RESOLVED - Linux newbie coming from Mac

[topaz-2012]

Hi all,

Another Linux forum helped me discover distros that might work for my situation. My favorite is Vector by far!

In two weeks I'll be buying a used IBM Thinkpad T40 with a 1.5 ghz Pentium M processor, at least 1GB of ram, and at least a 40 GB HD with 2mb of backside cache. If I understand correctly, Vector should be able to sing very nicely on this machine - is that right?

PRIMARY USE:
I'll be using it mostly for writing and research, and important to that is being able to get on the net.

SECONDARY USE:
Some minor graphic design (no longer professionally designing - just for my own use) and photoshop-like work.

THIRD USE:
Would like to be able to play youtube videos now and then - and watch the occasional DVD movie.

BIG QUESTIONS:
Can any app designed for Linux be installed on Vector? (If you want specific programs I'll name them.)

I have to travel to a place with no internet connection except pay-as-you-go wireless from places like Verizon - it will be their mobile broadband either by MIFI or that little usb plug-in thing they sell. Can I make this work on my Vector/Thinkpad set up?

I'm switching to NetTalk Duo for my phone - and I know it will work with my home DSL connection - but I asked them if when I travel will it work with the 3g or 4g wireless? They suggested checking with Linux experts - because they said I'd probably have to forgo plugging the device into a router - since the wireless doesn't have a router per se. They said I could plug the usb cord into my laptop -and if it was windows or mac I could download a driver to make it work. The phone would only work when the laptop is plugged in - but I guess I could live with that for a little while - until figuring out something better. Does anyone know if NetTalk Duo can be made to run with Linux and a 3G or 4G wireless connection?

Everything I'm doing is designed to decrease my costs - because my health went bad and I'm no longer able to run a business or work anymore. Linux is giving me the chance to break out of ancient mac computers and make an older PC run pretty snappily.

Any thoughts and direction would be very welcome!

Thank you.

[sledgehammer]

I used VL6 on an IBM T42 for years and it worked perfectly.  I suspect you will have no problem getting VL7 standard to run on your T40.  I actually liked the T42 better in many ways than my current machine, since the screen showed more of the page.

Concerning your questions re phone, I just used (and still use) google voice on clearwire.  So I don't know about that.

As to your other questions, Open Office worked fine on my T42.  Gimp worked fine.  Youtube worked fine.

As to available apps, you will need to install from gslapt, which comes with VL 7.  Most linux programs are there. 

Welcome!  There is a bit of a learning curve but the reward makes it all worthwhile.

[topaz-2012]

Thanks so much for helping. It's a confidence boost hearing your experience.

I suspect the phone thing can be worked out - and I suspect someone must have done this already, if I can just find the person to ask.

I'll have to check out what gslapt is, that's new info to me.

By the way, is that Rumpole (sp?) in your avatar?

Thanks again.

[topaz-2012]

By the way - if a seller says a laptop "boots to bios" is that functional enough to install Linux? (Being a mac person I have no real understanding of what the bios does)

[nightflier]

Hi topaz-2012, welcome to our forums.

"Laptop boots to bios", this indicates that the first link in the chain works. You still need to be able to proceed to the next stage; loading an operating system into memory. Easiest way to test is with a Live CD booting off the CDROM drive. Can you verify this?

From what I find about the Nettalk Duo, it works if plugged in to a router using an ethernet cable. I think it should be feasible. I once set up a machine for a friend, using a Verizon MIFI wireless brick to feed the Linux machine using wifi, then routing the feed out through the ethernet port to a router that served other machines in the house. Of course, the computer had to be running all the time to enable all these connections.

[sledgehammer]

Yes, Rumpole.

John

[newt]

Primary Use: There should be no problem finding an application that suites your needs for writing and research. Many are available and it will just be a matter of finding which you prefer. Getting on the net is very doable but your specific circumstances will dictate your success.

Secondary Use: Minor graphic design is very doable, as is moderate graphic design. The GIMP is probably the tool of choice if you're coming from proficient photoshop usage, however you will need to relearn the "curve" a bit. I suspect it should be good enough for your purposes.

Third Use: You should have no problem watching youtube videos and/or watching DVD movies. If you run into any problems with either of these it's usually just a matter of getting things sorted out once, and then you're good to go for a long time. VL should come with a fully functional flash installation so watching online video should be instant - no fuss.

Big Questions: For the most part, yes, any app designed for linux can be installed on vector. There are limitations to this though. Some application rely on libraries not easily found or implemented on VL (or slackware for that matter); or rely on libraries that are newer than what might be found on VL at the moment, and which aren't easily updatable. I WOULD recommend you mention which apps you're interested in so that they can be confirmed prior to going full-fledge into Vector. Some apps may not be immediately available, but if it's runnable within VL and you put a request in the package request forum, then it could be built and added to repository for easy installation.

Gslapt is an easy to use graphical frontend to slapt-get. Slapt-get is the command line utility for accessing the repository. Repository is an online storage place for all vectorlinux software that are easily installable.

Your phone/internet-access situation is the only thing that I wonder about in terms of VL. This is something that's worth a bit more investigation. I would probably start with checking out NetTalkDuo's website about linux compatibility to see what you find. Then I would search google for something related to NetTalkDuo on linux - you will probably find many posts in the ubuntu forums that (often times) prove useful, but keep in mind that VL is not ubuntu and things may not worked exactly the same. See what you can find out and post back your information. From there I'm sure we can help determine if this is an easy, hard, impossible thing to do on VL.

Cheers

[topaz-2012]

Thanks for the further info everyone. You've all been a real help.
--------------------------------
RE: PHONE
The NetTalk cs couldn't tell me about connecting to Linux - he said to talk with other Linux people and see what they've done. He said their forum is temporarily down so I can't ask there right now. When I googled their site for the word Linux, this is all I found:

netTALK Appoints Garry Paxinos Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
Miami, FL -- January 26, 2012 -- netTALK.com, Inc.

(snip)
... has been chair of CEA R7.4, the IEEE Consumer Electronics Society's administrative committee, and is a member of the Board of Directors of Linux International.

If their new CTO is on the board of directors for Linux International - maybe there's hope?  I'll keep digging for info a little each day. I'll google around on the Ubuntu forums - thanks for that idea.

Nightflier - that's interesting to learn how you made use of a mifi / wifi situation.
Have you heard of 3G/4G Mobile Broadband Wireless Routers?  I've read a little about them but am not sure if I understand - but would one of those  give me the necessary ports etc so that I wouldnt' have to plug anything right into the laptop and keep it running? Would those be sort of like having my regular wireless modem that I now use for DSL? If that's how it works, I would think I could avoid having to plug into the laptop and keep it on all the time to get calls. But I'm grasping at straws with vague understanding. Does anyone know if that's what these 3G/4G Mobile Broadband Wireless Routers work?

---------------

Will write back with more info about programs - bear with me - have to run to doc appointment.

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Thanks for the info about all my various needs for this computer. It sounds pretty good overall.

[newt]

After a little looking around and familiarization with Verizon MIFI, it looks like there is at least the possibility of purchasing an additional hardware component that will use the 3g/4g connection and server as a wired/wireless router. The one product I looked at that has SOME compatibility with Verizon MIFI products is WifiRanger, however this is the first I ever read about a device like this so cannot attest to anything it actually does. You can read more about it from the links below. I'm sure there must be more products out there that can accomplish the same task. This product indicates that it can accomplish what you're after: use Verizon MIFI 3g/4g connection as internet source, provide wireless functionality as well as wired, provide you an ethernet port in which to plug your nettalkduo device, allow you to power off your laptop without losing your 3g connection or nettalk functionality.

Information: http://3gstore.com/product/2897_wifiranger_3g4g_router.html
Compatibility: http://3gstore.com/page/93_wifi_ranger_compatibility_chart.html

Hope this helps

[topaz-2012]

Thanks so much for that additional info, Newt, Very helpful, indeed!

I found a short term work around too. It turns out cheaper if I buy a pay as you go cell phone from PagePlus cellular (they use Verizon's network and therefore work where I'll be) - and simply FORWARD my NetTalk number to that cell phone. I'll be able to get calls. Hurray.  

The internet solution isn't as good - but I can use dial up when I'm down there - and hey, it is offered free so I guess  I'll make that work.

This buys me some time to sort out the rest of the details. All the other info about setting up the mifi etc is still very useful.

------------------

FOLLOWING UP ON SOFTWARE ....

I said I would  name the specific software I hope will run on Vector using XFCE?

The only program that I'm not sure about is one written originally for Mac OS X - a very light weight and useful little word processor called Bean. http://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html  I wrote to the author and he said this: "I believe there is a Linux version of Bean out there for the seldom used Gnustep."  Then I found this info on Gnustep's wish list page: "Porting Bean from the Macintosh 10.4 is currently done in the GAP GNUstep application project. It mostly works and the build is done using pbxbuild, but no release to the general public yet. "  So should I assume I can't bring Bean with me to Vector?  It sounds trivial - it is such a little program, but I really haven't seen anything nearly as nice offered in any other format (mac, linux or windows).

Barring Bean - I found this: Kword from KOffice.org
It looks like it would let me make the word processor look any way I choose. But can it install on Vector easily? Here is what their downloads page says:

The KOffice project, being part of the KDE community, is dedicated to producing Free Software, therefor you can download and install KOffice in most cases free of charge. While the KOffice project only provides source code, it is easily installable through the package manager of many linux distributions, FreeBSD. There is also preliminary support on Mac OS X and Windows.

Two versions of KOffice are currently available:

    1.6.3 – stable full-featured version, aimed at at end users, for use with KDE3 and Qt3; download the source code from KDE HTTP or FTP mirrors. This version is no longer supported by the KOffice developers.
    2.3.1 – stable version aimed at developers, testers and early adopters, not at end users, for use with KDE4 and Qt4; download the source code from KDE HTTP or FTP mirrors. Some applications in this version, like Krita, are ready for end users and have surpassed their 1.6 counterpart.

Note: 2.x series do not include Kivio yet, if you want to use Kivio you will need to stick with 1.6.x series.

[topaz-2012]

Forgot to ask about this. Will Blue Griffon web design software for Linux run on Vector / Xfce? Their download page says this:

Ubuntu 10.04    32bits    download installer (set permissions and run to install)
download tar.bz2

Linux    Ubuntu 10.10    64bits    download installer (set permissions and run to install)
download tar.bz2

Linux    Fedora 16
   32bits
   download rpm (installable through rpm -Uvh <file>)

Their page is here http://bluegriffon.org/pages/Download

[sledgehammer]

"Barring Bean - I found this: Kword from KOffice.org"

Kword ran fine on my  T42 and is great if you understand and can comfortably use frames. 

Wordperfect 6 for dos works fine in a terminal window with dosemu.  If I remember correctly, so does wordstar.

[hata_ph]

topaz-2012

I have build bluegriffon-1.4...help to test it when it move to the testing repo for me

[topaz-2012]

Sledgehammer - thanks for replying. I googled to learn what frames means in linux, but couldn't find any info. Therefore, I guess I don't know how to run anything in frames.    I guess I'll worry about the software problems later on.

hata_ph - I will be glad to help. It might take time before I am set up to test anything, but I would be glad to help out with Blue Griffon.

[stretchedthin]

topaz-2012

I have build bluegriffon-1.4...help to test it when it move to the testing repo for me

Bluegriffon built and uploaded to repository.