November 6th, 2007 by LinuxOSguy

IBM has published a series of articles in their DeveloperWorks library for Developers making the switch from Windows to Linux. This 9-part series is geared towards developers moving their skillset towards the Linux environment.

Check it out here.

November 6th, 2007 by LinuxOSguy

1. What is a “Desktop”
The desktop is the graphical environment where you do most common tasks or run applications. The desktop usually consists of a workspace with program icons, menus, start bars, etc. The most important part of any desktop is the window manager, this is the application that handles window placements and movements. The window manager is what controls the borders around your windows and allows for functions like Minimize, Maximize, Restore, Close, etc.

2. KDE vs Gnome, which is better?
KDE and Gnome are complete desktop environments that consist of a large number of well integrated software packages. GNOME uses a window manager called metacity, KDE uses kwin. Both these desktops can be used with any other window manager if you do not like the default choice.

Linux allows you to build your own desktop environment. Both KDE and Gnome are big packages with software aimed to look and function the same way, work well together and generally provide a pleasant computing experience. If you dislike a component you can replace it with something else. 
Application that are “made for gnome” or “made for kde” can be used with any desktop. This only means that that the program use a set of library functions found in their underlying gnome-libs or kdelibs. You do not need to use the actual desktops to use the applications, software made for KDE and Gnome can be used with any window manager / desktop as long as you got the proper libraries installed. There is no reason to use only applications made for the desktop you prefer, the “best software” for one task is made for KDE, the best for another task is made for Gnome. 

Both KDE and Gnome can be customized to behave exactly the way you want. What desktop you prefer is your own choice and preference. When in doubt, try to learn both. Or experiment with other desktops. There is no answer to the KDE vs. GNOME comparison, its a matter of preference and hardware.

3. Common Standards
Some common standards are being worked on to further facilitate Freedesktop.org is a software project aimed at developing shared technology standards for the X Window System. They provide common protocols like System Tray Protocol Specification, standard that allows developers to write a program that will work in KDE, GNOME, Fluxbox and other desktops who follow the Freedesktop recommendations. The X Window Software Project is a free software project to work on interoperability and shared technology for desktop environments for the X Window System. The most famous X desktops are GNOME and KDE but any developers working on Linux/UNIX GUI technology are welcome to participate.

4. Hardware requirements
Desktop  Required RAM  Required CPU
fluxbox/idesk   48  100 MHz
XFCE4    128  200 MHz
Gnome 1.x   256  500 MHz
Gnome 2.x   384  800 MHz
KDE 3.x   512  1 GHz

These values are general rules of thumb. KDE will start on old computers but will run slow. Any computer box can be used for the right purpose if you select software according to it’s capacity. For beefier systems, go with Gnome or KDE. Although they are known to be “bloated”, there are some nice desktop features and window enhancements that add to the experience albeit at the cost of some system resources. XFCE4 is a very nice complete fast and lightweight Desktop Environment and is probably the best choice for old, but not ancient hardware. For really old hardware try fluxbox (based on blackbox), waimea or icewm window managers.

5. Testing Desktops
You can test different desktops before you install Linux, such as by using Knoppix LiveCD to boot Linux temporarily from a CD-ROM. Try KDE, Gnome, and others before you decide which is the best fit, and look-n-feel for your needs. So, in choosing the best desktop to use, aim for the best overall fit in terms of hardware and usability.

October 10th, 2007 by LinuxOSguy

These are the best of the “Distro tracking” sites, where you will find the top-rated Linux Distributions.

• DistroWatch  - Compares Linux distributions (major, minor, regional) in simple table format. Information such as price, support, documentation, included packages.
• Distributions and FTP Sites - Searchable database of sources for downloading Linux kernel, distributions, applications, documentation, sortable via language, type, hardware platform. [Linux.org]
• Linux Distributions - Information on many distributions: classic, beginner, expert, Power PC, floppy disk, embedded, ISO image, miscellaneous. [LinuxBasis.com]
• LWN Distributions List - Large categorized list, begun in 1999: leading, newbie, education, general, international, special use, embedded, secure, handheld/PDA, floppy, CD, zipdisk, diskless, wireless, DOS/Windows, CPU-based, historical. [Linux Weekly News]
• Small Linux Distributions - Links to small distributions that usually load from 1 or 2 floppies, utilities to make your own; small BSD; CD/floppy bootable and rescue; embedded links, news, articles; LCD/LED output programs.

October 10th, 2007 by KTripplet

Ubuntu has published a handy guide for making the switch from Windows to Linux….check it out here:

http://doc.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/switching/C/index.html

October 10th, 2007 by LinuxOSguy

These are some must-haves for new Ubuntu users to get up and going, or when reloading a fresh distribution, etc.  

1. Wine - This will allow you to continue your WOW addiction on Linux.
2. Deluge - This is a nifty torrent-managing program.
3. Bluefish - Easy HTML/PHP/Text editor, with some limited syntax help.
4. Amarok - Awesome music player, showcases album art, etc.
5. Beryl - Desktop 3D cube layout switcher for awesome desktop effects.
6. GAIM - Well, its like AIM but its GAIM.
7. Kobo - A pretty cool Asteroid-like game.
8. XChat - IRC chat client. A must have.
9. GFTP - Nice, intuitive FTP client.
10.GEdit - Simple, fast-loading -yet powerful text editor.

October 10th, 2007 by admin

Confused about all the many Linux software archives out there? Well, at least you can stay within the realm of stable applications from this list. All of these software vendors have been tested and proven reliable by the folks at Linux.org… The complete directory of Stable applications can be found here:

http://www.linux.org/apps/

October 10th, 2007 by admin

< Viewing text files with cat >

Many files on a Linux system are files that are human readable and can be viewed as text. For example, shell scripts are just simple text files, as well as many of the important configuration files that can be edited by hand. This is why Linux provides many ways of editing and viewing text files, but here I’ll concentrate on cat and less.

cat is a simple little program that displays the contents of a text file when you give the file name as an argument to it:
$ cat view_this

This is a nice way of viewing short files that fit on your screen, but if the file is so long that its contents cannot be displayed on your screen all at once, you’ll end up only staring at the end of the file. Maybe not exactly what you want. In most cases, you’ll want to use less instead.

< Using the less command >

less is a program that lets you view text files, like cat does, but if the files are so long that they don’t fit on your screen, less automatically paginates the file. You use less by giving the file name as an argument to it:
$ less view_this

When viewing the file, you can use Page Up and Page Down keys to move through the file, and typing q will exit.

You can also open several files at the same time so you can navigate from one file to next without closing it first. If you want to open several files, just give all the file names at once:
$ less file1 file2 file3

When viewing several files at the same time, you can use :n for examining the next file and :p for the previous file

October 10th, 2007 by admin

In this post we review the essential file structure of a standard Linux build. A typical Linux system has the following directories:

• / : This is the root directory.

• /bin : This directory contains executable programs which are needed in single user mode and to bring the system up or repair it.

• /boot : Contains static files for the boot loader. This directory only holds the files which are needed during the boot process.

• /dev : Special or device files, which refer to physical devices such as hard disk, keyboard, monitor, mouse and modem etc

• /etc : Contains configuration files which are local to the machine. Some larger software packages, like Apache, can have their own subdirectories below /etc i.e. /etc/httpd. Some important subdirectories in /etc:

• /etc/skel : When a new user account is created, files from this directory are usually copied into the user’s home directory.

• /etc/X11 : Configuration files for the X11 window system .

• /etc/sysconfig : Important configuration file used by SysV script stored in /etc/init.d and /etc.rcX directories

• /etc/cron.* : cron daemon configuration files which is used to execute scheduled commands

• /home : Your sweet home to store data and other files. However in large installation yhe structure of /home directory depends on local administration decisions.

• /lib : This directory should hold those shared libraries that are necessary to boot the system and to run the commands in the root filesystem.

• /lib64 : 64 bit shared libraries that are necessary to boot the system and to run the commands in the root filesystem.

• /mnt : This directory contains mount points for temporarily mounted filesystems

• /opt : This directory should contain add-on packages such as install download firefox or static files

• /proc : This is a mount point for the proc filesystem, which provides information about running processes and the kernel.

• /root : This directory is usually the home directory for the root user.

• /sbin : Like /bin, this directory holds commands needed to boot the system, but which are usually not executed by normal users, root / admin user specific commands goes here.

• /tmp : This directory contains temporary files which may be deleted with no notice, such as by a regular job or at system boot up.

• /usr : This directory is usually mounted from a separate partition. It should hold only sharable, read-only data, so that it can be mounted by various machines run ning Linux (useful for diskless client or multiuser Linux network such as university network). Programs, libraries, documentation etc. for all user-related programs.

• /var : This directory contains files which may change in size, such as spool and log files.

• /lost+found : Every partition has a lost+found in its upper directory. Files that were saved during failures are here, for e.g ext2/ext3 fsck recovery.

October 10th, 2007 by admin

This is our new site. TheLinuxWarehouse.com has been retired after many years. Our new focus is to bring up-to-date Linux news, software reviews, and articles to the Linux community, and in particular new users.

So, our new name is LinuxSoftwareOnline.com!