Re: An introduction to Debian's topology/structure/???

[Richard Owlett]

On 07/20/2018 04:06 PM, David Wright wrote:

On Fri 20 Jul 2018 at 07:07:34 (-0500), Richard Owlett wrote:

[snip]

GREP-DCTRL(1) says in part, "Use your imagination! The building
blocks are there ..."

I believe it ;/ I suspect piping its output to tbl-dctrl will be
interesting to say the least.


I'm not sure what tabulating it adds over a plain listing, unless
you intend it for documentation or publication.


It is how I grasp data.
I.E. a spreadsheet vs VS Encyclopedia ;/

Re: An introduction to Debian's topology/structure/???

[David Wright]

On Fri 20 Jul 2018 at 07:07:34 (-0500), Richard Owlett wrote:
> On 07/19/2018 10:46 AM, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> >On Thu, 19 Jul 2018, David Wright wrote:
> >>While there are commands like   aptitude search   and   aptitude why
> >>available for such purposes, these are really designed for routine
> >>maintenance. For your purposes, I think you need to develop a more
> >>intimate relationship with the files in /var/lib/apt/lists/,
> >
> >or look at the utilities that the package dctrl-tools provides ;-)
> >
> 
> For my fellow newbies who come across this thread, the associated
> man pages are:
> 
> https://manpages.debian.org/stretch/dctrl-tools/grep-dctrl.1.en.html
>   grep-dctrl, grep-status, grep-available, grep-aptavail, grep-debtags
> https://manpages.debian.org/stretch/dctrl-tools/sort-dctrl.1.en.html
> https://manpages.debian.org/stretch/dctrl-tools/tbl-dctrl.1.en.html
>   generate tabular representations of data in dctrl format
> https://manpages.debian.org/stretch/dctrl-tools/sync-available.8.en.html
>   sync dpkg's available database with apt's database
> 
> GREP-DCTRL(1) says in part, "Use your imagination! The building
> blocks are there ..."
> 
> I believe it ;/ I suspect piping its output to tbl-dctrl will be
> interesting to say the least.

I'm not sure what tabulating it adds over a plain listing, unless
you intend it for documentation or publication.

But anyway, I found that defining a specific solution with
commands like these, combinations of commandline options etc.
was more difficult than a few lines of python once I had a
framework program that parsed the Debian control files into
suitable dictionaries.

Of course, this methodology is unsuitable for general release
unlike Debian's tools. But the skills one learns doing the work
onesself with shell and a programming language will be more
transferable to situations where Debian doesn't have a ready-built
tool. (eg the programs I use for smart editing of files en masse.)

BTW I'm slightly surprised you self-describe as a newbie.
You've been plugging away at Debian for years now and have
been reading voraciously in retirement.

Cheers,
David.

Re: An introduction to Debian's topology/structure/???

[Richard Owlett]

On 07/19/2018 10:46 AM, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:

On Thu, 19 Jul 2018, David Wright wrote:

While there are commands like   aptitude search   and   aptitude why
available for such purposes, these are really designed for routine
maintenance. For your purposes, I think you need to develop a more
intimate relationship with the files in /var/lib/apt/lists/,


or look at the utilities that the package dctrl-tools provides ;-)



For my fellow newbies who come across this thread, the associated man 
pages are:


https://manpages.debian.org/stretch/dctrl-tools/grep-dctrl.1.en.html
  grep-dctrl, grep-status, grep-available, grep-aptavail, grep-debtags
https://manpages.debian.org/stretch/dctrl-tools/sort-dctrl.1.en.html
https://manpages.debian.org/stretch/dctrl-tools/tbl-dctrl.1.en.html
  generate tabular representations of data in dctrl format
https://manpages.debian.org/stretch/dctrl-tools/sync-available.8.en.html
  sync dpkg's available database with apt's database

GREP-DCTRL(1) says in part, "Use your imagination! The building blocks 
are there ..."


I believe it ;/ I suspect piping its output to tbl-dctrl will be 
interesting to say the least.


Thanks.

Re: An introduction to Debian's topology/structure/???

[Richard Owlett]

On 07/19/2018 06:41 PM, Brian wrote:

On Thu 19 Jul 2018 at 15:34:04 +0200, Jochen Spieker wrote:
[snip]


You may want to ask this question in debian-boot (surprisingly, this
list appears to be the place to discuss d-i).


Can it be answered here? The base system. (The OP is familiar with
debootstrap).



*ROFL*
Yes, I've attempted to use it.
*NEVER* successfully.
All the documentation/HOWTO's assumed knowledge/experience not in evidence.
I gave up.

Re: An introduction to Debian's topology/structure/???

[Brian]

On Thu 19 Jul 2018 at 15:34:04 +0200, Jochen Spieker wrote:

> Richard Owlett:
> > 
> > That leads to asking two related questions:

[...]

 
> >  2. What section of the installer installs packages tagged as required?
> > I assume the answer will, in part, be a referral to some developer
> > oriented documentation. [My motivation is personal education rather
> > that creating the next "killer app].
> 
> You may want to ask this question in debian-boot (surprisingly, this
> list appears to be the place to discuss d-i).

Can it be answered here? The base system. (The OP is familiar with
debootstrap).

-- 
Brian.

Re: An introduction to Debian's topology/structure/???

[Richard Owlett]

On 07/19/2018 10:13 AM, David Wright wrote:

On Thu 19 Jul 2018 at 06:38:08 (-0500), Richard Owlett wrote:

On 07/18/2018 09:06 AM, Michael Stone wrote:

On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 08:44:13AM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:

First I'm looking comparison of required, important, standard,
optional, and extra as package labels [particularly interested
in corner cases]. I've been looking at
[https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/]. I'm not grasping
something. Not sure what ;/


Well, it's hard to answer questions when you don't ask a question.
For the most part the priorities don't matter much, and are
largely a historical curiosity. Extra is gone, standard and
important don't mean much. So most packages are optional, and a
few that should be really hard to remove are required. Being
required has the possible advantage that other packages don't need
to explicitly list dependencies on the required package (but in
practice you usually end up with a versioned libc6 dependency
anyway). It does save a bit on the overhead of every single
package having dependencies on /bin/sh and coreutils that the
dependency resolver would then have to consider.



I was, I thought, asking for explicit distinctions between adjacent
priorities. Your reply was that the distinctions were no longer
germane. That, effectively there are now only two, required and
optional.

That changes the landscape surrounding a personal project. Which
some might describe as an extremely minimalist Debian. I would
rather describe it as a "proper subset" of Debian for a particular
use. That is why, in another thread, I ask about "Debian from
Scratch".

That leads to asking two related questions:
  1. How can I get a list of packages tagged as required?
  2. What section of the installer installs packages tagged as required?
 I assume the answer will, in part, be a referral to some developer
 oriented documentation. [My motivation is personal education rather
 that creating the next "killer app].

I will then investigate which of my optional packages already have
an explicit dependence on a "required" app. That will allow me to
enumerate which "required" packages *may* actually be unnecessary.


While there are commands like   aptitude search   and   aptitude why
available for such purposes, these are really designed for routine
maintenance. For your purposes, I think you need to develop a more
intimate relationship with the files in /var/lib/apt/lists/,
particularly



ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_stretch_main_binary-amd64_Packages


I suspect a typo. Clicked on it and got "Address Not Found".
Will search later.


(which may be named differently on your system). There's a similar
file /var/lib/dpkg/status which contains a subset of this information
for any packages with status on your system (usually "installed").


I did a quick browse of /var/lib/apt/ and /var/lib/dpkg/ directories.
I suspect there are answers there to questions I haven't thought of ;/



You can make many investigations (en masse) using OR'd grep
expressions on these files, but for more in-depth investigations,
it's worth parsing it into, say, a python dictionary of fields
containing lists of items in each field.


I had been thinking of something similar in Tcl/Tk (which I'm learning) 
rather than python (which I've not had cause to investigate).




So, for example, I have a program which, for each package, gives
a list of packages that Depends (± Recommends ± Suggests) on it.
By filtering input to that program by the Priority of packages,
and by Recommends/Suggests/¬Depends, it's trivial to answer your
question about which packages are not required on your system,
either through "Priority: required" or a Depends. Working on the raw
data yourself might make it easier to study your corner cases that
using the potted tools that most people suggest. >
Cheers,
David.


Thank you.

Re: An introduction to Debian's topology/structure/???

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Thu, 19 Jul 2018, David Wright wrote:
> While there are commands like   aptitude search   and   aptitude why
> available for such purposes, these are really designed for routine
> maintenance. For your purposes, I think you need to develop a more
> intimate relationship with the files in /var/lib/apt/lists/,

or look at the utilities that the package dctrl-tools provides ;-)

-- 
  Henrique Holschuh

Re: An introduction to Debian's topology/structure/???

[David Wright]

On Thu 19 Jul 2018 at 06:38:08 (-0500), Richard Owlett wrote:
> On 07/18/2018 09:06 AM, Michael Stone wrote:
> >On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 08:44:13AM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
> >>First I'm looking comparison of required, important, standard,
> >>optional, and extra as package labels [particularly interested
> >>in corner cases]. I've been looking at
> >>[https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/]. I'm not grasping
> >>something. Not sure what ;/
> >
> >Well, it's hard to answer questions when you don't ask a question.
> >For the most part the priorities don't matter much, and are
> >largely a historical curiosity. Extra is gone, standard and
> >important don't mean much. So most packages are optional, and a
> >few that should be really hard to remove are required. Being
> >required has the possible advantage that other packages don't need
> >to explicitly list dependencies on the required package (but in
> >practice you usually end up with a versioned libc6 dependency
> >anyway). It does save a bit on the overhead of every single
> >package having dependencies on /bin/sh and coreutils that the
> >dependency resolver would then have to consider.
> >
> 
> I was, I thought, asking for explicit distinctions between adjacent
> priorities. Your reply was that the distinctions were no longer
> germane. That, effectively there are now only two, required and
> optional.
> 
> That changes the landscape surrounding a personal project. Which
> some might describe as an extremely minimalist Debian. I would
> rather describe it as a "proper subset" of Debian for a particular
> use. That is why, in another thread, I ask about "Debian from
> Scratch".
> 
> That leads to asking two related questions:
>  1. How can I get a list of packages tagged as required?
>  2. What section of the installer installs packages tagged as required?
> I assume the answer will, in part, be a referral to some developer
> oriented documentation. [My motivation is personal education rather
> that creating the next "killer app].
> 
> I will then investigate which of my optional packages already have
> an explicit dependence on a "required" app. That will allow me to
> enumerate which "required" packages *may* actually be unnecessary.

While there are commands like   aptitude search   and   aptitude why
available for such purposes, these are really designed for routine
maintenance. For your purposes, I think you need to develop a more
intimate relationship with the files in /var/lib/apt/lists/,
particularly ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_stretch_main_binary-amd64_Packages
(which may be named differently on your system). There's a similar
file /var/lib/dpkg/status which contains a subset of this information
for any packages with status on your system (usually "installed").

You can make many investigations (en masse) using OR'd grep
expressions on these files, but for more in-depth investigations,
it's worth parsing it into, say, a python dictionary of fields
containing lists of items in each field.

So, for example, I have a program which, for each package, gives
a list of packages that Depends (± Recommends ± Suggests) on it.
By filtering input to that program by the Priority of packages,
and by Recommends/Suggests/¬Depends, it's trivial to answer your
question about which packages are not required on your system,
either through "Priority: required" or a Depends. Working on the raw
data yourself might make it easier to study your corner cases that
using the potted tools that most people suggest.

Cheers,
David.

Re: An introduction to Debian's topology/structure/???

[Richard Owlett]

On 07/19/2018 08:34 AM, Jochen Spieker wrote:

Richard Owlett:


That leads to asking two related questions:
  1. How can I get a list of packages tagged as required?


Aptitude is great for answering questions like this:

$ aptitude search '?priority(required) ?archive(stable)'


Exactly what I needed ;}
As I suspected, there are many packages which are there because 
"everyone" needs &/or expects them. But I'm a particular unique 
individual with peculiar goals.




https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/aptitude/ch02s04s05.en.html


I wasn't aware of that manual. But that is exactly what I need for this 
and other issues,





  2. What section of the installer installs packages tagged as required?
 I assume the answer will, in part, be a referral to some developer
 oriented documentation. [My motivation is personal education rather
 that creating the next "killer app].


You may want to ask this question in debian-boot (surprisingly, this
list appears to be the place to discuss d-i).


Thank you.

Re: An introduction to Debian's topology/structure/???

[Jochen Spieker]

Richard Owlett:
> 
> That leads to asking two related questions:
>  1. How can I get a list of packages tagged as required?

Aptitude is great for answering questions like this:

$ aptitude search '?priority(required) ?archive(stable)'

https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/aptitude/ch02s04s05.en.html

>  2. What section of the installer installs packages tagged as required?
> I assume the answer will, in part, be a referral to some developer
> oriented documentation. [My motivation is personal education rather
> that creating the next "killer app].

You may want to ask this question in debian-boot (surprisingly, this
list appears to be the place to discuss d-i).

J.
-- 
I often play sports / do exercise.
[Agree]   [Disagree]
 


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Re: An introduction to Debian's topology/structure/???

[Richard Owlett]

On 07/18/2018 09:06 AM, Michael Stone wrote:

On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 08:44:13AM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
First I'm looking comparison of required, important, standard, 
optional, and extra as package labels [particularly interested in 
corner cases]. I've been looking at 
[https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/]. I'm not grasping 
something. Not sure what ;/


Well, it's hard to answer questions when you don't ask a question. For 
the most part the priorities don't matter much, and are largely a 
historical curiosity. Extra is gone, standard and important don't mean 
much. So most packages are optional, and a few that should be really 
hard to remove are required. Being required has the possible advantage 
that other packages don't need to explicitly list dependencies on the 
required package (but in practice you usually end up with a versioned 
libc6 dependency anyway). It does save a bit on the overhead of every 
single package having dependencies on /bin/sh and coreutils that the 
dependency resolver would then have to consider.




I was, I thought, asking for explicit distinctions between adjacent 
priorities. Your reply was that the distinctions were no longer germane. 
That, effectively there are now only two, required and optional.


That changes the landscape surrounding a personal project. Which some 
might describe as an extremely minimalist Debian. I would rather 
describe it as a "proper subset" of Debian for a particular use. That is 
why, in another thread, I ask about "Debian from Scratch".


That leads to asking two related questions:
 1. How can I get a list of packages tagged as required?
 2. What section of the installer installs packages tagged as required?
I assume the answer will, in part, be a referral to some developer
oriented documentation. [My motivation is personal education rather
that creating the next "killer app].

I will then investigate which of my optional packages already have an 
explicit dependence on a "required" app. That will allow me to enumerate 
which "required" packages *may* actually be unnecessary.


Thank you.

Re: An introduction to Debian's topology/structure/???

[Michael Stone]

On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 08:44:13AM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
First I'm looking comparison of required, important, standard, 
optional, and extra as package labels [particularly interested in 
corner cases]. I've been looking at 
[https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/]. I'm not grasping 
something. Not sure what ;/


Well, it's hard to answer questions when you don't ask a question. For 
the most part the priorities don't matter much, and are largely a 
historical curiosity. Extra is gone, standard and important don't mean 
much. So most packages are optional, and a few that should be really 
hard to remove are required. Being required has the possible advantage 
that other packages don't need to explicitly list dependencies on the 
required package (but in practice you usually end up with a versioned 
libc6 dependency anyway). It does save a bit on the overhead of every 
single package having dependencies on /bin/sh and coreutils that the 
dependency resolver would then have to consider.


Mike Stone

An introduction to Debian's topology/structure/???

[Richard Owlett]

"Topology" may be a poor word choice.

First I'm looking comparison of required, important, standard, optional, 
and extra as package labels [particularly interested in corner cases]. 
I've been looking at [https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/]. I'm 
not grasping something. Not sure what ;/


Similarly for Depends, Recommends, Suggests, etc. I'm currently reading
[https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html#_package_dependencies]
Other suggestions?

TIA

Daemontools Introduction

[Steve Litt]

Hi all,

I just finished writing a daemontools intro here:

http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/djbdns/daemontools_intro.htm


SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance


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Re: Daemontools Introduction

[Brian]

On Wed 24 Sep 2014 at 14:06:52 -0400, Steve Litt wrote:

 I just finished writing a daemontools intro here:
 
 http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/djbdns/daemontools_intro.htm

Is this the culmination of your posting to this list to promote your own
ends? Or have we more to look forward to?


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Forcefed: The introduction of Grub2 submenus

[Eike Lantzsch]

I used to use grub-reboot to boot remotely into any OS, which is installed on 
one of my boxes. Since the introduction of submenus into grub2 that does not 
work anymore.
Who had the bright idea to push submenus in Grub2 down our throats?
I don't want them. I want something straight forward.
Somebody equally upset called it brain damage.
One might argue that it's not a bug but it certainly bugs me.

So after calming down a bit:
I found this:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=690538
and the 10_linux.patch works.

Does anybody know if and when this patch will find its way into testing?

Kind regards
Eike


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Introduction to Yuuguu from Haridas

[Yuuguu]

Hello!

Haridas - hari...@sparksupport.com - is inviting you to join Yuuguu, a free and 
easy-to-use application for working with colleagues or friends over the web.  
It allows users to share screens, host online meetings and work in real time on 
the same documents over the web for free.

To get started go to: http://www.yuuguu.com/invited

Best regards
The Yuuguu team

Yuuguu Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales with company number 
05581789, Unit 11B, Enterprise House, Manchester Science Park, Manchester, M15 
4EN.

[HS] Introduction

[Xavier Maillard]

Salut tout le monde,

apres plusieurs annees loin de Debian et un retour aux sources
(slackware), j'ai decide de refaire le chemin inverse. Je me sentais
un peu seul avec ma slackware et surtout j'avais l'impression de ne
plus servir a grand chose. Le manque de visibilite du projet mais
aussi les choix de ma direction ont tout autant pese sur ma decision.

C'est donc avec une certaine joie que j'ai bascule mon eeepc dans la
planete debian (une sid).

Encore deux ou trois choses a parametrer par ci par la et mon systeme
sera parfaitement operationnel (c'est dailleurs tres suprenant comme
de simples backups m'on permis de refaire un systeme en etat de marche
en moins de 3h ;)).

J'espere pouvoir apporter mon aide sur cette liste (dans la limitte du
temps disponible bien sur).

Xavier

P.S: coucous a tous les anciens qui frequentent toujours aussi
assidument cette liste, ca fait plaisir de revoir des tetes connues ;)

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Re: a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4?

[Peter Teunissen]

On 12-apr-2007, at 3:03, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:


On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 12:32:45AM +0200, Peter Teunissen wrote:

Hi All,


I've got a great opportunity to promote opensource at my job by
working on a BI project for Oxfam. But, I'm forced to use Redhat EL4
and need to get up and running in a short time. I've been looking for
a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4, but only found intro's in
the other direction :-)

I'm sure others on this list have had the same challenge, can someone
give me some pointers to a quick online introduction? I'm looking for
stuff like how yum and up2date compare to aptitude, how to safely
install downloaded rpm's without interfering with yum's updates, if
there are equivalents of repositories like backports etc..


I would start by installing CentOS (in a Qemu instance or a Xen domU)
and poke around.


Yep, first thing I did... friday off, long weekend to immerse myself  
in RH :-)


Peter

Re: a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4?

[Peter Teunissen]

On 12-apr-2007, at 8:47, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:


On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 01:29:51AM +0200, Peter Teunissen wrote:


I'm a happy Debian user and will not move to RH. But. As I wrote in
my question, I'm _forced_ to use RHEL4 at my job.

Since more debianites will have been in this situation, I think it's
not inappropriate to ask on this list for pointers to a RH intro for
Debian users...



Red Hat EL 4 is business-like: if you want to run big Oracle data  
bases

or similar, it's what your bosses want. It appeals well to the sort
of business regards Linux as very new, that needs someone to blame and
is willing to pay support costs in case. The sort of people that  
deal

with HP in preference because well, DEC were such a good company :)
That's its focus.


That's what this world has evolved into; everything is worth what you  
paid for it. There will be a moment when someone realizes that he  
didn't pay for his wife and start to doubt if her love for him is  
genuine. :-/




It's not very workmanlike in the sense of the ideal tools to
develop on: whenever I install or use RHEL, my first response is
where _is_ everything? - apps. that I'd normally apt-get
just aren't available.

Yeah, mysql 4.x is stale...


RHEL 4 is still tied to Red Hat Network - yum is still unofficial at
that
stage IIRC. This has all changed in RHEL5, of course :)
I find this rpm / yum / up2date stuff confusing. Do I ruin my system  
by mixing them? Is yum vs up2date somewhat like aptitude vs apt-get?


There are no backports repositories, though you may get effective
backports shoved onto your system by updates. Most people I know say
Oh, I had to download that from Freshmeat/freshRPMs
Mmmh, and then I think, where's alien, so I can be sure my rpm's  
don't collide with yum  up2date's stuff? But maybe I'm to debian  
minded, wanting stuff to be neatly organised... But I'll take such  
pure RH questions to another list.


snip

Thanx Andy


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Re: a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4?

[Roberto C . Sánchez]

On Fri, Apr 13, 2007 at 11:16:37AM +0200, Peter Teunissen wrote:
 
 That's what this world has evolved into; everything is worth what you  
 paid for it. There will be a moment when someone realizes that he  
 didn't pay for his wife and start to doubt if her love for him is  
 genuine. :-/
 
I have two maxims which I am always preaching to the other admins at
work:

 - You wouldn't have that problem if you were running Linux
 - The more you pay, the less you get - OR -
 - There is an inverse relationship between price and value in
   software

The form of the last one depends on how educated the individual is :-)

Regards,

-Roberto
-- 
Roberto C. Sánchez
http://people.connexer.com/~roberto
http://www.connexer.com


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Re: a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4?

[Kamaraju S Kusumanchi]

Peter Teunissen wrote:

 There will be a moment when someone realizes that he
 didn't pay for his wife and start to doubt if her love for him is
 genuine. :-/
 

hmmm... Ever heard of dowry system? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowry

raju

-- 
Kamaraju S Kusumanchi
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kk288/
http://malayamaarutham.blogspot.com/


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Re: a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4?

[Andrew M.A. Cater]

On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 01:29:51AM +0200, Peter Teunissen wrote:
 
 I'm a happy Debian user and will not move to RH. But. As I wrote in  
 my question, I'm _forced_ to use RHEL4 at my job.
 
 Since more debianites will have been in this situation, I think it's  
 not inappropriate to ask on this list for pointers to a RH intro for  
 Debian users...
 

Red Hat EL 4 is business-like: if you want to run big Oracle data bases
or similar, it's what your bosses want. It appeals well to the sort
of business regards Linux as very new, that needs someone to blame and 
is willing to pay support costs in case. The sort of people that deal 
with HP in preference because well, DEC were such a good company :) 
That's its focus.

It's not very workmanlike in the sense of the ideal tools to 
develop on: whenever I install or use RHEL, my first response is 
where _is_ everything? - apps. that I'd normally apt-get
just aren't available.  

RHEL 4 is still tied to Red Hat Network - yum is still unofficial at 
that 
stage IIRC. This has all changed in RHEL5, of course :)

There are no backports repositories, though you may get effective 
backports shoved onto your system by updates. Most people I know say 
Oh, I had to download that from Freshmeat/freshRPMs

Don't expect stability or consistency across the course of the release
lifetime.

Don't necessarily expect to use a stable GCC 4 - the one shipped with 
RHEL originally was a daily snapshot from the December before the GCC 
release in March. Kernel versions may also change subtly with updates 
:( 

The concept of Debian stable as stable and nothing will change in the 
lifetime of this release led me to expect at least that level of 
stablility in patches from a well established Enterprise release :(

You can get stuff done: but it's not necessarily straightforward.

If you need to set things up from scratch - you need old hardware
and working X Windows because lots of config tools are GUI-fied.
My inexperience with RH shows here, but I've almost always found that 
its necessary to install everything when you first install because 
adding apps. afterwards can sometimes be a pain.

Others will add less biased points: suffice it to say, experience with 
Red Hat is why a lot of my colleagues prefer to use Debian on a daily 
basis.

Andy

 Peter
 


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Re: a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4?

[Joe Hart]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Greg Folkert wrote:
 On Wed, 2007-04-11 at 18:54 -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:
 On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 12:32:45AM +0200, Peter Teunissen wrote:
 I've got a great opportunity to promote opensource at my job by  
 working on a BI project for Oxfam. But, I'm forced to use Redhat EL4  
 and need to get up and running in a short time. I've been looking for  
 a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4, but only found intro's in  
 the other direction :-)

 I'm sure others on this list have had the same challenge
 But this is debian.  Why not ask RH for a transistion guide?  One
 doesn't ask Microsoft for help transitioning to Debian.

 Isn't RHEL a commercial product?  Surely such a transition document
 would come under you get what you pay for
 
 I am sure that he really meant the other way, a RHEL User's
 introduction to Debian (and its far superior tools and ways)
 
 I hope. I really hope. But since he is is using RH, I am afraid not.
 
 In any case, RPM dependency hell, rings a big bell to me. YUM and
 up2date are know to have significant deficiencies.
 
 I've seen and do have some experience with RHEL and its wonderful
 rolling ABI and API problems, unlike Debian Stable.  

I wonder if it might not be designed this way on purpose.  I mean how
better to sell support contracts when the product needs support because
the admins run into trouble?  Kind of like the conspiracy theory that
says that a lot of the viruses come from the same people who make the
anti-virus programs, thus creating a business for themselves.

Now of course this can't really be true, but one does have to wonder.

Joe

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Re: a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4?

[Kamaraju S Kusumanchi]

Peter Teunissen wrote:

 Hi All,
 
 
 I've got a great opportunity to promote opensource at my job by
 working on a BI project for Oxfam. But, I'm forced to use Redhat EL4
 and need to get up and running in a short time.

Well, that's life.

 I've been looking for 
 a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4, but only found intro's in
 the other direction :-)

In Martin Krafft's The Debian System book I remember reading a table where
he gives different commands of apt-get and corresponding commands with Yum,
rpm, Gentoo's package manager. That might give you some starting points. I
think it is in the chapter where he discusses aptitude, upgrades etc., I
read this book something like 1 year back, so I could be totally wrong.

Sorry, I currently dont have this book with me, so cant give the page
numbers etc.,

raju
-- 
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http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kk288/
http://malayamaarutham.blogspot.com/


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Re: a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4?

[Roberto C . Sánchez]

On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 09:14:51AM +0200, Joe Hart wrote:
 
 I wonder if it might not be designed this way on purpose.  I mean how
 better to sell support contracts when the product needs support because
 the admins run into trouble?  Kind of like the conspiracy theory that
 says that a lot of the viruses come from the same people who make the
 anti-virus programs, thus creating a business for themselves.
 
 Now of course this can't really be true, but one does have to wonder.
 
Using RedHat in my day job has caused me to do some reflection.
Basically, I have come to the conclusion that while I like Debian much
better, RedHat does make a good solid and stable operating system.  In
addition, RedHat employs some very well known F/OSS hackers (Tridge,
Alan Cox and others), plus many people whose sole or primary job is to
contribute changes, updates, fixes and so on to various free software
projects.

Remeber, the default business model (so to speak) in the free software
world is to give away the software and charge for the support, custom
modifications and so on.  That is what RedHat does.  To hammer them for
it is a bit disingenuous.  Besides, all of those people have families to
feed and so on.  I'd rather see RedHat out there charging quite a bit
and making a nice profit in their enterprise and then allowing the whole
world to benefit from their contributions.  The alternative is more like
MS and Apple.  They charge quite a bit of money, make a nice profit and
then the only people who benefit are the executives and shareholders.

Regards,

-Roberto

-- 
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http://people.connexer.com/~roberto
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Re: a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4?

[Joe Hart]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Roberto � wrote:
 On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 09:14:51AM +0200, Joe Hart wrote:
 I wonder if it might not be designed this way on purpose.  I mean how
 better to sell support contracts when the product needs support because
 the admins run into trouble?  Kind of like the conspiracy theory that
 says that a lot of the viruses come from the same people who make the
 anti-virus programs, thus creating a business for themselves.

 Now of course this can't really be true, but one does have to wonder.

 Using RedHat in my day job has caused me to do some reflection.
 Basically, I have come to the conclusion that while I like Debian much
 better, RedHat does make a good solid and stable operating system.  In
 addition, RedHat employs some very well known F/OSS hackers (Tridge,
 Alan Cox and others), plus many people whose sole or primary job is to
 contribute changes, updates, fixes and so on to various free software
 projects.
 
 Remeber, the default business model (so to speak) in the free software
 world is to give away the software and charge for the support, custom
 modifications and so on.  That is what RedHat does.  To hammer them for
 it is a bit disingenuous.  Besides, all of those people have families to
 feed and so on.  I'd rather see RedHat out there charging quite a bit
 and making a nice profit in their enterprise and then allowing the whole
 world to benefit from their contributions.  The alternative is more like
 MS and Apple.  They charge quite a bit of money, make a nice profit and
 then the only people who benefit are the executives and shareholders.
 
 Regards,
 
 -Roberto
 
Yes, I agree with you.  I don't think the Red Hat model is bad at all,
thus my statement about not believing my conspiracy theory.  My question
lies more in the anti-virus world than it does in the Linux world.

I had no intention to bash Red Hat, and if you got that impression from
my message, then you misinterpreted me, or I was not eloquent enough in
the first place.  I have made it a policy not to say unkind things to
people who do hard work, but I do express my opinions about said work.
  There are a number of people who earn their living from support, and I
will most likely be one of them in the near future.

I need to eat too, and the best way for me to earn a living is to live
on the problems that other people have.  I can be thankful that the
majority of the people in this world do not have a geeks mentality when
it comes to their computer.  It is not an appliance like your DVD
player, although many people treat it as such.  That is what I am
counting on, because it creates a market for people like me and you.

(And I am not calling you a geek Roberto, however much the statement
above might imply it)

Joe

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Re: a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4?

[Roberto C . Sánchez]

On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 10:42:15PM +0200, Joe Hart wrote:
  
 Yes, I agree with you.  I don't think the Red Hat model is bad at all,
 thus my statement about not believing my conspiracy theory.  My question
 lies more in the anti-virus world than it does in the Linux world.
 
 I had no intention to bash Red Hat, and if you got that impression from
 my message, then you misinterpreted me, or I was not eloquent enough in
 the first place.  I have made it a policy not to say unkind things to
 people who do hard work, but I do express my opinions about said work.
   There are a number of people who earn their living from support, and I
 will most likely be one of them in the near future.
 
I did not mean to imply that you were bashing RedHat.  I guess that my
email falls more into the category of a random diatribe.  I should have
snipped your words.

 I need to eat too, and the best way for me to earn a living is to live
 on the problems that other people have.  I can be thankful that the
 majority of the people in this world do not have a geeks mentality when
 it comes to their computer.  It is not an appliance like your DVD
 player, although many people treat it as such.  That is what I am
 counting on, because it creates a market for people like me and you.
 
 (And I am not calling you a geek Roberto, however much the statement
 above might imply it)
 
That's funny.  I am proud to be a geek!  Many people seem to dislike
that moniker.  Besides, ever since I read [0] about the difference in
income between a jock and a geek, I decided I liked being a geek :-)

Regards,

-Roberto

[0] http://members.ozemail.com.au/~lbrash/msjokes/joke31.html

-- 
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http://people.connexer.com/~roberto
http://www.connexer.com


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a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4?

[Peter Teunissen]

Hi All,


I've got a great opportunity to promote opensource at my job by  
working on a BI project for Oxfam. But, I'm forced to use Redhat EL4  
and need to get up and running in a short time. I've been looking for  
a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4, but only found intro's in  
the other direction :-)


I'm sure others on this list have had the same challenge, can someone  
give me some pointers to a quick online introduction? I'm looking for  
stuff like how yum and up2date compare to aptitude, how to safely  
install downloaded rpm's without interfering with yum's updates, if  
there are equivalents of repositories like backports etc..



Thx,


Peter


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Re: a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4?

[Douglas Allan Tutty]

On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 12:32:45AM +0200, Peter Teunissen wrote:
 
 I've got a great opportunity to promote opensource at my job by  
 working on a BI project for Oxfam. But, I'm forced to use Redhat EL4  
 and need to get up and running in a short time. I've been looking for  
 a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4, but only found intro's in  
 the other direction :-)
 
 I'm sure others on this list have had the same challenge

But this is debian.  Why not ask RH for a transistion guide?  One
doesn't ask Microsoft for help transitioning to Debian.

Isn't RHEL a commercial product?  Surely such a transition document
would come under you get what you pay for

Doug.


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Re: a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4?

[Greg Folkert]

On Wed, 2007-04-11 at 18:54 -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:
 On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 12:32:45AM +0200, Peter Teunissen wrote:
  
  I've got a great opportunity to promote opensource at my job by  
  working on a BI project for Oxfam. But, I'm forced to use Redhat EL4  
  and need to get up and running in a short time. I've been looking for  
  a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4, but only found intro's in  
  the other direction :-)
  
  I'm sure others on this list have had the same challenge
 
 But this is debian.  Why not ask RH for a transistion guide?  One
 doesn't ask Microsoft for help transitioning to Debian.
 
 Isn't RHEL a commercial product?  Surely such a transition document
 would come under you get what you pay for

I am sure that he really meant the other way, a RHEL User's
introduction to Debian (and its far superior tools and ways)

I hope. I really hope. But since he is is using RH, I am afraid not.

In any case, RPM dependency hell, rings a big bell to me. YUM and
up2date are know to have significant deficiencies.

I've seen and do have some experience with RHEL and its wonderful
rolling ABI and API problems, unlike Debian Stable.  
-- 
greg, [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Novell's Directory Services is a competitive product to Microsoft's
Active Directory in much the same way that the Saturn V is a competitive
product to those dinky little model rockets that kids light off down at
the playfield. -- Thane Walkup


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Re: a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4?

[Peter Teunissen]

On 12-apr-2007, at 1:05, Greg Folkert wrote:


On Wed, 2007-04-11 at 18:54 -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:

On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 12:32:45AM +0200, Peter Teunissen wrote:


I've got a great opportunity to promote opensource at my job by
working on a BI project for Oxfam. But, I'm forced to use Redhat EL4
and need to get up and running in a short time. I've been looking  
for
a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4, but only found  
intro's in

the other direction :-)

I'm sure others on this list have had the same challenge


But this is debian.  Why not ask RH for a transistion guide?  One
doesn't ask Microsoft for help transitioning to Debian.



snip


I am sure that he really meant the other way, a RHEL User's
introduction to Debian (and its far superior tools and ways)

I hope. I really hope. But since he is is using RH, I am afraid not.

snip

I'm a happy Debian user and will not move to RH. But. As I wrote in  
my question, I'm _forced_ to use RHEL4 at my job.


Since more debianites will have been in this situation, I think it's  
not inappropriate to ask on this list for pointers to a RH intro for  
Debian users...


Peter


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Re: a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4?

[Greg Folkert]

On Thu, 2007-04-12 at 01:29 +0200, Peter Teunissen wrote:
 On 12-apr-2007, at 1:05, Greg Folkert wrote:
 
  On Wed, 2007-04-11 at 18:54 -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:
  On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 12:32:45AM +0200, Peter Teunissen wrote:
 
  I've got a great opportunity to promote opensource at my job by
  working on a BI project for Oxfam. But, I'm forced to use Redhat EL4
  and need to get up and running in a short time. I've been looking  
  for
  a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4, but only found  
  intro's in
  the other direction :-)
 
  I'm sure others on this list have had the same challenge
 
  But this is debian.  Why not ask RH for a transistion guide?  One
  doesn't ask Microsoft for help transitioning to Debian.
 
 
 snip
 
  I am sure that he really meant the other way, a RHEL User's
  introduction to Debian (and its far superior tools and ways)
 
  I hope. I really hope. But since he is is using RH, I am afraid not.
 snip
 
 I'm a happy Debian user and will not move to RH. But. As I wrote in  
 my question, I'm _forced_ to use RHEL4 at my job.
 
 Since more debianites will have been in this situation, I think it's  
 not inappropriate to ask on this list for pointers to a RH intro for  
 Debian users...

About the only thing I can find is actual RH docs:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/

-- 
greg, [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Novell's Directory Services is a competitive product to Microsoft's
Active Directory in much the same way that the Saturn V is a competitive
product to those dinky little model rockets that kids light off down at
the playfield. -- Thane Walkup


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Re: a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4?

[Jeff D]

On Thu, 12 Apr 2007, Peter Teunissen wrote:



On 12-apr-2007, at 1:05, Greg Folkert wrote:


On Wed, 2007-04-11 at 18:54 -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:

On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 12:32:45AM +0200, Peter Teunissen wrote:


I've got a great opportunity to promote opensource at my job by
working on a BI project for Oxfam. But, I'm forced to use Redhat EL4
and need to get up and running in a short time. I've been looking for
a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4, but only found intro's in
the other direction :-)

I'm sure others on this list have had the same challenge


But this is debian.  Why not ask RH for a transistion guide?  One
doesn't ask Microsoft for help transitioning to Debian.



snip


I am sure that he really meant the other way, a RHEL User's
introduction to Debian (and its far superior tools and ways)

I hope. I really hope. But since he is is using RH, I am afraid not.

snip

I'm a happy Debian user and will not move to RH. But. As I wrote in my 
question, I'm _forced_ to use RHEL4 at my job.


Since more debianites will have been in this situation, I think it's not 
inappropriate to ask on this list for pointers to a RH intro for Debian 
users...


Peter


here are some handy rpm commands I use a lot
rpm -qa | grep package   - see if the package is installed
rpm -q --whatprovides /path/to/file  - what package owns this file
rpm --setperms  package  - fix permissions on that package
rpm -Va  - verify all packages
rpm -Vp package   - verify package
up2date -l  package.list   - just so i can  have a list of packages 
available

up2date -i package- install a package

do this to rebuild the rpm database, cause you know it will get corruped 
at some point:

   cd /var/lib/rpm/
   mkdir ~/rpm.db.bak
   mv /var/lib/rpm/__db*  ~/rpm.bak
   rpm -vv --rebuilddb


-+-
8 out of 10 Owners who Expressed a Preference said Their Cats Preferred Techno.


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Re: a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4?

[Roberto C . Sánchez]

On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 12:32:45AM +0200, Peter Teunissen wrote:
 Hi All,
 
 
 I've got a great opportunity to promote opensource at my job by  
 working on a BI project for Oxfam. But, I'm forced to use Redhat EL4  
 and need to get up and running in a short time. I've been looking for  
 a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4, but only found intro's in  
 the other direction :-)
 
 I'm sure others on this list have had the same challenge, can someone  
 give me some pointers to a quick online introduction? I'm looking for  
 stuff like how yum and up2date compare to aptitude, how to safely  
 install downloaded rpm's without interfering with yum's updates, if  
 there are equivalents of repositories like backports etc..
 
I would start by installing CentOS (in a Qemu instance or a Xen domU)
and poke around.

Regards,

-Roberto

-- 
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http://people.connexer.com/~roberto
http://www.connexer.com


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Re: a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4?

[Roberto C . Sánchez]

On Wed, Apr 11, 2007 at 07:05:47PM -0400, Greg Folkert wrote:
 
 I am sure that he really meant the other way, a RHEL User's
 introduction to Debian (and its far superior tools and ways)
 
 I hope. I really hope. But since he is is using RH, I am afraid not.
 
 In any case, RPM dependency hell, rings a big bell to me. YUM and
 up2date are know to have significant deficiencies.
 
 I've seen and do have some experience with RHEL and its wonderful
 rolling ABI and API problems, unlike Debian Stable.  

I am required to use RHEL in my day job (I'd much rather that than be
forced to use Windows).  Their long support cycles make it not as much
of an issue.  Along with the situation in many enterprises (standardized
configuration which is centrally controlled; specific apps tested for
compatibility before deployment), it works out rather nicely.  Since you
have to pay for it, it makes the higher ups and the bean counters happy
since they are buying licenses and they have widgets to count.

Regards,

-Roberto

-- 
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http://people.connexer.com/~roberto
http://www.connexer.com


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Re: a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4?

[Douglas Allan Tutty]

On Wed, Apr 11, 2007 at 09:03:31PM -0400, Roberto C. S?nchez wrote:
 On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 12:32:45AM +0200, Peter Teunissen wrote:
  Hi All,
  
  
  I've got a great opportunity to promote opensource at my job by  
  working on a BI project for Oxfam. But, I'm forced to use Redhat EL4  
  and need to get up and running in a short time. I've been looking for  
  a Debian user's introduction to Redhat EL4, but only found intro's in  
  the other direction :-)
  
  I'm sure others on this list have had the same challenge, can someone  
  give me some pointers to a quick online introduction? I'm looking for  
  stuff like how yum and up2date compare to aptitude, how to safely  
  install downloaded rpm's without interfering with yum's updates, if  
  there are equivalents of repositories like backports etc..
  
 I would start by installing CentOS (in a Qemu instance or a Xen domU)
 and poke around.

Couldn't you have a minimal RHEL install and put debian in a Qemu or
Xen to do real work? 

Doug.


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Douglas Allan Tutty]

Thanks all for your discussion on Lyx vs LaTex (and Word).

I've been traveling and now pouring through a month's worth of emails.
Just before I left, after reading all the documents that come with the
TexLive system on Debian, I took 30 minutes and translated a few Lout
letters into Latex.  It works.  In fact, some things are easier than in
Lout.  I started with lout because it looked like an easier learning
curve and certainly a shorter download, but it doesn't do html.

I prefer to use a regular editor, like I've been doing with Vim and
Lout, rater than a GUI and especially rather than a WYSIWYG.  The
advantage of just using any editor is that I can use any editor.  I can
take the file with me and use anyone's computer with any editor and work
on a document.  When I get home I can process it and see how it looks.

Since my printer is text-only, if I want a document to look beautiful I
get out my pen, ink, a nice piece of parchment, and start writing
Chancery.  With everyone else spitting stuff out on a laser printer, its
amazing the positive reception a hand scribed letter receives.  I can do
all the prep work on the computer.

I'll be starting a new structured document soon, using LaTex, and I'll
learn how to set things up for good html presenation (in addition to
good pdf, ps, and plain text).  

Thanks again,

Doug.


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Chris Bannister]

On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 10:13:39PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:
 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: SHA1
 
 On 02/21/07 22:05, Steve Lamb wrote:
  Ron Johnson wrote:
  There's no Law Of Nature that says you can't have your greenbar
  printout next to your terminal.
  
  I prefer 2 screens now.  Left screen is the on-line Python manual, right
  screen is my code in vim, fully expanded.
 
 fully expanded?

Unfolded? The 'fold' is a neat feature.

-- 
Chris.
==
Don't forget to check that your /etc/apt/sources.lst entries point to 
etch and not testing, otherwise you may end up with a broken system once
etch goes stable.


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Re: latex (was Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction))

[Chris Bannister]

On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 11:45:09AM -0800, tom arnall wrote:
 what about a WYSIWIG which produces latex files? You rough out or do easy 
 stuff with the wysiwig, then modify the latex files if there's stuff not 
 easily handled by a wysiwig.

Lyx, but why?

Discovered 'gnuhtml2latex'. What a *neat* package.

-- 
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==
Don't forget to check that your /etc/apt/sources.lst entries point to 
etch and not testing, otherwise you may end up with a broken system once
etch goes stable.


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Re: latex (was Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction))

[Stephen]

On Sat, Feb 24, 2007 at 10:54:30PM +1300 or thereabouts, Chris Bannister wrote:
 On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 11:45:09AM -0800, tom arnall wrote:
  what about a WYSIWIG which produces latex files? You rough out or do easy 
  stuff with the wysiwig, then modify the latex files if there's stuff not 
  easily handled by a wysiwig.
 
 Lyx, but why?
 
 Discovered 'gnuhtml2latex'. What a *neat* package.

Cool. Always enjoy hearing about such gems !

-- 
Regards
Stephen A.
   
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Re: latex (was Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction))

[tom arnall]

On Saturday 24 February 2007 01:54, Chris Bannister wrote:
 On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 11:45:09AM -0800, tom arnall wrote:
  what about a WYSIWIG which produces latex files? You rough out or do easy
  stuff with the wysiwig, then modify the latex files if there's stuff not
  easily handled by a wysiwig.

 Lyx, but why?


better maybe is Open Office, since it's full WYSIWYG and has an export to tex.

smaller feedback loop?

tom



Make cyberspace pretty: stamp out curly brackets and semicolons.

Relax - the tests extend the compiler.



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Re: latex (was Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction))

[Russell L. Harris]

* tom arnall [EMAIL PROTECTED] [070224 17:28]:
 On Saturday 24 February 2007 01:54, Chris Bannister wrote:
On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 11:45:09AM -0800, tom arnall wrote:
 what about a WYSIWIG which produces latex files? You rough out or
 do easy stuff with the wysiwig, then modify the latex files if
 there's stuff not easily handled by a wysiwig.

For text-only material of the general categories letter, report,
or article (that is, material for which there exists a standard
LaTeX class or template), there hardly is a quicker and easier way
to do easy stuff than to type or paste the material into a skeleton
document, then run latex, dvips, and lpr on the document.  

I often use this approach when I wish to save a copy of material which
is poorly-formatted on a web page.  By using a two-column format, I
end up with a compact and easy-to-read document.

This approach typically is quicker and easier than using OpenOffice,
for OpenOffice requires that headers, footers, page numbers, etc., be
added manually.  

The only problem occurs if you happen to be cutting and pasting from a
document which uses escape codes such as \201c.  It is necessary to
replace these punctuation escape codes with the corresponding TeX
punctuation symbol.

The few minutes which are required to create a suitable skeleton
document for a particular LaTeX document class constitute a one-time
investment which quickly is repaid.

RLH


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Re: latex (was Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction))

[tom arnall]

On Saturday 24 February 2007 16:15, Russell L. Harris wrote:
 * tom arnall [EMAIL PROTECTED] [070224 17:28]:
  On Saturday 24 February 2007 01:54, Chris Bannister wrote:
 On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 11:45:09AM -0800, tom arnall wrote:
  what about a WYSIWIG which produces latex files? You rough out or
  do easy stuff with the wysiwig, then modify the latex files if
  there's stuff not easily handled by a wysiwig.

 For text-only material of the general categories letter, report,
 or article (that is, material for which there exists a standard
 LaTeX class or template), there hardly is a quicker and easier way
 to do easy stuff than to type or paste the material into a skeleton
 document, then run latex, dvips, and lpr on the document.

 I often use this approach when I wish to save a copy of material which
 is poorly-formatted on a web page.  By using a two-column format, I
 end up with a compact and easy-to-read document.

 This approach typically is quicker and easier than using OpenOffice,
 for OpenOffice requires that headers, footers, page numbers, etc., be
 added manually.

 The only problem occurs if you happen to be cutting and pasting from a
 document which uses escape codes such as \201c.  It is necessary to
 replace these punctuation escape codes with the corresponding TeX
 punctuation symbol.

 The few minutes which are required to create a suitable skeleton
 document for a particular LaTeX document class constitute a one-time
 investment which quickly is repaid.

 RLH

yeah, a different 'paradigm' than wysiwyg. similar maybe to command line vs. 
gui. i prefer command line i'face usually.




Make cyberspace pretty: stamp out curly brackets and semicolons.

Relax - the tests extend the compiler.



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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Steve Lamb]

Ron Johnson wrote:
 On 02/21/07 23:19, Steve Lamb wrote:
 Because I asked?  Why do I have to justify why I asked that question?

Because I asked?  Why do I have to justify why I asked that question?


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   PGP Key: 8B6E99C5   |   And dream I do...
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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Ron Johnson]

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On 02/22/07 02:00, Steve Lamb wrote:
 Ron Johnson wrote:
 On 02/21/07 23:19, Steve Lamb wrote:
 Because I asked?  Why do I have to justify why I asked that question?
 
 Because I asked?  Why do I have to justify why I asked that question?

It's not Polite (nay, it's downright stupid) to ask Why do you want
to know that? on a -user mailing list.


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Steve Lamb]

Ron Johnson wrote:
 It's not Polite (nay, it's downright stupid) to ask Why do you want
 to know that? on a -user mailing list.

Erm, it's impolite to ask pertinent questions?  Personally I find it
impolite to be offended on when other people question you on why you are
questioning them.  Seems to be a nice double standard.

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   PGP Key: 8B6E99C5   |   And dream I do...
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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Michelle Konzack]

Am 2007-02-14 10:44:48, schrieb Roberto C. Sanchez:
 That depends on how you define usable.  Word might handle a 25 page
 document.  The experience of many of my friends has been that big
 documents (25 pages is not big) are a real pain Word.  One friend of
 mine did his thesis (350-400 pages) in Word.  Once he got past 100 or
 150 pages, he was constantly fighting with it.  The TOC would get messed
 up, it would screw up formatting and sectioning and lots of other
 issues.

Weird, it seems, your friend does not know HOW to use Word!

I have written documentations of several 100 pages since Winword 6.0
under Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and never had problems including
TOCs, indexes and footnotes and other references...

It seems, they are not realy much peoples WHO KNOW, HOW TO USE WORD.

Now I use OOo 2 or LaTeX (only basicly) but the later is a Killer for
Winsuck-Switchers.

 Now that I am doing work at a place where Word is the only option for
 word processing, I realize just how much I hate working with it.  Even
 things that should be trivial are ridiculously complicated.  It asks me
 things that it should not need to ask me.  It doesn't ask me things that
 it should.  If I copy or cut for the second time in a document, it
 completely changes the layout of the screen!  The dynamic menus are a

Cuted out the NEWLINE at the end?
This where Word store its Informations about the previously paragraph.

:-)

 royal pain since I *always* have to click on the stupid little icon at
 the bottom of each menu to get to see all the options.

???

 See, even with IT people to keep the Windows machine working, it is
 still a stress on me, since Windows violates so many principles of
 usability, user interfaces and how things should work, it just makes me
 sick.  I mean, people often complain about the lack of uniformity in GUI
 programs targetted at Linux.  Windows is just as bad, but people choose
 to overlook it for some reason or another.  Then there is the fact that
 Windows does not include any of the following in a base install:
 
  * a decent shell
  * ssh/sftp client
  * a decent scripting language

Do Klicki-Bunti-User need such CRAP noone understand?  :-)

Thanks, Greetings and nice Day
Michelle Konzack
Systemadministrator
Tamay Dogan Network
Debian GNU/Linux Consultant


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Michelle Konzack]

Am 2007-02-16 09:30:36, schrieb Greg Folkert:
 Not permanently and not in your normal.dot. At least *I* could never

Hmmm, in the german and french versions it CAN be switched off.
Maybe you have a special version of the DHS which correct US-
American if they do not follow the party line.  :-))

 find a way. Sure it would last a few days/weeks... but sure enough
 *SOMETHING* would revert it back to old conventions. Same thing with
 those stupid dynamic menus based on feature usage.

Hey write a patch and send it Big-Bill. Oops!

Thanks, Greetings and nice Day
Michelle Konzack
Systemadministrator
Tamay Dogan Network
Debian GNU/Linux Consultant


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Michelle Konzack]

Am 2007-02-14 11:33:04, schrieb Greg Folkert:
 Install Cygwin, its the only way to semi-fix it.

???

bash.exe, perl.exe and python.exe can run definitivly in a
DOS-Box since I use it for DJGPP http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/. 

Thanks, Greetings and nice Day
Michelle Konzack
Systemadministrator
Tamay Dogan Network
Debian GNU/Linux Consultant


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Michael M.]

On Wed, 2007-02-21 at 01:15 -0500, Kevin Mark wrote:
 On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 12:05:24AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:
 
  Actually, I'm serious about the utility of big line printers.  The
  large print and *wide*, lined paper made it easy to step thru your
  program, making notes, side calculations, etc.  Think of them as
  magic whiteboards that you could lay on your desk and didn't need
  thick, stinky, messy markers to write with.
 You certainly are correct in that the wide paper left sufficient room to
 make notes, etc. I'd use the side for comments and corrections and the
 back for flow charts and such.


And here I thought the whole point of computerizing was to save the
trees.  My illusions are shattered!

So much for the mythical paperless office.


-- 
Michael M. ++ Portland, OR ++ USA
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions
of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to
dream. --S. Jackson


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Dave Sherohman]

On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 08:51:40AM -0800, Michael M. wrote:
 On Wed, 2007-02-21 at 01:15 -0500, Kevin Mark wrote:
  On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 12:05:24AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:
   Actually, I'm serious about the utility of big line printers.  The
   large print and *wide*, lined paper made it easy to step thru your
   program, making notes, side calculations, etc.  Think of them as
   magic whiteboards that you could lay on your desk and didn't need
   thick, stinky, messy markers to write with.
  You certainly are correct in that the wide paper left sufficient room to
  make notes, etc. I'd use the side for comments and corrections and the
  back for flow charts and such.
 
 And here I thought the whole point of computerizing was to save the
 trees.  My illusions are shattered!
 
 So much for the mythical paperless office.

Indeed.  *thinking about my printer at home, which hasn't even been
connected to anything since I last moved 2.5 years ago*

As a company that a friend worked at for a couple years said, You can't
grep a dead tree.

-- 
Windows Vista must be the first OS in history to have error codes for things
like display quality too high
  - Peter Gutmann, A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Ron Johnson]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 02/21/07 12:05, Dave Sherohman wrote:
 On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 08:51:40AM -0800, Michael M. wrote:
 On Wed, 2007-02-21 at 01:15 -0500, Kevin Mark wrote:
 On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 12:05:24AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:
 Actually, I'm serious about the utility of big line printers.  The
 large print and *wide*, lined paper made it easy to step thru your
 program, making notes, side calculations, etc.  Think of them as
 magic whiteboards that you could lay on your desk and didn't need
 thick, stinky, messy markers to write with.
 You certainly are correct in that the wide paper left sufficient room to
 make notes, etc. I'd use the side for comments and corrections and the
 back for flow charts and such.
 And here I thought the whole point of computerizing was to save the
 trees.  My illusions are shattered!

 So much for the mythical paperless office.

Paper is a useful medium of transportation.

 Indeed.  *thinking about my printer at home, which hasn't even been
 connected to anything since I last moved 2.5 years ago*
 
 As a company that a friend worked at for a couple years said, You can't
 grep a dead tree.

There's no Law Of Nature that says you can't have your greenbar
printout next to your terminal.

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latex (was Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction))

[tom arnall]

On Tuesday 20 February 2007 15:49, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote:
 On Tue, Feb 20, 2007 at 09:45:16PM +, Alan Chandler wrote:
  I no longer have anything to do with that area - but I would say today
  that we still cannot produce documents with the consistency and
  completeness (proper version control of all documentation, with the
  version numbers automatically printed in the footer is just one such
  example)

 Tell me about it.  I wish people would invest a little time in learning
 LaTeX.  I deal with documentation all day and even from within the same
 department, it is all a mish-mash of different things (produced mostly
 in Word), with no standardization whatsoever.

 With LaTeX, you could have centralized version control of all documents,
 with centralized control of standard style sheets.  Of course, that will
 never happen as long people believe that they have a pressing need for
 WYSIWYG.  Of course, I can't remember who said it (maybe Leslie
 Lamport), WYSIWYG is better stated as WYSIAYG---what you see is *all*
 you get.

 Regards,

 -Roberto

what a great thread. hopefully we can begin 'subject'ing it properly with this 
mail.

what about a WYSIWIG which produces latex files? You rough out or do easy 
stuff with the wysiwig, then modify the latex files if there's stuff not 
easily handled by a wysiwig.

tom arnall




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Re: latex (was Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction))

[Roberto C. Sanchez]

On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 11:45:09AM -0800, tom arnall wrote:
 
 what a great thread. hopefully we can begin 'subject'ing it properly with 
 this 
 mail.
 
 what about a WYSIWIG which produces latex files? You rough out or do easy 
 stuff with the wysiwig, then modify the latex files if there's stuff not 
 easily handled by a wysiwig.
 

I think that Kile and/or LyX might be what you are looking for.

Regards,

-Roberto

-- 
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http://people.connexer.com/~roberto
http://www.connexer.com


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Re: latex (was Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction))

[tom arnall]

On Wednesday 21 February 2007 11:52, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote:
 On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 11:45:09AM -0800, tom arnall wrote:
  what a great thread. hopefully we can begin 'subject'ing it properly with
  this mail.
 
  what about a WYSIWIG which produces latex files? You rough out or do easy
  stuff with the wysiwig, then modify the latex files if there's stuff not
  easily handled by a wysiwig.

 I think that Kile and/or LyX might be what you are looking for.

 Regards,


 -Roberto

and open office has export to latex. should have done my research before 
asking a question.

thanks again all for the thread.



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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Steve Lamb]

Ron Johnson wrote:
 There's no Law Of Nature that says you can't have your greenbar
 printout next to your terminal.

I prefer 2 screens now.  Left screen is the on-line Python manual, right
screen is my code in vim, fully expanded.

-- 
 Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream?
   PGP Key: 8B6E99C5   |   And dream I do...
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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Ron Johnson]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 02/21/07 22:05, Steve Lamb wrote:
 Ron Johnson wrote:
 There's no Law Of Nature that says you can't have your greenbar
 printout next to your terminal.
 
 I prefer 2 screens now.  Left screen is the on-line Python manual, right
 screen is my code in vim, fully expanded.

fully expanded?

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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Steve Lamb]

Ron Johnson wrote:
 fully expanded?

Yes, I am using vim in a wicked GUI and click on the leetle button which
expands the window to the entire screen.  :P

Although I pine for the day I can give Wing IDE a try.  :)

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   PGP Key: 8B6E99C5   |   And dream I do...
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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Ron Johnson]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 02/21/07 23:00, Steve Lamb wrote:
 Ron Johnson wrote:
 fully expanded?
 
 Yes, I am using vim in a wicked GUI and click on the leetle button which
 expands the window to the entire screen.  :P
 
 Although I pine for the day I can give Wing IDE a try.  :)

What GUI would that be?

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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Steve Lamb]

Ron Johnson wrote:
 What GUI would that be?

The relevance being?  I figured since you didn't know the terms of fully
expanded you were one of dem d'ere CLI people who think GUIs are da werk uf da
debil!

-- 
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   PGP Key: 8B6E99C5   |   And dream I do...
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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Ron Johnson]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 02/21/07 23:19, Steve Lamb wrote:
 Ron Johnson wrote:
 What GUI would that be?
 
 The relevance being?

Because I asked?  Why do I have to justify why I asked that question?

  I figured since you didn't know the terms of fully
 expanded you were one of dem d'ere CLI people who think GUIs are da werk uf da
 debil!


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Alan Chandler]

On Tuesday 13 February 2007 16:29, Miles Fidelman wrote:

 FYI: Just for perspective, I'm also old enough to remember designing
 control logic for film processors used for in preparing print the
 old-fashioned way (you know, half-tone separations, prepared with
 screens and cameras) - and, for that matter, laying out the PC boards
 with black tape on acetate.  Never used TeX or LaTeX, but used enough
 runoff and troff (remember those :-) to prefer WYSIWIG editors for
 short documents.


This whole discussion reminds me of my (software product development) 
department in the 1980's.  I had fought for, and succeeded, in getting 
dumb terminals on everybody's desk connected through to a central Unix 
system (Xenix from Microsoft - sold by the company I work for in the 
UK, Logica) running on a PDP 11, where we had introduced version 
control (SCCS and some modifications) to the software development 
process.

in about 1982 I was in the market for a line printer so that my team 
could print out their software listings and was pursuaded by the our HP 
account manager to take a look at their new product - the HP Laserjet.  
I was sold on the fact that we could get our printouts in A4 form for 
the first time.

As soon as we had taken delivery of this, one of my senior developers 
set up a series of nroff macros that made it very simple to create a 
whole range of our companies standard documents in nearly perfect form 
(company logo etc in header and footer - times fonts in the right size 
and weight for all the different sections).  Most of the rest of the 
company were still using IBM electronic typewriters - and nobody really 
understood how our department always produced such good AND STANDARD 
documentation.

Unfortunately the one downside (which today would be handled by svg) was 
the inability to include anything other than ascii art in embedded 
diagrams - and eventually PCs on everyone's desk and Microsoft Word 
took over and by about 1989 this documentation method died.

I no longer have anything to do with that area - but I would say today 
that we still cannot produce documents with the consistency and 
completeness (proper version control of all documentation, with the 
version numbers automatically printed in the footer is just one such 
example)

-- 
Alan Chandler
http://www.chandlerfamily.org.uk


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Roberto C. Sanchez]

On Tue, Feb 20, 2007 at 09:45:16PM +, Alan Chandler wrote:
 
 I no longer have anything to do with that area - but I would say today 
 that we still cannot produce documents with the consistency and 
 completeness (proper version control of all documentation, with the 
 version numbers automatically printed in the footer is just one such 
 example)
 
Tell me about it.  I wish people would invest a little time in learning
LaTeX.  I deal with documentation all day and even from within the same
department, it is all a mish-mash of different things (produced mostly
in Word), with no standardization whatsoever.

With LaTeX, you could have centralized version control of all documents,
with centralized control of standard style sheets.  Of course, that will
never happen as long people believe that they have a pressing need for
WYSIWYG.  Of course, I can't remember who said it (maybe Leslie
Lamport), WYSIWYG is better stated as WYSIAYG---what you see is *all*
you get.

Regards,

-Roberto

-- 
Roberto C. Sanchez
http://people.connexer.com/~roberto
http://www.connexer.com


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Ron Johnson]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 02/20/07 15:45, Alan Chandler wrote:
 On Tuesday 13 February 2007 16:29, Miles Fidelman wrote:
[snip]
 in about 1982 I was in the market for a line printer so that my team 
 could print out their software listings and was pursuaded by the our HP 
 account manager to take a look at their new product - the HP Laserjet.  
 I was sold on the fact that we could get our printouts in A4 form for 
 the first time.

I've *never* understood why developers like laser printers.  Green
bar line printers are so much more useful.

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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Kevin Mark]

On Tue, Feb 20, 2007 at 11:24:52PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:
 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: SHA1
 
 On 02/20/07 15:45, Alan Chandler wrote:
  On Tuesday 13 February 2007 16:29, Miles Fidelman wrote:
 [snip]
  in about 1982 I was in the market for a line printer so that my team 
  could print out their software listings and was pursuaded by the our HP 
  account manager to take a look at their new product - the HP Laserjet.  
  I was sold on the fact that we could get our printouts in A4 form for 
  the first time.
 
 I've *never* understood why developers like laser printers.  Green
 bar line printers are so much more useful.
I recall they are huge, requiring a lot of floor space and required a
noise cover otherwise you'd hear ear-splitting, griding  noise. X-(
-- 
|  .''`.  == Debian GNU/Linux == |   my web site:   |
| : :' :  The  Universal |mysite.verizon.net/kevin.mark/|
| `. `'  Operating System| go to counter.li.org and |
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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Ron Johnson]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 02/20/07 23:52, Kevin Mark wrote:
 On Tue, Feb 20, 2007 at 11:24:52PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:
 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: SHA1

 On 02/20/07 15:45, Alan Chandler wrote:
 On Tuesday 13 February 2007 16:29, Miles Fidelman wrote:
 [snip]
 in about 1982 I was in the market for a line printer so that my team 
 could print out their software listings and was pursuaded by the our HP 
 account manager to take a look at their new product - the HP Laserjet.  
 I was sold on the fact that we could get our printouts in A4 form for 
 the first time.
 I've *never* understood why developers like laser printers.  Green
 bar line printers are so much more useful.
 I recall they are huge, requiring a lot of floor space and required a
 noise cover otherwise you'd hear ear-splitting, griding  noise. X-(

That's what insulated hoods and data centers are for!  ;)

Actually, I'm serious about the utility of big line printers.  The
large print and *wide*, lined paper made it easy to step thru your
program, making notes, side calculations, etc.  Think of them as
magic whiteboards that you could lay on your desk and didn't need
thick, stinky, messy markers to write with.
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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Steve Lamb]

Kevin Mark wrote:
 I recall they are huge, requiring a lot of floor space and required a
 noise cover otherwise you'd hear ear-splitting, griding  noise. X-(

Yup, yup and yup.  Of course having to work on some model or another of
green-bar printer for the past year-and-a-half lemme tell you, nothing better.
 You forgot to mention that once the top is down the modern models are
extremely quiet and extremely fast.  I'd like to see a laser printer crank out
500, triple-strike pages without jamming every few minutes.  Hell, the lasers
at my current job, even the large floor-space consuming office model, jam more
often than the several green-bars we have combined.

Think of it this way:

Laser - Windows, looks purdy, craps out all the time.
Greenbar - Linux, klunky and not as pretty but gets the work done right.

-- 
 Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream?
   PGP Key: 8B6E99C5   |   And dream I do...
---+-



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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Kevin Mark]

On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 12:05:24AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:
 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: SHA1
 
 On 02/20/07 23:52, Kevin Mark wrote:
  On Tue, Feb 20, 2007 at 11:24:52PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:
  -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
  Hash: SHA1
 
  On 02/20/07 15:45, Alan Chandler wrote:
  On Tuesday 13 February 2007 16:29, Miles Fidelman wrote:
  [snip]
  in about 1982 I was in the market for a line printer so that my team 
  could print out their software listings and was pursuaded by the our HP 
  account manager to take a look at their new product - the HP Laserjet.  
  I was sold on the fact that we could get our printouts in A4 form for 
  the first time.
  I've *never* understood why developers like laser printers.  Green
  bar line printers are so much more useful.
  I recall they are huge, requiring a lot of floor space and required a
  noise cover otherwise you'd hear ear-splitting, griding  noise. X-(
 
 That's what insulated hoods and data centers are for!  ;)
 
 Actually, I'm serious about the utility of big line printers.  The
 large print and *wide*, lined paper made it easy to step thru your
 program, making notes, side calculations, etc.  Think of them as
 magic whiteboards that you could lay on your desk and didn't need
 thick, stinky, messy markers to write with.
You certainly are correct in that the wide paper left sufficient room to
make notes, etc. I'd use the side for comments and corrections and the
back for flow charts and such.
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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Ron Johnson]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 02/21/07 00:15, Kevin Mark wrote:
 On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 12:05:24AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:

 On 02/20/07 23:52, Kevin Mark wrote:
 On Tue, Feb 20, 2007 at 11:24:52PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:

 On 02/20/07 15:45, Alan Chandler wrote:
 On Tuesday 13 February 2007 16:29, Miles Fidelman wrote:
 [snip]
 in about 1982 I was in the market for a line printer so that my team 
 could print out their software listings and was pursuaded by the our HP 
 account manager to take a look at their new product - the HP Laserjet.  
 I was sold on the fact that we could get our printouts in A4 form for 
 the first time.
 I've *never* understood why developers like laser printers.  Green
 bar line printers are so much more useful.
 I recall they are huge, requiring a lot of floor space and required a
 noise cover otherwise you'd hear ear-splitting, griding  noise. X-(
 That's what insulated hoods and data centers are for!  ;)

 Actually, I'm serious about the utility of big line printers.  The
 large print and *wide*, lined paper made it easy to step thru your
 program, making notes, side calculations, etc.  Think of them as
 magic whiteboards that you could lay on your desk and didn't need
 thick, stinky, messy markers to write with.

 You certainly are correct in that the wide paper left sufficient room to
 make notes, etc. I'd use the side for comments and corrections and the
 back for flow charts and such.

That's exactly right.

IMNSHO, the Personal Computer mindset has seriously retarded IT.
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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Ron Johnson]

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Hash: SHA1

On 02/21/07 00:09, Steve Lamb wrote:
 Kevin Mark wrote:
 I recall they are huge, requiring a lot of floor space and required a
 noise cover otherwise you'd hear ear-splitting, griding  noise. X-(
 
 Yup, yup and yup.  Of course having to work on some model or another of
 green-bar printer for the past year-and-a-half lemme tell you, nothing better.
  You forgot to mention that once the top is down the modern models are
 extremely quiet and extremely fast.  I'd like to see a laser printer crank out
 500, triple-strike pages without jamming every few minutes.  Hell, the lasers
 at my current job, even the large floor-space consuming office model, jam more
 often than the several green-bars we have combined.

Really?  Back in the late 80s, the company I worked for had some
Xerox 8700(???) printers (each fed by a 9-track tape drive and
controlled by a Lear-Siegler ADM-3A terminal) and remember how
durable they were.  During tax season, they'd go thru dozens of
reams of paper per day without jamming.  Of course, they were well
maintained...

 Think of it this way:
 
 Laser - Windows, looks purdy, craps out all the time.
 Greenbar - Linux, klunky and not as pretty but gets the work done right.

Linux driving a band printer?

The last band printer I saw was connected to a VAXfarm back in 1991.
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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Greg Folkert]

On Wed, 2007-02-21 at 00:33 -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:
 On 02/21/07 00:09, Steve Lamb wrote:
  Kevin Mark wrote:
  I recall they are huge, requiring a lot of floor space and required a
  noise cover otherwise you'd hear ear-splitting, griding  noise. X-(
  
  Yup, yup and yup.  Of course having to work on some model or another of
  green-bar printer for the past year-and-a-half lemme tell you, nothing 
  better.
   You forgot to mention that once the top is down the modern models are
  extremely quiet and extremely fast.  I'd like to see a laser printer crank 
  out
  500, triple-strike pages without jamming every few minutes.  Hell, the 
  lasers
  at my current job, even the large floor-space consuming office model, jam 
  more
  often than the several green-bars we have combined.
 
 Really?  Back in the late 80s, the company I worked for had some
 Xerox 8700(???) printers (each fed by a 9-track tape drive and
 controlled by a Lear-Siegler ADM-3A terminal) and remember how
 durable they were.  During tax season, they'd go thru dozens of
 reams of paper per day without jamming.  Of course, they were well
 maintained...
 
  Think of it this way:
  
  Laser - Windows, looks purdy, craps out all the time.
  Greenbar - Linux, klunky and not as pretty but gets the work done right.
 
 Linux driving a band printer?
 
 The last band printer I saw was connected to a VAXfarm back in 1991.

The best printer I have ever used for printing reams and reams of
tractor feed... shuttle and pin printers. Mannesman-Tally using 661
printing coding.

I don't recall the actual model, but it did a few thousand lines of
print a minute. The only maintenance I need to do to the 15 year old
printer was: cleaning and replacing the pins on the shuttle, which were
in 8 pin packs.

I printed to it via CUPS and a PPD. I mainly printed mailing labels for
mailing labelers to put them on.

sometimes it would go through 12 feet of folded fanfold paper in an 8
hour day.
-- 
greg, [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Novell's Directory Services is a competitive product to Microsoft's
Active Directory in much the same way that the Saturn V is a competitive
product to those dinky little model rockets that kids light off down at
the playfield. -- Thane Walkup


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Ron Johnson]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 02/21/07 00:59, Greg Folkert wrote:
 On Wed, 2007-02-21 at 00:33 -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:
 On 02/21/07 00:09, Steve Lamb wrote:
 Kevin Mark wrote:
 I recall they are huge, requiring a lot of floor space and required a
 noise cover otherwise you'd hear ear-splitting, griding  noise. X-(
 Yup, yup and yup.  Of course having to work on some model or another of
 green-bar printer for the past year-and-a-half lemme tell you, nothing 
 better.
  You forgot to mention that once the top is down the modern models are
 extremely quiet and extremely fast.  I'd like to see a laser printer crank 
 out
 500, triple-strike pages without jamming every few minutes.  Hell, the 
 lasers
 at my current job, even the large floor-space consuming office model, jam 
 more
 often than the several green-bars we have combined.
 Really?  Back in the late 80s, the company I worked for had some
 Xerox 8700(???) printers (each fed by a 9-track tape drive and
 controlled by a Lear-Siegler ADM-3A terminal) and remember how
 durable they were.  During tax season, they'd go thru dozens of
 reams of paper per day without jamming.  Of course, they were well
 maintained...

 Think of it this way:

 Laser - Windows, looks purdy, craps out all the time.
 Greenbar - Linux, klunky and not as pretty but gets the work done right.
 Linux driving a band printer?

 The last band printer I saw was connected to a VAXfarm back in 1991.
 
 The best printer I have ever used for printing reams and reams of
 tractor feed... shuttle and pin printers. Mannesman-Tally using 661
 printing coding.

Hmph.  If it doesn't have data cables the size of your pinky, it
isn't a *real* printer... ;)

http://www.recycledgoods.com/Images/s_p_7420_3.jpg


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Celejar]

On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:22:30 -0500
Miles Fidelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 As I said - there are plenty of reasons to hate word.  Personally, I 
 hate some of the auto-corrections it makes.

AOL! But you can turn them off.

Celejar


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Greg Folkert]

On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 22:12 -0500, Celejar wrote:
 On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:22:30 -0500
 Miles Fidelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
  As I said - there are plenty of reasons to hate word.  Personally, I 
  hate some of the auto-corrections it makes.
 
 AOL! But you can turn them off.

Not permanently and not in your normal.dot. At least *I* could never
find a way. Sure it would last a few days/weeks... but sure enough
*SOMETHING* would revert it back to old conventions. Same thing with
those stupid dynamic menus based on feature usage.
-- 
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Novell's Directory Services is a competitive product to Microsoft's
Active Directory in much the same way that the Saturn V is a competitive
product to those dinky little model rockets that kids light off down at
the playfield. -- Thane Walkup


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Celejar]

On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 09:30:36 -0500
Greg Folkert [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 22:12 -0500, Celejar wrote:
  On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:22:30 -0500
  Miles Fidelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  
   As I said - there are plenty of reasons to hate word.  Personally, I 
   hate some of the auto-corrections it makes.
  
  AOL! But you can turn them off.
 
 Not permanently and not in your normal.dot. At least *I* could never
 find a way. Sure it would last a few days/weeks... but sure enough
 *SOMETHING* would revert it back to old conventions. Same thing with
 those stupid dynamic menus based on feature usage.

Well, I did notice that they would keep returning, but I had always
assumed that since there is another user of the machine, he was turning
them back on ...

Celejar


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Johannes Wiedersich]

Miles Fidelman wrote:
 Chris Bannister wrote:
 Oh come on.  At the company we just left, we generated 2-3 proposals a
 month, each at
 25 pages or so, using Word.  There are lots of reasons to dislike Word,
 but get real, it's usable
 and it works.  

Just looking at the number of word documents produced every day, yes,
Word seems to work. There are even reports of people having accomplished
the task of generating long and complex documents using word. I know one
guy who wrote a ca. 200 pages scientific review paper with coauthors
scattered around the globe.

In the end it worked, but it was a horrible experience. Just two points:

- after the paper was edited by one of the coauthors, the equations
could not be changed any more and were not displayed correctly. (The
coauthor used a different version of word)

- the paper was stored on a 'network drive' on a server with a raid.
When the network was down for 10s. Word corrupted the file and could not
restore it. Despite the fact that a reasonable autosave interval was
set, no usable backup could be recovered. The document had to be
recreated from the last valid print out.

(All that the linux users experienced during the 10s was a temporary
freeze of network access, no data loss or corruption!)

The problem with the corrupted files might have been avoided by a better
backup strategy, but that requires efforts outside of word. With LaTeX
on linux, no extra efforts are required for protecting your documents
from the OS or from the editor failing to properly 'autosave' the
documents in a way that they are usable.

(I am no expert for word, so I can't really tell why the 'autosave'
didn't work in this case. From all that I could tell from the settings,
the document should have been saved every 5 or 10 minutes, but this was
evidently not the case. What probably happened is that the autosave
kicked in when the file was already corrupted and therefore saved a
corrupted copy of the corrupted file.)

YMMV, but IMHO reliability on top of usabilitiy are so poor, that no one
should use word for productive work.

[The irony in this story is that fact that this guy still laughs at me
using such 'exotic' software as LaTeX. ]

I guess that almost all word users have had their 'disasters' of this or
other type. The interesting thing is, that most will still stick to it,
trying to work around the limitations (like rotating documents like
text1.doc, text2.doc etc. in order to have more backups once word
corrupts their files or upgrading to the latest version of word just to
be able to share their documents etc.) instead of using a better
software in the first place.


Johannes


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Jean-Paul Mannie]

For me the main advantages of LaTeX over Word is the easy incorporation
of references, citations and numbering figures and tables. Offcourse
Word is also able to do this, but with a lot more trouble. Something
like 'headings' always want to do things differently then the author. I
wrote several thesises in Word during my study. After too many
workarounds I got sick of it, and put some effort in learning LaTeX
(RTFM!). The use of LaTeX is without borders! If you are used to MS, try
MiKTeX.. If you put some efforts in it, you will never us word again,
especially when your in science! 

Jean-Paul


===
Miles Fidelman wrote:
 Chris Bannister wrote:
 Oh come on.  At the company we just left, we generated 2-3 proposals a
 month, each at 25 pages or so, using Word.  There are lots of reasons 
 to dislike Word, but get real, it's usable
 and it works.  

Just looking at the number of word documents produced every day, yes,
Word seems to work. There are even reports of people having accomplished
the task of generating long and complex documents using word. I know one
guy who wrote a ca. 200 pages scientific review paper with coauthors
scattered around the globe.

In the end it worked, but it was a horrible experience. Just two points:

- after the paper was edited by one of the coauthors, the equations
could not be changed any more and were not displayed correctly. (The
coauthor used a different version of word)

- the paper was stored on a 'network drive' on a server with a raid.
When the network was down for 10s. Word corrupted the file and could not
restore it. Despite the fact that a reasonable autosave interval was
set, no usable backup could be recovered. The document had to be
recreated from the last valid print out.

(All that the linux users experienced during the 10s was a temporary
freeze of network access, no data loss or corruption!)

The problem with the corrupted files might have been avoided by a better
backup strategy, but that requires efforts outside of word. With LaTeX
on linux, no extra efforts are required for protecting your documents
from the OS or from the editor failing to properly 'autosave' the
documents in a way that they are usable.

(I am no expert for word, so I can't really tell why the 'autosave'
didn't work in this case. From all that I could tell from the settings,
the document should have been saved every 5 or 10 minutes, but this was
evidently not the case. What probably happened is that the autosave
kicked in when the file was already corrupted and therefore saved a
corrupted copy of the corrupted file.)

YMMV, but IMHO reliability on top of usabilitiy are so poor, that no one
should use word for productive work.

[The irony in this story is that fact that this guy still laughs at me
using such 'exotic' software as LaTeX. ]

I guess that almost all word users have had their 'disasters' of this or
other type. The interesting thing is, that most will still stick to it,
trying to work around the limitations (like rotating documents like
text1.doc, text2.doc etc. in order to have more backups once word
corrupts their files or upgrading to the latest version of word just to
be able to share their documents etc.) instead of using a better
software in the first place.


Johannes


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Hugo Vanwoerkom]

Roberto C. Sanchez wrote:

On Tue, Feb 13, 2007 at 11:08:13PM -0500, Miles Fidelman wrote:
 
Oh come on.  At the company we just left, we generated 2-3 proposals a 
month, each at
25 pages or so, using Word.  There are lots of reasons to dislike Word, 
but get real, it's usable


That depends on how you define usable.  Word might handle a 25 page
document.  The experience of many of my friends has been that big
documents (25 pages is not big) are a real pain Word.  One friend of
mine did his thesis (350-400 pages) in Word.  Once he got past 100 or
150 pages, he was constantly fighting with it.  The TOC would get messed
up, it would screw up formatting and sectioning and lots of other
issues.




From personal experience:
I have written 1 book: a translation of Henry Corbin's En Islam Iranien 
- II. (300+ pages)


I have done that in 2 ways: one in M$ Word and one with Latex. The M$ 
Word was a royal PITA because Word does not handle TOC's well. I had to 
do that all myself with that Basic implementation for Word. On the other 
hand LaTex did it all without a hitch.


Second of all the formatting gets messed up in Word: it switches format 
without warning and you end up making little hardcoded adjustments: 
never happens in LaTex.


Be glad to send the Latex version on request.

Hugo


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Miles Fidelman]

Stephen wrote:

The other fella Miles Fieldman, (I think) mentioned that corporations
use word templates etc. Sure, for filling in a form letter, however it's
been my experience that the majority of corporate branding is done in
design and typesetting shops, not by Suzy or Joe using MSFT Word.

I have often done form letters for corporate clients in InDesign; MSFT
Word  is used simply for the copy, which I then take and make beautiful
in InDesign. Nobody serious about how their document looks finished,
will ever use MSFT Word -- It's typesetting is atrocious.

  
Don't get me wrong - I wouldn't think of using Word for serious 
typesetting.  I'm just saying that it's silly to expect the average 
business user to  abandon Word for preparation of day-to-day business 
documents (letters, white papers, small proposals, reports, etc.).  As 
soon as you move into advertising, brochures, manuals, large proposals, 
annual reports, etc., you hand everything over to entirely different 
people who use entirely different tools to make things look nice (though 
the raw material is still likely to be in Open Office if you're in 
software engineering, and Word otherwise).





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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[marc]

Miles Fidelman said...
 Stephen wrote:
  The other fella Miles Fieldman, (I think) mentioned that corporations
  use word templates etc. Sure, for filling in a form letter, however it's
  been my experience that the majority of corporate branding is done in
  design and typesetting shops, not by Suzy or Joe using MSFT Word.
 
  I have often done form letters for corporate clients in InDesign; MSFT
  Word  is used simply for the copy, which I then take and make beautiful
  in InDesign. Nobody serious about how their document looks finished,
  will ever use MSFT Word -- It's typesetting is atrocious.
 
 Don't get me wrong - I wouldn't think of using Word for serious 
 typesetting.  I'm just saying that it's silly to expect the average 
 business user to  abandon Word for preparation of day-to-day business 
 documents (letters, white papers, small proposals, reports, etc.). 

Proposals definitely have more impact when prepared with LaTeX, ime; 
especially when responding to competitive tenders where the visual 
quality of the report will help it float to the top of the pile.

Given the choice between two identical hire cars, who would choose the 
one covered in cow poo over the buffed and waxed shiny number? (Other 
than cow poo fetishists, presumably.)

-- 
Cheers,
Marc


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Roberto C. Sanchez]

On Tue, Feb 13, 2007 at 11:08:13PM -0500, Miles Fidelman wrote:
   
 Oh come on.  At the company we just left, we generated 2-3 proposals a 
 month, each at
 25 pages or so, using Word.  There are lots of reasons to dislike Word, 
 but get real, it's usable

That depends on how you define usable.  Word might handle a 25 page
document.  The experience of many of my friends has been that big
documents (25 pages is not big) are a real pain Word.  One friend of
mine did his thesis (350-400 pages) in Word.  Once he got past 100 or
150 pages, he was constantly fighting with it.  The TOC would get messed
up, it would screw up formatting and sectioning and lots of other
issues.

Based on his experience, he advised me to use LaTeX and *not* word.  At
that time, I had only recently discovered Linux (I was still using Red
Hat 8.0, which had just recently been released and I was a few weeks
away from being introduced to Debian).  So, since I still had two
Windows machines and one dual-boot, I was considering working in Word,
since I didn't know what else I would use.  I can only say that I am
immensely happy that I went with LaTeX.

Now that I am doing work at a place where Word is the only option for
word processing, I realize just how much I hate working with it.  Even
things that should be trivial are ridiculously complicated.  It asks me
things that it should not need to ask me.  It doesn't ask me things that
it should.  If I copy or cut for the second time in a document, it
completely changes the layout of the screen!  The dynamic menus are a
royal pain since I *always* have to click on the stupid little icon at
the bottom of each menu to get to see all the options.

 and it works.  (By the way, I run Debian on my servers, used Windows at 
 work because that's
 what the company issued, and my personal machine is a Mac. Had an IT guy 
 to keep the
 Windows machine working, so no stress on my part :-)
 
See, even with IT people to keep the Windows machine working, it is
still a stress on me, since Windows violates so many principles of
usability, user interfaces and how things should work, it just makes me
sick.  I mean, people often complain about the lack of uniformity in GUI
programs targetted at Linux.  Windows is just as bad, but people choose
to overlook it for some reason or another.  Then there is the fact that
Windows does not include any of the following in a base install:

 * a decent shell
 * ssh/sftp client
 * a decent scripting language

Those three things make it so that I will end up taking two or three
times as long as I should to do some basic task.

Regards,

-Roberto

-- 
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http://people.connexer.com/~roberto
http://www.connexer.com


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Roberto C. Sanchez]

On Wed, Feb 14, 2007 at 01:38:03AM -0500, Stephen wrote:
 
 You don't know MSFT Word well do you ? It's relatively easy to create a
 TOC from a structured Word document. Doesn't take much skill at all. The
 key is structure, and to work in outline view.
 
Have you actually verified that the TOC is correct in those cases?  I've
seen quite a few structured word documents create by office-wizards with
a TOC that did *not* actually match the document.  That is, it would
list section one starting on page 8, but it actually starts on page 6 or
something like that.

 Where Word falls short is it's typesetting algorithm. Otherwise it would
 be quite good.
 
Boy does it fall way short.  There is also the whole thing about how the
user interface just plain gets in the way.  Office 97 was actually
pretty good in terms of the UI not being overly annoying.  I never used
2000 much, but I have recently been forced into using XP and 2003 and
they both *suck* in this respect.

Regards,

-Roberto
-- 
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http://people.connexer.com/~roberto
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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Miles Fidelman]

Roberto C. Sanchez wrote:

On Tue, Feb 13, 2007 at 11:08:13PM -0500, Miles Fidelman wrote:
  
 
  
Oh come on.  At the company we just left, we generated 2-3 proposals a 
month, each at 25 pages or so, using Word.  There are lots of reasons to dislike Word, 
but get real, it's usable



That depends on how you define usable.  Word might handle a 25 page
document.  The experience of many of my friends has been that big
documents (25 pages is not big) are a real pain Word.  One friend of
mine did his thesis (350-400 pages) in Word.  Once he got past 100 or
150 pages, he was constantly fighting with it.  The TOC would get messed
up, it would screw up formatting and sectioning and lots of other
issues.
  

snip

Now that I am doing work at a place where Word is the only option for
word processing, I realize just how much I hate working with it.  Even
things that should be trivial are ridiculously complicated.  It asks me
things that it should not need to ask me.  It doesn't ask me things that
it should.  If I copy or cut for the second time in a document, it
completely changes the layout of the screen!  The dynamic menus are a
royal pain since I *always* have to click on the stupid little icon at
the bottom of each menu to get to see all the options.
  
As I said - there are plenty of reasons to hate word.  Personally, I 
hate some of the auto-corrections it makes.


Miles


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Greg Folkert]

On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 10:44 -0500, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote:
[snip]
 That depends on how you define usable.  Word might handle a 25 page
 document.  The experience of many of my friends has been that big
 documents (25 pages is not big) are a real pain Word.  One friend of
 mine did his thesis (350-400 pages) in Word.  Once he got past 100 or
 150 pages, he was constantly fighting with it.  The TOC would get
 messed up, it would screw up formatting and sectioning and lots of
 other issues.

Its a matter of refreshing the TOC (cough... cough)

 Based on his experience, he advised me to use LaTeX and *not* word.
 At that time, I had only recently discovered Linux (I was still using
 Red Hat 8.0, which had just recently been released and I was a few
 weeks away from being introduced to Debian).  So, since I still had
 two Windows machines and one dual-boot, I was considering working in
 Word, since I didn't know what else I would use.  I can only say that
 I am immensely happy that I went with LaTeX.
 
 Now that I am doing work at a place where Word is the only option for
 word processing, I realize just how much I hate working with it.  Even
 things that should be trivial are ridiculously complicated.  It asks
 me things that it should not need to ask me.  It doesn't ask me things
 that it should.  If I copy or cut for the second time in a document,
 it completely changes the layout of the screen! 

 The dynamic menus are a royal pain since I *always* have to click on
 the stupid little icon at the bottom of each menu to get to see all
 the options.

That can be turned off. Its a helpful feature to removed those seldom
used options nobody uses.

  and it works.  (By the way, I run Debian on my servers, used Windows
  at work because that's what the company issued, and my personal
  machine is a Mac. Had an IT guy to keep the Windows machine working,
  so no stress on my part :-)
 
 See, even with IT people to keep the Windows machine working, it is
 still a stress on me, since Windows violates so many principles of
 usability, user interfaces and how things should work, it just makes
 me sick.

Preaching to the choir. But I should also add, that the administration
of Windows is horrible as well. It takes someone with major insanity
to actually develop a working sec pol for Windows. They have to know
Visual Basic (for scripting) and discover why programs that are
installed as a regular user cannot run, needing write access to a
registry key or keys, just to save state.

The whole convoluted world, that is Windows: sucks.

Most people don't know they are eating cow-poo, as they have only ever
had the cow-poo for meals. Once they taste something that is better and
find out it works better and lasts longer and has more options (both
senses of the word) they like it.

 I mean, people often complain about the lack of uniformity in GUI
 programs targetted at Linux.  Windows is just as bad, but people
 choose to overlook it for some reason or another.  Then there is the
 fact that Windows does not include any of the following in a base
 install:
 
  * a decent shell
  * ssh/sftp client
  * a decent scripting language
 
 Those three things make it so that I will end up taking two or three
 times as long as I should to do some basic task.

Install Cygwin, its the only way to semi-fix it.
-- 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Novell's Directory Services is a competitive product to Microsoft's
Active Directory in much the same way that the Saturn V is a competitive
product to those dinky little model rockets that kids light off down at
the playfield. -- Thane Walkup


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Roberto C. Sanchez]

On Wed, Feb 14, 2007 at 11:33:04AM -0500, Greg Folkert wrote:
 On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 10:44 -0500, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote:
 
  I mean, people often complain about the lack of uniformity in GUI
  programs targetted at Linux.  Windows is just as bad, but people
  choose to overlook it for some reason or another.  Then there is the
  fact that Windows does not include any of the following in a base
  install:
  
   * a decent shell
   * ssh/sftp client
   * a decent scripting language
  
  Those three things make it so that I will end up taking two or three
  times as long as I should to do some basic task.
 
 Install Cygwin, its the only way to semi-fix it.

I wish.  Where I am doing work now, the Windows machines have
Hummingbird installed, which can be used to bring up an xterm on a
Solaris server (via telnet of course).  Naturally, they go nuts when you
forget to turn the telnetd off on a new install of RHEL :-)

Regards,

-Roberto

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http://people.connexer.com/~roberto
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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Stephen]

On Wed, Feb 14, 2007 at 10:48:21AM -0500 or thereabouts, Roberto C. Sanchez 
wrote:
 On Wed, Feb 14, 2007 at 01:38:03AM -0500, Stephen wrote:
  
  You don't know MSFT Word well do you ? It's relatively easy to create a
  TOC from a structured Word document. Doesn't take much skill at all. The
  key is structure, and to work in outline view.
  
 Have you actually verified that the TOC is correct in those cases?  I've
 seen quite a few structured word documents create by office-wizards with
 a TOC that did *not* actually match the document.  That is, it would
 list section one starting on page 8, but it actually starts on page 6 or
 something like that.

Yes of course, I'm a typesetter and wouldn't be employed for long if I
let something like that escape me. ;)

The firm I worked at prior, used it's own typesetting system, which
really was TeX/Latex with some of their own custom scripts (I guess
that's why they called it their system). They were quite proud of it,
deservedly so.

  Where Word falls short is it's typesetting algorithm. Otherwise it would
  be quite good.
  
 Boy does it fall way short.  There is also the whole thing about how the
 user interface just plain gets in the way.  Office 97 was actually
 pretty good in terms of the UI not being overly annoying.  I never used
 2000 much, but I have recently been forced into using XP and 2003 and
 they both *suck* in this respect.

I agree with you. I'd rather not deal with MSFT Word, but in the real
world, one doesn't always get that choice, unfortunately.

When I was in school, the professors insisted on papers being submitted
in .doc format, via e-mail. I argued for PDF but didn't get anywhere. :(

-- 
Regards
Stephen A.
   
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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Miles Fidelman]

Johannes Wiedersich wrote:

Outside of high academia  the publishing industry, most people don't
care how ugly their printed documents look. 
I think there are an awful lot of us in business, non-profits, and 
government who'd contest this.

Not to mention those in the advertising and marketing arena.

Larger organizations typically have fairly detailed standards for what 
documents have to look like,

along with design departments, document templates, and so forth.

Smaller organizations - at least smart ones - spend a lot of time on 
making documents look good,

because image and presentation make a big difference.


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Ron Johnson]

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On 02/13/07 06:17, Miles Fidelman wrote:
 Johannes Wiedersich wrote:
 Outside of high academia  the publishing industry, most people
 don't care how ugly their printed documents look.
 I think there are an awful lot of us in business, non-profits,
 and government who'd contest this.

I said most.  There are always exceptions.

 Not to mention those in the advertising and marketing arena.

They are publishers.

 Larger organizations typically have fairly detailed standards for
 what documents have to look like, along with design departments,
 document templates, and so forth.

And Word and OOo have templates.

 Smaller organizations - at least smart ones - spend a lot of time
 on making documents look good, because image and presentation
 make a big difference.

DTP.  It's what made the Mac.

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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Ron Johnson]

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On 02/13/07 01:35, Johannes Wiedersich wrote:
 Ron Johnson wrote:
 On 02/12/07 11:49, Johannes Wiedersich wrote:
 Joe Hart wrote:
 Andrei Popescu wrote:
 On Sun, 11 Feb 2007 18:41:55 +0200 Micha Feigin
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 [snip]
 I might be a bit of a purist, but I would say that even for one
 page of a document you will be better of with LaTeX. Word output
 might be ok for a quick fax, but the printed text from a half-way
 decent printer will always look better, if it's done in LaTeX.
 Outside of high academia  the publishing industry, that amount of 
 precision doesn't really matter.
 
 Outside of high academia  the publishing industry, most people don't
 care how ugly their printed documents look. They accept what they are
 used to accept. When they are told about LaTeX, they fear the effort
 that might  be involved in getting used to create documents in a
 different way and don't take the time to have a closer look. They also
 don't take the time to even ponder about the possibility that LaTeX's
 concept of separating structure, content and layout would boost their
 productivity in the long run or not. And they know that within their
 ranks they stick with the majority and thus can't be wrong.
 
 In this way, talking to M$ word users about LaTeX is just about the same
 as talking to M$ O$ users about linux or debian. They might struggle
 with some of the shortcomings, but their pain is not big enough to leave
 the mainstream and to dare the move to another way of working.

But you see, there's the issue.  There *is* *no* *pain* writing
short, relatively simple documents with word processors.

Even for mid-length documents, I've /read/ (but have no first-hand
knowledge) that OOo2 works very well if you understand how OOo
templates work.
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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Tyler Smith]

On 2007-02-13, Miles Fidelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Johannes Wiedersich wrote:
 Outside of high academia  the publishing industry, most people don't
 care how ugly their printed documents look. 
 I think there are an awful lot of us in business, non-profits, and 
 government who'd contest this.
 Not to mention those in the advertising and marketing arena.

Currently working in academia, I'd contest this too. A lot of
academics know only the WYSIWYG approach, and are not motivated to
learn anything different. Paradoxically, scientists are very much
'early-adopters' when it comes to the techniques used in their
mode-of-inquiry, but extremely conservative with everything else. Of
course, compsci and related math types are a big exception.

-- 
Regards,

Tyler Smit


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Ron Johnson]

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On 02/13/07 07:30, Tyler Smith wrote:
 On 2007-02-13, Miles Fidelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Johannes Wiedersich wrote:
 Outside of high academia  the publishing industry, most people don't
 care how ugly their printed documents look. 
 I think there are an awful lot of us in business, non-profits, and 
 government who'd contest this.
 Not to mention those in the advertising and marketing arena.
 
 Currently working in academia, I'd contest this too. A lot of

Contest that those in The Academy care or do not care?

 academics know only the WYSIWYG approach, and are not motivated to
 learn anything different. Paradoxically, scientists are very much
 'early-adopters' when it comes to the techniques used in their
 mode-of-inquiry, but extremely conservative with everything else. Of

The sane human brain can only be an early-adopter in a finite number
of areas.  Otherwise, you turn into a butterfly, always flitting
about from new fad to new fad.

 course, compsci and related math types are a big exception.
 

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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Johannes Wiedersich]

Miles Fidelman wrote:
 Johannes Wiedersich wrote:
 Outside of high academia  the publishing industry, most people don't
 care how ugly their printed documents look. 
 I think there are an awful lot of us in business, non-profits, and
 government who'd contest this.
 Not to mention those in the advertising and marketing arena.

I slightly overstated that, playing on the reply of Ron. I should have
better written that most people will never question their accustomed way
of doing things in order to get a better result. Maybe some Word users
will look around for Word options to make their documents 'look better',
but they won't notice that there are basic options missing in Word that
are *required* to print truly beautiful documents.

To take this further, one would have to argue about what is ugly. There
is a continuous scale from very ugly to very beautiful. Products like M$
Word cover the range from very ugly to somewhere in between. The very
beautiful end is accessible to professional typesetting systems only,
ie. TeX based systems like LaTeX or Adobe's InDesign.

These remarks are not intended to start a flame, but from the very
outset (La)TeX was designed with the very best finished result in mind,
enabling the user to typeset anything that would be conceivable to have
on paper, and to get it print to the highest possible standards. As an
example, all lengths in TeX and derivatives are calculated to a
precision better than the wavelength of light. It is therefore
inconceivable that one would ever have a printer that would print a
character or anything with a better resolution than that used by the
program.

The handling of ligatures, line breaks, page breaks etc. by common word
processors is inherently of lesser quality [1]. If you print the same
.doc on two different computers with two different printers, the same
document will print differently.

This is *never* the case for LaTeX. If you tell TeX to draw a line of
10.000 mm and the printed line would turn out not to be exactly 10.000
mm, then you should complain to the manufacturer of the printer, not to
TeX. I have not investigated the achievable precision of Word, but
already the visible spacing between letters and words is clearly worse
than that of the same text typeset with LaTeX (using the same fonts).
Ie. Word's spacings deviate by more than 0.05 mm from what would be
optimal.

 Larger organizations typically have fairly detailed standards for what
 documents have to look like,
 along with design departments, document templates, and so forth.

 Smaller organizations - at least smart ones - spend a lot of time on
 making documents look good,
 because image and presentation make a big difference.

It is disappointing that even professionals spending a fair amount of
time and money on their corporate designs and templates fail to realize
that the finished product in Word or OOo will never look as good as the
same text set with proper ligatures, optimal hyphenation, etc.

Just my humble opinion,

Johannes


[1] http://nitens.org/taraborelli/latex


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Miles Fidelman]

Johannes Wiedersich wrote:

Miles Fidelman wrote:
  

Johannes Wiedersich wrote:


Outside of high academia  the publishing industry, most people don't
care how ugly their printed documents look. 
  

I think there are an awful lot of us in business, non-profits, and
government who'd contest this.
Not to mention those in the advertising and marketing arena.



To take this further, one would have to argue about what is ugly. There
is a continuous scale from very ugly to very beautiful. Products like M$
Word cover the range from very ugly to somewhere in between. The very
beautiful end is accessible to professional typesetting systems only,
ie. TeX based systems like LaTeX or Adobe's InDesign.

Point taken.

I think what typically happens is that individuals who care about really 
beautiful design will migrate to
either a commercial product or  a Tex based system, depending on what 
they're more comfortable
with.  Corporate design departments (or university, or other large 
organization) are likely to
pick a tool for reasons having to do support, or what their vendors 
(printers, ad agencies, etc.)

use.

These remarks are not intended to start a flame
Likewise.  Just commenting on personal experience in various work 
environments.


I'm personally in the camp of time and data exchange being more 
important than beauty - Word is
good enough, it's what most of the people I exchange documents use, and 
we have internal
templates to start from.  (And I'm not sure my eye or taste are good 
enough to do much better).


When I need really fancy design work, I hand a Word document to someone 
else (like my wife, a former mechanical
artist from the old pre-computer days, who went on to work at Bitstream 
for a while) and let them use their prefered tools.


FYI: Just for perspective, I'm also old enough to remember designing 
control logic for film processors used for in preparing print the 
old-fashioned way (you know, half-tone separations, prepared with 
screens and cameras) - and, for that matter, laying out the PC boards 
with black tape on acetate.  Never used TeX or LaTeX, but used enough 
runoff and troff (remember those :-) to prefer WYSIWIG editors for short 
documents.


Cheers,

Miles


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Micha Feigin]

On Sun, 11 Feb 2007 12:05:26 -0500
Hal Vaughan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

[... snip ...]

 On Sunday 11 February 2007 11:41, Micha Feigin wrote:
  On Sun, 11 Feb 2007 11:06:15 -0500
 
   If Office is the issue, and not Windows overall, then why should
   she buy office when she can use OpenOffice for free and it will
   read and write all MS Office files?
 
  You did read the line above that she says that openoffice isn't good
  enough for here?
 
 I thought I had read it clearly, but I must have missed that part.  I 
 don't know how.  Maybe I tune it out because I've dealt with too many 
 people that look at OOo, try it for 2 minutes, say, It won't work, 
 and then I ask them to show me how to do a few things in Office and 
 realize they really don't even have much of a clue with Office.  With 
 OOo 2.x, there's really no reason to stick with Office any longer 
 unless the PHB orders it.


I am with you on that, but windows users tend to be hard headed about such
stuff or they wouldn't be using it in the first place (linux is software with
some bugs, microsoft is bugs with some software ;-)


  Personally I am a bigger fan of openoffice but it does have problems
  with properly formatting word documents.
 
 I've never really had a problem with that.  Are you dealing with 
 specific or unusual formatting?
 

by order of importance and tendency for problems:

mathematics, hebrew, tables, location of page breaks (probably font issue)

I use openoffice almost solely for opening word documents that I have to open
(with most of them I don't bother and my own work is with latex, lyx (latex 
again)
or text).

 Hal
 
 


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Micha Feigin]

On Sun, 11 Feb 2007 12:17:41 -0500
Douglas Allan Tutty [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On Sun, Feb 11, 2007 at 06:41:55PM +0200, Micha Feigin wrote:
  Actually I am a bigger fan of lyx, but that's a hard sell for office fans.
 
 I'm just starting down the LaTex and Lyx road (from Lout since I want
 html output option).  Is there anything that you _can't_ do with Lyx
 that you can do with LaTex?
 

There is the occasional extreme fine tuning of the preamble issue for conference
papers (very rare) and it can be a bit difficult to collaborate with latex only
users (when I need to reincorporate changes into the document).

Note that anything that lyx doesn't know how to do directly can be done by
inserting a latex box. BTW these things get fewer and fewer by the
version.

 Doug.
 
 


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Micha Feigin]

On Sun, 11 Feb 2007 14:08:14 -0500
cga2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On Sun, Feb 11, 2007 at 12:17:41PM EST, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:
  On Sun, Feb 11, 2007 at 06:41:55PM +0200, Micha Feigin wrote:
   Actually I am a bigger fan of lyx, but that's a hard sell for office fans.
  
  I'm just starting down the LaTex and Lyx road (from Lout since I want
  html output option).  Is there anything that you _can't_ do with Lyx
  that you can do with LaTex?
 
 Don't take my word for it but the short answer is no since as far as I
 can remember for stuff that it doesn't do out of the box, LyX lets you
 imbed LaTeX native statements in your document.
 
 But to answer your second question (should I choose LyX over LaTeX) 
 unless you absolutely want something that feels a bit like Microsoft
 Word I would not bother with LyX.  I did have some familiarity with
 markup languages but it only took me a few hours to figure out how to
 put together a basic native LaTeX document.  It took me much longer to
 customize LyX to my liking. 
 

I find it's main power come in three places:

Mathematics (you see almost anything on screen making it much easier to get the
equations right, especially when they are long an complicated).

Tables (not as much as an issue as with mathematics).

Images, much less than the previous two.

I found that setting up shortcuts, esspecially for mathematics is very easy and
straight forward, of course once you figure out where to put them. On the other
hand I still haven't managed to get vim and emacs to behave as I like

 As always, YMMV.
 
 A few good (?) reasons to choose LaTeX:
 
 With native LaTex you will be using your editor of choice .. you won't
 have to teach your fingers new habits.  Worth a thought if you plan on
 using LaTeX extensively.
 
 Overhead and portability.  Recent versions of LyX use the KDE/QT gui.
 With native LaTeX all you need is an editor and LaTex.
 

There is a lyx version for linux windows and I believe mac osx IIRC, the
windows version even takes care of installing latex properly.

As for the overhand, I find the lyx doesn't take more memory than vim or emacs,
probably more than the lighter ones (it uses qt, not the full blown kde, so it
doesn't pull along the whole daemon party. There is also a xforms version btw)

Just for the record:

USER   PID   %CPU %MEM   VSZ RSS   TTY   STAT START   TIME COMMAND
micha  7344  0.2 3.526388  9044  ?S  21:16 0:23 
 lyx-qt

 If you are a vim user  insist on working in something gui you may want
 to take a peek at this:
 
 http://vim-latex.sourceforge.net
 

Or if you are an emacs user there is auctex, I prefer that to vim (and
vim-latex)

 Lastly, another thing to consider before you decide:  Despite the name
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] is mostly a LaTeX support list and it is both very
 friendly to (serious) novices and very responsive.  
 
 I'm not sure LyX has the equivalent.
 

lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
very helpful for both lyx and latex

 HTH
 
 Thanks,
 
 cga
 

There are occations for each and there are some edge cases where lyx can cause
some latex errors which can be a pain to understand, but pure latex can cause
more.

If you only need simple text with sections or like programing or fine twiking I
would go with pure latex. If you like some what you see is almost what you
get, some math or making something more complicated without much more work
than the simple stuff I would go with lyx (it can also smooth the learning
curve a bit).

 
 


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Micha Feigin]

On Sun, 11 Feb 2007 20:48:40 -0500
Greg Folkert [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On Sun, 2007-02-11 at 21:16 +0100, Joe Hart wrote:
  Andrei Popescu wrote:
   On Sun, 11 Feb 2007 18:41:55 +0200
   Micha Feigin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  
 
   Actually I am a bigger fan of lyx, but that's a hard sell for office
   fans.
   
  
   lyx is good for big documents, or when you already have a class to use.
   If you are doing something small (one or two pages) and atypical it
   might be faster to just use abiword.
 
  I've never heard of lyx.  Have to check it out.  Would you consider a 
  450 page book a big project?
 
 It would be with Microsoft Word using Change Tracking. Infact I ahve
 seen a 100 page document being 2 years old with 1-2 changes a day being
 done to it... literally require a machine with the fastest processors
 and 4GB of memory (using WindowsXP) just to open it in under 10 minutes.
 
 The document was the production scheduling system... and they wanted
 to keep track of what happened, without making it any different. So a
 genius MCP suggested Change-tracking.
 
 One day it failed to open at all Word just crapped out on it. And Guess
 what, there were no backups as long ago it was too slow if opened from
 the S: network drive and was decided to put it on the C: network drive
 as everything was being backed-up on the network. Huh, C:\scheduling.doc
 wasn't on the backups.

Typical for windows (backing up/keeping track of changes/synchronizing is a
pain with windows)

it does sound like the job much better handled by a text document along with
cvs/svn.

BTW, lyx has change tracking in the 1.4 version.


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Micha Feigin]

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 07:40:45 -0600
Ron Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: SHA1
 
 On 02/13/07 06:17, Miles Fidelman wrote:
  Johannes Wiedersich wrote:
  Outside of high academia  the publishing industry, most people
  don't care how ugly their printed documents look.
  I think there are an awful lot of us in business, non-profits,
  and government who'd contest this.
 
 I said most.  There are always exceptions.
 
  Not to mention those in the advertising and marketing arena.
 
 They are publishers.
 
  Larger organizations typically have fairly detailed standards for
  what documents have to look like, along with design departments,
  document templates, and so forth.
 
 And Word and OOo have templates.
 

Which is where a person who know what s/he is doing makes word/OOo behave like
latex ;-)

And they still have a tendency to mess things up (you set up a style for
something that word decides to mess up the whole document).

  Smaller organizations - at least smart ones - spend a lot of time
  on making documents look good, because image and presentation
  make a big difference.
 
 DTP.  It's what made the Mac.
 
 -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
 Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
 
 iD8DBQFF0b/dS9HxQb37XmcRAvtpAJ9wifbJjrD0aYdgsrUVxGVK6cHDtgCfV2GM
 vPsy3SSGvJTiMdr87h8emuU=
 =eXq5
 -END PGP SIGNATURE-
 
 


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Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian (was Re: Introduction)

[Chris Bannister]

On Mon, Feb 12, 2007 at 06:49:14PM +0100, Johannes Wiedersich wrote:
 I might be a bit of a purist, but I would say that even for one page of
 a document you will be better of with LaTeX. Word output might be ok for
 a quick fax, but the printed text from a half-way decent printer will
 always look better, if it's done in LaTeX.

Unfortunately, the computer modern font looks a bit old. :-( 
Apparently its easy to change. :-)

-- 
Chris.
==
Don't forget to check that your /etc/apt/sources.lst entries point to 
etch and not testing, otherwise you may end up with a broken system once
etch goes stable.


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