Linux General Questions

gore wrote:

Android somewhat ironically uses a Microsoft favored protocol called MTP for file transfers. When I last looked into it Linux support was pretty raw. I use adb on the command line to transfer data via USB, but you can also use rsync or scp or cifs to connect to remote systems on a network from an android device. MTP support may have improved by now though.

FWIW, MTP has, for the most part, Just Worked (tm) on my Ubuntu 13.04 desktop running GNOME 3.8 -- I just plug in my Nexus 7 or Galaxy Nexus, and they show up as removable media devices, doing a reasonable approximation of working like an actual removable drive would. Sometimes it does something a little odd, but I haven't had any trouble copying files back and forth. Syncing music or videos over is just a matter of dragging them to the right folder; alternatively, apps like Banshee or Rhythmbox will happily sync your music across, iTunes-style.

iOS support on Linux is somewhat of a mess because nothing's documented -- everything's had to be reverse-engineered, with varying degrees of success. For importing photos I think an iPhone is smart enough to act as a PTP device (like many digital cameras do when plugged in via USB), but beyond that things get fiddly.

I was also under the impression that it "just worked". USB under Linux has worked fine with all of our Android devices. They are: Samsung Moment, HTC EVO Design, Amazon Kindle Fire, Nexus 7 (2012), and Samsung Galaxy S 4. Over the years I've had those, I've been using CentOS, RHEL, and Ubuntu without encountering any problems.

Keep in mind that Android used to support regular USB mounting of storage, where it passed through the block device which Just Worked with pretty much everything. MTP became the only file transfer mechanism for AOSP with Jellybean IIRC although some vendors (and third party distributions like Cyanogenmod) maintained regular USB mounting along with it due to limited compatibility for MTP.

I certainly wouldn't doubt that Ubuntu has the kinks worked out with the MTP FUSE implementation at this point, but I'm pretty sure this is a recent development. I last looked into this about a year ago, at which time even the most recent MTP packages for Arch had numerous issue.

It's not just a Linux problem either. OS X for example still doesn't support MTP natively without additional software.

So, the driver could be written by someone? Urgh, so far, as weird as it sound, it's my phone that's preventing my from changing Os.

Manach wrote:

So, the driver could be written by someone? Urgh, so far, as weird as it sound, it's my phone that's preventing my from changing Os.

Well, it sounds like it's good to go now in modern distributions. Just don't run anything old

Lex Cayman wrote:

I love Synergy!!!

Sorry, I just always try to promote that amazing piece of software.

Agreed! As a daily synergy user, there is only one thing it doesn't give me: We have UAC all the way up as part of policy at work. Synergy can't handle the switch to an elevated Windows shell, which means I have to keep a KB&M around for whenever I need to 'Run as Admin' on my Windows box. If they could get around that obtuse security effort, it'd be pretty much perfect.

Cinnamon 2.0 has taken over as my desktop of choice.

It is now completely standalone, no longer relying on any bits of GNOME.

It added the window tiling via hotkey function that kept me using Compiz in Xfce.

There's some multi-monitor updates coming in Cinnamon 2.2 that I'm looking forward to, but it's great right now.

Highly recommended. It's a project coming into maturity.

Yeah I've been enjoying Cinnamon on Mint. Actually, I just checked, I'm still on version 1.8.8.... I guess version 2.* is coming with the next Mint iteration.

Cinnamon 2.0 release announcement

Yes, it will be in the next Mint, and also backported to the official repos of the previous LTS release.

I'm in Ubuntu and running it from the stable PPA, which you can do on current Mint releases too.

It's fabulous. It feels like the most solid, put-together out-of-the-box DE going right now. Not as customizable as Xfce, but with the built-in window tiling, I'm feeling less need to customize. Especially once the multi-monitor panels land in 2.2.

Still like Xfce, but the fit-and-finish here is starting to really come together. Decoupling from GNOME seems to be letting them fill in the blanks GNOME has left vacant. (And not being dependent on GNOME components means no more strange corner cases when a particular distro has GNOME patches that others don't)

Also, still loving Synapse, absolutely cannot live without.

Synapse in Linux and Alfred in OS X are my absolute drop-dead first installs on any up-and-running Linux or Mac system.

*Legion* wrote:

Also, still loving Synapse, absolutely cannot live without.

Synapse in Linux and Alfred in OS X are my absolute drop-dead first installs on any up-and-running Linux or Mac system.

Ooooh thanks for that. I used a Macbook on and off, not heavily, but I did like Alfred. I will definitely give Synapse a try

Citizen86 wrote:

Ooooh thanks for that. I used a Macbook on and off, not heavily, but I did like Alfred. I will definitely give Synapse a try :)

Well if you liked Alfred, you'll like Synapse for the same reason: instantly responsive, zero delay, find-as-you-type launcher.

It's the sort of thing that I simply don't want to live without. It's that instant responsiveness that makes the experience.

I do like how quick it is. It's also pretty cool you can go left or right and choose where you want to search. It also opens up Google instantly if you search the internet. Pretty spiffy. Thanks again!

I might need some help with DosBox, or rather, how is it working.

I have a game, colonization, and wish to use DosBox, as there is no script in wine for it. It was release on Dos anyway.

Someone could point me to a read thru how to use that tool ?

EDIT : Seem I can't read. It's all in the program. It's the installer I'm having issues with. Gonna find a way around that later on then.

Colonization should work very nicely with DOSBox. What you'll probably need to do is map two drives, one as C for where you want to install your DOS games, and one as D, containing the Colonization files. It can even be the same directory, mapped twice, although I recommend against that.

Then, run the Colonization install from the D drive. It should think it's installing from CD, and will unpack itself onto your C drive, probably defaulting to c:\mps\colonize. Then you'll have to configure the sound; it looks like it will support General MIDI and the second generation of Soundblaster Pro, which is "sbpro2" in the DOSBox configuration settings. (Easiest to set that in DOSBox before even launching the installer.)

DOSBox defaults to putting the Soundblaster on address 220, IRQ 7, and DMA 1, and the MIDI card at address 330, all of which you have to tell most DOS programs. Some detect it automatically, but many don't.

I don't think DOSBox actually allocates an interrupt for GM, but if the DOS program asks for one, tell it the same IRQ as the Soundblaster. That seems to work.

Oh, note that a less-than-licit version of Colonization may come all set up and ready to go... you'd just have to run the Install program, configure sound, and run the game. It's the same program in both cases, you just don't need to do the install if it's an extracted ZIP of an installed game.

It is the gog.com version, they got an installer for it tho, which there is no script in playonlinux for that game.

It is that installer that is giving trouble.

I load up Dosbox, and it was rather easy when I do have access to the base files.

Manach wrote:

It is the gog.com version

Ohh, I didn't realize it was on GOG. I should have asked. I assumed it was Colonization's installer.

Guess I'll need to send the installed files from my windows box. I'll move it from a usb stick.

But, I goof around with cloud store to move stuff around, and since Canonical is offering Ubuntu One Storage, is it nicer than Dropbox ? (I never use DropBox)

I always kept away from such cloud base item, as I always think that anything I put online, even with a privacy security, it's always online some way.

So, any service that I could use for personnal reason, that got good security, or good rules for such storage ?

I wouldn't trust any cloud service with plaintext data, period. And I wouldn't rely on them to do the encryption for you, either.

The only thing I'd bounce around in the cloud would be encrypted loopback volumes with very high-grade encryption. And remember that the NSA will be permanently storing your uploaded data stream, so they could be attacking it ten or twenty years from now. Use very strong encryption.

*Legion* wrote:
Citizen86 wrote:

Ooooh thanks for that. I used a Macbook on and off, not heavily, but I did like Alfred. I will definitely give Synapse a try :)

Well if you liked Alfred, you'll like Synapse for the same reason: instantly responsive, zero delay, find-as-you-type launcher.

It's the sort of thing that I simply don't want to live without. It's that instant responsiveness that makes the experience.

Synapse made Linux desktop work for me. I used Cinnamon, Unity, LXDE, OpenBox, and Synapse made all of them livable.

Been following this for a bit (big fan of Linux Format magazine), so I thought hey - share their IndieGoGo page.

Linux Voice
A new Free Software and Linux magazine that gives profits back to the community - from an all-star team of ace Linux journalists.

I've collected an odd assortment of one-off issues from Linux {Journal, Format, Slumber Party} over the years, but I lost interest as they generally seem to most commonly cover the newest bestest distro ever. I may start tinkering with distros, but for now and the foreseeable future I'm a Slackware user. The rest of the popular content seemed underwhelming given US$15 issue prices. Do I really need to spend $15 to read about apt-get vs. Synaptic vs. Software Manager (or what have you) and Firefox? No, no I don't. I do, though, keep the command-line issue of Linux Journal relatively handy.

That said, trawling through the various Linux magazine websites piqued my interest in some things, and I know I'm generally interested. It's just that magazines seem to be a poor source for fast-moving targets. However, I guess there are a variety of useful things which maintain their relevance over time, and the curation is nice. And I like their business model, from what I see.

Just wish it still weren't US$14 per issue (GBP50 * 1.64 conversion via xe.com, for six-month subscription).

I just came across elementary OS. I'm not sure what to make of it yet, but it's attractive. If it's possible to have an OS X-like UI that's stable and spritely, without gumming up everything under the hood, it's worth looking into. Anyone tried it? I'm sure it can be made to work as a DE on any distro, but unsure how befuddling that'd be.

I tried it on a netbook, which wasn't quite powerful enough to deliver a good experience.

My impression was that it's not quite as OSX-y as people might like. I hope they stick with it and follow the same arc as Cinnamon, though. Growing beyond just one distro and breaking into being community-wide DEs is much-needed progress.

trueheart78 wrote:

Been following this for a bit (big fan of Linux Format magazine), so I thought hey - share their IndieGoGo page.

Linux Voice
A new Free Software and Linux magazine that gives profits back to the community - from an all-star team of ace Linux journalists.

Pretty interesting. I do have a Readr subscription right now, so I like to peruse Linux User every month. They sometimes have some interesting tutorials and articles, but I do skip probably 60-70% of the articles.

I'm not sure how much better they will be, but I might be willing to give it a shot. How come all the Linux mags are based in the UK though? Why don't any Americans want to write about Linux?

Linux Weekly News is one of the better sources I know, and it's American.

muraii wrote:

I just came across elementary OS. I'm not sure what to make of it yet, but it's attractive. If it's possible to have an OS X-like UI that's stable and spritely, without gumming up everything under the hood, it's worth looking into. Anyone tried it? I'm sure it can be made to work as a DE on any distro, but unsure how befuddling that'd be.

I was a bit worried by the interview with the developers I read where they said in one answer "We didn't want to reinvent the wheel" and then in the next "We started by inventing our own programming language to write our applications in".

Zelos wrote:
muraii wrote:

I just came across elementary OS. I'm not sure what to make of it yet, but it's attractive. If it's possible to have an OS X-like UI that's stable and spritely, without gumming up everything under the hood, it's worth looking into. Anyone tried it? I'm sure it can be made to work as a DE on any distro, but unsure how befuddling that'd be.

I was a bit worried by the interview with the developers I read where they said in one answer "We didn't want to reinvent the wheel" and then in the next "We started by inventing our own programming language to write our applications in".

Makes sense

Zelos wrote:
muraii wrote:

I just came across elementary OS. I'm not sure what to make of it yet, but it's attractive. If it's possible to have an OS X-like UI that's stable and spritely, without gumming up everything under the hood, it's worth looking into. Anyone tried it? I'm sure it can be made to work as a DE on any distro, but unsure how befuddling that'd be.

I was a bit worried by the interview with the developers I read where they said in one answer "We didn't want to reinvent the wheel" and then in the next "We started by inventing our own programming language to write our applications in".

Are you referring to Vala? It's been around for a while -- IIRC it's a semi-high-level language that's tightly integrated in to GObject, so writing apps in it that use GTK and the various GNOME libraries that are all based on GObject flows very naturally. It seems like a neat idea, and it's used by some reasonably-sized apps (like Shotwell), though I'm still not sure of the wisdom of a language that's so tightly tied to a particular technology.