Comments on: Woof Woof

By: Jack

Jack — Tue, 03 Aug 2004 14:59:04 +0000

I might just take you up on that offer of help, Matt - yum and rpm, and apt-get as well, are proving difficult (yum just times out, rpm always tells me I need things that are already installed, apt-get is, um, a bit wiggy). I've had no bother installing a lot of stuff in the old fashioned way, though, so maybe I'll stick to that for the time being...

The main problem seems to be finding things that will work with YDL - sometimes stuff meant for Red Hat just works, sometimes not, and there doesn't seem to be much out there specially compiled for YDL. Which is a bit like being a Mac user in a PC world, I suppose...

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 17:16:44 +0000

I installed YDL on my iMac a while ago and was really glad I did. I learnt a hell of a lot about Linux and and Unix in general, which I was then able to apply when using OS X. There’s no reason I couldn’t have learnt as much using Apple X11/Fink etc, but running YDL forces you to get your hands dirty.

I went for GNOME on my install so I’m not familiar with KDE. I think they’re pretty similar to be honest; they’re both Windows/OS X like environments. The truth is you’re spoilt for choice with window managers. I quite like Fluxbox (http://fluxbox.sourceforge.net/), a really minimal window manager which is highly configurable just by editing a text file (much like editing CSS). Let me know if you have any problems, especially with installing stuff using YUM or RPM. It can be a real nightmare, especially with resolving dependencies etc. Although in theory, YUM does all that for you (much like Fink). Sometimes it’s easier to install stuff the good old fashioned way.. ie. ./configure, make, make install

Anyway, good luck with it.

By: Jack

Jack — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 11:34:20 +0000

I'm running KDE - mainly because it was the default option, and since I was rather confused by all the controversy over which one to use it seemed easier just to go with the one suggested by the installer...

Funnily enough, I was just reading about making shortcuts last night, and I'll be sure to have a look at Kate (one thing that's annoying me is the way there's so many different apps provided with the distro, I haven't even come across that one yet!)

By: Luke

Luke — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 11:03:20 +0000

Hey cool - Yellow Dog is an excellent distro. Are you running KDE or Gnome? KDE is definitely cooler, although this subject does generate some controversy I've noticed. The CD thing and USB drives etc can best be done in KDE by creating a desktop shortcut and include the command to mount the device in the execute part of the properties of that link. Then you can right click to unmount.

It is not all that different from that old bugging problem on macs when you had to drag a mounted device to the trash or else you would get a fuzzy icon that was basically a future headache.

KDE also has the excellent Kate editor which is ideal and intuitive for PHP and web scripting which I am guessing you do too.