On 28 June 2010 19:21, Steve snjc01@googlemail.com wrote:

Hi

I've been dabbling with Linux for just over a year and am now consistently using Linux Mint albeit secondary to Windows.

I hope, with time, you'll be ditch Windows and fully find your feet with Linux :)

Do you ever run a newbies meeting, I still consider myself as that?

Not as such but come along to the monthly pub meeting tomorrow. We're all friendly and happy to answer any and all questions you have. Bring your machine if it's portable!

Also, how is it possible to know (other than the approved Mint/Ubuntu repositories) which repositories/software is going to be ok, I feel like I may be missing out on stuff and in any case even in the approved repos they have disclaimers.

Well I suppose that's a tricky one. It depends who you trust and what you're after. For example, you might trust Ubuntu to thoroughly check all their package for bugs etc. but if you use software that's marked as unstable or testing, you might find issues. If all else fails, google it or ask someone with plenty of experience - mail this list for example.

Isn't Linux basically Linux won't most stuff play nicely together ?

Weeeeeellllllll, yes/no/yes/no/yes/no/maybe.

Strictly speaking, Linux is the kernel which is the software that knows how to speak to your computer's hardware. Even linux isn't just linux though as, due to it's open nature, people are free to (and very often do) makes patches to the Linux kernel so it does things they want. I suspect Ubuntu uses it's own patched version of the Linux kernel.

The other software you use can vary greatly. Unlike Windows, there isn't just one environment for the desktop, there are quite a lot to choose from. Two of the most popular (I guess because they look and feel like Window and/or OSX) are KDE and Gnome. You can pick and choose. That, for me, is the most compelling thing about using Linux.

I hope that's cleared things up but to be honest, if it has, I'm probably doing it wrong ;)

There's a lot of software out there and a lot of choices to make. Most newbies will stick with the default Ubuntu desktop for a while and hopefully, once they learn more, customise it to their own needs to get the best experience possible.

Fin.

Cheers, Steve

On Mon, 2010-06-28 at 19:21 +0100, Steve wrote:

Hi

I've been dabbling with Linux for just over a year and am now consistently using Linux Mint albeit secondary to Windows.

Do you ever run a newbies meeting, I still consider myself as that?

AFAIK there is no newbies course, no series of talks organised specifically for newbies but on the other hand members are usually prepared to help with any problems you may have so come to one of the meets and ask (or ask here).

You could bring a laptop/netbook to one of the pub meets for some hands on - see the website for details. We sometimes have kit meets which is a good time to bring a desktop or server machine.

Also, how is it possible to know (other than the approved Mint/Ubuntu repositories) which repositories/software is going to be ok, I feel like I may be missing out on stuff and in any case even in the approved repos they have disclaimers.

I guess it depends what you mean by OK.

The writers of free software generally do not offer any kind or warranty and some pieces of free software have more bugs than others. When it comes to answering the question "What would be a good piece of software to do X?" you can search on the Internet, in the descriptions in the package manager that comes with your distribution and ask on this list or, for a specialist area, on a list devoted to it.

Once you have one or more candidates you can again read up on the Internet, seek comments from people etc. or just try it out yourself and see how you get on.

If you are asking the question "How do I know package X is not malicious?" then answer is you can get the source code (as used by your distribution) and check, you can compile from the virgin source from whoever wrote the application yourself, or you can hope than enough other people have access to the source that people who would insert malicious code are deterred.

Isn't Linux basically Linux won't most stuff play nicely together ?

Lots of stuff does play nicely but there can be constraints, for example an application may talk to a daemon and requires a certain minimum version of that daemon. The daemon in turns requires at least a certain version of a library and than in turn requires a minimum of a certain version of the kernel.

In general the easiest way to deal with this is to use the repository for your distribution. It looks to me as if Mint is based on Ubuntu which in turn is based on Debian. Debian's package and dependency management is particularly good and, when you ask it to install an application, will install all the other things it depends on for you.

If you want to stray outside that you'll almost certainly find things are more likely to play well if you compile them from source than if you use a binary package designed for a different distribution.

HTH, Steve.

On 28 June 2010 19:21, Steve snjc01@googlemail.com wrote:

Hi

I've been dabbling with Linux for just over a year and am now consistently using Linux Mint albeit secondary to Windows.

Do you ever run a newbies meeting, I still consider myself as that?

All are welcome at the meetings, at any level :)

Also, how is it possible to know (other than the approved Mint/Ubuntu repositories) which repositories/software is going to be ok, I feel like I may be missing out on stuff and in any case even in the approved repos they have disclaimers.

I don't think you can know for sure with out trying, well for 3rd party software atleast. If you are after something that is in the main repo's, then get it from there to be safe.

Isn't Linux basically Linux won't most stuff play nicely together ?

Eh?..Oh wait, are you asking if packages from one distro will work on anotehr? No, probably not without some adjusting...

HTH.