New to Linux and looking to install Arch, but I have a few questions.

TallSkinny · 19 days

1) Why wouldn't it work? As far as the OS knows, the new HDD is just a HDD. As long as the hardware side of things is ok, of course.

2) Arch is great. It takes a bit of time to get it up and running, but the amount of control you get over your system is amazing. And you learn a lot by doing it. Personally I run it in all my machines, including my home server, desktops, laptop and HTPC. Just follow the Beginners Guide in the wiki and you will be fine.

3) My first install took perhaps three or for hours from zero to a working system with command line and network connectivity. Most of that time was spent downloading packages though (slow ADSL, don't ask). Then perhaps another hour or two to get a desktop environment running and configured more or less to my liking. Then an infinite amount of time tweaking small things here and there to get it more to my liking. In fact I've never stopped tweaking.

My advice is, plan a full weekend for your first install.

4) It's quite stable, but not enterprise-grade stable. Sometimes an upgrade will break things (I suffered recently an nvidia driver bug that caused problems for older graphic cards, an evince bug that makes it crash with certain pdfs, a nautilus bug that makes it crash with some CIFS folders and, worst of all, a kernel bug that made a machine unable to boot).

It's not bad, though. Months will pass without you seeing a single bug. When a buggy package gets to the repositories, it's usually fixed quickly. Most of the time it will be obvious which package is affected by the bug and it will be trivial to temporarily downgrade to a previous version. Also, the forums are very friendly and helpful.

I anything, I recommend installing the linux-LTS package (an older, more stable version of the linux kernel) and adding it to your GRUB menu, so that you can boot using the older LTS kernel if you've downloaded a buggy kernel and are unable to boot, like it happened to me with 3.3.4-1.

5) I don't recommend running gnome3 with an older machine. It's a bit resource-hungry. Also some people don't like the way it makes the desktop work (I certainly don't). I'm very happy with XFCE, I suggest you try it. It would probably be easiest just installing the whole desktop environment. You can later try awesome if you want (I tried it, and several other tiling window managers, didn't like them and went back to XFCE).

6) Shell commands are mostly the same between distros. However you will find different distros put their config files in different places, use different systems to start daemons, use different package managers (to download new or updated software from the repositories), different things installed by default, etc. When you switch distros you have a bit of a learning curve learning its conventions, but it's no biggie if you are familiar with a different distro.

7 and 8) What I know about shell commands and scripting I've learnt from coworkers and googling. Just read a bit in the Arch wiki and then just google and practice. You don't need to learn it all at once.

9) Favorite: control. When you first install arch, you get a working command line and network connectivity, that's all. You build your system on that, and you decide exactly what you want to add and how. I like knowing what each package installed is, why I installed it, what daemons are running and why, etc. With Ubuntu I was sometimes left wondering why the hell I had a daemon called couchdb running, what it was supposed to be doing, and why it was eating all of my cpu. With arch each and every process in memory is something I installed explicitly, and I know the reason it's there.

10) Follow the Beginners Guide in the Arch Wiki. Do it slowly reading everything carefully. Anything you don't really understand, don't assume: follow any links or google it until you get it. And enjoy. It's not hard, really.

Danish_Touch · 21 days

It's well done and the visuals are great. However it's geared towards a young audience and it shows. To an adult viewer it's often cringeworthy.

januszeal · 1 month

My use case is the following: I need a script to be launched (to start a daemon) after my laptop connects to my home wifi, but not if it connects to any other network.

Both wicd and networkmanager are supposed to support this. In networkmanager it works without hassle. In wicd I couldn't get it to work: the GUI simply didn't save my changes, and when I directly changed the configuration files with vi it still didn't work.

Therefore, it's networkmanager for me. Just my 2 cents.

smalleye · 1 month

Bullshit rationalization.

smalleye · 1 month

You want to keep the king, and you say it's worth the cost, yet you dare to say you're a republican?

Like hell. You're a republican as much as I am a winged pig.

Down with the monarchy, a republic is not the solution to all our problems but it sure is a step in the right direction.

Taibo · 1 month

Same here. It was pretty bland.

Sohex · 1 month

Okay, okay. I'm sold too. I need a new campaign setting soon anyway, our Iron Kingdoms campaign is almost finished.

DrJulianBashir · 2 months

Thanks, that makes even more sense.

Ok, then we go back to point 1. I've used my Pyrex kitchenware often under the broiler (an electric resistance at the top of the oven, to brown lasagnas, pizzas or basically anything with grilled cheese on top) at full power. I've never had any problems, actually in my country they are specifically sold to be used in an oven, with no special warning of having to take special care with too high temperatures as far as I know.

Maybe the Pyrex sold in Europe is different from that sold in the USA?

DrJulianBashir · 2 months

That makes sense. I've never gone beyond 400ºF, that may explain it.

jamssn · 2 months

Our university uses Rembo Tookit for this (now part of IBM Tivoli, I think). Admins seem happy with it.

DrJulianBashir · 2 months

Rinse the meat? As in, putting it under running water before cooking? The idea has never ocurred to me, and nobody I know does it. How strange. Why would you do it? It sounds like a great way to lose some of the meat's juices and get an inferior-tasting piece of meat to me. The reason can't be hygienic, I mean, if the heat of cooking does not kill it, running water sure won't either.

DrJulianBashir · 2 months

Same here.

I think "broiler" refers to those grills you use to barbecue pieces of meat, with coal below the meat. Again, I think. Any native care to correct me?

I've used my Pyrex kitchenware under my oven's grill resistances many, many times with no problem, fwiw.

gh0stp0p · 2 months

Yes, the FLOSS community is a marvel. It's a tangible proof that not all people are guided by pure selfish "rationality", as some economists think. There are parasitic companies profitting from FLOSS without giving back, of course. Sadly I've seen it. But as a whole the thing works. Amazing, really.

I've also intended from time to time to help with some project that catches my eye, but you know... life gets in the way, there's so many things to do and so little time, and when you have some spare time there are so many other nice things to do besides coding for fun. I wonder how people manage to make meaningful contributions to opensource projects while keeping a day job; it took me a couple months just to learn to use git on my spare time last winter. I fear the answer is "two hours of sleep every night and a lot of caffeine" :)

bananabombboy · 2 months

I recently was told that cumin was great with pulses in a stew (lentils, beans, chickpeas...). I was sceptic but I tried putting a pinch of cumin in the boiling water and, to my surprise, it really does smell and taste great.

I later remembered that falafel are made with chickpeas and cumin, so I guess it shouldn't have surprised me.

Also, paprika goes well with steamed cauliflower. I like heating it in olive oil first.

gh0stp0p · 2 months

Aaand that was me making a bit of a sexist assumption. How curious.

I've also generally gotten more from the FLOSS community than I've given back. But, isn't that the case for almost everyone?

gh0stp0p · 2 months

Today you... tomorrow me.

Good luck with your project, man.

gh0stp0p · 2 months

The program, or a virtualized OS X? Congratulations either way.

EDIT: nevermind, saw your other answer.

gh0stp0p · 2 months

I never installed OS X virtualized, so I'm afraid I can't help you.

I googled a bit and I see that OS X support is "experimental", and the wiki page says something about not being able to run it in non-apple hardware. However I see some guides of people who seem to be able to run it under win7, presumably with non-apple hardware.

The virtualbox idea may have just led you down a blind alley. Sorry.

gh0stp0p · 2 months

Do you have the option of running a virtual machine with OSX using VirtualBox? You could just use that program natively that way.

Otherwise your best bet is to get the authors to release a version for linux. They state in the readme that they intend to develop a version for Linux, so it might be possible.

If it were just Java code it would almost certainly work. The problem is probably in some of the native libraries; perhaps the version of some library they are using is not compatible with the version we have available for linux? But you already got to that conclusion, of course.

FWIW I tried subsituting the IOP library that comes with the program with the same version number for linux, but I got the same error. The exception is thrown in the g2d.jlambda.ApplyCont class, inside iop.jar , so I guess that's where the problem is. I tried to decompile the class to see where the problem is, but despite seeing the decompiled code I don't really understand what the class is supposed to do, much less fix the problem.

Perhaps it would help if I knew what IOP or Maude or NPA are, but I really don't have any idea what I'm doing with them :D

Manthony · 2 months

If it had been just the first story arc, a noir murder mistery with fairytale characters hiding in the modern world, I would remember it fondly as an original take on the source material.

It's just that there wasn't enough meat there to feed a decade of monthly issues.

Manthony · 2 months

Fables started strong but it lost steam as the writer run out of new cool ideas. I doesn't have an ending in sight, they will keep publishing it as long as they can milk it and making as many spin-offs as possible, and therefore I expect it to just getter a bit more bland and repetitive with each issue until someday sales decline and it just stops. The same applies to The Walking Dead, btw.

On the other hand Locke&Key started stronger and keeps going strong. The fact that the story is meant to have an ending, in a few issues in fact, helps keep it focused. The issues continually show new fantastic and original pieces of the backstory, gripping twists and turns, and the art... the art is just gorgeous, god. The bets are high and the dangers real, I don't think things will end well for all the main characters; whereas in Fables you just know there's no chance of Bigby ever dying, same as Wolverine won't ever really die.

It's not even important to mention who the writer is. Lock&Key is just a tremendous piece of comic art and I think it will become a classic in time. Anyone who likes comics should give it a try.

Manthony · 2 months

If I may, I suggest you try Starman. I think an omnibus has recently been published. I'm currently re-reading it and from your favorite list I think you will enjoy it.

MissingInAnarchy · 2 months

If that were true, then the opposite would be true also. That is, when lemon prices went down, you would sell your lemonade for a lower price, because your next batch of lemons for restocking would be cheaper than the one you made lemonade with.

As we all know, this does not happen. Fuel prices don't go down even when oil prices go down.

All in all I would say it's plain old avarice.

Natronicus · 2 months

The comic itself is not very good, sadly.

Manthony · 2 months

It means read the series. One of the best things being published right now.

Also, do yourself a favor and read it from the beginning.

amatriain

TROPHY CASE

amatriain

TROPHY CASE

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