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Thread ID: 43373	2004-03-12 21:24:00	First try at Xandros v2	John H (8)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
222085	2004-03-17 11:08:00	> Of course GIMP is freely available in Window flavours! No jam required either! Leechget is doing its thing with GTK+ 1 . 3 now, after having a little read up on Gimp . And yes they say no jam, if your still using other than a Unix based OS you get sympathy instead . Apparently it's not so stable on Windows but that is to be expected, we are talking Windows here ;) It also says its not as . . . hold on a sec, just got to get the Gimp now, GTK has finished . . . . . . . . . . . . powefull as Photoshop which I hope puts it at about Elements level . Cheers Murray P	Murray P (44)
222086	2004-03-17 12:37:00	Im not too fond of doing everything via the Right-mouse button. Gimp 2.0 (Pre-release) is looking mighty fine on the Family's Ark Linux box...... So it picked up the Windows-based CD-Rom fine? Double-clicking on the App launched Crossover Wine? Im pretty sure there are ways to do it with Wine also (Make it run with .exe files), but Im not sure how easy it is.... Seems like Xandros is worth taking a look though. Now to just free some HDD space on the Family's PC, and get myself a copy of PC Authority :-) Im also planning on checking out OneBase Linux :-) Looks promising, I just needa go find a review or two. Time to hit distrowatch I think :-) Chill.	Chilling_Silence (9)
222087	2004-03-17 20:31:00	Metla, is that a turd under Windows or just a turd full stop that should have the chain pulled on it. Honey's fine John, can include a few bees and forget about the ants if your that keen. They all sucking implements but bit or sting, sooner or later, diff camoflage same intent ;) BTW, we've got of the track a bit re usability and functionality. How are you (and Terry) getting on with Xandros as an OS, are your impressioms still favourable or is it still too early to tell? Cheers Murray P	Murray P (44)
222088	2004-03-17 20:44:00	>So it picked up the Windows-based CD-Rom fine? Double-clicking on the App launched Crossover Wine? Actually a bit of both Chill. From memory with the failed install of Nero, the Demo (once copied to the Xandros partition via Windows Networking) showed up with a Crossover icon. Double clicking on the icon launched Crossover Wine, which then unpacked the files to a fake /Windows/Temp directory. You know the rest from my earlier post. If you want to install Office, you go Launcher - Applications - Crossover - Office Setup (Launcher is the "Start Menu"). Click on Office Setup, and Crossover gathers up its skirts and prepares to install Office. It checks which version you want to install, and then prompts you to insert the Office CD, then Bob is definitely your aunty after a time of wonder - you know, the usual install malarkey plus a bunch of "cannot install ....dll" stuff that is peculiar to Crossover. Finally, when I had a look to see if there were any Linux drivers on my Linksys disk, Crossover kicked in after recognising that it was a dozy install CD, and offered to install it for me. I aborted that because I did not have time to go through with it, but clearly Crossover did recognise it was an install CD and was ready and offering. Thus far it just seems to have a thing about Nero (or maybe non-CD installs). I will have to try another one some time. In response to Murray (I think), Photoshop Elements does not show on the install list, but I guess that doesn't give a final answer to whether you could install PE under Crossover - I would have to give it a go. J	John H (8)
222089	2004-03-17 20:57:00	>Honey's fine John, can include a few bees and forget about the ants if your that keen. They all sucking implements but bit or sting, sooner or later, diff camoflage same intent Oh, I was just worried about raspberry or strawberry pips in uncomfortable places... >How are you (and Terry) getting on with Xandros as an OS, are your impressioms still favourable or is it still too early to tell? Well, to be honest, I am starting to wonder why I don't dump Windows and move over completely on my main desktop. Just the devil you know I guess. I am a bit worried about whether my other work vital peripherals will work - e.g. HP multifunction thing (I know my Laserjet 2100 works as a shared printer), my Dynalink RTA300 adsl router, Treo 600 (hotsyncing) etc. And whether my DVD burner will work. And my wireless network which looks problematic at the moment, and SWMBO might be a trifle miffed if she could not check her school email (via First Class) on the house computer in the evening and weekends. I certainly don't want to risk that - she has been really patient with my other experiments but this one may cause dummy spitting... Another thing is the amount of money my business has invested in Doze apps - e.g. Nero, SystemSuite etc etc. A while ago I tried a Symbian OS phone/PDA, and realised that just changing the OS was not the only expense; I would be dumping PalmOS productivity software etc, and would need to replace them with Symbian apps that were not at the same level of development. I have gone back to PalmOS (Treo 600) instead of double spending. So whilst Xandros seems to work really well, I am going to have to test it over a range of apps that seem to be really useful in my business. I don't want to end up with useless peripherals. I guess the next stage will be to bite the bullet and install it on my desktop - it is on my laptop at present to isolate it from the business in a sense, so in case something clangs, I can still work and meet contract deadlines. Sorry not to be more decisive Murray, but it is simply a matter of time and careful exploration. I can say this, that this is the first Linux OS I have tried that has made me seriously start working out how to swap over, because a. it meets my level of computer literacy, and b. there seems to be a fall back position to use Windows apps through Crossover if the worst comes to the worst. I think the next stage is to partition the desktop and install it there, and see what happens. This is unlikely to happen over the next fortnight because of my schedule. John	John H (8)
222090	2004-03-17 21:53:00	They ain't real pips you know! They use wood chips, bits of plastic or polystyrene to make it look authentic so, nothings going to grow where it shouldn't . Pop it on the house computer for safety's sake or a diff HDD . I suspect some of my earlier difficulties with linux would have been easier to sort if I wasn't messing with the same HDD as my business win2k installation . It resricts your freedom to act, especially if your feeling is that you might be doing something risky or experimental . I've popped an 8GB HDD on my business machine but still hold out hopes that the family will allow me to install on "their" computer . Whats a few game save files, hotmail and messaging compared to my data, ha! I have a natural aversion to hotmail and MSN anway but have managed to get them on to Mozilla, etc, for most things . One step at a time . I note Chill seems to be reasonably sucessfull with his families alternative computing needs, or has it been more of a slog than is apparent . Cheers Murray P	Murray P (44)
222091	2004-03-17 22:09:00	Chuckle. Wot, even Anatoth raspberry jam which is venerated in our family? >Pop it on the house computer for safety's sake I had Mandrake on the house computer and this caused some relationship difficulties because SWMBO (um, arrr) got tangled up with the boot loader and on more than one occasion found Herself in unfamiliar territory. Where had First Class gone??? Etc.. So I took it off and put it on my laptop and life is more straightforward again. I think I will be OK on a partition on the main PC, but that remains to be seen a couple of weeks down the track. Thanks for the ideas. I do have a spare HD in one of those cartridge type installations, so I could try that. John	John H (8)
222092	2004-03-17 22:15:00	Not a big thing, but another development . I use SmartSync Pro to synchronise my data daily to the other computers . I had already copied all of my data over to Xandros, and I was wondering about how to keep it up to date . I just set up a profile in SSPro to synchronise daily, and I just ran it and it worked over the LAN . It was quicker to set up than to write this post . . . John	John H (8)
222093	2004-03-17 22:33:00	Well, John would seem to be a bit ahead of me at the moment, he has real work to do, I just play all day :) There is no prospect in site of getting the Logitech ClickSmart 420 web/digital camera to work in Xandros, the drivers are just not yet developed. Neither is there any show of getting my old Canoscan FB310 to go, no drivers for that either, and none on the horizon. Amongs may other projects which are taking up my playtime, not all computer related, I still have to face the fearsome task of installing Mplayer in Xandros. This involves digging much deeper into the innards and using 'Alien' to convert some rpm files to Debian. Even harder it seems at the moment is to see if Kshowmail can be installed, it appears to be for RedHat and SuSe distributions, and that would need some expert hacking for Xandros. I successfully removed Real One and replaced it with RP8 which involved a bit of command line work. In my case having multiple computers with spare hard drives and caddies lying around it's no great hardship switching between OSs. It would be very nice to say bye bye to MS, and I'd say this Xandros is one of the easier ways to go, so long as the hardware drivers can be obtained.	Terry Porritt (14)
222094	2004-03-17 23:26:00	Yes, my family have been quite happy with it. Wine picked up some preschool software my Parents purchased a week ago, and it installed fine. Obviously I had to do the install myself from the command line (wine /mnt/cdrom/Setup.exe) and make a Desktop Icon pointing to where I installed it. Aside from that it went peachy. Ive got WineX 3.3 I should try on their PC too.... My parents only gripe is that Ark doesnt let them install Windows apps easily, they've had to call on me for help each time. Im hoping Crossover Office might solve that? Either that or I need to tell Kde to open .exe's with Wine :-) If I can get them to open with Wine, I'll post back here, because its been a great alternative. Admittedly Ive installed Firefox/Thunderbird, aMSN, and compiled the latest version of XMMS. Aside from that its just a stock install with no settings tweaked at all. I had a look at Woolworths today but couldnt see PCAuthority. Im getting a Laptop on Saturday so I thought I'd try it out for a day or two before using Ark Linux myself (Yes, Im sorry to say Im leaving Gentoo :-(). Terry> Download the source for Mplayer. Its dead easy to compile: ./configure make make install Then you'll also get mencoder which you dont get with the rpm's. As for your camera's, try running the following commands: mkdir /camera mount /dev/sda1 /camera Then have a look in /camera for your picture files :-) Otherwise, check out Digikam Chill.	Chilling_Silence (9)
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