I do need to get a router. I want to do ssh from uni network to my home computer, and it’s becoming disappointingly clear that xp is not going to forward it to me.
I talked to my dad about it and he said basically “I’m going to be away for a week next week, if there happens to be a router instead of the switch and all the functionality I expect remains when I get back then fine, but if when I am trying to work anything is broken I will charge you £400 a day, do you understand?”.
In other news I got my old laptop which I hadn’t used in ages and put Debian on it (because after putting Fedora on my desktop I thought I’d see the other side). I mostly did that so I could check if ssh was working (which it is on the LAN).
But now I am wondering since I need to wait for my router to arrive and till my dad is away to set it up, maybe I could try installing something that’s harder to install to see if I can do it. LOL is that decadent of me?
What do you think?
(And you know what, I really feel like I have fallen literally in love with my new OS).
On and lol, my brother said he wants an external harddrive with linux on just like mine.
If you want to get experimental, and want added performance from older hardware, you might want to take a look at Gentoo… not (by far) the easiest distro to install, but quick and you’ll definitely learn on the way.
Glad to hear you like Linux… most people do, or would if only they would give it a try
Well there’s no real risk of experimenting is there, there’s nothing I need on the laptop, I was going to just never use it again before the night before last I decided at the middle of the night to try and connect it by ssh to my desktop computer (I think I’ve gone a bit mad lol I didn’t get to bed till 6am that day because none of the cables for the laptop were in known places and yet I was too impatient not to get it all done that night).
I mean, basically what have I got to lose? LOL.
It’s been so much fun lately discovering new things ^_^.
As stated Gentoo isn’t an “easy” install… you’ll be doing stuff like compiling your own kernel, and configuring it yourself, but as it will have been specifically compiled for “your” system it is supposed to be quick.
MP will be able to advise better… not Installed it myself, but one thing seems clear… the Gentoo site has good documentation.
Actually, I might get round to it myself…I’ve wanted to check it out but something always comes up and I forget about it.
If you enjoy learning new stuff (computer related)… Linux is definitely “for you”, with “Windows” you can only go so far… Linux opens so many more “Doors”.
Heh… Should be a Linux “slogan”
Or… Windows only lets you “see” the possibilities, Linux opens the “Doors”
For what it’s worth, following the Gentoo install instructions verbatim will work most of the time. The problems you’re likely to experience will include;
Partitioning - you need to understand how computers partition harddisks
Compile time - having to compile everything can become a little irritating after a while and can slow you down
Flags - you will need to come up with your own set of custom flags for things you install. Whereas normally when you install a ‘package’ , the package builder will have made a number of fundamental decisions for you, with Gentoo these decisions (that you’re not generally exposed to) are down to you!
Compatibility and interaction - once you’ve chosen your flags you will find that certain combinations clash with certain applications, often getting the right combination can be an exercise in trial and error
Uniqueness - each installation will be unique and specific to the hardware on the machine you are building it on, the implication being that you need to know the hardware and the differences between different types of hardware. For example i386, i586, i686, x86, amd64, x86_64, IDE, SATA, etc …
On the plus side;
You will always get access to the very latest code, whereas in Ubuntu you often find youself 6-12 months behind, even with the most recent updates
Access to obscure packages, Gentoo’s package base last I used it was way bigger than Debian
Speed, your installation will be faster than any standard distro … 40% would be a reasonable average
Flexibility, you get to configure in the package options you want, including features you want and excluding bloat you don’t
When working on FlashLinux for example I was using gcc compiler flags that optimised for space rather than speed and dynamic libraries rather than static, and managed to get a bootable live CD with a full Gnome desktop and a decent selection of applications inside of 180M.
I missed church this morning because when I was supposed to leave I fell asleep because all night I was picking options for the kernel configuration, then I exited without saving and had to start all over again! I tell you a less stubborn person would have given up then, but I feel like the key to making this (or anything else) work is persistance, everytime I screw up, just keep on trying stuff till it works.
It was a bit of a case of “in at the deep end”… but you did ask and as god uses Linux, I’m sure he’ll understand.
It’s possible that he could have made the world in 3 days… but he forgot to save
