After 90 days of study, I am still learning but not sure what size USB drives to get

MX Linux is an excellent distro.

It continues to impress me.

I have been using it in my stable since MX-14 was changing to MX-15, and it is probably in my Top 10 at all times.

Being so closely related to Debian, more so than say Ubuntu and Linux Mint, it does not support the use of PPAs (Personal Package Archives), a concept developed by Ubuntu. But I do not see that as a drawback as it has alternatives to adding Repositories and Software Sources.

Doesn't hurt, too, that it has gob-smackingly gorgeous wallpapers :)

It only offers the one DE (Desktop Environment) and that is Xfce, but they focus on just the one environment, and they do it well. And Xfce's resource consumption (low) is just the ticket, for many users.

Wiz
 


When I write to the forum about advantages of Linux, I say 'one of the best things about Linux is' this or that feature. But you know what the absolute best thing about Linux is? It's the people. Here, especially at Linux.org, we have the best people trying to help out newbies and veterans alike. Doing research on behalf of them and coming back and giving a crap.
 
I bought almost $100 worth of USB sticks this past Friday when our back to school tax holiday weekend began thanks to a "letter from home" payback of money I loaned a friend a couple of years back and wrote off as he has been in hard times since but happily helped me with tasks around my place a number of times at no charge while he was between jobs.

When he came over after work last week five or six pay periods into his current job to pay it back, I declined it but he said of the folks he called friends, I was one of the few who hadn't dunned him since he got employed again and as he shoved the money down the neck of my shirt and I tried to tell him his helping me around my place was enough payback , he laughed and said it helped him keep his sanity after reading the rejection letters for the day as he sprinted to his car to end our game of "Take it , I owe you /keep it, your just getting steady back in your zone" country boy's courtesy back and forth .

After stocking up, this weekend I used the high speed connected machine to try to get dial up drivers on the drive to try here but I couldn't get it to see my USR linux friendly modem.

Two on high speed connections like MX and are having fun learning to use it and after 3 days of trying to make it work here, I decided to set that stick aside and later this week see what I can do with one of the other Linux distros suggested by y'all.

The way I look at it is I am batting 500 now and the worse case scenario will bethe high speed folks I use to get us dial ups going can choose what they like best as I learn the different OS options while getting my own OS and if they go in different directions, it wont be that much different than what I did when I was cleaning up /restoring MS OS machines from XP to 7 and 8. :)

Only thing slowing me down now is although I taught the two trying MX how to get back to 8.1 to run their anti virus in case they think they messed up even though from my understanding they are only running on the stick, they call wanting me to make house calls to run all the security layers and check their 8.1 settings , I have made trips to the one house and talked the other through his doh moments over the phone using my MX stick that won't connect.

So goes the life of a nerd , but it's all good because as they are learning so am I. Hopefully my copper wire crew understand I'm not showing high speed favoritism because I need to keep the high speed half happy because I need their flatland machines to make something as light weight as possible sticks for us in copper wire land.
 
Typical bad timing with timezones, as I am off for my Tuesday evening meal.

Your Posts are always a good read, back tomorrow to digest it.

Chris
 
I'm a bit late to the party, but I have an extra couple of cents to throw in.

I'm pedantic when it comes to the terms Linux and Linux Distribution. Linux is the operating system. A Linux distribution, or Linux distro, in general, is comprised of programs that allow a user to meaningfully, or pointedly interact with Linux e.g. Debian, Ubuntu, Mint etc..

If what you're after is to better understand Linux, and then make an informed decision as to what tools are out there, I'd recommend spending some time getting to know your http://linuxfromscratch.org/.

LFS is a set of instructions (an attempt at clear instructions) on how to build Linux from scratch, and potentially create your own distribution as you see fit. It doesn't necessarily have all the bells and whistles of a community based distribution, but it should give you some ideas / teach you how it all works underneath the basics of the distribution covers.

Once you've gone through building your own LFS distribution at least once, you might appreciate the other distributions, or maybe even appreciate them a bit more. If you're still keen after that, you can look at BLFS, and ALFS from the same link above, and create your own bootable distribution of Linux.

Good Luck, and I'm interested to see where you end up!
 
I'm a bit late to the party, but I have an extra couple of cents to throw in.

I'm pedantic when it comes to the terms Linux and Linux Distribution. Linux is the operating system. A Linux distribution, or Linux distro, in general, is comprised of programs that allow a user to meaningfully, or pointedly interact with Linux e.g. Debian, Ubuntu, Mint etc..

If what you're after is to better understand Linux, and then make an informed decision as to what tools are out there, I'd recommend spending some time getting to know your http://linuxfromscratch.org/.

LFS is a set of instructions (an attempt at clear instructions) on how to build Linux from scratch, and potentially create your own distribution as you see fit. It doesn't necessarily have all the bells and whistles of a community based distribution, but it should give you some ideas / teach you how it all works underneath the basics of the distribution covers.

Once you've gone through building your own LFS distribution at least once, you might appreciate the other distributions, or maybe even appreciate them a bit more. If you're still keen after that, you can look at BLFS, and ALFS from the same link above, and create your own bootable distribution of Linux.

Good Luck, and I'm interested to see where you end up!
Yes, a really good resource, mate:)!
 
I bought almost $100 worth of USB sticks this past Friday when our back to school tax holiday weekend began thanks to a "letter from home" payback of money I loaned a friend a couple of years back and wrote off as he has been in hard times since but happily helped me with tasks around my place a number of times at no charge while he was between jobs.

When he came over after work last week five or six pay periods into his current job to pay it back, I declined it but he said of the folks he called friends, I was one of the few who hadn't dunned him since he got employed again and as he shoved the money down the neck of my shirt and I tried to tell him his helping me around my place was enough payback , he laughed and said it helped him keep his sanity after reading the rejection letters for the day as he sprinted to his car to end our game of "Take it , I owe you /keep it, your just getting steady back in your zone" country boy's courtesy back and forth .

After stocking up, this weekend I used the high speed connected machine to try to get dial up drivers on the drive to try here but I couldn't get it to see my USR linux friendly modem.

Two on high speed connections like MX and are having fun learning to use it and after 3 days of trying to make it work here, I decided to set that stick aside and later this week see what I can do with one of the other Linux distros suggested by y'all.

The way I look at it is I am batting 500 now and the worse case scenario will bethe high speed folks I use to get us dial ups going can choose what they like best as I learn the different OS options while getting my own OS and if they go in different directions, it wont be that much different than what I did when I was cleaning up /restoring MS OS machines from XP to 7 and 8. :)

Only thing slowing me down now is although I taught the two trying MX how to get back to 8.1 to run their anti virus in case they think they messed up even though from my understanding they are only running on the stick, they call wanting me to make house calls to run all the security layers and check their 8.1 settings , I have made trips to the one house and talked the other through his doh moments over the phone using my MX stick that won't connect.

So goes the life of a nerd , but it's all good because as they are learning so am I. Hopefully my copper wire crew understand I'm not showing high speed favoritism because I need to keep the high speed half happy because I need their flatland machines to make something as light weight as possible sticks for us in copper wire land.
Nerd on Mate!:):)
 
Linux is the operating system.

(Wizard playing at being even more pedantic than our new Melbourne friend :))

Linux is the kernel, GNU/Linux is the Operating System.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU/Linux_naming_controversy

LFS (Linux From Scratch) is a wonderful opportunity to learn and experience, but Jay is looking at a timeframe whereby support for Windows 7 ceases, and so for now, an OOTB (out of the box) solution is likely more expedient.

Glad to hear some of The Golden Oldies are enjoying the MX experience, Jay :D

Cheers all

Wizard
 
(Wizard playing at being even more pedantic than our new Melbourne friend :))

Linux is the kernel, GNU/Linux is the Operating System.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU/Linux_naming_controversy

LFS (Linux From Scratch) is a wonderful opportunity to learn and experience, but Jay is looking at a timeframe whereby support for Windows 7 ceases, and so for now, an OOTB (out of the box) solution is likely more expedient.

Glad to hear some of The Golden Oldies are enjoying the MX experience, Jay :D

Cheers all

Wizard

I don't want to derail this thread but, we should argue this over some beer some night (I'm in SE melbs, working in the Docklands) :)
 
That's cool - I am in Stanthorpe in south-east Qld, and we are colder than you are. But I have a grandchild in Melbourne, so who knows? Perhaps a stout portagaff to warm me up.

Back to business :p, take it away, Jay.

Wizard
 
AlienResidents,
Thanks for the Linux coding link and maybe after I have my split on connection speeds group of fixed income retirees older than, I may try to better understand the coding side.

During my tears in CIS (later called I.T support), coding was above my pay grade and being adept at resurrecting hardware in the plant and source code for me was the appropriate external drive and instruction procedure the software guys sent me to the production floor with after I had repaired the smoked or half life died cars in to get a production line running again.

Closest I came to coding was occasionally trying to devise some machine code instructions while working in our avionics contract division as our crews developed avionics data communications and even then on the occasion when I might find a possibly useful I/O piece that the hardware would recognize all I could do was send it up to our coders to consider.

Now almost 20 years out of that compartmentalized work environment and having spent my time since farming and raising cattle, hanging onto my PC tinkering as a diversion retirement hobby, I have retirees older than I whom I have cafe breakfasts with disillusioned with what windows has become and as I fearful of Microsoft going subscription for desktop PC software beyond our budgets.

During breakfast earlier this year I mentioned remembering our software engineers using open source software and the older folks elected me to find a Windows alternative.

About half are using high speed connections and six of us are far enough ou in the country that low cost cable isn't available , satellite internet beyond our budgets and myself and two of the six don't even have cell service at home because the side of the mountains we live on are in a shadow dead zone of the towers that support the valley areas so we still use cheap slow dial up.

Instead of letting myself remember some of what I learned in my industry pay grade , I am pushing myself back to the mindset I had in my 20s as I try options that work for those older than I and a bit more impatient as I learn how best to convert us all with our available hardware and connection speeds before our Windows gear goes boat anchor.

It's a task bu it is also a good diversion mental workout for my hardware nerd brain..

After I get us into new operating systems, I probably will putter with coding instead hardware tinkering for hobby time. :)

Wizard,

When you mentioned time zones, that reminded me of how because we supported installations around the globe at work in that although when we walked in we were on Zulu time minus 6, inside the plant we used Zulu time/date for worldwide schedule/ deadline clarity.

I always found it a bit odd going in the door and time shifting 6 hours and some of the guys laughed because while wearing my minus 6 zone watch on my other wrist I wore a watch set to JUTC Zulu time and date as many of the customers we worked with did.

If I recall , your time zone is Zulu plus 10.

At least with message boards we all can communicate easily regardless of when we are grabbing some sleep :)
 
Yep, +10 Jay. And always, as my state does not use Daylight Savings in Summer.

Wiz
 
Whereas my state (NSW) (when I eventually get back to Oz!!)....does observe daylight saving time.......just to try and complicate everyone's body clocks..... yes i know there are sound reasons behind its implementation.....but when you have experienced young kids who are sleep deprived as a result of the d'light saving you would roundly wish it to hell.

However I came here for a different reason. When I read your initial post, i fairly promptly labelled it a pita (tldr)....and came within a whisker of not 'watching' the post at all. I did however watch it...and actually look forward to reading of your latest trials and tribulations. Have you ever considered writing something.....a book..a blog....whatever.....

You definitely have a gift. .....The gift of storytelling. Not to be sniffed at or dismissed.

My apologies for initially coming within a hairs breadth of giving you the flick.

You have my attention. You also have my admiration. The people whom you advise/help/ remonstrate with etc, are in your debt. I do wonder if they have any idea as to the true extent of that debt.

Brian
 

Members online


Top