Most recent edit on 2007-05-12 09:19:50 by SySy [moved]
Additions:
moved to http://docs.mypclinuxos.com/index.php?title=DaveCs∞
Deletions:
Hi everyone. I'm British, aged 51 (as of 2005). I come from East London (Bethnal Green) and where I live now is best described as Outer East London (Dagenham). And yes, I do speak "Cockney" and I can do some "Rhyming Slang". My trouble and strife (wife) is 43 she does a similar job to me. No saucepans (saucepan lids = kids, children), but some nephews and nieces who we spoil rotten from time to time. OK no more Cockney.
I work for the Civil Service. I have to sit in front of a Microsoft Windows 2000 computer every day and use nothing but M$ software! (Well, OK we get to use Adobe Reader and Winzip.) I am locked out of doing anything vaguely interesting with the damn thing! I have several theories about why we get tied into deals with useless hardware and software providers who charge a fortune for third-rate hardware and dated, proprietory software. I will not expound on said theories, not because I wish to protect the guilty: it's because I want to protect myself!!
In addition to my normal work duties, I am the President of the local Trade Union branch for our area.
Computers and Linux
At home, computing is my hobby. I've sort of migrated to Linux over the last couple of years because each version of M$ Windoze seems to take more and more control away from the user. I keep a partition with Win98SE, but have no intention of getting XP. However, I wish Microsoft well in their efforts to clamp down on piracy. If people couldn't make dodgy copies of Windows and Office run, there would be more people using Linux and FOSS, so good on yer, M$. Don't you find it frustrating when you put OpenOffice on someone's rig only to find that they get hold of a pirated copy of Office? So, Bill, more power to your elbow!
I actually got into Linux as a result of wrong information. I thought that you could not get firewire working under Win98, and thus DV recording/editing would not be possible, unless I upgraded to Windows ME or XP. My wife and I got a DV camera and I sent off for a PCI firewire card a couple of years ago. I tried out Mandrake 9.0. At that time, there was a problem with the various 1394 modules: on loading, devfs defaulted them to root access only. It took me a while to figure that out, and even the guy who was the internet expert on kino (Robert somebody?) said you had to run it as root. At first I just thought it didn't work, one day I ran kino from a command line in a root terminal (because I was in there trying system changes which didn't work — I knew nothing at this time) and everything burst into life! Well I could do batch files in Windows, so I did a script to change the /dev/???1394 devices to open access instead of root only, and added it to my startup. I had discovered by this time that you could download from firewire in Win98, provided you added the necessary drivers from the disc that came with the firewire card (, which also included editing software — the camera did not). But I'm a stubborn old git, so I stuck at it in Linux, and eventually sent an e-mail to Robert somebody telling him how to overcome the root only problem. His reply seemed both ungraceful and ungrateful, even though he did add the correction to his site!
Gentoo
After Mandrake 9.2 I tried Gentoo. When I first tried Mandrake there were a number of false starts. Well a false start in Gentoo wastes days, not hours! All I can say is that after a while setting up and maintaining Gentoo becomes second nature. I eventually learned to build Gentoo chrooted in from Mandrake. At one time, I deleted Mandrake and built Gentoo in the other partition chrooted in from Gentoo! Most of this involves just being good at following instructions, but you do learn a lot about modules, hotplugging, coldplugging and module preloading. You also learn about integration, making a system hang together well. I can see how good PCLOS is from my Gentoo experience. They say that Gentoo is about squeezing the last drop of performance from your computer. Well that is the initial attraction, but after the fourth reinstall, you learn that it's about planning and integration. It has been a great distro, but it seems to be losing its way a little at present. KDE3.4.x still hasn't made it into stable yet. That can't be right.
Having got Gentoo set up, my other partition became a test ground. I tried everything that arrived on the coverdisk on Linux Format, and generally speaking, deleted it the next day. Nothing measured up. Eventually the disc was Mandrake 10.0CE. Gave it a spin, then went off to "easyurpmi" to add the third party repositories. Where the hell was Texstar? At that time, I didn't even realise that "Texstar" was an individual. I thought maybe it was a company of some sort. I put a search in on the net, and found pclinuxonline.com. I had been here before, I had even signed up, but I had forgotten about it (well you do forget things at my age). Then I read about PCLOS, version pre-8 had just appeared. Well I was having no fun with Mandrake so I gave it a go. I was amazed that anything as distanced from Gentoo could have the same appeal to it! You could see instantly that it was based on Mandrake, but there was something special about it. It was the level of integration and the general way it hung together that impressed. None of the: "Well, Smithers, don't you think it's about time we got a new version out, the graphs are dipping a little don't you know old chap?". No, this was built with care. .81a cured a few issues, and, well that's me hooked.
Other Hobbies
Football mad, that's Soccer in the US, my team is Arsenal. Have been for about 45 years, no recent glory hunter, me! Apart from that, you don't get time ...
CategoryUsers
Edited on 2006-07-27 12:10:13 by DevNet [added category users link]
Additions:
CategoryUsers
Edited on 2005-06-22 19:39:52 by DaveCs [Typo Correction]
Additions:
At home, computing is my hobby. I've sort of migrated to Linux over the last couple of years because each version of M$ Windoze seems to take more and more control away from the user. I keep a partition with Win98SE, but have no intention of getting XP. However, I wish Microsoft well in their efforts to clamp down on piracy. If people couldn't make dodgy copies of Windows and Office run, there would be more people using Linux and FOSS, so good on yer, M$. Don't you find it frustrating when you put OpenOffice on someone's rig only to find that they get hold of a pirated copy of Office? So, Bill, more power to your elbow!
Deletions:
At home, computing is my hobby. I've sort of migrated to Linux over the last couple of years because each version of M$ Windoze seems to take more and more control away from the user. I keep a partition with Win98SE, but have no intention of getting XP. I hope that However, I wish Microsoft well in their efforts to clamp down on piracy. If people couldn't make dodgy copies of Windows and Office run, there would be more people using Linux and FOSS, so good on yer, M$. Don't you find it frustrating when you put OpenOffice on someone's rig only to find that they get hold of a pirated copy of Office? So, Bill, more power to your elbow!
Oldest known version of this page was edited on 2005-06-22 19:30:22 by DaveCs []
Page view:
Hi everyone. I'm British, aged 51 (as of 2005). I come from East London (Bethnal Green) and where I live now is best described as Outer East London (Dagenham). And yes, I do speak "Cockney" and I can do some "Rhyming Slang". My trouble and strife (wife) is 43 she does a similar job to me. No saucepans (saucepan lids = kids, children), but some nephews and nieces who we spoil rotten from time to time. OK no more Cockney.
I work for the Civil Service. I have to sit in front of a Microsoft Windows 2000 computer every day and use nothing but M$ software! (Well, OK we get to use Adobe Reader and Winzip.) I am locked out of doing anything vaguely interesting with the damn thing! I have several theories about why we get tied into deals with useless hardware and software providers who charge a fortune for third-rate hardware and dated, proprietory software. I will not expound on said theories, not because I wish to protect the guilty: it's because I want to protect myself!!
In addition to my normal work duties, I am the President of the local Trade Union branch for our area.
Computers and Linux
At home, computing is my hobby. I've sort of migrated to Linux over the last couple of years because each version of M$ Windoze seems to take more and more control away from the user. I keep a partition with
Win98SE, but have no intention of getting XP. I hope that However, I wish Microsoft well in their efforts to clamp down on piracy. If people couldn't make dodgy copies of Windows and Office run, there would be more people using Linux and FOSS, so good on yer, M$. Don't you find it frustrating when you put
OpenOffice on someone's rig only to find that they get hold of a pirated copy of Office? So, Bill, more power to your elbow!
I actually got into Linux as a result of wrong information. I thought that you could not get firewire working under
Win98, and thus DV recording/editing would not be possible, unless I upgraded to Windows ME or XP. My wife and I got a DV camera and I sent off for a PCI firewire card a couple of years ago. I tried out Mandrake 9.0. At that time, there was a problem with the various 1394 modules: on loading, devfs defaulted them to root access only. It took me a while to figure that out, and even the guy who was the internet expert on kino (Robert somebody?) said you had to run it as root. At first I just thought it didn't work, one day I ran kino from a command line in a root terminal (because I was in there trying system changes which didn't work — I knew nothing at this time) and everything burst into life! Well I could do batch files in Windows, so I did a script to change the /dev/???1394 devices to open access instead of root only, and added it to my startup. I had discovered by this time that you could download from firewire in
Win98, provided you added the necessary drivers from the disc that came with the firewire card (, which also included editing software — the camera did not). But I'm a stubborn old git, so I stuck at it in Linux, and eventually sent an e-mail to Robert somebody telling him how to overcome the root only problem. His reply seemed both ungraceful and ungrateful, even though he did add the correction to his site!
Gentoo
After Mandrake 9.2 I tried Gentoo. When I first tried Mandrake there were a number of false starts. Well a false start in Gentoo wastes days, not hours! All I can say is that after a while setting up and maintaining Gentoo becomes second nature. I eventually learned to build Gentoo chrooted in from Mandrake. At one time, I deleted Mandrake and built Gentoo in the other partition chrooted in from Gentoo! Most of this involves just being good at following instructions, but you do learn a lot about modules, hotplugging, coldplugging and module preloading. You also learn about integration, making a system hang together well. I can see how good PCLOS is from my Gentoo experience. They say that Gentoo is about squeezing the last drop of performance from your computer. Well that is the initial attraction, but after the fourth reinstall, you learn that it's about planning and integration. It has been a great distro, but it seems to be losing its way a little at present. KDE3.4.x still hasn't made it into stable yet. That can't be right.
Having got Gentoo set up, my other partition became a test ground. I tried everything that arrived on the coverdisk on Linux Format, and generally speaking, deleted it the next day. Nothing measured up. Eventually the disc was Mandrake 10.0CE. Gave it a spin, then went off to "easyurpmi" to add the third party repositories. Where the hell was Texstar? At that time, I didn't even realise that "Texstar" was an individual. I thought maybe it was a company of some sort. I put a search in on the net, and found pclinuxonline.com. I had been here before, I had even signed up, but I had forgotten about it (well you do forget things at my age). Then I read about PCLOS, version pre-8 had just appeared. Well I was having no fun with Mandrake so I gave it a go. I was amazed that anything as distanced from Gentoo could have the same appeal to it! You could see instantly that it was based on Mandrake, but there was something special about it. It was the level of integration and the general way it hung together that impressed. None of the: "Well, Smithers, don't you think it's about time we got a new version out, the graphs are dipping a little don't you know old chap?". No, this was built with care. .81a cured a few issues, and, well that's me hooked.
Other Hobbies
Football mad, that's Soccer in the US, my team is Arsenal. Have been for about 45 years, no recent glory hunter, me! Apart from that, you don't get time ...