[Lancaster] LUG Update

[Ken Hough]

On Sunday 09 November 2008 23:45:36 Wayne Ward wrote:
> Hello i see we have the passwords nearly for the LUG site so it might be
> wise us looking into what the requirements are for the LUG site
> Please take a look at the site ive been hosting and make some suggestions
> we can get the ball rolling again..
>
> http://www.lancasterlug.org.uk
>
>
> my new number 07957448652  (on the linux phone!!)
>
> ill post the meeting minutes this week although there was only two of us
> there!!! it was still a interesting conversation !!!

Sorry for the lack of support for the last meeting. I look forward to hear 
what pearls of wisdom were discussed.   :-)

Back in my camp, I've been busy trying to finally decide which distro/version 
to go with on my new quad core desktop PC. I've already made comments about 
Debian v5 and SUSE v11.0. I liked SUSE v11.0!

I took a look at the beta 4 release of SUSE v11.1. This was the 64 bit/KDE 
download giving a live CD with the option to install, which I did. Bearing in 
mind that the final release of SUSE v11.1 is due in the next month or two, I 
was not at all impressed. There was a lot of basic stuff that was broken. eg 
Yast indicated that Open Office had been installed, but it clearly had not 
been. Yast claimed that my network config was not recognised, but Firefox was 
able to browse the Internet. Various things on the (KDE4) desktop didn't 
work. I'm not confident that v11.1 will be released in a fully working state 
any time soon.

Consequently, I took another look at 64 bit Debian v5. I've now got a fairly 
well working Debian system. The first thing that I did was to install 
KDE3.5  --  I just cannot get on with Gnome! Java run time is working OK, and 
after some searching on the Internet and a bit of hacking, so is the java 
based ARDUINO IDE (Andy might be interested in this). I've got Open Office v3 
and of course networking/Internet connection is OK. All of my personal/data 
files have been transfered across from my Athlon box. RegiStax is running 
happily under 'wine' although to get full functionality, I need to change one 
of the standard lib files for a 32 bit version.

I'm using the new setup just now.

I've yet to install/setup VirtualBox v2 (which is needed to provide USB), and 
I've not yet managed to find an nVidia driver package which supports my 
graphics card (GForce 9500GT). The default driver still allows me to run with  
1280 x 1024 pixels at 85Hz, but no 3D.

Otherwise, 64 bit Debian v5 is looking good to go!

Now if I can only get to understand where/what all of the Debian repositories 
are about........      :-)

Regards

Ken Hough