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

Re: your question over at F56429?thread=3911842 I thought I'd give you a fuller answer here.

I've worked my way through several Linux distro's (Slackware and SUSE are just two of the many), the fact is I don't need Linux to geek out - I've got NetBSD for that. What I wanted was a solid, not to bloated reliable replacement for M$ Windows, I also wanted KDE not Gnome. With Mepis I got that and I've been using it since version 3 (just upgraded to 6.5).

It comes as a live disk (boot's from the CD) so there is no excuse not to try it if your in the market for a new distro. The live disk includes tools for repartitioning your hard drive should you decide to install it (on my HD my Linux partition consist of 512MB swap (/swap), 15GB root (/) and the rest is for users home directories (/home).

After installing on the Hard Drive Mepis has a number of assistants that make setting up things like a network, 3D graphic cards, additional users, Beryl, printers, one or two other things a doddle (you will find these assistants on the "System" menu).

As I said I just upgraded from 6.0 to 6.5 recently so...

booted from live disk double clicked the Install icon and selected upgrade (thus preserving my /home directories)

Once installed, booted into Mepis on my Hard drive and added a repository from http://www.debian-multimedia.org/ and installed the progames I wanted from the package manager.

ibritish
kde-i18n-engb
language-pack-kde-en
language-pack-kde-en-base
myspell-en-gb
openoffice.org-l10n-en-gb
openoffice.org-help-en-gb
mozilla-firefox-locale-en-gb
thunderbird-locale-en-gb
wbritish
wbritish-huge
aspell
aspell-en
numlockx
oooqs2-kde
superkaramba
links2
linux-headers
nvidia-glx-legacy
nvu
vim
mc
opera
lame
lame-extras
libavifile
liblame0
w32codecs
libdvdcss2
libdvdnav4
libdvdplay0
libdvdread3
dvdrtools
dvdbackup
dvdauthor
qdvdauthor
transcode
vamps
k9copy
msttcorefonts
vlc
checkinstall
kdelibs4-dev
libqt3-mt-dev
xlibs-dev
kolf
ksh
kdesdk-scripts
kdesvn
kdesvn-kio-plugins
supertux
tuxkart
planetpenguin-racer-extras
gimp-data-extras
gimp-help-common
gimp-help-en
gimp-svg
gimp-gap
lyx
latex2html
latex2rtf
gnuhtml2latex
wv
armagetron
spidermonkey-bin
spidermonkey-dev
expat
gpm
guile-1.6
audacity
shntool
vcdimager
arson
azureus

** tip always keep a list of what you install, it makes upgrading so much easier

next I used the Mepis assistants to set up 3D support for my graphics card, to set up Beryl (3D desktop effects) and my printer.

Then into the settings menu and switch to British English and make the Desktop look pretty and set up SuperKaramba.

Next install Oolite using Autopackage.

Finally I compiled a couple of progs from source (special mention here to Yakuake which I would recommend to any KDE user) **tip: When installing instead of the command "make install" use "checkinstall".

And that was me set until the next upgrade comes along.


I hope you found the above useful

Thanks for that - made for interesting reading.

I assume Mepis also uses Apt and Synaptic for package management, so that'd be fun to play around with.

Just looking at your packages, the two of us are broadly-similar. Except I assume that, from your experience, you actually know how to use vim. I gave up after a couple of tries (like with Emacs) and just stuck to Gedit and Nano.

On the subject of things I must learn to use one day - LyX and LaTeX (I probably got the capitals in the wrong places). I've heard that they're the very queen bee's knees, but I've never tried them.

Also couldn't get the hang of Azureus - I ended up just using BitTornado, I think it was.

I dual-booted with Ubuntu Edgy for a few months a while ago (I'm using XP on my desktop and Vista on my lappy at the moment), but I'm planning to use Arch Linux further down the track - I've already set it up in a VM (for testing) and I like that sort of DIY feel to it (the Base ISO's nice and small, too).

You see, I'm more of a GNOME/Xfce person - I've heard about how KDE is billions of times more customisable (and even God himself apparently advocates KDE - something I believe after his recent spat with GNOME devs), but I've never been able to get into it.

My old set-up was essentially Openbox as WM with Thunar (bugs and everything - the Tree pane used to crash it) as file manager and 3ddesk as my moderate dose of paging eye-candy.

My desktop had 512meg of RAM and couldn't handle Beryl too well - I installed it, tried it and got rid of it. Had to do the same with Aero and the Exporer shell in Vista.

Never mind - the lappy has a happy gig of RAM.


Just checked your Hootoo Space, too - nice ASCII art.

"nice ASCII art" - thanks

"I assume Mepis also uses Apt and Synaptic for package management" - yes

"you actually know how to use vim" - yes, look for a program called vilearn, it should be in most distros repositories http://vilearn.org/

LyX is WYSIWYGish front end for LaTeX - it's a bit strange to use at first but does produce good looking documents.

Azureus is much improved these days.

"I'm planning to use Arch Linux" I'll suspect you will have the problem I had with Slackware - A great system to geek around in and learn about Linux but requires to much configuration and tweaking to be of practical use as a day to day desktop (e.g. upgrading Mepis took a couple of hours - if it had been Slackware I would of been at it until next week)

I don't really think it matters which desktop you use but Mepis is based on Unbuntu so XFCE and Gnome are in the repositories. I started out using Fluxbox

Any questions


Slightly off topic but time for a quick plug as you seem to be target audience
If you are in the market for an on-line community of 's check out http://sdf.lonestar.org

Incidentally have you checked out LFS http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
I've got a friend who is setting up an LFS system at the moment, he is planing to use NetBSD's Pkgsrc system for package management http://www.netbsd.org/Documentation/software/packages.html#platforms

> "you actually know how to use vim" - yes, look for a program called vilearn, it should be in most distros repositories http://vilearn.org/

Neat - I'll have to go through that at some point.

> LyX is WYSIWYGish front end for LaTeX - it's a bit strange to use at first but does produce good looking documents.

Okay - I've heard of similar apps for music notation which I have to try one day as well.

> Azureus is much improved these days.

I only tried it in January!

> "I'm planning to use Arch Linux" I'll suspect you will have the problem I had with Slackware - A great system to geek around in and learn about Linux but requires to much configuration and tweaking to be of practical use as a day to day desktop (e.g. upgrading Mepis took a couple of hours - if it had been Slackware I would of been at it until next week)

Ah, but I love the configuration and tweaking - it's what I loved doing in XP and Ubuntu. Lots of things to fiddle with.

I've always wanted to be a bit of a console nerd, too.

> Incidentally have you checked out LFS http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

I have now and it looks quite interesting - I've also briefly checked out your site, so I'll look into both a bit later when I have some more time.

Thanks for the tips!

"Ah, but I love the configuration and tweaking - it's what I loved doing in XP" - same here but one does get to the point where one wants a stable, low maintenance desktop just to do the regular stuff with (especially after I got rid of M$ Windows) - and for me that's Mepis. If I want to around I'll boot into NetBSD the 2nd OS in my hard drive ...

me thinks you will enjoy LFS

Okay. I want to do both without needing a VM or dual-booting.

Is that possible

Hehehe. All I really *need* for my system is Firefox, a PDF reader and maybe OOo.

From what I've read and heard, Arch is very easy to maintain because of Pacman (and, from my brief experiences, it's quite true) and good for 'building a personal system' - so long as you install off the Base CD, you can grab what you like... without needing to continually compile like under Gentoo.

Before you continue with Linux perhaps you should read http://community.linux.com/community/07/04/27/1211211.shtml?tid=16

Nice with a capital "ice".

> Debain itself is an ancient African word meaning Down with America.

> The word Debain itself comes from the African word that means 'thief,' indicating that Debain is going to steal users from other operating systems.

DebAIN? Hehehe...

It goes back to pre-colonial times, according to my research. See http://n00bsguide.pwnage.geocities.com/wikay/Debian_is_evil

> IceWolverine, or that other one.

Followed by IceCyclops for your mail and newsgroup needs!

> their attorney, named Bram Stoker.

Going for the blood.


Oh, God, that is an awesome article - I can't believe I didn't see it. Thank you - I will be forwarding it to as many people I know who will actually understand it.

Just wanted ya know the sort of thing your getting mixed up in...

Before I head out here is another one (old but sadly true) for you to read...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/24/tuttle_centos/

Getting mixed up in? Bah!

And that's why you don't let n00bs work with computers. At all.

I dunno, give them colourful blocks or something.

Well that's one for the suggestion box

Traveller in Time on top
"DebIan stands for Deborah and Ian. Tho first to filter out a set of GNU applications to construct a functional system. "

> Well that's one for the suggestion box

It certainly is.


> Traveller in Time on top
"DebIan stands for Deborah and Ian. Tho first to filter out a set of GNU applications to construct a functional system. "

Ah.

Over in the other thread you expressed an interest in all things console, so at the risk of teaching my grandmother to suck eggs...

A few recommendations for you...

GNU Screen http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/
A must for any console junky.

Midnight Commander (mc) http://www.ibiblio.org/mc/
Puts most GUI file managers to shame.

Elinks http://elinks.or.cz/
tabbed browsing, CSS support, Javascript support, support for up to 256 colours, https support, I'm told that it can even display images if you boot to the command line using the framebuffer - IMHO it is a best of breed in terms of console www browsers.

Hehehe - I've heard of those but have never tried any of them except for MC, which I gave up after a while - damn these insane tabs!

I remember looking up something like GNU Screen called jwm or something like that and it hadn't been developed for... three years, so that was disheartening.

Now that I've actually been recommended GNU Screen, I have a bit more incentive to try it.

I used to use Lynx a lot (made for a nice portable browser for Win), but I've never tried Elinks - it sounds rather feature-packed, so I'll have to find a Win port to try it out with.

I'll let you know how I go (I'll see if I can grab GNU Screen for my Arch VM).

a few years back I managed to compile elinks on windows with cygwin I don't imagine you will have many problems getting screen, I don't think I've ever come across a repository that did not have it.

Okay. I've tried installing Cygwin several times. In XP, it never finished d/ling the packages. In Vista, it d/led the packages but couldn't install! I gave up!

At the moment, I'm testing out Haiku (basic-basic-basically a FOSS 'remake' of BeOS) in VMware.

I love that name - it flows so beautifully. And the interface I love, too.