Sorry for the newb post, but have some linux Q's

[dowxp]

i looked through the faq but I don't realy have time to read through so many posts =( i saw some that were relevant but some of my Q's weren't answered.

I switched to rh9, and have a few Q:

1) all my secondary hd's are ntfs, is there an easy way to convert it to lfs so i can write to it?
2) i'd like to run 1280x960 @ 85hz but i did not see an option to choose refresh rates. it just has the "range" thing =(
3) I have a usb laptop hard drive in ntfs, how would i mount a usb2.0 storage device that is ntfs partitioned? im not sure of the device path...
4) is there a "task manager gui" or is "ps" the only way to see proc's and kill them?
5) and the general Q = what is the "best" browser, email, gui <- theres kde, gnome .. ? , mp3\ape\ogg player?
6) any C++ compilers similar to .net? the only thing i can think of is pico + gcc ;(
7) more later. thanks.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

1. Convert, likely not. If you have multiple hard drives, it shouldn't be too hard to copy the data off, reformat, and copy back. What's lfs? Linux uses ext2, ext3, xfs, or reiserfs.

2. In /etc/X11/XF86Config-4, edit VertRefresh to say 85 instead of a range. You may have to bump up the HorizSync.

3. No idea

4. KDE and Gnome both probably have things of this sort (gnome does for sure, actually), and I'm sure there are many other graphical utilities with that purpose. Also try "killall".

5. I like Firebird for browsing, mutt (*not* gui) for mail, and mpd for music.

6. You'll pretty much always be using gcc, just with possibly different frontends. Kdevelop is supposed to be like Visual Studio, I guess.

 

[dowxp]

BBWF: thanks, LFS i assumed was linux file system, like "NTFS". if there are 4 different formats... whats the difference, moreover, which is the preferable for well, storage.?

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: dowxp
BBWF: thanks, LFS i assumed was linux file system, like "NTFS". if there are 4 different formats... whats the difference, moreover, which is the preferable for well, storage.?

ext2 is the traditional filesystem that was always used with linux in the past. In the past few years, some others have gained popularity (and linux distros nowadays never really use ext2). ext3 is ext2 with journal, which makes it much safer from corruption and data loss. ext3 is totally backwards compatible too. xfs is was made by sgi for irix, and ported to linux. To me it seems to be the most "solid" of the newer linux filesystems. Reiser is really fast when you have lots of small files, and generally good performance-wise, but it's had corruption issues in the past, and IMO just has too much development going on. A filesystem should be a stable and extremely solid thing.

I use ext3, since I'm not really obsessed about getting every last drop of performance, it's easy, I know how to deal with it, and it's very compatible with everything.

 

[Nothinman]

1) all my secondary hd's are ntfs, is there an easy way to convert it to lfs so i can write to it?

Partition Magic should be able to convert them, but if it fails you will likely lose all the data on that filesystem so you had better have good backups.

3) I have a usb laptop hard drive in ntfs, how would i mount a usb2.0 storage device that is ntfs partitioned? im not sure of the device path...

If it's supported (depends on the USB2 controller which I don't have, so I can't speak from experience) it'll appear as a SCSI disk, so if there's only one partition on the drive you'll most likely want to mount /dev/sda1. If that doesn't work type 'fdisk -l /dev/sda' and it'll print out the partition table for you.

5) and the general Q = what is the "best" browser, email, gui <- theres kde, gnome .. ? , mp3\ape\ogg player?

For email I would recommend Evolution, it's a lot like Outlook except better.

6) any C++ compilers similar to .net? the only thing i can think of is pico + gcc ;(

For .NET you'll need mono, but I'm not sure how close it is to being complete. If you mean an IDE like VS you'll want KDevelop.

BBWF: thanks, LFS i assumed was linux file system, like "NTFS". if there are 4 different formats... whats the difference, moreover, which is the preferable for well, storage.?

Technically there are more than 4, those are just the 4 most popular. Generally I would recommend ext3 or XFS, XFS is faster in most conditions and IMO is a better designed file system, it was donated by SGI from their Irix unix and has had many years of testing on there so it's generally really stable. ext3 is more compatible with odd things you might never even use like NT filesystem drives (not that I would recommend them, most are pretty unstable) and other apps like an ext2 filesystem explorer for Windows because it's nearly the same as ext2 (it's predecessor) but it is journaled so there will be no long fsck (chkdsk equivalent) if you don't shutdown properly.

 

[dowxp]

thanks guys. new question: a good guide on windows gaming emulation? possible to play wc3 ... and run windows programs?

 

[Spyro]

Originally posted by: dowxp
thanks guys. new question: a good guide on windows gaming emulation? possible to play wc3 ... and run windows programs?

Transaming - You can check out their compatibility listing to see if your games are currently supported. If so then you have to register before you can download anything really useful.

Frank's Corner - The forums here are a great place to go if you run into some problems.

Compatibility Database - Check here for program compatibility with just plain wine.

Wine HQ - Go here to get the latest version for your distro.

CodeWeavers - Their products are pricey, but let you run windows plugins and MS office stuff without leading you to doubt your sanity as you juggle .dlls and WINE versions.

 

[dowxp]

wow. why does wineX cost money. sniff ... thanks for the links

edit:

nevermind, apparently you can't have winex and wine installed at the same time. i'll just do it the easy way and boot to windows to play games. i rarely do so i'll just do wine.

 

[Nothinman]

why does wineX cost money. sniff

Because someone has to spend time developing it and they have to pay licenses for the copy protection schemes the emulate?

If you look you can checkout and compile the code from CVS but it has none of the protection emulation so you'll need to use no-cd cracks.

 

[dowxp]

oh i was not aware they bought licenses. that makes sense ...

 

[dowxp]

what do you guys use for image viewing? for windows i used acdsee...

 

[dowxp]

how do you update KDE to its latest version? there are alot of rpms here .. and .. i dont know what to do =(

http://ftp.us.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/3.1.4/RedHat/9/i386/

 

[Spyro]

Originally posted by: dowxp
what do you guys use for image viewing? for windows i used acdsee...

I just click on the file (or double-click if I'm using gnome).

Originally posted by: dowxp
wow. why does wineX cost money. sniff ... thanks for the links

edit:

nevermind, apparently you can't have winex and wine installed at the same time. i'll just do it the easy way and boot to windows to play games. i rarely do so i'll just do wine.

That'll probably be the best thing for you to do. It saves the trouble of trying to get the games to work under WINE and the cost of using winex (unless you use the CVS, but even that can be difficult).

Originally posted by: dowxp
how do you update KDE to its latest version? there are alot of rpms here .. and .. i dont know what to do =(

http://ftp.us.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/3.1.4/RedHat/9/i386/

The best to update/install anything in Red Hat is using apt4rpm. Just read the docs and they'll get you started.

 

[Kadarin]

Originally posted by: dowxp
how do you update KDE to its latest version? there are alot of rpms here .. and .. i dont know what to do =(

http://ftp.us.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/3.1.4/RedHat/9/i386/

That's what I really like about Gentoo Linux.. the portage system. Type "emerge -u kde" and go to sleep; in the morning, it's all compiled and done, just log out then log back in... 🙂

 

[Nothinman]

That's what I really like about Gentoo Linux.. the portage system. Type "emerge -u kde" and go to sleep; in the morning, it's all compiled and done, just log out then log back in...

And if you install apt you can skip the whole sleep part, it's done right away.

 

[Spyro]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

That's what I really like about Gentoo Linux.. the portage system. Type "emerge -u kde" and go to sleep; in the morning, it's all compiled and done, just log out then log back in...

And if you install apt you can skip the whole sleep part, it's done right away.

Hmmmm....... Sleep? For me and not my computer? Who, in their right mind, would want to skip that? It's not like I don't already have enough good reasons to start using Gentoo. Optimization, customizability, and more sleep above the daily 5 hour minimum. Heavenly, truly heavenly.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: Spyro

Originally posted by: Nothinman

That's what I really like about Gentoo Linux.. the portage system. Type "emerge -u kde" and go to sleep; in the morning, it's all compiled and done, just log out then log back in...

And if you install apt you can skip the whole sleep part, it's done right away.

Hmmmm....... Sleep? For me and not my computer? Who, in their right mind, would want to skip that? It's not like I don't already have enough good reasons to start using Gentoo. Optimization, customizability, and more sleep above the daily 5 hour minimum. Heavenly, truly heavenly.

Except when you want <foo> installed right this minute and you have no desire or reason to go to sleep.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: dowxp
what do you guys use for image viewing? for windows i used acdsee...

I like gqview, although it's still gtk1. There are probably newer, better ones that I don't know about. freshmeat.net is a great place to search for software.

 

[dowxp]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

That's what I really like about Gentoo Linux.. the portage system. Type "emerge -u kde" and go to sleep; in the morning, it's all compiled and done, just log out then log back in...

And if you install apt you can skip the whole sleep part, it's done right away.

that .. looks cool 😉 damn i have to read, and read ... i hope apt is as easy as you make it sound. i won't have time to do it until tomorrow. maybe tonight but i'll be very tired when i get home.

one more Q:

best software for dvd burning? used to be nero buuuuut ....

 

[dowxp]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey

Originally posted by: Spyro

Originally posted by: Nothinman

That's what I really like about Gentoo Linux.. the portage system. Type "emerge -u kde" and go to sleep; in the morning, it's all compiled and done, just log out then log back in...

And if you install apt you can skip the whole sleep part, it's done right away.

Hmmmm....... Sleep? For me and not my computer? Who, in their right mind, would want to skip that? It's not like I don't already have enough good reasons to start using Gentoo. Optimization, customizability, and more sleep above the daily 5 hour minimum. Heavenly, truly heavenly.

Except when you want <FOO>installed right this minute and you have no desire or reason to go to sleep.

heh i think thats sarcasm 😱. but i get the point. my friend also uses gentoo but he says its kinda not newbie friendly. apparently you have to "build" your system at which i don't even know how to install rpms ;o