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Topic: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux (Read 52904 times)
  • Belfrager
  • [*][*][*][*][*]
The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux
The alternative title would be: Everything you always wanted to know about Linux but always were afraid to ask...

So, as you can see bellow my avatar, I'm posting under Linux. :)

Well, not entirely exact... I'm just experiencing Linux, I didn't installed it yet.
That's a good thing Linux has. You can see it "working" before install it.

Not only you can get a feeling about what this thing is but you can also see the kind of trouble you're in... :)
First thing I noticed is that I can connect to the Internet. Nice.
The second one is that I have no sound...

But first things first.
Linux comes in a seemingly endless variety of "distributions" (the natives calls it "distros") and "flavours".
Don't worry, they're basically the same just wrapped into different appearances to better catch us, the Windows Knights.

I've chosen a particularly attractive specimen that goes by the name of "Ubuntu Mate". She told me that she would be very light on consuming my old laptop resources so I kept her... besides "mating" was something that seemed to me interesting.

Now, for the scientific part. You have three options for the most of these distributions.
1. Install it. (no more windows)
2. Dual boot. (you'll have a screen asking you each time you open the pc what operative system you want to use)
3. What I've done so far. See how it works.

The third option will allow you to, if you want, jump to the second. Not my plan, I intend to jump directly into the enemy's territory... :)

To be continued... (depending on my mood... and survival :) )
A matter of attitude.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #75 –
Good, good. :) Security and stability upgrades mostly, I assume.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #76 –
Quote from: Belfrager – on

The other, Otter, fails to keep cookies, what forces me to login every time I enter DnD and other sites. No patience.


That one might be webkit and not the browser itself - I have the same problem with Midori.
Also, Midori has the annoying habit of stopping to run scripts on pages that have been in the background for a while ( no, I don't want them to run in background tabs but they sure should run when the tab comes back to the foreground ). And lastly, it doesn't reliably save the open tabs on exit. When it starts back up it sure opens all tabs but at various points in their history, not necessarily where they were when exiting the browser.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #77 –
After a few months adventuring myself alone and fearless into the Linux magical woods:

Caminante que no hay camino, tu mismo lo haces al caminar...*
And I will not return back... :)

* Spanish saying about the "Way to Santiago". Walker there is no path, the path is made by your own walking...

A matter of attitude.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #78 –
Cool. :)

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #80 –
And both are Buntuers. Makes me think that Ubuntu is already the next MS Apple. At least I felt quite limited when on Ubuntu Unity. Moving to Manjaro Xfce was rather liberating, a similar leap like from Vista to Unity. Openbox and OpenRC provided further discoveries.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #81 –
That's nothing inherent about Ubuntu. The one guy explicitly talks about how much better he thinks KDE (i.e. Kubuntu) is than Unity, and if I were to recommend Linux to a random person I'd probably tell them to give Xubuntu a try. But yes, Manjaro has certainly risen up these past few years.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #82 –
Admittedly, I also exclusively install and recommend Buntus to random people, inasmuch as Mint is really a Buntu and so is Linux Lite OS. Buntu provides the widest selection of desktops, hardware support and it stays comfy even when unmaintained. Nobody in my circle of acquaintances and friends likes to get dirty with Linux, except myself.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #83 –
Quite balanced and informative, I keep it among my bookmarks since ages: DistroWatch
However, IMO there is no silver bullet distro. Each one has its pros and cons.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #84 –
Ubuntu and Mint are pretty close to the silver bullet for newcomers to Linux. Newcomers normally don't know about different desktop environments and such, so the plainest choices fit them best for the time being. The first step made, they can familiarise themselves with more options and begin to make more informed choices.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #85 –
Quote from: ersi – on
Newcomers normally don't know about different desktop environments and such, so the plainest choices fit them best for the time being.

Yes and no.
Newcomers aren't all equal.

Ubuntu is fine for Microsoft migrants because it offers a similar graphical interface,a lot of "comodities", but what those migrants seeks is more than that in my opinion. I see Ubuntu as a nice entrance door to Linux, an initial step.

Soon I'll install other Linux distros so I can opiniate better about it. I find Ubuntu (Mate) too much "barbie thingy" to my particular taste and not too much stable.
I need something between Ubuntu and some "only terminal command" distro.
But now I'm busy with other (real) things so computers will have to wait.
A matter of attitude.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #86 –
I have no more enthusiam for computers.
This thread will be no more suported by me. Thank you.
A matter of attitude.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #87 –
As long as you stay on Linux, adventures never end. Keep learning and make the best of it.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH8Z9zeywq0[/video]

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #88 –
well,  rather live usb you can install it at usb.

just make a partition at usb,  then use virtual box to install linux  at usb flash disk.

nor use two usb,  one  to install,  one is the destination.

i oftenly  using linux nor hiren with gparted  to troubleshoot,  fix or maintenance windows system.


you do not want to have usb windows to fix windows with tons of virus.

coz it will just infect it sobad.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #89 –
I installed Manjaro when it was still a good nimble distro where the noob user was helped along instead of locked in. Nowadays Manjaro cannot be recommended to new users, while I can still safely update what I installed ages ago.

I'm fairly addicted to uptodate software and the ability to reproduce the opsys/environment on a different hardware. These two important features are said to be available with NixOS that my IRC pals increasingly migrate to. My first feeble attempts of installing it have failed, but perhaps I'll try again and succeed at some point.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp3Iu4Cpfyk[/video]

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #90 –
Another thing that I got around to way too late.

Q: How to execute a text file containing code, without having to create an executable shell script?
A: Pipe the text to the shell.

Prerequisite: Have a text file with code palatable by the shell. For example, create a text file with contents date and save it as whattime.txt.

Then either
Code: [Select]
cat whattime.txt | bash
or
Code: [Select]
bash < whattime.txt

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #91 –
As far as I know most such things like Bash, Lua, Python, and PHP also take a filename as an argument.

So the simplest option should be:
Code: [Select]
bash whattime.txt

I think even Node works like that, some of its oddities notwithstanding.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #93 –
After m4, maybe try TCL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYh6D1NhatY

Quote from: man tcl

     The following  rules define the  syntax and semantics of  the Tcl
     language:

     [1] Commands.
          A Tcl  script is a  string containing one or  more commands.
          Semi-colons  and  newlines  are  command  separators  unless
          quoted  as  described  below.  Close  brackets  are  command
          terminators during  command substitution (see  below) unless
          quoted.

     [2] Evaluation.
          A  command  is  evaluated  in two  steps.   First,  the  Tcl
          interpreter  breaks  the  command into  words  and  performs
          substitutions as  described below.  These  substitutions are
          performed in the  same way for all  commands.  Secondly, the
          first word  is used to  locate a command procedure  to carry
          out the  command, then all of  the words of the  command are
          passed to  the command procedure.  The  command procedure is
          free to  interpret each of  its words  in any way  it likes,
          such  as an  integer, variable  name, list,  or Tcl  script.
          Different commands interpret their words differently.

     [3] Words.
          Words of a command are  separated by white space (except for
          newlines, which are command separators).

     [4] Double quotes.
          If the first character of  a word is double-quote (``034''')
          then  the  word  is  terminated  by  the  next  double-quote
          character.  If  semi-colons, close brackets, or  white space
          characters  (including newlines)  appear between  the quotes
          then they are treated as ordinary characters and included in
          the word.  Command  substitution, variable substitution, and
          backslash  substitution  are  performed  on  the  characters
          between the  quotes as  described below.   The double-quotes
          are not retained as part of the word.

     [5] Argument expansion.
          If  a word  starts with  the  string ``{*}''  followed by  a
          non-whitespace  character,  then   the  leading  ``{*}''  is
          removed and the  rest of the word is  parsed and substituted
          as any other word. After substitution, the word is parsed as
          a list (without command or variable substitutions; backslash
          substitutions  are performed  as is  normal for  a list  and
          individual internal words may be surrounded by either braces
          or double-quote characters), and its  words are added to the
          command being substituted. For  instance, ``cmd a {*}{b [c]}
          d {*}{$e f {g h}}'' is equivalent  to ``cmd a b {[c]} d {$e}
          f {g h}''.

     [6] Braces.
          If the  first character of a  word is an open  brace (``{'')
          and rule [5] does not apply,  then the word is terminated by
          the matching  close brace  (``}'').  Braces nest  within the
          word:  for  each additional  open  brace  there must  be  an
          additional close brace  (however, if an open  brace or close
          brace within the word is quoted  with a backslash then it is
          not  counted  in locating  the  matching  close brace).   No
          substitutions are  performed on  the characters  between the
          braces except for  backslash-newline substitutions described
          below,  nor do  semi-colons,  newlines,  close brackets,  or
          white space  receive any  special interpretation.   The word
          will  consist of  exactly the  characters between  the outer
          braces, not including the braces themselves.

     [7] Command substitution.
          If a word contains an open bracket (``['') then Tcl performs
          command  substitution.   To  do  this  it  invokes  the  Tcl
          interpreter recursively to  process the characters following
          the open  bracket as a  Tcl script.  The script  may contain
          any number  of commands  and must be  terminated by  a close
          bracket (``]'').  The result of  the script (i.e. the result
          of its last  command) is substituted into the  word in place
          of  the brackets  and all  of the  characters between  them.
          There may be any number of command substitutions in a single
          word.   Command  substitution  is  not  performed  on  words
          enclosed in braces.

     [8] Variable substitution.
          If a word contains a  dollar-sign (``$'') followed by one of
          the  forms  described  below,  then  Tcl  performs  variable
          substitution:  the dollar-sign  and the following characters
          are  replaced  in the  word  by  the  value of  a  variable.
          Variable substitution may take any of the following forms:

          $name          Name is  the name of a  scalar variable;  the
                         name is a sequence  of one or more characters
                         that  are  a  letter, digit,  underscore,  or
                         namespace  separators (two  or more  colons).
                         Letters  and  digits  are only  the  standard
                         ASCII ones (09, AZ and az).

          $name(index)   Name gives the name  of an array variable and
                         index  gives the  name of  an element  within
                         that array.  Name  must contain only letters,
                         digits,     underscores,    and     namespace
                         separators,  and  may  be  an  empty  string.
                         Letters  and  digits  are only  the  standard
                         ASCII   ones  (09,   AZ  and   az).   Command
                         substitutions,  variable  substitutions,  and
                         backslash substitutions are  performed on the
                         characters of index.

          ${name}        Name  is the  name  of a  scalar variable  or
                         array element.  It may contain any characters
                         whatsoever  except  for   close  braces.   It
                         indicates an array element  if name is in the
                         form  ``arrayName(index)''   where  arrayName
                         does   not  contain   any  open   parenthesis
                         characters, ``('', or close brace characters,
                         ``}'',  and  index  can be  any  sequence  of
                         characters except for close brace characters.
                         No further substitutions are performed during
                         the parsing of name.

          There  may be  any  number of  variable  substitutions in  a
          single  word.  Variable  substitution  is  not performed  on
          words enclosed in braces.

          Note that  variables may  contain character  sequences other
          than those listed  above, but in that  case other mechanisms
          must be  used to  access them (e.g.,  via the  set command's
          single-argument form).

     [9] Backslash substitution.
          If a backslash (``\'') appears  within a word then backslash
          substitution occurs.  In all cases but those described below
          the  backslash is  dropped  and the  following character  is
          treated as an  ordinary character and included  in the word.
          This  allows   characters  such  as  double   quotes,  close
          brackets, and dollar  signs to be included  in words without
          triggering  special processing.   The following  table lists
          the backslash  sequences that  are handled  specially, along
          with the value that replaces each sequence.

          \a     Audible alert (bell) (Unicode U+000007).

          \b     Backspace (Unicode U+000008).

          \f     Form feed (Unicode U+00000C).

          \n     Newline (Unicode U+00000A).

          \r     Carriage-return (Unicode U+00000D).

          \t     Tab (Unicode U+000009).

          \v     Vertical tab (Unicode U+00000B).

          \<newline>whiteSpace
                 A  single  space  character replaces  the  backslash,
                 newline, and  all spaces and tabs  after the newline.
                 This  backslash  sequence is  unique  in  that it  is
                 replaced in a separate  prepass before the command is
                 actually parsed.  This means that it will be replaced
                 even when it occurs between braces, and the resulting
                 space will  be treated as  a word separator if  it is
                 not in braces or quotes.

          \\     Backslash (``\'').

          \ooo   The digits  ooo (one, two,  or three of them)  give a
                 eight-bit octal value for  the Unicode character that
                 will  be inserted,  in  the range  000377 (i.e.,  the
                 range U+000000U+0000FF).   The parser will  stop just
                 before this  range overflows, or when  the maximum of
                 three  digits  is reached.   The  upper  bits of  the
                 Unicode character will be 0.

          \xhh   The hexadecimal digits  hh (one or two  of them) give
                 an  eight-bit  hexadecimal   value  for  the  Unicode
                 character that  will be inserted.  The  upper bits of
                 the Unicode character will  be 0 (i.e., the character
                 will be in the range U+000000U+0000FF).

          \uhhhh The hexadecimal digits hhhh (one, two, three, or four
                 of them) give a sixteen-bit hexadecimal value for the
                 Unicode character  that will be inserted.   The upper
                 bits of  the Unicode character  will be 0  (i.e., the
                 character will be in the range U+000000U+00FFFF).

          \Uhhhhhhhh
                 The hexadecimal  digits hhhhhhhh (one up  to eight of
                 them) give a twenty-one-bit hexadecimal value for the
                 Unicode character that will be inserted, in the range
                 U+000000U+10FFFF.  The  parser will stop  just before
                 this range  overflows, or  when the maximum  of eight
                 digits  is reached.   The upper  bits of  the Unicode
                 character will be 0.

                 The  range  U+010000U+10FFFD   is  reserved  for  the
                 future.

          Backslash substitution is not performed on words enclosed in
          braces, except for backslash-newline as described above.

     [10] Comments.
          If a hash character (``#'') appears  at a point where Tcl is
          expecting  the  first  character  of the  first  word  of  a
          command,  then the  hash character  and the  characters that
          follow it,  up through  the next newline,  are treated  as a
          comment  and  ignored.   The   comment  character  only  has
          significance when it appears at the beginning of a command.

     [11] Order of substitution.
          Each  character  is  processed   exactly  once  by  the  Tcl
          interpreter as part of creating the words of a command.  For
          example,  if variable  substitution occurs  then no  further
          substitutions are  performed on  the value of  the variable;
          the value  is inserted into  the word verbatim.   If command
          substitution  occurs then  the nested  command is  processed
          entirely by  the recursive call  to the Tcl  interpreter; no
          substitutions are performed before making the recursive call
          and no additional substitutions  are performed on the result
          of the nested script.

          Substitutions  take  place  from  left to  right,  and  each
          substitution  is evaluated  completely before  attempting to
          evaluate the next.  Thus, a sequence like

               set y [set x 0][incr x][incr x]

          will always set the variable y to the value, 012.

     [12] Substitution and word boundaries.
          Substitutions  do  not  affect  the  word  boundaries  of  a
          command, except for argument  expansion as specified in rule
          [5].  For  example, during variable substitution  the entire
          value of the variable becomes part of a single word, even if
          the variable's value contains spaces.
Maybe a place to start https://www.tutorialspoint.com/tcl-tk/index.htm