Any other Linux users?

[Drew Terril]

Todd,

Realizing I didn't need a beefy system is one of the biggest upsides of running linux for me. I didn't want to buy a new computer, and I had a perfectly functioning one that had XP on it. I think next time I have spare time, I'm going to go ahead and pull any files that I want to keep from the XP partition and just wipe that side of it out. At this point, there's no reason to mess with the Windows side on that machine. If I need to do something on Windows that badly, I have computers at work, plus I still have an old desktop that has Vista. I may try out Mint on that machine for kicks and giggles.

 

[Kyle Creasey]

I agree with everyone else here. Linux Mint or Ubuntu really is a good starter Linux. I started off in Ubuntu myself. My capstone in college was even off of Dr. Fielder's system that was running Ubuntu.

On another note: it's been a while but I did have GEMPAK once running on my Linux workstation and haven't had the chance to reinstall in a few years. I see AWIPS II actually has a YUM repo for install! http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/awips2/doc/install.html Looks like the other option is to download the TARball and build it

Ben: oh SELinux, how I loathe thee sometimes...

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Kyle you can actually get a rpm for gempak as well. I've been maintaining the SoM lab computers and it's been pretty easy in terms of gempak. Unfortunately I'm not sure anyone actually uses it. A shame since we've got such a good dataset feeding in on ldm.

I used to hate SELinux, but learned a lot taking a RHCE/RHCSA class back in July. It's not as daunting as you'd think after you get file contexts down and realize there are a couple stupid booleans that can be changed to fix common problems. It's definitely not intuitive for the normal user.

 

[Matt Salo]

I use a variety of distros including Linux Mint, CentOS, and Ubuntu. I got my start in linux back in 1992 running Slackware. Linux has come a long ways since those days.

-m@

 

[Todd Rector]

Remember back when we used to BUY Linux distributions because our home internet connections were too slow to download the CD's? I specifically recall paying something like $30 at Best Buy for a SUSE 6.x set because it had several CD's of add-ons, then I got home and found the installer was glitchy and didn't play well with my video card. Bye-bye $30, thanks to the "can't return opened software" policy. It is absolutely amazing to see how much has changed in only 15 years.

 

[Drew Terril]

I think I'm going to have to meet up with Ben one of these days (with him 30 miles down the road, not a lot of excuse), bring some beer, and pick his brain as I'm WAY behind on the OS/software end. It's pretty obvious reading y'all's conversations that I've merely put my toe in the water. I really need to get a foundation on this before I can go deeper.

 

[Todd Rector]

Drew - Don't let our conversations scare you away from learning/experimenting! Just like storm chasing, everyone has to start somewhere and every day is a learning opportunity!

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Yeah plus I do this professionally every day. So I charge professional rates!

 

[Drew Terril]

Todd, I definitely understand having to start somewhere. Kind of like with me preparing to go back to school, I have to figure out where to start. That's never been my strong point. If I had started chasing in the last few years I'd probably have the same issues of knowing where to start, but 22 years ago in elementary school, I had limited resources so I just grabbed everything I could.

 

[Todd Rector]

Be sure to watch for me on the plains this Spring - maybe we can corner Ben and talk weather/linux over a beer

 

[Drew Terril]

I can buy a round to that!