Is Linux Dead In Thailand

[PastEgo]

there is no activity in this subforum

pity because being a relative newbie of 6 months i was hoping more linux users in thailand

anyway i now use 9.04 (after using 8.04) i did a clean install

previously did not use linux but am amazed how easy it is

PastEgo

[dave_boo]

Nope. I'm still here pimping SuSE. Slackula hasn't been seen for a while to promote Slackware. Ubuntu (n00buntu) is used by a large portion of those members just coming into Linux. Richard seems to be impressed, as is Thanh. There's another Richard who takes stabs at it now and again.

Basically, if we have a problem it gets posted, answered, and then Linux keeps trucking along doing what we need it to do.

The regular internet/computer section looks so busy because there's a certain moderator who keeps pushing all these Windows 7 posts out....can't really see much of any activity in that section concerning Windows.

I am actually in the process of writing up some tutorials, starting with installing the latest and greatest Nvidia driver. Keep tuned, hopefully they'll be stickified.

**edit**

And this might be pedantic, but there is no Linux 9.04. There is a Linux kernel which is currently at 2.6.30-rc5, but you're running Ubuntu 9.04 which is based on Debian. Sorry if I come across as rude, but this is an important point.

And if you're wondering, the Linux kernel is almost all that can be called Linux. Most of the rest of the system is built on GNU's toolchain......

Edited May 14, 2009 by dave_boo

[Tywais]

Not dead in Thailand. My preferences are SuSe for Desktop and Slackware for servers. I would say the Linux forum is more of a help desk and Q&A with a mingling of new experiences and occasional announcements. Feel free to start up a new topic asking questions or posting your experiences (likes/dislikes/difficulties) here.

[sensei]

I started with 8.10 but found the wireless connectivity a pain... I installed 9.4 a week after it was released and I am still amazed at how a FREE OS could work this well. I now even have eeebuntu on my netbook.

It's amazing at how Linux could handle fancy eye candy without becoming a memory hog. Needless to say, Compiz absolutely rocks!

[PastEgo]

i tried a disktro of linux ages ago i will not say what but it managed to bugger up my pc good and proper

yes i am a newbie but i use the shell a lot

i have a ton load of ebooks to read on linux but all good things take time

at least with linux you can tweak what you want when you want

and by god linux is fast i cant beleive how quick it is

i have never had a lock up in 6 months either

[shakezilla]

I have run Linux (Suse) on my laptop for at least 10 years. not to mention 95% of all the servers i have built.

shake out

[Richard-BKK]

This morning I looked in the mirror and had a bit a a white shade over me.... but sure I did not feel death...

But you not the first and surely not the last to feel that something as Linux needs a bigger picture.... then a sub of a sub sub forum

If enough people feel this I'm willing to financial support a more prominent Thai Linux hangout.... I read idea's about Linux groups before... but I never seem to have the time...

But with the start of the raining season it seems that my swimming pool project is off-line, or as my g/f says in auto-fill mode. As it seems that I cannot find pumps enough to get the construction site dry.

So lets turn this death idea into live... what and say what you want? Need to feel more happy with using Linux in Thailand...?

[niller74]

Linux is not dead at all.. Several very knowledgeable people actually roaming this board.

I myself use the following:

Debian/Xen - for datacenter in Europe

Gentoo - development

niXtoo - own modified version of Gentoo for embedded devices (uClibc/Busybox)

Ubuntu - for my desktops

FreeBSD - just for fun and to keep up with what is happening on that side of the fence.

[siamshot]

Using Linux since four years now - there's no way back from freedom!

I've also tried different distributions the years before, but that time they have been still to complicated (at least for me myself :-)).

But then there came the time, Linux became really usable on desktop - and just now the development is getting faster and better - nearly every day!

I love it

[alibaba]

BSD and particularly FreeBSD is considered the most secure O/S on the planet. Linux has too much gloss unless pared back (ie hardened)

Solaris is always 'interesting' (but still sucks as things never work out being as easy as Sun would like to have us think)

Open Solaris is really interesting but... why? And with ZFS now falling into the hands of Oracle, that's a big disincentive.

SCO is the biggest piece of crap I ever saw in my life - no wonder those guys instead made a business case of trying to claim ownership of Linux's IP

BSD came from the BSD tree and Solaris from the System 7 tree if I remember right (it's before my time). The point is that Linux was a 'best of' the two evolutions.

In Linux, I think it's important to differentiate the package families - Redhat begat RPM which became a more complete package manager with Yum handing the remote stuff and fetching dependencies. Centos provided Redhat Enterprise 'for free' which is what I've used mostly for the past 5 years. I also use Debian which is a distinctly different flavour of package manager (DEB) and can be confusing with APT and DPKG and lots of front-ends such as Aptitude. But it's always been said of Debian though I've never done it, that any installation of any age can be upgraded to the most recent without downtime.

I recently installed Debian on SPARC to replace Solaris. The install was flawed (two ethernet drivers detected and the connecting ethernet interface would not come up without intervention in a shell). The explantion for this was a classic - basically the guys argued that philosophically the conflict of drivers should remain even though this guaranteed that the ethernet would not come up/that the install would fail. Frickin open source. Nevertheless, once installed, upgraded and secured it was a nice feeling to have Debian on there (guaranteeing less maintenance time in the future viz a viz Solaris)

Ubuntu is Debian which is a really important point in it's favour.

I never used Suse because... why? I think I heard recently that Suse was a continuation of Corel Linux - something that I tried in 2000 and that 'died' (ceased to get updates). Crap. I've seen this same pattern on the eeepc (Linpus - which has ancient software (Open Office 2/Firefox 2) with apparently no upgrade path. I recently installed eebuntuu over the top of that crap and it rocked.

Another important thing to understand, imo is the licencing.

BSD is the BSD licence which means you can change it and do what you like to it and you don't have to give back your changes to the community. Thus we see BSD under the bonnet of Max OS/X (which is what I'm using though I was really happy with Ubuntu till I needed a new notebook and got an Air at a price I couldn't refuse).

Linux is GPLv2 (and is the kernel now GPLv3?)

Then there's the whole thing with GNU software (Richard Stallman) and the Free Software Foundation (Eric Raymond) which is worth Wikipedia'ing up on.

Ubuntu/Linux desktop demonstrates it's superior pre-emptive multitasking in the way you can right-click on something that's still loading and do other stuff even while packets are coming off the network at near wire speed. It remains responsive to the mouse right button options with all that other stuff going on.

With Winpuppydogshit you can deterministically do the same thing and force a major meltdown/swearing session every time (step 1 - get the hour-glass then step two - try and click that sucker). Sadly, OS/X though better does not have that awsomeness that Linux has (but all the edges are rounded where Linux desktops are shall we say, ragged)

To sum up... time invested in open-source generally is going to be rewarded with greater appreciation (ie understanding) of the engineering. You never get to that in a click start/fiddlefart world like Windoze.

That appreciation can then lead you into programming or better application of Linux or whatever to enable business and other opportunities.

On the other hand, the more you learn about Windows' history the more you can appreciate the reasons why it is and always had been such a pile of crap. I recently learned that Microsoft employed semi-supervised summer-school students on the programming of NT (which they had bought anyway). Yuk. Oddly, you now have the Google Summer of Code which might seem to be the same thing but is actually encouraging young people to program open source (code open to peer review).

[dave_boo]

BSD and particularly FreeBSD is considered the most secure O/S on the planet. Linux has too much gloss unless pared back (ie hardened)

Solaris is always 'interesting' (but still sucks as things never work out being as easy as Sun would like to have us think)

That's true; but Theo is still a bit of a tool. I ultimately respect BSD, but in their quest to have just (what is it two?) remote exploits in however many years they've fallen way behind the times. Guess that's why they developed ports to make sure they can use up-to-date Linux software.

Solaris is great in a Enterprise setup; don't personally know anyone running it at home(with the exception of those nostaglics still running Sparc workstations).

Open Solaris is really interesting but... why? And with ZFS now falling into the hands of Oracle, that's a big disincentive.

SCO is the biggest piece of crap I ever saw in my life - no wonder those guys instead made a business case of trying to claim ownership of Linux's IP

BSD came from the BSD tree and Solaris from the System 7 tree if I remember right (it's before my time). The point is that Linux was a 'best of' the two evolutions.

In Linux, I think it's important to differentiate the package families - Redhat begat RPM which became a more complete package manager with Yum handing the remote stuff and fetching dependencies. Centos provided Redhat Enterprise 'for free' which is what I've used mostly for the past 5 years. I also use Debian which is a distinctly different flavour of package manager (DEB) and can be confusing with APT and DPKG and lots of front-ends such as Aptitude. But it's always been said of Debian though I've never done it, that any installation of any age can be upgraded to the most recent without downtime.

You may want to look at Nexenta; they use the OpenSolaris kernel but Linux userland. But yeah, I'm worried about Oracle's ownership of ZFS also; perhaps BTRFS will come into its own shortly.

Ummh, APT does everything that YUM (as does YaST) does. And the various ways of doing it are one of the things that makes Linux great! Being locked into one way of doing stuff is stifling.

I recently installed Debian on SPARC to replace Solaris. The install was flawed (two ethernet drivers detected and the connecting ethernet interface would not come up without intervention in a shell). The explantion for this was a classic - basically the guys argued that philosophically the conflict of drivers should remain even though this guaranteed that the ethernet would not come up/that the install would fail. Frickin open source. Nevertheless, once installed, upgraded and secured it was a nice feeling to have Debian on there (guaranteeing less maintenance time in the future viz a viz Solaris)

Ubuntu is Debian which is a really important point in it's favour.

I never used Suse because... why? I think I heard recently that Suse was a continuation of Corel Linux - something that I tried in 2000 and that 'died' (ceased to get updates). Crap. I've seen this same pattern on the eeepc (Linpus - which has ancient software (Open Office 2/Firefox 2) with apparently no upgrade path. I recently installed eebuntuu over the top of that crap and it rocked.

You're entitled to use what you want; but I'd like to clarify something. SuSE was originally based on Slackware (which was based on Softlanding Linux System). However, the Slackware distro was not incorporating their bug fixes so they looked elsewhere. Jurix, which is no longer around but ironically was started before Slackware, seemed to fit the bill. They developed YaST shortly thereafter. Furthermore Corel was a Debian based system! But your assertion that you never used SuSE (which has been around since 1992) because you recently heard it was based on Corel is most ironic.

Another important thing to understand, imo is the licencing.

BSD is the BSD licence which means you can change it and do what you like to it and you don't have to give back your changes to the community. Thus we see BSD under the bonnet of Max OS/X (which is what I'm using though I was really happy with Ubuntu till I needed a new notebook and got an Air at a price I couldn't refuse).

Linux is GPLv2 (and is the kernel now GPLv3?)

BSD liscense is good; but it doesn't protect the community. And the BSD trolls (not that I'm calling you that) perpetuate the myth that it's far superior to GNU's liscense. IMHO it's not. For instance, where did Microsoft get its TCP stack? Have they contributed anything back to the community that they got it from? Under GPL, you don't have to release your changes back to the community; unless you're going to release the software for the world to use. For instance, let's say that you're using gcc in house for compiling your apps. Works well, but you optimise it to work better with your software. Don't have to release those changes unless you decide to publish that modified gcc. How's that good? Well, upon receipt of the software it was gone over by the community and proven to work. If you release it, even as "Bob's super-duper-improved gcc" why shouldn't the community be able to go over it and guarantee themselves that your changes are good for the community? Why should the community have to slave over something and you be allowed to come in, change a few headers or something, and then release it for profit without giving anything back to the people who originally produced the product?

No,the Linux kernel is still on GPLv2 because of the stance on DRM. This is one area I'm torn in regards to the liscensing schemes. I understand Stallman's stance that information should be free, and by its very nature DRM needs to be secretive. It's not as if you can have the source code floating around there for any Tom, Dick, or Harry to get his hands on and be able to crack thus putting the whole shebang in jeporady!

On the other hand, I see Linus' point. Restriction of DRM will put a lot of data at risk. Furthermore there's a snowball's chance in hel_l that Linux will get a liscensed Blu-Ray player without DRM.

Then there's the whole thing with GNU software (Richard Stallman) and the Free Software Foundation (Eric Raymond) which is worth Wikipedia'ing up on.

Ubuntu/Linux desktop demonstrates it's superior pre-emptive multitasking in the way you can right-click on something that's still loading and do other stuff even while packets are coming off the network at near wire speed. It remains responsive to the mouse right button options with all that other stuff going on.

With Winpuppydogshit you can deterministically do the same thing and force a major meltdown/swearing session every time (step 1 - get the hour-glass then step two - try and click that sucker). Sadly, OS/X though better does not have that awsomeness that Linux has (but all the edges are rounded where Linux desktops are shall we say, ragged)

To sum up... time invested in open-source generally is going to be rewarded with greater appreciation (ie understanding) of the engineering. You never get to that in a click start/fiddlefart world like Windoze.

That appreciation can then lead you into programming or better application of Linux or whatever to enable business and other opportunities.

On the other hand, the more you learn about Windows' history the more you can appreciate the reasons why it is and always had been such a pile of crap. I recently learned that Microsoft employed semi-supervised summer-school students on the programming of NT (which they had bought anyway). Yuk. Oddly, you now have the Google Summer of Code which might seem to be the same thing but is actually encouraging young people to program open source (code open to peer review).

You can do what I do when I get on Windows; boot up and start assigning everything to your second processor core. Open up the task manager, and right click the process and choose "Assign Affinity". That way everything you open after that boot is on the first core and the Windows crap is running on the second core. An axe to kill a fly perhaps but it works pretty well. It also seems that Windows doesn't do as good of a job with caching stuff to RAM nor unused system files to the swap file. Perhaps they'll get it right some day.

It took a long time, but ¡viva la revolution!

[Thanh-BKK]

Hi

I'm on Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy which works flawless so i see no need to replace it - it's my sole OS since over a year, no Windows, no dual boot. And i managed to convince my boss to give it a shot, too - yesterday installed 9.04 Jaunty on the second of 24 office machines, with all the others lined up in a que, as soon as Windows screws up again (which happens regularly because those are old and VERY slow machines, actually too slow for XP).

Best regards....

Thanh

[royzino]

there is no activity in this subforum

pity because being a relative newbie of 6 months i was hoping more linux users in thailand

anyway i now use 9.04 (after using 8.04) i did a clean install

previously did not use linux but am amazed how easy it is

PastEgo

I am glad Jaunty is working so well for you. However, don't be surprised if you run into some problems,

after installing updates and new packages. The good news is you have

the fantastic Ubuntu community to help you by Googling Ubuntu blogs and forums.

I have been a happy user of Ubuntu for almost 2 years. Before I clung to Fedora, but I began to see

that with the huge Ubuntu Community, it was much easier to work through inevitable glitches.

Although I love Linux, I still don't recommend it for the average computer user, even now, unless they have

a Linux geek as a friend to run to for help.

Although is Ubuntu has become, IMHO, the easiest version of Linux, I find myself regularly running into

problems that would drive an average user crazy.

This is particularly true if you are running Ubuntu on a laptop, of if you are using some of the cutting edges technologies,

such as Pulse Audio or Compiz Window manager.

I got spoiled for awhile on Intrepid running an interface with the Avant Window Manager and Compiz. When it works,

I think it smokes the Mac in term of coolness.

After a series of update, suddenly all went to hel_l with my laptop running Intrepid. With various applications, particularly with Firefox, my laptop would regularly lock up.

Sometimes I could restart X. Other times I had to do a hard reboot. It turned out that downgrading the Nvidia driver fixed the problem, but this

the kind of thing that is unacceptable for the average user. Window on the desktop is not in any danger.

I tried doing an upgrade from Intrepid to Jaunty on my desktop, thinking Canonical had finally mastered that. Wrong. The upgrade was a minor disaster and

I had to resort to doing fresh install. Jaunty seems to have introduced bugs, so I am going to hold off on upgrading my laptop to Jaunty until

it stabilizes. The Avant Window Manager doesn't work for me on Jaunty. After some problems, Compiz seems to be stable, I feel myself

holding my breath. I am pretty confident that the Ubuntu community will fix these problems.

The one place Linux is making signficant inroad on the consumer side of the computer business. That is the

Netbooks like Asus EEpc.

On the server side, running Linux or BSD is clearly superior to Windows Server systems. A simple Slam Dunk!

cheers,

roy

[RKASA]

I think Linux is alive and growing in Thailand.  PClinuxOS has a club and a Thai forum just for them, and the Thai repo is working well.  Most people using windows still need a win geek to call on or pay for service and a lot of help is there for linux.  They could and can do the same always free, in fact I get more and better help with linux issues then I do with the standard reinstall solutions from windows.  They are always told its harder then windows and its not.  I see people in TV forum with the same problems and solutions so why pay for the problems.  I keep telling people don't run windows online. Get a cheap PC and use linux.  Once I started to use only linux online I have yet to get a virus or reinstall my windows, it safe.  The internet is like air conditioning it works best if you keep windows closed. 

[PastEgo]

i had some serious issues with 9.04 and ati drivers

even now it still is not 100% fixed there are some flicker issues - minor

but i managed to install them finally and get it working.

i am sure I will run into issues maybe even kill my machine but i want to learn and as long as i have a livecd i can boot up with - go online and search for answers i will be ok.

i like hacking not the breaking into things type i mean i like to play about with code i dont mind the shell i dont mind fixing code or trying to

you cannot really kill a pc

so given a little time and patience any mistake i make can be fixed

people think its harder because most 20 or 30 year olds never used a command line its all click click click using DOS since the early days this is not a problem

[Texpat]

Life doesn't have to suck, you know ... just buy a computer and turn it on. Viola!

Code is so 1980s.

[Thanh-BKK]

Hi

@royzino

I really would not call myself a geek... far from it. I am still reluctant to do updates for fear they may break my system and i will need to sort things via terminal - while i found the terminal is my friend, he is still a friend i need to learn to understand because he speaks with a thick accent

However i run my system "full blow", Compiz, AWN, Pulse etc and yes, it DOES blow Mac OSX out of the water. I am not even talking about "The Cube", something everyone uses to impress astonished Windows-users..... i don't even use that one because i see no need for multiple work places, i have two enabled but never saw myself actually using both of them. I can handle even large numbers of open applications and windows without issues, scattering them over two or even more desktops would only confuse me.

@Texpat

I don't like to buy computers. I rather build them myself, only then i know what's inside - and who to blame if it blows up. And as long as i can build a machine for 35,000 Baht which outperforms a 100,000 Baht brand-name machine it'll stay that way.

Best regards....

Thanh

[dave_boo]

**edit**

Dumb work computer(Windows.....not that that has anything to do with it-the tab key is super sensitive and if i look at it funny it works and then I hit space; oops posted!)

Edited May 17, 2009 by dave_boo

[dave_boo]

Life doesn't have to suck, you know ... just buy a computer and turn it on. Viola!

Code is so 1980s.

Hmmm...I still remember quite a bit of code being needed into the 90's.

I really shouldn't feed the troll (!), but there's little that can't be done without GUI in Linux. However, being raised on a CLI means I'm much faster simply doing a sudo wvdialconf and then a quick sudo vim /etc/wvdial.conf and then a wvdial gets me on the web faster with an EDGE modem (seems like the wife has a new Nokia everytime I get home!) than you'd be able to finding a wireless connection, downloading the Nokia package, installing it, and hoping everything works right.

Or what about where I work now? We have a local providing wi-fi (really crappy), but he uses pppoe authentication! Under Windows it takes a whole bunch of clicking. Start->Control Panel->Network Connections->Create a new connection->next->4 different options which would confuse a n00b->etc->etc. In all 12 steps!

Now compare that to a Linux install. Click on the network monitor. Choose the wi-fi connection. A quick pppoeconf in the terminal where I just choose the defaults with the exception of my username/password. And then it automatically connects. From then on a pon gets me going!

I could go on all day, but I'll leave it at this. Assuming you're running a valid copy of Windows (or OSX), how often have you had to upgrade in the last ~9 years? Once or twice (that covers my time in Linux; I've seen 98, ME, 2000, XP, and Vista come and go)? And did you ever have to pay for a non-installed copy (retail copy-around 199USD each, possibly costing you some 800 just for the OS if you started off on 98)? What about office software? Still using notepad? Etc. The TCO for a Windows (or even Mac) machine dwarfs the cost of my learning to use Linux, even if you want to assign an astronmically large value to my hours spent.

[Richard-BKK]

So 80's let me pull a picture before MS Windows Vista ever hear about 3D desktop

Obvious the wrong picture... I take a new one

Edited May 18, 2009 by Richard-BKK

[kujirasan]

I used most of them, my favoured was mandarke but got sold and went commercial, now is Mandriva, the French are running the racket!

Used Open SUSE, PC LINUX OS, now I am using DEBIAN, as you know most of the LINUX are based on DEBIAN, and many governments are using it, as it is the only one cannot be bought! and commercialized!

It use to be very difficult even to install, now it has improved, for Desk Top jobs it is just great, I run Skype and my WEB cam works without problem,

Most of packages are actually are for debian, BUNTU varieties are just a clone! So get the real McCoy

I am staying with Debian!

There is few Thai linux, but off hand I cannot remember them .

The Brazilian and Venezuelan Government have completely switched to Debian, and their Universities, it seems the other countries will follow suit

[BugJackBaron]

linux is all fine and good but it is the LITTLE things (that are not so little)

that make me use windows or OS X.

Thai input? I am not thai but maybe I want to look up a word.

What linux distro can get thai INPUT working. I know display of Thai is

no problem.

There are a bunch of crappy solutions that usually don't work.

Or some work for GTK apps but not Qt ones.

This is the problem: a mess of conflicting APIs .

Another example is ALSA and OSS. Now we

have the bandaid called pulseaudio which may or may not work.

Personally I give FreeBSD 8 (when it comes out)or OpenSolaris a better chance

of being a full desktop replacement than linux.

But I still like to tinker with linux(bluewhite64 or debian especially)

and other free OSs

[Thanh-BKK]

\

What linux distro can get thai INPUT working. \

Hi

My Ubuntu does that without the slightest problem. Read this: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=129860

It should work for other distros in a similar manner.

Kind regards....

Thanh

PS yes, it DOES type Thai in absolutely any application that can be typed in.

[RKASA]

Ubuntu also has a kde version that is Kubuntu TLE (Thai lang. enabled).  I fired it up to see if my wife would use it, but like watching movies she just wants to use english. 

[Richard-BKK]

I use Ubuntu 9.04 (now officially upgraded all computers and notebooks) and switching to Thai language is now very easy. And connecting to a wireless network is also no problem, it was so easy that I first, by accident connected to the neighbor his router...

[BugJackBaron]

I use Ubuntu 9.04 (now officially upgraded all computers and notebooks) and switching to Thai language is now very easy. And connecting to a wireless network is also no problem, it was so easy that I first, by accident connected to the neighbor his router...

Well I guess linux is getting there..

It's been about a year since I've used it(sold the desktop before I came to Thailand).

I wonder who worked on the Thai input as this is though not a difficult problem it would be

probably rather cumbersome.

Love your avatar.

[Richb2004v2]

I'm new to Linux as of about 6 months ago. After a few attempts with various distros I have finally settled with the latest Ubuntu. It is brilliant for me, as I am not a heavy user of anything other than Open Office and internet applications. I now have absolutely no problems with Linux. I am even now trying to get a few good games going with it.

I think that for average users like me Linux can supply everything we need.

Also, I recently converted a friend to Linux after enthusing about how good it is.

[jackdanielsesq]

Heck - is it ??

I use 11 or 12 Linux O/S - so its not dead for me - a lot of folks also have like a social network thing going on any given forum - some dont have that touchy-feely format. Some do. This place seems OK Most Linux wonks tend to be self sufficient, plus unless you are a real

moron, its pretty tough to break as in the hallowed BSD .... from which recovery is a beetch.

Some of the very lite distros are only a 3 minute install, so if ya keep your data elsewhere, it is easier to reload than to spend days

repairing a very badly trashed system. Most bad hair days are X Org.

BR>Jack