981102 Monday. ---------------- Confirmed order for hardware. Ordered Red Hat Linux 5.1 CD Distribution 981102 Tuesday -------------- Downloaded the Linux Gazette from http://www.linuxgazette.com. A very (large) instructive read. Also subscribed to comp.sys.linux.announce and comp.sys.linux.advocacy. The latter was probably a mistake as I am now more confused than ever. What are Tarballs ? what are man pages and why are they so important ? Why do some distributions have RPMs and not others. What are RPMs ? Reading the gazette put some of this into context. Just by reading the Q&As and the articles and understanding one word in 5 is starting to fill in the gaps. Tarballs are a method of distributing software. The software needs to be compiled. I think it is only Slackware Linux which now uses this method. RPMs are another method of softwware distribution favoured by RedHat amongst others. Man pages, (Manual ?), are the Linux online help, called from the command line. I think what I am finding is that before you can start you need to know or be willing to learn a whole new vocabulary. If Microsoft and Apple have achieved anything over the last decade, it is to have taken this sort of bolocks out of computing. Sure, Microsoft have added back in some of their own language, but it is not essential to the smooth running of a desktop system. This was brought home to me by a dialog I read on csl.advocacy, where a 'newbie' was mildly complaining that he needed to know how to do something and couldn't find out how. A more experienced Linux user opined that the rewards of system ownership would come but it was a *good* thing that there was such a steep learning curve because it kept the kept the riffraff out. He didn't want to see the system changed to make it easier, and he thought that initiatives such as gnome and the KDE desktop envirionments had already gone too far ! I have never seen a clearer case of computer elitism, or of the old 'high priesthood' mentality. I hope the Linux comunity doesn't contain too many like him. Oh. By the way. The 'guru' told the 'newbie' to buy a book and learn how to use the system before trying to achieve anything as complex as installing an application. 981104 Wednesday ----------------- 9:30 a.m. The PC hardware arrived yesterday. I collected it from the delivery warehouse on the way to work today. Hmmmm. Heroes of Might and Magic 2 has also arrived in the same post. There could be a conflict of priorities here :-) Linux has not yet arrived, so the most I can do today is assemble the box and check it out with PC DOS. We will see what I feel like when I get home. 19:00 p.m. AAAAaaaarrrgh. Opened the packaging to find that everything has arrived OK... except that the motherboard is to follow on, being out of stock. So I can't really do anything tonight. Read issue 33 (October 1998), of trhe Linux Gazette. Everything I am reading is full of tips about obscure command line codes, use of vi, emacs, and other arcane incantations... While this can seem productive to someone who already knows their way around the command line, I will be looking for similar levels of support and functionality on a desktop environment. Still more jargon. what is LILO ? Why does it seem so important ? 981105 Thursday --------------- Red Hat Linux boxed set appeared in the post this morning. Proffessionaly presented shrinkwrapped box containing. * A boot floppy. * a cardboard gatefold pack conmtaining 3 CDs. * CD 1 - Red Hat Intel Binaries, (Executables) * CD 2 - Red Hat Source Code * CD 3 - Demo versions of some commercial software, (Unsupported) * A Red Hat car bumper sticker * A leaflet exhorting me to buy some Red Hat 'T' shirts. * A friendly 300 page innstallation manual. I take the installation manual to work to read at lunchtime. How sad am I ? OK LILO stands for LInux LOader. I still don't know what it's function is and I hope I never have to find out. It's not that I mind finding out, or that I doubt my ability to find out. I just think that it would be nice if Linux was sufficiently evolved for users not to have to know about loaders etc. I may change myt view, I may not ! What I do need to find is a LINUX jargon buster document. I'll check on the web tonight. Later ..... No. Couldn't find anything easily. I'll try again over the weekend. 981107 Saturday --------------- Realised today that I will need a floppy drive ribbon for the hardware build. Pop down to Maplin to ensure that I have one to hand. Also picked up some heat transfer past for popping under the heatsink before it gets fixed to the pentium. Started reading the Linux installation manual. What ! Well with no system ready yet, it's something to do :) Also continuing to read the Linux Gazettes. I have read two and a half of them now. They are packed with information. Some of it intelligible, some of it not. It seems clear that Linux is an OS not to be trifled with. I hope that as I simply want to use it as a sesktop/client OS, that I will not need to get involved in what sounds like some exceedingly hairy and complex setup scripting. Hope the motherboard appears on Monday so I can find out :)