Windows to unix conversion. Looking for software recommendations.

Khannie

Ok, I'm making the leap on Monday and switching to an A64 box running RHEL3 64bit under my desk as my full-time OS.

Here's what I like about windows:
textpad
windows explorer
remote desktop

I'll need replacements for all of these. I quite like nedit, but would rather something that doesn't require the learning of new keyboard shortcuts (don't bother suggesting vi or emacs, while I'm sure they're fine editors, I cba), is lightweight and is designed as a programming editor (C++ and perl).

Can I use a unix program to remote desktop into windows? VNCing into a windows box is pants in my experience.

As for windows explorer: I have yet to find anything that comes even remotely close to it for ease of use. Some stuff just wasn't meant to be done at the command line. Has anyone else found something approaching it for usability?

digitalninja

yup rdesktop will use term services.

maxheadroom

Try rdesktop for remote desktop.
I've never used it, but a lot of people like ROX filer, you could try that as an explorer replacement?

Khannie

Nice one. Thanks lads. Both of those look good.

Any ideas on the text editor front?

I've been using nedit all morning and the lack of tabs and inability to change the background colour is really starting to melt my buzz. I like some of its features though. Came accross a syntax highlighting bug or two but that's a minor quibble. I very much like how lightweight it is.

zAbbo

a terminal text editor like vi,vim,nano etc.

or a gui based one like gedit ?

Khannie

Gui based please. I do use "emacs -nw" for terminal based editing, but ideally I'm looking for something to replace textpad and / or the MS visual studio editor as a programming editor.

maxheadroom

Khannie wrote:

Gui based please. I do use "emacs -nw" for terminal based editing, but ideally I'm looking for something to replace textpad and / or the MS visual studio editor as a programming editor.

Which window environment will you be using? No point in reccomending something Qt based if you'll be using GNOME, for instance...

nosmo

I'd say gedit will do you fine as regards a general use notepad style editor.
As for the windows explorer substitue, Nautilus is a bit bloated but if you customise it a bit it'd probably do the job

Khannie

maxheadroom wrote:

Which window environment will you be using? No point in reccomending something Qt based if you'll be using GNOME, for instance...

Pretty sure it's KDE, but KDE and Gnome look the same to me at this stage. How do I check? ps reports apps with gnome and kde in them. Is Qt support not determined by having the libraries installed? I can defo run Qt based apps. </noob>

nosmo: Gedit hasn't got the goods to be a decent programming editor IMO.

maxheadroom

Khannie wrote:

Pretty sure it's KDE, but KDE and Gnome look the same to me at this stage. How do I check? ps reports apps with gnome and kde in them. Is Qt support not determined by having the libraries installed? I can defo run Qt based apps. </noob>

RHEL3 seems to use GNOME as a default environment, or so says a quick google... In any case, the KDE libs will be installed, so you can use a Qt app, its just not the most efficient thing to have to load all of that for a text editor...

Try KATE - its the default editor in KDE, but it is appatantely quite good. Other than that, maybe bluefish or eclipse IDE? Unfortunately I don't use my linux installs for any kind of programming so maybe someone with a bit more experience can help out.

nadir

I find ultravnc to be quite good actually.

erm if you like windows exporer, which actually, I kinda do(well the layout anyway), then you should use xfe , its the same, except faster and never screwes up.

Khannie

nadir wrote:

I find ultravnc to be quite good actually.

It's nothing compared to remote desktop tbh. VNC is great for accessing Unix, but that's the nature of the beast. I was amazed at just how good remote desktop is (work from home two days a week and use the machine there as a dumb terminal to access my lovely fast work machine).

edit: One day it took me a while to notice that I was listening to music at home that was playing on my work pc. NICE TOUCH!

nadir wrote:

erm if you like windows exporer, which actually, I kinda do(well the layout anyway), then you should use xfe , its the same, except faster and never screwes up.

That looks like just the ticket. Thanks.

And yeah, I love windows explorer. Think it could possibly be the best piece of software MS have ever produced. /me loves simplicity.

SkepticOne

rdesktop for accessing windows remote desktops - snappier than VNC.
Built in facility in X for accessing other X desktops - nothing required here.
Maybe Bluefish for programming editor. No need to go with a Vi or Emacs clone if you don't want.

Capt'n Midnight

http://linuxshop.ru/linuxbegin/win-lin-soft-en/table.shtml
- general list of windows ==---> unix

rsynnott

For an editor, if kedit, KATE etc don't have the features you want, you could try jEdit (multiplatform) or Eclipse (huge, multiplatform, Java, C, C++ only)

Khannie

Nice linkage there capt'n. Some lovely stuff in there.

Khannie

Ok....I've made the leap. That may sound silly to the proper unix heads out there, but it's a big conceptual jump for me to be using a linux box as my primary one in work.

I may be asking some very very noob questions over the next few days (though I promise to google first). I'd ask people to bear with me on that one

Thanks for all your help so far.

Khannie

Todays impressions:

Linux blows goats as a full-time replacement for windows. Here are my reasons:

<rant>

1) I have spent most of the day trying to get a poxy MP3 playing application installed. I have downloaded and attempted compilation on no less than 5 multimedia players as the XMMS that comes with RHEL3 does not support MP3 :rolleyes:. Each one either fails compilation (because of the default ogg libraries being crap was a problem in at least two instances....I can't change that easily), or wont install without a degree in makefile editing.

2) Most applications come as .rpm files. Lovely (sometimes) if you're root, absolutely useless if you're not.

3) Yahoo messenger is .rpm only. Tried Gaim. Suffered the same troubles as with MP3 player. The default Gaim installation wont work with our proxy.

4) Gnome locked up on me twice requiring me to login and kill the session. Granted I'm running the 64bit version of RHEL, but it is supposed to be "enterprise" standard.

I'm fairly disillusioned right now.

</rant>

The only thing I could get working easily as an install to my home area was rdesktop. Quality stuff that.

Oh, and Kate seems like a decent enough editor, though I would prefer some tabs and the ability to use a keyboard shortcut to switch between the well intentioned console at the bottom.

pickarooney

When I asked on another forum about best/fastest text editors, I got these suggestions. Ignore the speed results, they were on a system much slower than the one in my spec on there. Some of the posts on that thread have been removed for some reason, but the majority are still there. I use nedit for most things now, occasionally bluefish.

OTOH, I can't understand how anyone can use Windows Explorer. The simplest manipulations like copying files from one directory to another, and even creating a new directory take ages.

pickarooney

The MP3 problem is well known with Red Hat. They simply don't support MP3s as standard. The first link here should solve it.

You need to be root to install RPMs the same way you need to be Administrator to install many EXEs in Windows. Simply open a terminal and log in with your root password and type rpm -ivh thefilname.rpm. Usually the OS will prompt you for the password if you simply double-click on the RPM as well.
Not sure I understand the problem with GAIM. Is it that it won't install;/run or you can't configure it for your network settings?

Khannie

I love windows explorer

Handy tip for copying: select, drag with the right mouse to the destination folder, release

I've done ok without a file manager today, though I'm very comfortable at the command line in windows anyway. I'll get around to that in the morning.

Finally got xmms installed, though I had to download and reinstall libogg and libvorbis (from source) to my home area. Having music will make a big difference. I have ripped quite a bit of stuff to ogg, but it only represents about 20% of my cd collection (the rest I did as MP3) so I was cranky about that.

The biggest thing I learned today was --prefix=~/install works for most configure scripts.
Liked that a lot.

I will persevere for at least the rest of the week. My experience will hopefully help out someone else.

Khannie

Thanks for the help pickarooney. I'll investigate the gaim problem and get back to you.

One weird problem I've noticed with mozilla on linux is that it's not updating pages on boards correctly. I'm using the default install of 1.4.3, so I'm gonna try updating that too.

edit: I can't login as root....don't have root privs (company machine). I have admin rights on my windows PC, but this is a shared linux box so I can't go wrecking it

Capt'n Midnight

More alternatives http://www.linux.ie/newusers/alternatives.php

Khannie

Got gaim installed by copying over some missing .so files from a 32bit version of linux. Then found out it doesn't use the same HTTP protocol as the actual ymessenger, so I can't use it through our proxy (it complains about not being able to tunnel through port 5050).

Tried installing some of the other versions of IM's, but apparantly my Qt version is too old. Currently compiling the sources for the open version of the latest incarnation.

Getting there

oscarBravo

I've managed to get through eight-odd years of Linux use without ever using Red Hat. Reading this thread, I'm starting to think I never will.

Any overwhelming reason not to use a different distro?

nadir

yeah, red hat sucks, had to use it in college, Khannie if u feel you are learning fast go for something like archlinux or gentoo. (they ain't that hard to install, if ur any ways computer literate it should be no problem)

Khannie

oscarBravo wrote:

Any overwhelming reason not to use a different distro?

Yeah, it's a work machine. I've no control over it Also, it needs to build software that will run on RHEL 3 (which is the linux version that my company supports).

Having root privs would make a huge difference......

apt-get install <insert-delicious-software-here>



Edit: just found this command for extracting files from an rpm. NICE ONE! (Have yahoo messenger working now)

rpm2cpio INSERT_RPM_FILE_HERE | cpio -idv

Khannie

Update for anyone that's interested:

Running linux as my primary OS at home, though I still use windits for some stuff. Having trouble with sound, so I need to use windows for clan matches (Teamspeak and UT2K4 are a no go on linux at the same time at the moment). Getting there.

Running linux as my primary OS in work. Again, need to use windits for some stuff.

Working from home, I use windits as my primary OS. The reason: VNC is crap compared to Remote Desktop and I can't get freenx installed. Currently in negotiations with the IT people for some sudo love.

Capt'n Midnight

Probably not what you are looking for but have you tried rdesktop I don't know if it works with remote desktop ( 'cos I don't use remote desktop ) , but it does work with Microsoft Terminal Server ( use -4 if using NT4TS )

http://terminal/tsweb may also work on TS with web support enabled

Fenster

Gentoo gets my vote as well, easily.

If you've the paitence to wait on large compile times and the paitence to work through the installation (the installation HOWTO's only cover installation, and not actually setting everything up), you've a great distro.

Portage, unlike Redhat apt servers, where I found conflicting versions a headache, has just about every bit of Linux software you can think of. It also handles all the depencies.

Want Firefox? emerge mozilla-firefox

Want Gaim? emerge gaim

And so on.

nadir

hehe, fenster, so you've seen the light XD

/me remembers saying someting about that a while back

Fenster

And no, I'm not some fricking ricer.

I use KDE! Fluxbox isn't that great for a laptop on the move, so I'm trying out KDE after Gnome headaches and I'm suprised to find myself actually enjoying it.

And I realise I really sounded like some sort of ass when speaking of the apt server. Fedora doesn't have that much extra software from apt, out of the box, and while there's a plethora of third-party apt servers, they all have differently compiled versions of programs. It gave me a headache on more than one occasion. Portage is dead nice as just about everytime I went looking for a program, it was in there, even stuff I normally think wouldn't be there, such as Celestia and Opera.

Snowbat

Khannie wrote:

VNC is crap compared to Remote Desktop and I can't get freenx installed.

What problem are you having with FreeNX?

On my Mandriva server I found that the user 'nx' was locked so all freenx logins failed. When I unlocked 'nx', everything started working. Someone else had this problem in Fedora Core 3.
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2005-February/msg04552.html

Khannie

Snowbat wrote:

What problem are you having with FreeNX?

I'm not root

flamegrill

Ubuntu. The end.

As a desktop distro its pretty flawless. I would even be willing to provide a) a full package list you can feed apt and b) my apt config.

Simply install all the packages and the machine will be a fully working desktop, it'll play mp3's/dvd's the works.

For remote desktop tsclient is a GUI front end for rdesktop, its rather handy as it'll have a history of hosts you've connected to.

gedit is a tabbed editor, very handy. use it all the time.

Just on ubuntu though, the install takes about 15 minutes. After that your pretty much set. Also OOo 2 beta is available in universe, might make the change a bit easier for windows types

Paul

Capt'n Midnight

Knoppix 3.9 also has Openofice Beta 2.