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The "Linux questions (and other stuff)" thread

Yes, that's pretty much it. It dates all the way back to the days when a very few wealthy people had C-band satellite dishes to watch network TV programming (which was all sent in the clear back then) before the local stations aired the shows. Of course it never dawned on them that all of the low-paid TV station employees who regularly used our stations' satellite equipment for personal viewing and (naturally) had access to broadcast quality recording equipment might be the bigger threat to their precious programming! :D

By the time that Ku-band home satellite service commenced, there were international treaties in place that prohibited viewing programming that isn't intended to be seen in your country. That carried over to DVD regions, and is now enforced through geolocation software, which isn't working too well according to recent reports.

It's not working too well at all, and neither is DRM. I can watch very much anything that's on Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, iTunes Store, CBS, NBC, ABC, etc, and I think you all know where I am. :D
 
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perhaps there is something about Trillian that is familiar to the person using it? why is it always up to the Linux people to choose what they think everyone will like? seriously...

and why all this Wine hate? it opens Linux to far more programs. part of what makes Linux work. why all this 'you must only run GNU stuff and NEVER Windows stuff' attitude? You do realize that the biggest reason for most people's resistance to Linux is because there are some programs they refuse to give up? maybe you see no problem but you are not everyone else...
 
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Well, running Windows program within Linux can make your system unstable. If you exchange alot of files between Linux & Windows systems, it would be a good idea to run an antivirus program on the linux system. The virus may not affect linux but it can be transferred to a Windows system.

It just doesn't make sense to me to start using Linux and then want to run Windows programs with it. That is one reason for a dual boot setup or Virtualbox setup.

Just my thoughts!
 
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for those who want to use Linux and give up Windows it makes more sense to run both Linux and Windows (or DOS) programs in the Linux OS and not have to reboot back into Windows. seems more convenient to use one to do both but what do i know? for one my games run better in Linux due to less overhead. and when they are closed the RAM is dumped back where it belongs and not occupied by some odd process the way it is in Windows. Linux can be running constantly and never need a reboot. i have yet to even have a Wine program crash. but then i only run programs that are rated 'gold' on WineHQ. thankfully my games are rated gold. i run a combo of Linux programs (Firefox, Clementine, GIMP, etc) with a few games that are Wine needed (FSX, STO, Hoyle) there is just no replacement for those games that are native to Linux. that's not Linux's fault but i won't go from gold to watered down anymore than i'd run a watered down version of an app in Android instead of on an iPad.

Wine does not require running the real Windows the way Virtualbox and dual-booting do. which you'd think would make the purists happy

UPDATE: got past the activation bug. search Youtube. it involves something not proper for these forums.
 
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It's not working too well at all, and neither is DRM. I can watch very much anything that's on Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, iTunes Store, CBS, NBC, ABC, etc, and I think you all know where I am. :D
IP geolocation software was originally little more than a FOSS toy, a Linux command that some of us used to confound people on public forums by telling them (roughly) where they lived. It never was intended to be used as it's being used for commercial purposes today.

Back when NetSol was the sole arbiter of the world's IP addresses, it might have been possible to build an accurate IP goelocation system, but not today. As more and more of the deregulated Internet gets caught in the increasingly parochial tentacles of small governments, the ability for anyone to compile a database of truly authoritative IP address data becomes less and less possible. And the technical kludges that have been keeping IPv4 on life support for all these years means that only the ISPs that assign public IP addresses at random to their customers truly know the physical location of any given IP address. It's not unusual for large ISPs to move small IP blocks long distances without having to report it to anyone.

As you noted, the big players who have a lot of money on the line have their businesses sorted. But smaller businesses that try to get by with kludges and not much planning are still out there to make their customers' lives miserable. :rolleyes:
 
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Is there any good weather widgets for KDE? Sort of thing that shows the current temp and conditions in the taskbar, and will show a forecast as well if clicked on. Ideally having the local weather conditions for Xilinhot, Inner Mongolia, China.

If I go into the "Get Hot New Stuff" in the Plasma desktop shell options, there's four listed. There's Plasma Pyweather which appears to be broken, "Script initialisation failed." *, or they just cover Slovenia or Turkey.

* Which is the same problem that a Nixie tube clock widget has, and I had already covered that one earlier in this thread.
 
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Is there any good weather widgets for KDE? Sort of thing that shows the current temp and conditions in the taskbar, and will show a forecast as well if clicked on. Ideally having the local weather conditions for Xilinhot, Inner Mongolia, China.

If I go into the "Get Hot New Stuff" in the Plasma desktop shell options, there's four listed. There's Plasma Pyweather which appears to be broken, "Script initialisation failed." *, or they just cover Slovenia or Turkey.

* Which is the same problem that a Nixie tube clock widget has, and I had already covered that one earlier in this thread.

Does Conky work in KDE?
 
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Sorry guys, I don't use weather gadgets :/

But, I was wondering, besides KDE, what WM|DM would you guys recommend as a replacement for Unity?

I've been thinking of messing around with openbox but it just kinda takes a while to get it set up, and I don't have the skill to get something running that looks 'pretty'.

Also, on a netbook so I've only got like 1 and a half horses under the proverbial hood. ;)
 
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Cairo Dock has a gadget like that, if you mouse-over it it will display like a 5-day forecast and normally shows current conditions, but not sure if you can get your location on it. that i am not too knowledgeable about.

I looked at Cairo a few weeks ago, but I've now really settled on what is pretty much stock KDE 4.8.5, but with the Lancelot launcher rather than the default Kickoff. And I use LXDE, when I want a quick start-up for when I'm teaching in the classroom.

KDE also has a built-in tool that displays similar but in the form of a desktop widget.

Saw the desktop one, but can't see it under the browser or whatever else might be running. I'm currently using what is basically a netbook, with a 10 inch screen.

I doesn't really matter, I was just was curious if a weather widget existed would work in the standard KDE taskbar. There is one, but it seems to have the same broken dependency issue as that Nixie tube clock widget you posted about last month Nick. Presumably they require someone with a knowledge of Python and KDE development to go in there and fix them. I usually look at my phone's screen for the weather. :)
 
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I know about Conky. Works in KDE, and very versatile. But I'd have to write a script wouldn't I, go and show weather for Xilinhot, China?

Yes. There is a massive thread over at Ubuntu Forums dedicated to conky, and another one that addresses a particular user's script, which looks really nice, but requires some work.

I played with the scripting for that a little, but ran out of time and patience for it, and for me, a continually running script is not something I want using resources on my laptop.

Particularly since I do not always have a connection to the internet.
 
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Is there any good weather widgets for KDE? Sort of thing that shows the current temp and conditions in the taskbar, and will show a forecast as well if clicked on. Ideally having the local weather conditions for Xilinhot, Inner Mongolia, China.
None that I've seen.

I'm an obsessive weather watcher, and I've been disappointed by the crudeness of KDE weather applets. One of the reasons why I went back to KDE3 was because none of the Plasmoids even worked, and none of the working KDE3 applets got ported to KDE4.

This may have changed. I Googled one that looks promising, but you'll have to judge for yourself:

yaWP (Yet Another Weather Plasmoid) KDE-Look.org

This one shows promise because it appears to be able to query various weather services, not just METAR airports. I couldn't find anything else that was new, working and useful outside the US. :(
 
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for the record i have grown quite accustomed to Widgetlocker. i have gotten into the habit of tapping my phone's power/sleep button to be greeted by not only the current weather but a nice five-day forecast, too. even with the ZTE Merit's limited hardware (underclocked to 480MHz currently) it seems to do well with Widgetlocker.
 
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Is there any good weather widgets for KDE? Sort of thing that shows the current temp and conditions in the taskbar, and will show a forecast as well if clicked on. Ideally having the local weather conditions for Xilinhot, Inner Mongolia, China.

If I go into the "Get Hot New Stuff" in the Plasma desktop shell options, there's four listed. There's Plasma Pyweather which appears to be broken, "Script initialisation failed." *, or they just cover Slovenia or Turkey.
Is yaWP not a choice? It's what I use and has lots of options for customizing it to look/act as you prefer.

weather_applet.jpeg


weather_applet1.jpeg


weather_applet2.jpeg


weather_applet3.jpeg
 
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Sabayon 11 is out for those interested. Also if you haven't tried Cinnarch its pretty good. A bit nostalgic with the gnomish way but a much nicer to work with interface than gnome 3 IMO. Also The Chakra Project has an update for you kde fans featuring kde 4.10. Havent got it downloaded yet but working on it :D

Whats new that you have discovered and or excited about Let us know.
 
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I am already testing out Mageia 3 and report bugs and whatnot. Other then that I don't distro hop much anymore. I would like to check out Fedora 18 as soon as I install this 250gb hard drive in my system. I'm also running SalixOS 14, which is the lastest version with Xfce4.

That's about it for me.

I have fedora and Sabayon installed. I just check out other distro's in live mode. I like to see what else is out there besides the mainstream.
 
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