrible program to work with, but it does work.
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Well, yeah... but it's not $800 like the alternatives, either... I intended to do most of the work in Illustrator and import, anyway. I'm assuming that's possible, but I haven't been able to keep it running long enough to even know. As soon as I create a new font, it crashes within the next three clicks.

Of course, it would be a hell of a lot easier if Adobe would go ahead and put out a font compiler (since I subscribe to their CS monthly thing)... but they never will, since they hire typographers and sell fonts as a major part of their business. I'm not quite interested enough to pay gobs of money for one of the expensive ones, since it's impossible to make any money from it if you don't work for someone like Adobe.
 
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Interesting distro chooser. http://www.tuxradar.com/content/tuxradar-distro-picker-0
Same site also has a link to torrent a fixed ( no amazon search) Ubuntu.

Haven't a clue whether CS monthly thing could be transferred to Linux or what possible alternatives are available.

I am an ex windows user and found that Ubuntu Hardy Heron made the change easy. Ubuntu have gone all touch screen so now I would recommend Mint. With Windows I was careful not to break it as a reinstall would take forever. I can spend a few minutes to start the ball rolling installing Mint, have a cup of tea and a biscuit and when I return the computer is ready to use.
 
AgeGap said:
Ubuntu have gone all touch screen so now I would recommend Mint.
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Or Xubuntu. The three distros I use are Arch, Xubuntu, and Mint/Xfce. I wouldn't recommend Arch to a newbie, but I install both Xubuntu and Mint/Xfce for friends who want to use Linux without wanting to learn a whole lot.

I don't know what Amazon search is, but I search for software using "apt-cache search" so that's probably why.
 
Manopolus said:
Well, yeah... but it's not $800 like the alternatives, either... I intended to do most of the work in Illustrator and import, anyway. I'm assuming that's possible, but I haven't been able to keep it running long enough to even know. As soon as I create a new font, it crashes within the next three clicks.

Of course, it would be a hell of a lot easier if Adobe would go ahead and put out a font compiler (since I subscribe to their CS monthly thing)... but they never will, since they hire typographers and sell fonts as a major part of their business. I'm not quite interested enough to pay gobs of money for one of the expensive ones, since it's impossible to make any money from it if you don't work for someone like Adobe.
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Regarding FontForge, it's basically mainly the work of one guy who very occasionally updates it. He's doing the Linux version, other people have helped port, and I don't think it actually is tested all that much on other OSes. Linux should be more stable than the others, I'd reckon.

Under X11 on Mac, it has some specific operations that will crash it every time. It's a bother to work with, but I have successfully made whole fonts from Illustrator shapes by using SVG export/import. It also is good for font conversion and small fixes even though I dread opening it every time. Better than nothing.
 
I think it's better to say that Ubuntu has privacy risks as part of its defaults rather than saying it's spyware.
 
We migrated key functions from Windows to Linux because we needed an operating system that was stable and reliable — one that would give us in-house control. So if we needed to patch, adjust, or adapt, we could.
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Who on Earth is going to use the Linux laptops above? Guess or Google or DuckDuckGo!
 
AgeGap said:
Richard Stallman Slams Ubuntu Over Amazon Integration, Calls It “Spyware”

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This is one reason I use the Lubuntu flavor of Ubuntu. I briefly had Ubuntu 12.10 installed, saw that crap, and ditched it. I like the LXDE environment better than Unity anyway. I feels more familiar to a long time Windows user, and it's a lot lighter. It runs really well on this little Asus Eee PC netbook, much better than my dual boot OS Win7, or the other Ubuntu flavors I tried (especially straight Ubuntu, I think Unity is actually more sluggish on the this machine than Windows).
 
BazBear said:
This is one reason I use the Lubuntu flavor of Ubuntu. I briefly had Ubuntu 12.10 installed, saw that crap, and ditched it. I like the LXDE environment better than Unity anyway. I feels more familiar to a long time Windows user, and it's a lot lighter. It runs really well on this little Asus Eee PC netbook, much better than my dual boot OS Win7, or the other Ubuntu flavors I tried (especially straight Ubuntu, I think Unity is actually more sluggish on the this machine than Windows).
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I use LXDE as well, Unity runs like crap on my machine. It's so slow and often crashes to a black screen meaning I have to do a hard reebot.
 
I have switched back to KDE as my main desktop. It has matured very nicely. I gave it op with KDE4, but it has evolved away from the 'useability experts' and become am excellent environment that can be made to look like any sort of desktop paradigm you want, with almost a traditional wimp interface being default.
 
If you want a nice, not cheap, Linux laptop with all the normal laptop features. System76 sells some very nice machine with custom Linux drivers. I have a Bonobo, which has been a great home-work laptop for more than a year.
 
VirtualBox Question

I have a question about VirtualBox. I'd like to get to the following setup...
  1. Desktop has Ubuntu 13.04 (set to 14.04 LTS when available)
  2. Laptop has Ubuntu 13.04 (set to 14.04 LTS when available)
  3. Both run VirtualBox with the latest version of Ubuntu
I don't have a sufficiently powerful laptop to try this myself right now.

My question is can I copy the VirtualBox 'drive' (by which I mean ~/VirtualBoxVMs/Ubuntu13.04/) on my desktop to the laptop and replicate the exact desktop environment?

I wonder whether the VB 'drive' contains settings that pertain to the host environment that would foil my plans. Anyone know whether or not my 'cunning' plan is likely to work? Or perhaps care to offer an informed guess?
 
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megaresp said:
I have a question about VirtualBox. I'd like to get to the following setup...
  1. Desktop has Ubuntu 13.04 (set to 14.04 LTS when available)
  2. Laptop has Ubuntu 13.04 (set to 14.04 LTS when available)
  3. Both run VirtualBox with the latest version of Ubuntu
I don't have a sufficiently powerful laptop to try this myself right now.

My question is can I copy the VirtualBox 'drive' (by which I mean ~/VirtualBoxVMs/Ubuntu13.04/) on my desktop to the laptop and replicate the exact desktop environment?

I wonder whether the VB 'drive' contains settings that pertain to the host environment that would foil my plans. Anyone know whether or not my 'cunning' plan is likely to work? Or perhaps care to offer an informed guess?
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I'm not a VirtualBox user, but have been mainly using Xen and now KVM, so no definitive answer from me, but a qualified "yes".

Outside of the VB "drive", on the host filesystem, must be a configuration file which says which hardware VB has to emulate: how many network interfaces and their MAC addresses, what kind of display, audio, etc., and most importantly: which processor architecture. Of course, you should also copy this file.

You should check the last for compatibility, w.r.t. two things:
1) 64-bits versus 32-bits
2) presence or absence of hardware virtualization instructions. I don't know if VB needs these to function. KVM needs them; Xen behaves differently whether they're there or not. Also check your BIOS whether it doesn't sneakily disable these instructions.
 
Thanks for your reply :)

ddt said:
Outside of the VB "drive", on the host filesystem, must be a configuration file which says which hardware VB has to emulate...
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There are 3 files (the drive and 2 XML files containing settings). One of the settings files is a backup A.F.A.I.C.T.

ddt said:
You should check the...presence or absence of hardware virtualization instructions. I don't know if VB needs these to function.
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The hardware virtualisation settings involve a couple of checkboxes. When setting up a new virtual machine, VB itself determines whether or not these should be checked and does so if hardware virtualisation is available. They are set for my desktop PC, but I can't currently check an XPS13 as I don't have one. Neither do I (sad to say) have the money to get one at this point :(.

Given what you've told me there is no particular reason to expect it to fail apart from specific settings. So I guess I'll just go ahead and copy the files to the laptop after installing VB. If it doesn't work I can simply power the virtual machine down and visit the settings. VB is pretty good at telling me when I'm being especially thick :D
 
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