Convert me to the cult of Linux!

[Zixinus]

So I think I screwed my EEEpc's (904HA) XP system files during a hard reset. After some helpful advice from Edi, I managed to back up my more important files.

ASUS wisely created a recovery DVD for such situations. That is great, until you realise we are talking about a netbook (something defined by its lack of optical drive). So right now, until I get a response from ASUS tech support, I decided to do what all the nerds cool kids do and at least try Linux. Mostly because you can install that trough my portable USB.

My requirements:
- The ability to match my 904HA EEEpc hardware drivers. Touchpad, wifi, integrated webcam and microphone, battery management, etc.
- Good performance management, because the 904HA is netbook.
- If possible, fast boot-up time. Like, really fucking fast.
- A good graphical front, because I have no intention of learning command lines.
- Straightforward install. Everything on the laptop can go, but I aim to not need a fucking wiki to understand how to get the OS on.
- Oh, and support for hungarian characters. I just noticed that some of my files got rather funky characters when being transfered to this computer ("é" instead of "é").

Software included should be able to:
* Editing Doc files.
* Playing music files, including FLAC files. I've brought a Senheisser headphone in a less wise moment and I intend to take advantage of them (like listening to the static filtering trough the AC ).
* Reading PDF files, bookmarks included.
* Browsing the net.
* Simple games, like chess.
* Chatting. Pidgin-esque stuff is sufficient, although sometimes I use skype.

That's all I can think of.

[General Zod]

If you really have to go Linux, I'd suggest going with the latest version of Ubuntu. Its usability has improved a lot with much better native driver support out of the box in recent years than it used to have. (Software installation has also gotten simpler). I'd suggest going with the gnome desktop over KDE, but that ultimately boils down to personal preference. I used it for a bit when my OS was accidentally wiped and I couldn't get on the internet briefly because Vista's default driver support was terrible (before I ultimately migrated to Win 7).

[raptor3x]

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download-netbook

[Torben]

Funny, I'm currently reading from my Linux+ exam text as I read this. Really, Linux hasn't required command line installation in quite some time, and there are literally thousands of open-source software packages that can handle everything you require, though IIRC correctly, it should have all functions direct from install. If you have access to windows, download a program called unetbootin and the ubuntu install iso, either 10.4, just released from beta, or 9.10 (which has an optimized netbook installation), install unetbootin and select the iso image...you may not even need them, but thats how i did it...select install to usb, and it will create the installation files on your thumbdrive with no fuss, no muss. insert, boot, follow on screen gui. enjoy the freedom honestly, works like a charm, boots quickly, and allows you to do most anything you want. Also, it supports like a bazillion languages, so you should be good on that count as well.

Check out http://www.tldp.org the linux documentation project, for lots of useful information, tips, and how-to's.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program

[Liberty]

I find I can't use Linux because I have to have Microsoft Word. Which is unfortunate as Surlethe praises Linux to no end.

[Dominus Atheos]

I find I can't use Linux because I have to have Microsoft Word. Which is unfortunate as Surlethe praises Linux to no end.

What exactly is it that Word can do that Open Office or Google Docs can't?

[Stark]

How about 'function effectively in a corporate or educational environment'? Watching your department's powerpoint get messed up or have your assignment undeliverable due to OO's bizarre not-really support for Office is great fun.

It's worth $75 bucks just to not have to fuck with the piece of shit that is 'openoffice.org'.

Hey Torben is it true that Linux doesn't require commandline to build anything that isn't in repositories or precompiled for your distro yet?

[General Zod]

How about 'function effectively in a corporate or educational environment'? Watching your department's powerpoint get messed up or have your assignment undeliverable due to OO's bizarre not-really support for Office is great fun.

It's worth $75 bucks just to not have to fuck with the piece of shit that is 'openoffice.org'.

Hey Torben is it true that Linux doesn't require commandline to build anything that isn't in repositories or precompiled for your distro yet?

Fuck forbid if you ever have to use a spreadsheet for OOO. All of the formulas are just different enough from MS Office that it would require a pretty decent amount of time to retrain people to use them.

[Stark]

Yeah, and it reads powerpoint etc just fine; it just renders it wrong and writes it out wrong. It also can't use custom shapes or anything like that.

But I bet it's packed with useless nerdservice features nobody will ever use, which are far more important than compatibility with the only game in town, right?

[JointStrikeFighter]

Why don't you just install XP using a USB drive?

http://www.modmyeee.com/usbinstall.html

You can get all the EEE XP drivers here too;

http://support.asus.com/download/downlo ... uage=en-us

[Liberty]

I find I can't use Linux because I have to have Microsoft Word. Which is unfortunate as Surlethe praises Linux to no end.

What exactly is it that Word can do that Open Office or Google Docs can't?

I'm a graduate student. I work for professors, and have to send them word documents, etc (as in revising and editing multiple choice exams or study questions). I write documents and powerpoints and have to open them on school computers. Surlethe has linux on the main computer, so if I want to print something without the formatting being fucked, I have to save the document on my netbook as a pdf and then send it to the main computer for printing. Having linux on my computer is like imagining that problem times a hundred.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Having linux on my computer is like imagining that problem times a hundred.

Fixed for you.

[Sarevok]

Get EEEBuntu on a bootable USB stick. Use it when you need linux. Otherwise stick with XP.

[Sarevok]

I find I can't use Linux because I have to have Microsoft Word. Which is unfortunate as Surlethe praises Linux to no end.

What exactly is it that Word can do that Open Office or Google Docs can't?

Not open and edit files sent by rest of the world who uses MS Office 2010 for some reason ?

[phongn]

- The ability to match my 904HA EEEpc hardware drivers. Touchpad, wifi, integrated webcam and microphone, battery management, etc.

Ubuntu 10.04 should natively support all that.

- Good performance management, because the 904HA is netbook.

Depends on your software and packages.

- If possible, fast boot-up time. Like, really fucking fast.

Buy an SSD.

- A good graphical front, because I have no intention of learning command lines.

Don't use Linux, you will need to drop down at times.

- Straightforward install. Everything on the laptop can go, but I aim to not need a fucking wiki to understand how to get the OS on.

Ubuntu's install is pretty straightforward.

- Oh, and support for hungarian characters. I just noticed that some of my files got rather funky characters when being transfered to this computer ("é" instead of "é").

It should support it.

Software included should be able to:
* Editing Doc files.
* Playing music files, including FLAC files. I've brought a Senheisser headphone in a less wise moment and I intend to take advantage of them (like listening to the static filtering trough the AC ).
* Reading PDF files, bookmarks included.
* Browsing the net.
* Simple games, like chess.
* Chatting. Pidgin-esque stuff is sufficient, although sometimes I use skype.

All of the above, but OpenOffice is terrible.

[Sarevok]

Bear in mind while EEE PC supports Ubuntu the EEEBuntu,XUbuntu and such EEE PC specific releases are better. They have a lot of tweaking done to optimize it. A lot of Linux distros run on EEE PC aswell but you will spend a lot of time fixing annoying problems like the wifi not working and battery charge meter being missing. This is why it is better to go for a EEE PC specific linux release.

http://forum.eeeuser.com/

This is the best EEE PC site on the internet. All your linux questions will be answered there.

http://wiki.eeeuser.com/

Also read their wiki which has detail instructions with screen shots for installing and using all kinds of linux and linux programs on the EEE PC.

A last note of warning. Do you use mobile broadband ? I do and I have yet to find a easy to way to connect a USB edge modem or bluetooth tether my Nokia E63 with my EEE PC. If you are like me and need internet on the move stick with windows for now. Either that or learn arcane linux console commands to pair your phone/modem with your EEE PC.

[Dominus Atheos]

I find I can't use Linux because I have to have Microsoft Word. Which is unfortunate as Surlethe praises Linux to no end.

What exactly is it that Word can do that Open Office or Google Docs can't?

Not open and edit files sent by rest of the world who uses MS Office 2010 for some reason ?

You mean that one that won't actually be released to the public for a month and a half? OH NOES!!!1!1one!1!!eleven!!

[Sarevok]

Meh, I am not sure about google docs ability to handle Office 2k7 files either. Especially if said file has complicated stuff like tables in it. The thing is I am not blaming Openoffice or google for it. As far as I know the Microsoft office file format is a secret and everything known about it has been done through reverse engineering. Thus there is a limit on how much Openoffice and googledocs can do as Office becomes ever more complex.

[phongn]

Meh, I am not sure about google docs ability to handle Office 2k7 files either. Especially if said file has complicated stuff like tables in it. The thing is I am not blaming Openoffice or google for it. As far as I know the Microsoft office file format is a secret and everything known about it has been done through reverse engineering. Thus there is a limit on how much Openoffice and googledocs can do as Office becomes ever more complex.

ISO/IEC 29500-1:2008 and ECMA-376 define OOXML and are freely available.

[Sarevok]

But Richard Stallman claims otherwise.

Worst of all, it has already done so. Microsoft Office 2007 uses by default a format based on the patented OOXML format. (This is the one that Microsoft got declared an “open standard” by political manipulation and packing standards committees.) The actual format is not entirely OOXML, and it is not entirely documented. Microsoft offers a gratis patent license for OOXML on terms which do not allow free implementations. We are thus beginning to receive Word files in a format that free programs are not even allowed to read.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

[phongn]

Microsoft says otherwise with their Open Specifications Promise. I don't put much stock into RMS.

[Sarevok]

I dunno. The word "Open" has been abused so much in IT industry it has lost its meaning and says nothing. I have been working with win32 and C++ for a decade now. A quick search through google for OOXML produces nothing I can use to access contents of office documents. In contrast I get tons of links to sites and blog posts slamming OOXML as being evil. If Office Format was really open there would be a beautiful SDK worthy of the Microsoft name with pretty header files, tutorials and a entire section of MSDN devoted to it. Thats how Microsoft usually rolls. When they make a technology available to other developers they are very good about making it easily accessible and powerful to use.

Its like MSN protocol. I once had to write a client for MSN messenger. There was zip zilch nada from Microsoft, I had to dig through poorly written tutorials and forum posts and read source code of programs like MirandaIM to figure out how they did it. If thats the level of support that exists for Office File format then it is by no means "Open".

[Ace Pace]

I dunno. The word "Open" has been abused so much in IT industry it has lost its meaning and says nothing. I have been working with win32 and C++ for a decade now. A quick search through google for OOXML produces nothing I can use to access contents of office documents.

Are you a fucking programmer, or an API monkey?
The standard. Enjoy. Notice it's immense, and you want MS to do the work to provide you with free APIs that cost them millions to develop?

In contrast I get tons of links to sites and blog posts slamming OOXML as being evil.

Irrelevant.

If Office Format was really open there would be a beautiful SDK worthy of the Microsoft name with pretty header files, tutorials and a entire section of MSDN devoted to it.

Really? They have to? Again, do you expect everything to be handed to you on a plate?

Funny that in ONE Bing search I got This. Which looks strikingly like an SDK. I haven't checked it's documentation, but it seems fine. Doesn't even require Office installed.
Nevermind that COM objects for interfacing with MS Office and extracting data in a programmable way have existed for years and I use them daily.

Thats how Microsoft usually rolls. When they make a technology available to other developers they are very good about making it easily accessible and powerful to use.

See above.

Its like MSN protocol. I once had to write a client for MSN messenger. There was zip zilch nada from Microsoft, I had to dig through poorly written tutorials and forum posts and read source code of programs like MirandaIM to figure out how they did it. If thats the level of support that exists for Office File format then it is by no means "Open".

Except the MSN protocol is not open. Nor does it have to be. Why does every protocol need to be open? Instead, Microsoft provides a bunch of SDKs that make working with the end software easy.


You say you're a Win32 programmer for a decade, yet you seem to be perfectly fine that it's a closed interface, that you don't know it's inner workings, or pretty much anything about it besides the API. If so, then why do you demand more from Microsofts other products?

[Sarevok]

Nah the Win32 API is perfectly documented. I have no need to know how it works in detail beyond which function call does what. I But to read a Word document I need either

1 ) A library from Microsoft with all the functions for opening, editing and saving changes to these files.

or

2 ) Detailed information on the file format so that I can create my own functions.

[Ace Pace]

Nah the Win32 API is perfectly documented. I have no need to know how it works in detail beyond which function call does what. I But to read a Word document I need either

1 ) A library from Microsoft with all the functions for opening, editing and saving changes to these files.

or

2 ) Detailed information on the file format so that I can create my own functions.

But I just gave you both. The file format. In the interest of full disclosure, OOXML in Office 07/10 is not fully compliant, but neither was Office in the OLE file format. Nor is OpenOffice fully compliant with it's own standard.

The SDK.