It's usually obvious...

[Jim K]

Shrug

Jim K

[Tim Watts]

On Sunday 19 January 2014 16:55 tony sayer wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Mint or Xubuntu (or Kubuntu/Ubunutu[1]) IME.

Xubuntu = XFCE4 window manager - light but fairly pretty - Can be treated like Win95 interface wise.

Kubuntu = KDE, Ubuntu = Gnome. Both fancy with *very* active window managers/desktops - lots of bells and whistles. May piss you off or consume too many resources.

All of those are from a debian base which means a *very* large number of bits of upto date software are available. Also (more becuase of Ubuntu rather than Debian) no real problem with commercial software - eg binaries often ar eavailable in .deb package format (which makes for easy installation and easy removal).

[Tim Watts]

On Sunday 19 January 2014 15:48 The Natural Philosopher wrote in uk.d-i- y:

Heh - yes. Probably if you liked Google, the other firms you liked would like that you were ex Google. Probably make you popular with startups.

[Tim Watts]

On Sunday 19 January 2014 17:22 John Williamson wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Owncloud

Not tried it much beyond the installation but it has promise - if not now, possibly in the near future.

[Adrian]

Ubuntu's used Unity as the primary window manager for a few versions now. The "trad" Gnome interface's still there, but you have to choose it explicitly. (and, yes, I know Unity really just sits on top of Gnome...)

I've got 13.10 (latest) on a ~5yo Dell D430 mini-laptop, amongst other kit - W7 was a bit sluggish on that... No major resource issues at all.

[ARW]

I noticed your name on the TV equipment at Stone Arches on Sprotbrough Road in Doncaster today.

Dunno if you (or your son) will be connecting up the new CT100s that I have just 1st fixed for the new apartment (it was the storage units directly behind your TV stuff) - but anyway I have left the cables 6 inches too short to do a nice tidy job and follow your cables into the distribution box:-)

I also believe that electricians etiquette also allows me to stamp on the CT100 every 10m or so creating a nice kink in the cable and I was also told that for best results to run the cable next to the strapper for the hall way lightswitch.

BTW - that is one neat TV intallation you did.

[Tim Watts]

On Sunday 19 January 2014 18:33 Adrian wrote in uk.d-i-y:

I forgot to mention that - I dump unity as soon as the installation is done.

Nothing in Linux is as much a hog as W7 :)

[Adrian]

I didn't like Unity at all on first acquaintance, but I really warmed to it quickly. Went back to Gnome t'other week as a test, and - umm, no thanks...

[The Natural Philosopher]

If you are a total noob. Mint.

[dennis]

What is there to manage? You set it up to pick up updates from your update server (or from M$ if you trust them) and forget them.

Users and policies go in the domain server. Backups are automatic if you set them up.

What do you think goes wrong with windows?

>

[dennis]

That is actually correct.

You first choose the application. Then choose the OS to run the application. Then choose the hardware.

Failing that you buy a PC running windows and live with it.

[Tim Watts]

On Sunday 19 January 2014 19:41 The Natural Philosopher wrote in uk.d-i- y:

Or want "mostly just works" so you can actually get on with other stuff :)

[Tim Watts]

On Sunday 19 January 2014 20:06 dennis@home wrote in uk.d-i-y:

How do you manage config? eg RDP policies, local firewall, sshd config, etc etc?

It's not as simple as "scp somefile targethost:/location/somefile" which is easily automated en-mass with pdsh.

That's what I'm talking about. Updates I'm mostly happy to leave to MS, except I want to control when I reboot on one very critical server.

OK - don't have a domain server. We use MIT kerberos+OpenLDAP.

My point being I can manage a *lot* of linux servers with very little infrastructure (ssh keys mainly and one NFS mount helps a lot).

[Adrian]

Domain policies. Well, obv, SSHD doesn't apply...

Simpler, for the average admin. Point'n'drool down the checkboxes in the policy management tool.

There's no point whatsoever in trying to manage WinPCs outside a domain.

[dennis]

At doing what?

Android?

[Tim Watts]

On Sunday 19 January 2014 20:29 Adrian wrote in uk.d-i-y:

OK - have to admit little practical experience. I did create some sort of policy file once to replicate a load of settinsg between a few similar servers - manually copied and applied.

Seemed harder that linux... That may be lack of familiarity in part.

That figures...

[Clive George]

If you have a lot of windows boxes, you put them on a domain. Then group policy to do the stuff you're talking about such as RDP, firewall.

[Tony Bryer]

I throw in some random searches now and again to confuse them - though my normal searches probably have done that anyway!

But it's evident that these outfits have no concept of privacy: the latest Facebook update on my phone wants permission to read my text messages! If they want consent to read FB 'private' messages I suppose that's vaguely reasonable (I suspect they do it anyway), but texts going nowhere near the FB platform?

I guess the best response is to do a deal with a friend and send them a text "body in car boot will pick you up at midnight" and let FB digest it.

[Adrian]

It does actually make a lot of sense - first, you have to tell the PC who's going to be managing it. That's the domain.

[Huge]

I haven't worn a suit or tie at work for at least a decade.