From: Thomas F. <tf...@no...> - 2005-01-07 22:10:48
|
Hi Folks, the large german computer magazine "C't" brings a big 3 pages article about co-linux in his current edition 2/2005 (page 84-86). Is colinux ready for the unexperienced computer magazine reader? Cheers, Thomas |
From: Ian B. <ib...@gm...> - 2005-01-07 22:57:06
|
I personally think coLinux is ready for any user that is ready to handle Linux as a standard operating system. Then again, if you're talking about installing and maintaining the binaries rather than the OS itself, then thats debatable. There isn't a "standard windows installer" yet (or is there?) as far as I know, so it requires a little more advanced skills to maintain the "current level" of binaries. Ian On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 22:13:22 +0100 (CET), Thomas Fritzsche <tf...@no...> wrote: > Hi Folks, > > the large german computer magazine "C't" brings a big 3 pages article > about co-linux in his current edition 2/2005 (page 84-86). > > Is colinux ready for the unexperienced computer magazine reader? > > Cheers, > Thomas > > ------------------------------------------------------- > The SF.Net email is sponsored by: Beat the post-holiday blues > Get a FREE limited edition SourceForge.net t-shirt from ThinkGeek. > It's fun and FREE -- well, almost....http://www.thinkgeek.com/sfshirt > _______________________________________________ > coLinux-devel mailing list > coL...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/colinux-devel > |
From: A. A. A. <alp...@tt...> - 2005-01-09 13:50:47
|
Hi, On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 17:56:57 -0500, Ian Bonnycastle wrote: >I personally think coLinux is ready for any user that is ready to >handle Linux as a standard operating system. Then again, if you're >talking about installing and maintaining the binaries rather than the >OS itself, then thats debatable. There isn't a "standard windows >installer" yet (or is there?) as far as I know, so it requires a >little more advanced skills to maintain the "current level" of >binaries. > I agree coLinux requires too much "attention" after its current installer does its work. Dealing with TCP/IP settings, disk partitions, custom built root disk images, having to install Cygwin to see some X desktop, getting along with config.xml... collectively put up a nice and major barrier for the uninitiated user. Firstly, I think coLinux should be based on a well-built, comprehensive, widely known root disk image. Fortunately, there's one such work called Knoppix, as most of you know. The immediate side-effect of this is integration of cloop module into coLinux kernel, but why waste CPU cycles for on-the-fly decompression on a platform with lots of free disk space? Now that we have cofs in coLinux (ref. recent snapshot), I think it's possible to put up a sophisticated installer that boils down to: "make sure you have 5GB free space, have your Knoppix CD ready and I'll do the rest for you." Behind the scenes, I envision a custom initrd that contains statically linked extract_compressed_fs, ash to drive the linuxrc and probably nash (from Red Hat) to fill in where ash lacks such as losetup. Once linuxrc decompresses KNOPPIX (thanks to cofs) onto disk and them mounts it, one will have almost all the commands in hand. After that, linuxrc can create an empty root disk with dd, format it with mkfs.xxxx, copy decompressed KNOPPIX image, tune/add rc scripts (e.g. add an ifconfig for eth interace, start vncserver, etc), whatever... Note that, this is basically a twofold process where windows part of the installer installs colinux itself first, and then hands over the rest to coLinux with a specific initrd and startup parameters. Windows installer can also configure TAP with WMI scripting and a vncviewer in listen mode, so we get a complete setup. So, what do you guys think? Any taker? -- A. Alper Atici OpenPGP KeyID: 0xB824F550 |
From: peter g. <plu...@bi...> - 2005-01-09 21:15:10
|
my belief is that colinux itself should remain pure and clean without crud to directly support newbies the task of maintaining colinux itself and the task of providing systems for newbies built around it should be seperate imo just as the task of maintaing the normal linux kernel and the task of building distros round it are seperate. btw i did have cloop working with older versions of coloinux but i never manged to build it against a 2.6 colinux kernel (though i have a feeling this may be an issue with building knoppers source against vanilla linux rather than debian kernel sorce pacakges and could probablly be fixed quite quick by someone who properly also im sorry but requiring multiple gigabytes to do a normal install of something is just insane. those kind of requirements WILL turn people away and get you accusations of megabloat hard drives of only 30 gigs or so are still verry common especially in laptops (which are the time when running linux and windows in paralell on the same host is most usefull) > -----Original Message----- > From: col...@li... > [mailto:col...@li...]On Behalf Of A.Alper > Atici > Sent: 09 January 2005 13:51 > To: col...@li... > Subject: [coLinux-devel] Re: colinux in the german press (C't magazine) > > > Hi, > > On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 17:56:57 -0500, Ian Bonnycastle wrote: > > >I personally think coLinux is ready for any user that is ready to > >handle Linux as a standard operating system. Then again, if you're > >talking about installing and maintaining the binaries rather than the > >OS itself, then thats debatable. There isn't a "standard windows > >installer" yet (or is there?) as far as I know, so it requires a > >little more advanced skills to maintain the "current level" of > >binaries. > > > > I agree coLinux requires too much "attention" after its current > installer does its work. Dealing with TCP/IP settings, disk > partitions, custom built root disk images, having to install Cygwin to > see some X desktop, getting along with config.xml... collectively put > up a nice and major barrier for the uninitiated user. > > Firstly, I think coLinux should be based on a well-built, > comprehensive, widely known root disk image. Fortunately, there's one > such work called Knoppix, as most of you know. The immediate > side-effect of this is integration of cloop module into coLinux > kernel, but why waste CPU cycles for on-the-fly decompression on a > platform with lots of free disk space? Now that we have cofs in > coLinux (ref. recent snapshot), I think it's possible to put up a > sophisticated installer that boils down to: "make sure you have 5GB > free space, have your Knoppix CD ready and I'll do the rest for you." > > Behind the scenes, I envision a custom initrd that contains statically > linked extract_compressed_fs, ash to drive the linuxrc and probably > nash (from Red Hat) to fill in where ash lacks such as losetup. > Once linuxrc decompresses KNOPPIX (thanks to cofs) onto disk and them > mounts it, one will have almost all the commands in hand. After that, > linuxrc can create an empty root disk with dd, format it with > mkfs.xxxx, copy decompressed KNOPPIX image, tune/add rc scripts (e.g. > add an ifconfig for eth interace, start vncserver, etc), whatever... > > Note that, this is basically a twofold process where windows part of > the installer installs colinux itself first, and then hands over the > rest to coLinux with a specific initrd and startup parameters. > Windows installer can also configure TAP with WMI scripting and a > vncviewer in listen mode, so we get a complete setup. > > So, what do you guys think? Any taker? > > > -- > A. Alper Atici OpenPGP KeyID: 0xB824F550 > > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > The SF.Net email is sponsored by: Beat the post-holiday blues > Get a FREE limited edition SourceForge.net t-shirt from ThinkGeek. > It's fun and FREE -- well, almost....http://www.thinkgeek.com/sfshirt > _______________________________________________ > coLinux-devel mailing list > coL...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/colinux-devel |
From: Sam M. <pa...@gm...> - 2005-01-09 22:53:00
|
IMHO, coLinux will always be a fringe thing for the simple thing that the kernel of Linux itself is never stable. For this reason alone, we will always encounter some form of bug in coLinux because something will always change somewhere that we will miss. Short of putting coLinux on a CD(s) with a given Linux distro, coLinux will never be stable, and as such, I don't believe it should be given that sort of publicity. For all we know, coLinux maybe not work in six months due to a Linux kernel restructure somewhere, making our stable only work backwards. How do you explain that to a newbie? Are they going to get "I'm sorry, your going to have to upgrade coLinux to support this kernel." or are they going to get a stream of errors when they try something new? So I agree with Peter, the product is coLinux and thats what we're here to provide. If we turn into building newbie friendly stuff, we'll be spending more time tweaking that so its bug proof than actually working: thats someone elses job. Two final items, when you build an automated installer of any variety two things happen: 1) People become dumber. 2) People lose options. Elaborating, (1) people become dumber due to the simple fact that they don't have to learn anything. I've seen friends of mine, barely computer literate, bragging that they installed Windows XP on their machine. Windows XP is perhaps one of the most automated OS installs around with the best hardware driver library available: you don't need to know anything to get it done, from partitioning to monitor adjustment, its done automatically. People don't know about partitioning, file systems or drives (they don't care), so when something goes wrong, they have less of an idea because they don't know how they got there to start with. Then support systems need to be introduced to handle the automated installs where the people probably know less than what they think. IT support is a tricky business, and frankly, its not something imo we should be doing. Secondly, (2) people lose options in what image they might use and what amount of virtual ram they might use or where it may be put or perhaps even what kernel they would like to use. A coLinux installer would be mated to a specific kernel branch, and even then some companies alter the kernel and apply their own modifications. What if someone downloads the coLinux installer (that was released six months ago on an old kernel), and they pick up a KNOPPIX cd (that was released a month ago) with a new kernel. There is that dire possibility that the system would malfunction and not work, no matter how automated you made the install. A computer can't be substituted for hands on experience, as I've stated in the first point. So a few thoughts on the matter, Sam On Sun, 9 Jan 2005 21:14:55 -0000, peter green <plu...@bi...> wrote: > my belief is that colinux itself should remain pure and clean without crud > to directly support newbies > > the task of maintaining colinux itself and the task of providing systems for > newbies built around it should be seperate imo just as the task of maintaing > the normal linux kernel and the task of building distros round it are > seperate. > > btw i did have cloop working with older versions of coloinux but i never > manged to build it against a 2.6 colinux kernel (though i have a feeling > this may be an issue with building knoppers source against vanilla linux > rather than debian kernel sorce pacakges and could probablly be fixed quite > quick by someone who properly > > also im sorry but requiring multiple gigabytes to do a normal install of > something is just insane. those kind of requirements WILL turn people away > and get you accusations of megabloat hard drives of only 30 gigs or so are > still verry common especially in laptops (which are the time when running > linux and windows in paralell on the same host is most usefull) > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: col...@li... > > [mailto:col...@li...]On Behalf Of A.Alper > > Atici > > Sent: 09 January 2005 13:51 > > To: col...@li... > > Subject: [coLinux-devel] Re: colinux in the german press (C't magazine) > > > > > > Hi, > > > > On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 17:56:57 -0500, Ian Bonnycastle wrote: > > > > >I personally think coLinux is ready for any user that is ready to > > >handle Linux as a standard operating system. Then again, if you're > > >talking about installing and maintaining the binaries rather than the > > >OS itself, then thats debatable. There isn't a "standard windows > > >installer" yet (or is there?) as far as I know, so it requires a > > >little more advanced skills to maintain the "current level" of > > >binaries. > > > > > > > I agree coLinux requires too much "attention" after its current > > installer does its work. Dealing with TCP/IP settings, disk > > partitions, custom built root disk images, having to install Cygwin to > > see some X desktop, getting along with config.xml... collectively put > > up a nice and major barrier for the uninitiated user. > > > > Firstly, I think coLinux should be based on a well-built, > > comprehensive, widely known root disk image. Fortunately, there's one > > such work called Knoppix, as most of you know. The immediate > > side-effect of this is integration of cloop module into coLinux > > kernel, but why waste CPU cycles for on-the-fly decompression on a > > platform with lots of free disk space? Now that we have cofs in > > coLinux (ref. recent snapshot), I think it's possible to put up a > > sophisticated installer that boils down to: "make sure you have 5GB > > free space, have your Knoppix CD ready and I'll do the rest for you." > > > > Behind the scenes, I envision a custom initrd that contains statically > > linked extract_compressed_fs, ash to drive the linuxrc and probably > > nash (from Red Hat) to fill in where ash lacks such as losetup. > > Once linuxrc decompresses KNOPPIX (thanks to cofs) onto disk and them > > mounts it, one will have almost all the commands in hand. After that, > > linuxrc can create an empty root disk with dd, format it with > > mkfs.xxxx, copy decompressed KNOPPIX image, tune/add rc scripts (e.g. > > add an ifconfig for eth interace, start vncserver, etc), whatever... > > > > Note that, this is basically a twofold process where windows part of > > the installer installs colinux itself first, and then hands over the > > rest to coLinux with a specific initrd and startup parameters. > > Windows installer can also configure TAP with WMI scripting and a > > vncviewer in listen mode, so we get a complete setup. > > > > So, what do you guys think? Any taker? > > > > > > -- > > A. Alper Atici OpenPGP KeyID: 0xB824F550 > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > > The SF.Net email is sponsored by: Beat the post-holiday blues > > Get a FREE limited edition SourceForge.net t-shirt from ThinkGeek. > > It's fun and FREE -- well, almost....http://www.thinkgeek.com/sfshirt > > _______________________________________________ > > coLinux-devel mailing list > > coL...@li... > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/colinux-devel > > ------------------------------------------------------- > The SF.Net email is sponsored by: Beat the post-holiday blues > Get a FREE limited edition SourceForge.net t-shirt from ThinkGeek. > It's fun and FREE -- well, almost....http://www.thinkgeek.com/sfshirt > _______________________________________________ > coLinux-devel mailing list > coL...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/colinux-devel > |
From: Joe M. <jo...@no...> - 2005-01-09 23:40:36
|
On Mon, Jan 10, 2005 at 08:52:57AM +1000, Sam Moffatt wrote: > Short of putting coLinux on a CD(s) with a given Linux distro, coLinux > will never be stable, and as such, I don't believe it should be given > that sort of publicity. For all we know, coLinux maybe not work in six > months due to a Linux kernel restructure somewhere, making our stable > only work backwards. How do you explain that to a newbie? Are they > going to get "I'm sorry, your going to have to upgrade coLinux to > support this kernel." or are they going to get a stream of errors I don't think it makes any sense to package colinux separately from a kernel, but a whole disro is going too far. Of course there's no point putting out a set of patches and saying, "This is the stable colinux and will work with any kernel!" "stable" colinux would refer to one particular colinux kernel. I think it's important for the main colinux project to distinguish between stable and unstable versions because it's important for 3rd-party packagers who want to bundle entire distros to know which kernels are appropriate for a base. Joe |
From: Eric S. J. <es...@ha...> - 2005-01-10 15:11:35
|
peter green wrote: > my belief is that colinux itself should remain pure and clean without crud > to directly support newbies be careful with your definition of newbie. Even though I have been working with UNIX systems since mid-80s (and non UNIX systems for even longer), I am a relative newbie to colinux. What I want with colinux is the ability to run a full-fledged Linux environment complete with desktop. Why? I suffered the fate of many long-term computer users and have a repetitive motion injury which renders my hands/arms reasonably useless for significant keyboard use any dependent on speech recognition. My goal in the short-term is to let my speech system (NaturallySpeaking) run on Windows and do all of my dictation, command control, correction dialog etc. on Linux. In effect, but I want is to make my Windows desktop effectively disappear while still being able to use speech recognition. there are two platforms which would let me make this happen: VMware and colinux. wine is an option and I know of of one group trying to make this happen but it is predicated on some fund-raising which makes sense because after all, even open source developers need to pay the bills. just another take on the topic. -- eric -- http://www.salon.com/books/review/2004/12/18/heloise/index.html The basis of Abelard's philosophy, which he taught to Heloise, was that logic had to be applied to religion in order to arrive at the truth. |
From: <co...@ew...> - 2005-01-10 23:00:27
|
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005, Eric S. Johansson wrote: > What I want with colinux is the ability to run a full-fledged Linux > environment complete with desktop. Why? I suffered the fate of many > long-term computer users and have a repetitive motion injury which > renders my hands/arms reasonably useless for significant keyboard use > any dependent on speech recognition. My goal in the short-term is to > let my speech system (NaturallySpeaking) run on Windows and do all of my > dictation, command control, correction dialog etc. on Linux. In effect, > but I want is to make my Windows desktop effectively disappear while > still being able to use speech recognition. Wow! What a great solution -- I really like the way you think. X Windows with port forwarding from cygwin might be enough to do what you are looking for. The cygwin xwindows has come a long way and until colinux has a (stable) video frame buffer this might be your best bet. Should be as simple as ssh -x colinux-ip startx, provided the cygwin xserver is up. -- Eric Wheeler Vice President National Security Concepts, Inc. PO Box 3567 Tualatin, OR 97062 http://www.nsci.us/ Voice: (503) 293-7656 Fax: (503) 885-0770 |
From: Eric S. J. <es...@ha...> - 2005-01-10 23:49:12
|
co...@ew... wrote: > On Mon, 10 Jan 2005, Eric S. Johansson wrote: > Wow! What a great solution -- I really like the way you think. yea, I annoy lots of people that way (customers, friends). ;-) You should see how I totally alienated the anti-spam community with radical concepts such as economic based models, (naive) user centered design, and taking advantage of accidental information. I think it's possible to do something similar to colinux and alienate a few folks here. ;-) for example, if I understand colinux correctly, the only part of the Linux environment that needs changing is the kernel. So theoretically, it would be possible in, say, a Red Hat system to produce a kickstart Delta release which takes a colinux RPM for the kernel. Same as possible under gentoo. provide a bootable image which runs and then switches to the live cd CD-ROM image for the rest of the binaries. When installing, one would use a a gentoo-vanilla-sources instead of a standard kernel. I'm sure there are other similar things one can do. For installation, one thing that would be nice to add is ability to create "disks" which one can install into and have those disks placed into the configuration file automatically. A truly heretical idea would be to create a root reference in an NTFS filesystem and then allow the colinux process access to read and write files below that point in the file system. It would probably make sense to put a file system limit to keep some disk space available for Windows. One question would be how to handle case sensitivity from the Linux side. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that I wasn't paying attention and somebody else has proposed this. > X Windows > with port forwarding from cygwin might be enough to do what you are > looking for. The cygwin xwindows has come a long way and until colinux > has a (stable) video frame buffer this might be your best bet. Should be > as simple as ssh -x colinux-ip startx, provided the cygwin xserver is up. > have not been too pleased with ssh connections stability from cygwin. I have punted to putty for the time being so I can keep my connections alive for 48-96 hours or more. With the cygwin version I was using, it was lucky to stay up for a couple hours. ALso, sometimes it's a challenge to figure out the colinux IP address. It would be nice if there was some way one could use a host independent method like using one of the localhost addresses (i.e. 127.0.255.1) as a as an inter-machine fixed address. I need to think about this a little more. Maybe a special named pipe might work if we can find the right way to route bits. hmm. ---eric -- http://www.salon.com/books/review/2004/12/18/heloise/index.html The basis of Abelard's philosophy, which he taught to Heloise, was that logic had to be applied to religion in order to arrive at the truth. |
From: Charles D. <cd...@sp...> - 2005-01-11 00:30:30
|
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 10:09:59 -0500, Eric S. Johansson wrote: > What I want with colinux is the ability to run a full-fledged Linux > environment complete with desktop. Why? I suffered the fate of many > long-term computer users and have a repetitive motion injury which > renders my hands/arms reasonably useless for significant keyboard use > any dependent on speech recognition. My goal in the short-term is to > let my speech system (NaturallySpeaking) run on Windows and do all of my > dictation, command control, correction dialog etc. on Linux. In effect, > but I want is to make my Windows desktop effectively disappear while > still being able to use speech recognition. I can't comment on the speech recognition, but I'm quite happily using coLinux with NX (particularly, Gentoo's nxserver-freenx and the commercially developed NX client on Windows in full-screen mode) to get a full-screen graphical Linux environment. (Perhaps this thread should be moved to colinux-users list?) |
From: Doctor B. <do...@gm...> - 2005-01-10 16:11:13
|
Sounds like a good goal. Something I might suggest to make your hands more useful for other activities is B-6. My hands had gotten so bad I had them in wrist braces 20 hours per day just to help alleviate the pain. I had installed the best ergonomic keyboard I could afford, and switched to a different style trackball so I would use different muscles. Still it looked like surgery was the only answer. However, my wife read on the Internet B-6 sometimes helps with nerve problems, so I started taking one a day. Within an month I was able to discontinue regular use of my wrist braces, and now they are just decoration. I still periodically get sore wrists, hands, arms, etc. However, it is never as bad as before. Ironically, my wife who recommended trying it, still hasn't tried B-6 for herself. She had the surgery done on both wrists and still runs into problems with one hand. But the doctor had said she had multiple problems and would likely need a second operation. Unfortunately now that we are back in Canada, we get a referral for a competent doctor to perform the surgery. (In Canada you can not see a specialist without a referral, so even if you find one, if you family doctor has too big of an ego, he will not refer you. It takes years to get a new family doctor...) Bill On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 10:09:59 -0500, Eric S. Johansson <es...@ha...> wrote: > peter green wrote: > > my belief is that colinux itself should remain pure and clean without crud > > to directly support newbies > > be careful with your definition of newbie. Even though I have been > working with UNIX systems since mid-80s (and non UNIX systems for even > longer), I am a relative newbie to colinux. > > What I want with colinux is the ability to run a full-fledged Linux > environment complete with desktop. Why? I suffered the fate of many > long-term computer users and have a repetitive motion injury which > renders my hands/arms reasonably useless for significant keyboard use > any dependent on speech recognition. My goal in the short-term is to > let my speech system (NaturallySpeaking) run on Windows and do all of my > dictation, command control, correction dialog etc. on Linux. In effect, > but I want is to make my Windows desktop effectively disappear while > still being able to use speech recognition. > > there are two platforms which would let me make this happen: VMware and > colinux. wine is an option and I know of of one group trying to make > this happen but it is predicated on some fund-raising which makes sense > because after all, even open source developers need to pay the bills. > > just another take on the topic. > > -- eric > > -- > http://www.salon.com/books/review/2004/12/18/heloise/index.html > > The basis of Abelard's philosophy, which he taught to Heloise, was > that logic had to be applied to religion in order to arrive at the > truth. > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > The SF.Net email is sponsored by: Beat the post-holiday blues > Get a FREE limited edition SourceForge.net t-shirt from ThinkGeek. > It's fun and FREE -- well, almost....http://www.thinkgeek.com/sfshirt > _______________________________________________ > coLinux-devel mailing list > coL...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/colinux-devel > |
From: Doctor B. <do...@gm...> - 2005-02-25 17:50:55
|
Hello Eric, Almost to the day-to-day group my reply, the B-6 stopped working.crisis that it was actually a combination of B6 and B12 that helped. However , this only seem to delay the progress of the injury. My hands of gotten so bad that like you I'm not using Dragon NaturallySpeaking to dictate most of what I write. I also gave up using QWERTY. I have found that Emacs can be voiced enabled. Emacs provides ways of accessing remote applications such as a telnet mode. However , it has been years since I've used Emacs. So I do not remember most of the commands. I am considering writing scripts that will process words into characters for a bass command line. So I could say something like the following; voice list long option all to mean: ls --all Do you think this type of interface would be helpful? It would be fairly easy. However I am limited in time since I keep getting further and further behind my work to do my hands. Have you found anything else? Bill. On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 11:11:02 -0500, Doctor Bill <do...@gm...> wrote: > Sounds like a good goal. Something I might suggest to make your hands > more useful for other activities is B-6. My hands had gotten so bad I > had them in wrist braces 20 hours per day just to help alleviate the > pain. I had installed the best ergonomic keyboard I could afford, and > switched to a different style trackball so I would use different > muscles. Still it looked like surgery was the only answer. However, > my wife read on the Internet B-6 sometimes helps with nerve problems, > so I started taking one a day. Within an month I was able to > discontinue regular use of my wrist braces, and now they are just > decoration. I still periodically get sore wrists, hands, arms, etc. > However, it is never as bad as before. > > Ironically, my wife who recommended trying it, still hasn't tried B-6 > for herself. She had the surgery done on both wrists and still runs > into problems with one hand. But the doctor had said she had multiple > problems and would likely need a second operation. Unfortunately now > that we are back in Canada, we get a referral for a competent doctor > to perform the surgery. (In Canada you can not see a specialist > without a referral, so even if you find one, if you family doctor has > too big of an ego, he will not refer you. It takes years to get a new > family doctor...) > > Bill > > On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 10:09:59 -0500, Eric S. Johansson <es...@ha...> wrote: > > peter green wrote: > > > my belief is that colinux itself should remain pure and clean without crud > > > to directly support newbies > > > > be careful with your definition of newbie. Even though I have been > > working with UNIX systems since mid-80s (and non UNIX systems for even > > longer), I am a relative newbie to colinux. > > > > What I want with colinux is the ability to run a full-fledged Linux > > environment complete with desktop. Why? I suffered the fate of many > > long-term computer users and have a repetitive motion injury which > > renders my hands/arms reasonably useless for significant keyboard use > > any dependent on speech recognition. My goal in the short-term is to > > let my speech system (NaturallySpeaking) run on Windows and do all of my > > dictation, command control, correction dialog etc. on Linux. In effect, > > but I want is to make my Windows desktop effectively disappear while > > still being able to use speech recognition. > > > > there are two platforms which would let me make this happen: VMware and > > colinux. wine is an option and I know of of one group trying to make > > this happen but it is predicated on some fund-raising which makes sense > > because after all, even open source developers need to pay the bills. > > > > just another take on the topic. > > > > -- eric > > > > -- > > http://www.salon.com/books/review/2004/12/18/heloise/index.html > > > > The basis of Abelard's philosophy, which he taught to Heloise, was > > that logic had to be applied to religion in order to arrive at the > > truth. > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > > The SF.Net email is sponsored by: Beat the post-holiday blues > > Get a FREE limited edition SourceForge.net t-shirt from ThinkGeek. > > It's fun and FREE -- well, almost....http://www.thinkgeek.com/sfshirt > > _______________________________________________ > > coLinux-devel mailing list > > coL...@li... > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/colinux-devel > > > |
From: A.Alper A. <alp...@tt...> - 2005-01-10 19:05:55
|
On Sun, 9 Jan 2005 21:14:55 -0000, peter green wrote: >my belief is that colinux itself should remain pure and clean without crud >to directly support newbies > >the task of maintaining colinux itself and the task of providing systems for >newbies built around it should be seperate imo just as the task of maintaing >the normal linux kernel and the task of building distros round it are >seperate. > Is it really separate now? Why does coLinux site bother with hosting some custom root disk images? colinux-tools? I'm not asking for any replacement of the current installer but an enriched, easy-to-use alternative. You'll be free to take it or not. As for being crud; I don't know any colinux related work that deserves to be called like that, but having to install and maintain Cygwin along with coLinux, that's some annoying nuisance. As for integrating cloop; why should coLinux be forced to tap-dance on a squeezed CD-Rom space? Decompressed KNOPPIX 3.6 image takes about 2145MB, add swap space and some /home overhead to that, 2.5GB at most. My current coLinux driven Fedora 2 installation takes more space than that. Your assessment on the scarcity of resources is way-out. It is the CPU -which is shared between two OS's- that should be addressed for optimized usage. -- A. Alper Atici OpenPGP KeyID: 0xB824F550 |
From: Olivier S. <co...@a-...> - 2005-01-10 07:49:04
|
----- Original Message ----- From: "Thomas Fritzsche" <tf...@no...> To: <col...@li...> Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 10:13 PM Subject: [coLinux-devel] colinux in the german press (C't magazine) > Hi Folks, > the large german computer magazine "C't" brings a big 3 pages article > about co-linux in his current edition 2/2005 (page 84-86). > > Is colinux ready for the unexperienced computer magazine reader? > > Cheers, > Thomas I want to add to the various points I also read : first : * LiveCDs such as Knoppix and its clones, MandrakeMove and others are not that good because you end up removing or disabling the video and audio applications, not to mention fast-action 3D games and webcam support. unless you want to hand them a additionnal 30 pages on how to configure ESD. also, most of the (good) hardware autodetection they do is useless to us. So you can say "image based on Knoppix" to attact users, but you should alter it. * most Linux distributions can be installed inside another filesystem using rpm --root option, or for instance debootstrap for Debian. since we want to avoid irrelevant packages, mostly hardware-related, this is the way to go, but it takes time. * a distribution based on Busybox will weight about 650 ko and provide a minimal Linux system so people can test coLinux instead of downloading 50-100 Mo AND getting another 50-100 Mo via the network (and waiting hours compiling X for Gentoo). * we can include X to the images of Debian, Gentoo or whatever distributions we choose to "support" or provide coLinux with, and X in itself is rather small. * but then you will need either Gnome or KDE because the user will ask for that, don't waste time shipping XFCE and making it look nice, everything is in the name. those users won't accept xterm and want a "desktop". * and you need fonts and Perl if you want to provide the VNC server. they are heavy packages. * as soon as they do a apt-get or emerge, they 'negate' parts or all of the efforts made in packaging it, not to mention time and bandwidth. * a solution is to include a few README with short instructions to get Gnome or KDE. of course, dumb users still won't read them. * there is no real value for the coLinux project in trying to ship filesystem images for every distributions under the sun. in the long term I would like to see a 'big' distribution shipped with X but I feel it is a dumb idea. I would like to see a image specifically tagged and targeted towards people rebuilding coLinux from sources, but it is also rather dumb. the Gentoo image filled this need in the beginning. next : * there are all kind of new coLinux users. coLinux is not the issue here, as we managed to bring several brand newbies to a full, working coLinux system complete with network and X applications. they didn't know what a shell was, but edited the files we told them, were patient and had a good spirit. * the issue is mostly the user, sometimes either impatient, or expecting a "GUI" when clicking on the .exe, or just a plain, worthless moron. also, some can't stand the idea of having to edit a few files in coLinux consoles. * the hardest part in coLinux setup is currently the network configuration. it can be trivial or a major pain, even for knowledgable users. also, there many cases, and it is OS dependant : Windows 2000 and Windows XP seem to use different dialog box and "assistants". good souls can edit and improve http://wiki.colinux.org/cgi-bin/Network and http://wiki.colinux.org/cgi-bin/coLinuxNetworking . I can't do that, since my installation was a breeze, I only saw one very simple case, and networks are really not my cup of tea. * there are also a few "gotcha" that are worth putting into coLinux README : they are mostly 'you have to uncompress the image files' 'no space in paths' 'this long message just meant your block device path is wrong' 'use ro in bootparams if it helps' 'forget messages about modules until you need them' * new users can find the IRC channel but won't read the topic or figure out that most documentation is in the Wiki. * there is no point in creating documents and helpers to users regarding the distributions they want to use. we can talk about particularities of coLinux behaviour in each distribution, provide a short description of the relevant package manager and some commands and tips, give our best URLs, but once they get there, they are outside of coLinux realm. as an example I provided Slackware and Mandrake images, but I will not rehash the Slackware Book or the 42 options of rpm and urpmi : others experts have already done that, and did a better job that what I would hope to achieve. so, once the network and X or VNC is running, and with a minimal description of apt-get and such, I send them to the distribution support tools (forums, IRC, best tutorials, Google). Regards, Olivier Souiry |
From: A.Alper A. <alp...@tt...> - 2005-01-10 20:21:42
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On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 08:49:18 +0100, Olivier Souiry wrote: > > * LiveCDs such as Knoppix and its clones, MandrakeMove and others are not >that good because you end up removing or disabling the video and audio >applications, not to mention fast-action 3D games and webcam support. unless >you want to hand them a additionnal 30 pages on how to configure ESD. also, >most of the (good) hardware autodetection they do is useless to us. So you Useless, but not harmful. >can say "image based on Knoppix" to attact users, but you should alter it. > Actually, I've happily booted a decompressed-and-converted-to-ext3 KNOPPIX 3.6 image with latest coLinux snapshot by just passing boot parameter 2 (which prevents starting X) and skipping its own initrd. > * most Linux distributions can be installed inside another filesystem using >rpm --root option, or for instance debootstrap for Debian. since we want to You need a working linux system to execute those commands, can you see the paradox? >avoid irrelevant packages, mostly hardware-related, this is the way to go, >but it takes time. > There's no need for such avoidance. All hw detection-module loading stuff goes on in linuxrc and in some init script, both of which are shell scripts. > * a distribution based on Busybox will weight about 650 ko and provide a >minimal Linux system so people can test coLinux instead of downloading >50-100 Mo AND getting another 50-100 Mo via the network (and waiting hours >compiling X for Gentoo). > Or, people can happily exploit an already built compact installation which is distributed by almost all computer magazines out there. > * we can include X to the images of Debian, Gentoo or whatever >distributions we choose to "support" or provide coLinux with, and X in >itself is rather small. > I think Knoppix already has a working X installation. > * but then you will need either Gnome or KDE because the user will ask for >that, don't waste time shipping XFCE and making it look nice, everything is >in the name. those users won't accept xterm and want a "desktop". > I think Knoppix already has a working KDE desktop. > * and you need fonts and Perl if you want to provide the VNC server. they >are heavy packages. > I think Knoppix already has Perl installed. As for VNC server, all one need to do is pack the relevant .deb package from Debian with the installer, and run dpkg with --rootdir option at linuxrc stage. > * as soon as they do a apt-get or emerge, they 'negate' parts or all of the >efforts made in packaging it, not to mention time and bandwidth. > I don't get this. > * a solution is to include a few README with short instructions to get >Gnome or KDE. of course, dumb users still won't read them. > > * there is no real value for the coLinux project in trying to ship >filesystem images for every distributions under the sun. in the long term I >would like to see a 'big' distribution shipped with X but I feel it is a >dumb idea. I would like to see a image specifically tagged and targeted >towards people rebuilding coLinux from sources, but it is also rather dumb. >the Gentoo image filled this need in the beginning. > Practically, every distribution should make their installers coLinux-aware. Once, I've tried installing Fedora from CD with appropriate parameters passed to coLinux. It came to the Welcome text screen, asked for keyboard and lang settings, then kept on asking for drivers beacuse it was unable to find any device to install onto. Kudzu, parted, along with anaconda need some major tweak to make this happen. I must stress that I'm not big on Knoppix, my exposure to it is not older than a few weeks (I'm mostly Red Hat type). But, I think there's ready-to-exploit opportunity for coLinux with these live-CD distros. regards, -- A. Alper Atici OpenPGP KeyID: 0xB824F550 |
From: Olivier S. <co...@a-...> - 2005-01-11 06:41:17
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Globally you were speaking of hacking a physical Knoppix CD so coLinux could use it with minimal effort. It is a good idea, and yes, Knoppix provides a full working desktop. Well, you need support for cloop in coLinux since most LiveCD filesystem images look like that : $ more gnustep.mod #!/bin/sh #V2.0 Format modprobe cloop file=$0 && mount -r -t iso9660 /dev/cloop $1 exit $(datadatadata) oh, and "mobprobe cloop" will have to work, too. But I think you are onto something. being able to use a LiveCD, directly or automaticaly dumped to a filesystem image, could be a killer feature. I was dealing with creating images for coLinux, so used disk space is a concern since it means longer downloads. ----- Original Message ----- From: "A.Alper Atici" <alp...@tt...> To: <col...@li...> Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 9:21 PM Subject: [coLinux-devel] Re: colinux in the german press (C't magazine) > > * most Linux distributions can be installed inside another filesystem > > using rpm --root option, or for instance debootstrap for Debian. > You need a working linux system to execute those commands, can you see > the paradox? no. Microsoft use Windows to compile and package Windows, Linux packagers use chroot all the time, it is not really different. almost all distribution out there provide a rescue disk you can use with coLinux, I did just that. [snip] > Practically, every distribution should make their installers > coLinux-aware. Once, I've tried installing Fedora from CD with > appropriate parameters passed to coLinux. It came to the Welcome text > screen, asked for keyboard and lang settings, then kept on asking for > drivers beacuse it was unable to find any device to install onto. > Kudzu, parted, along with anaconda need some major tweak to make this > happen. Welcome to the real world. I tried to do the same with some Mandrake installer and got the same issue. I bypassed it with some arcane boot parameters options, but at the same time I felt that I should not have to worry about drivers in a virtual environment like coLinux anyway, so I went the rpm --root way. it results in a cleaner, smaller distribution too. In fact, Linux installers are usually incredibly complex beasts. Graphical installers are real monsters. > I must stress that I'm not big on Knoppix, my exposure to it is not > older than a few weeks (I'm mostly Red Hat type). But, I think there's > ready-to-exploit opportunity for coLinux with these live-CD distros. I ran several of them, including Knoppix and GnuSTEP LiveCD, and Ubuntu and others, and while I don't think we will see any distribution become coLinux-aware just to please us anytime soon, we can ship a knoppixinitrd.gz with coLinux that would boot most LiveCDs. Mandrake installer accepted the following boot argument : DISPLAY=192.168.0.1:1 so I think we can even boot in graphical mode. Regards, Olivier Souiry > regards, > > -- > A. Alper Atici OpenPGP KeyID: 0xB824F550 |
From: A.Alper A. <alp...@tt...> - 2005-01-11 20:08:10
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On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 07:41:36 +0100, Olivier Souiry wrote: [...] >Well, you need support for cloop in coLinux since most LiveCD filesystem >images look like that : > >$ more gnustep.mod >#!/bin/sh >#V2.0 Format >modprobe cloop file=$0 && mount -r -t iso9660 /dev/cloop $1 >exit $(datadatadata) > >oh, and "mobprobe cloop" will have to work, too. > No, I described that in my first post. Besides cloop module, there are commands part of the cloop package that provide for creating and extracting cloop images. [...] > >> > * most Linux distributions can be installed inside another filesystem >> > using rpm --root option, or for instance debootstrap for Debian. > >> You need a working linux system to execute those commands, can you see >> the paradox? > > >no. Microsoft use Windows to compile and package Windows, Linux packagers >use chroot all the time, it is not really different. almost all distribution >out there provide a rescue disk you can use with coLinux, I did just that. > > OK, actually what I propose is very similar to that without the extra burden of doing rpm because the image has it all :-) >[snip] > >> Practically, every distribution should make their installers >> coLinux-aware. Once, I've tried installing Fedora from CD with >> appropriate parameters passed to coLinux. It came to the Welcome text >> screen, asked for keyboard and lang settings, then kept on asking for >> drivers beacuse it was unable to find any device to install onto. >> Kudzu, parted, along with anaconda need some major tweak to make this >> happen. > > >Welcome to the real world. I tried to do the same with some Mandrake >installer and got the same issue. I bypassed it with some arcane boot >parameters options, but at the same time I felt that I should not have to >worry about drivers in a virtual environment like coLinux anyway, so I went >the rpm --root way. it results in a cleaner, smaller distribution too. > For those who can solve issues, who don't give up, there exist numerous ways out of frustration. For this I used the word "uninitiated" at the top of my first post, and it still holds. But, I think everyone needs some more time to spare ;-) [...] > >I ran several of them, including Knoppix and GnuSTEP LiveCD, and Ubuntu and >others, and while I don't think we will see any distribution become >coLinux-aware just to please us anytime soon, we can ship a knoppixinitrd.gz >with coLinux that would boot most LiveCDs. > I'm not talking about directly booting a Live-CD since this requires the integration of cloop module. I'm against that for reasons I've desribed in other posts in this thread. >Mandrake installer accepted the following boot argument : >DISPLAY=192.168.0.1:1 so I think we can even boot in graphical mode. > No installers. Because they do not recognize cobd, or cocon or anyother coLinux-virtualized device/interface, hence fail miserably (at least this is the case with Fedora installer). regards, -- A. Alper Atici OpenPGP KeyID: 0xB824F550 |