h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hmm, I'll look into that. First I need to get Linux though, I suppose. I'm talking to someone about it on Tuesday: he might be able to get me a copy of something.

What does GNU stand for again? Something like 'GNU is Not Unix' or something.

Gimp for Windows is actually pretty good, so you don't need Linux to enjoy it. Of course, it works better on Linux (or FreeBSD, or OpenBSD, NetBSD or one of the other UNIX-like OSes it runs on), because it fits much more nicely into the desktop environment. Windows doesn't seem to handle piles upon piles of windows very gracefully... probably because you can't do anything in a window without raising it to the front, which drives me up the wall! I'm typing in this Galeon window and it's actually behind two other windows which are floating around on top of it - but it's still got the keyboard focus. Linux is wonderful.

Wants... Linux... now...

Well, Windows can keep some things in the foreground while you type in the background. WinAmp, for example, and ICQ. But, no, it doesn't do that sort of thing with normal windows.

*Goes to look for Gimp for Windows.*

But Windows is nowhere near as flexible with window management. Especially since in Linux or other UNIX-like OSes you can choose your window manager, and usually that window manager will then let you customise stuff like focus policy (follows mouse, click to focus, whatever), autoraise, how to raise windows, what all the mouse buttons on the window title bars and borders do... it's lovely. Not to mention themeing...

* drools *

Oh boy... I need a drool smiley!

Which version of Linux are you talking about here, or is it roughly the same for all variants?

I'm mucking around with Gimp for Windows right now. Looks good so far.

It's all versions of Linux. The important thing is what software you run on top of it.

Something that's absolutely vital to realise when coming from the Windows world is that Linux's GUI system (XFree86) is totally independant of the kernel, which is actually the only part of a Linux box that's actually called Linux. Many more things are required to actually make the OS work (hence the term GNU/Linux, it's the GNU tools that provide most of the rest of the framework, like the C libraries, compilers, command-line shells etc. etc). XFree86 provides a server which is capable of talking to graphics hardware, mice etc. etc. and handling requests from clients for things to be drawn on the screen and input to be forwarded.

These are the programs we see doing the work - virtually 100% of the time you'll be running a window manager, which handles multiple windows and allows movement, resizing, whatever, and draws the window borders. Sometimes a Window Manager will provide a desktop (with icons, maybe without) and sometimes not - sometimes it'll provide menus that pop up when you click on the desktop with a particular mouse button, but sometimes not. Sometimes you can choose.

My window manager is called Sawfish, and it's the standard window manager for the GNOME desktop environment, which provides many more things - a panel which can hold a tasklist, system monitors, clocks, application launchers, the Foot menu (like a Start menu)... and other things too. GNOME also provides some lovely application programming frameworks, so there are a good deal of apps around that are part of GNOME and interoperate very nicely indeed.

KDE, the K Desktop Environment, is another project which is arguably further along that GNOME, but which I find slow, clunky and unintuitive. However, some people who've bothered to configure it properly or who's distribution makers provide good builds of it find KDE to be wonderful. It's just that GNOME fits my head better - and it looks good too, to my eyes. Especially the upcoming GNOME 2.

Oh boy, see how much I know about Linux and GNU things? Quite pitiful! The sooner I get Linux the better, methinks!

We'll have to talk about it at the meet.

By the way, does Linux require an entirely seperate HDD partition, or can it run off one with Windows files on it (though not necessarily Windows itself)?

You can get some distributions that run out of a directory on your Windows partition, and are invoked using a Windows program called 'loadlin'. While this works quite well for testing the system (unless you run Windows NT - loadlin doesn't work with it because of the stuff it has to do to replace Windows with the Linux kernel in memory), the filesystem is implemented by using metadata files in each directory to store all the info a UNIX filesystem stores that a silly FAT32 one doesn't. This composite system is referred to as UMSDOS by Linux itself. There are various distros that will work like this, some of them will only work like this.

But to get the full experience you need at least one partition (preferably a swap partition as well in case you run out of RAM) solely for Linux, formatted to a Linux filing system (probably ext2, but preferably ext3 or ReiserFS these days) and containing only Linux. Linux can read and write to FAT16 and FAT32 with long filenames with no problems at all, so sharing files is a doddle, as long as you remember to put files made in Linux on the Windows partition before you reboot!

Ah, thanks for that info.

I've got about 5GB left on my largest partition, where I keep my swap files, but it's got other stuff on it as well. I might partition that off and use some for Linux, or I might wait till I get a new HDD, then I can have a proper Linux disk.

I guess I'll start with a distribution running off a Windows partition until then, just so I can get used to the system.

That would be a good idea, because unless you have PartitionMagic or something similar, sticking partitions back together again isn't very easy... Just bear in mind when you do try it that disk access on a proper Linux partition is noticeably faster.

Ack! Sorry for taking so dashed long to get back to you, but this thread got shunted off my conversations list, and anything that does that invariably gets forgotten for a while.
The new GuideML conversation pop-up box should see an end to that, though.

I'm also sorry I didn't get to see you at the party last week. I had to leave at 9pm, you see. If I'd stayed any longer I would have made my rounds.

I'm still trying to get Linux off a friend of mine at college, by the way.

You were at the party? Oh no! That's awful, I didn't see you at all

Well, we'll have to try again next time, won't we!

I was indeed.

We will indeed.

We most certainly shall. So, how have you been lately? (lame conversation piece really, but)

Heheh, no worries - I always find myself in similar situations with nothing to say.

I've been doing fine, thanks. I'm just preparing to set up a new website, in fact. A hosting service.

Cool. I'm still working on a new set of code that's going to run a roleplaying site. It's coming along very nicely - have forums and all that almost 100% working, now I'm starting on some more of the stuff that's specific to the world the system will be used to Roleplay in. It's fun! Got multiple skins as well, although they're more like different colour schemes than the skins here, as they can't alter page layout.

Hey, that sounds neat!
So, is this going to be based around the sort of roleplaying that goes on in h2g2 or like that in RPGs?

Incidentally, my site uses a skinning system where the layout can be changed. It uses PHP. I might have mentioned it before somewhere.

I think you did, but really there's no need for a layout-changing system on this site.

The RPing is the kind that happens on h2g2 in that it's free-form and forums-based, but it's within much more strictly defined limits of a particular world, and definitely more formalised in terms of character creation, development and interaction.

Yes, this is interesting. Is there some sort of automated system for, I don't know, accumulating skll points or some such, and therefore partially dictate the course of battles and whatnot in the forums?

By the way, who are you getting to host this?