Trying Linux

[bwall]

I am a long time Newsbin user and a new convert to Linux.

I have Newsbin installed, but am having a few issues, some of which have been reported before.

1. Sometimes I get the message that Newsbin is already running (which it's not) sometimes immediately after a reboot

2. Sometimes Newsbin will show as "Zombie" in task manager... and it's grayed out in the GUI. All I can do it kill it and start over. I haven't gotten past this long enough to get NB to do anything useful..

3. I get a red X error in the MOTD when I start NB... (I guess I'll just turn off MOTD, but I'm a fan of the automatic MOTD)...

I am running NB 5.35 and Ubuntu 7.10... latest version of Wine available.

I didn't put any DLL files anywhere.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Would I be better off running it through VirtualBox or VMWare? I have found VirtualBox to be excellent, BTW...

[DThor]

I'm not an Ubuntu guy so I'm a little out of my league - I know at least one guy who floats around here uses it, so he may chime in.

1. I can't explain that and never seen it, unless you've set something up somewhere that tries to autostart it. I'm not even sure multiple starts of wine cross-talk like that, I think it's another session.

2. Zombie = bad. Never seen that either. Personally I'm a shell guy so I'll 'ps -e' to see what's active, and kill wineserver and newsbin if I need to. Maybe Ubuntu calls things "zombies" a little too easily, dunno. Zombies to me are tasks that *cannot* be killed. Nasty. Sometimes, in the past for me, NB would lock up trying to start IE explorer since it needs that for the MOTD. See below. Haven't had that happen for some time, though. Unfortunately depending on version there can be new/old bugs introduced in wine fairly frequently, it can be fragile. I'm amazed it works as well as it does.

3. Thats because you haven't installed dcom support - NB uses the MS dcom to draw the MOTD. Check around to see how to install it for your system. Alternately, of course, you can just do without.

Personally I think a full virtual system just to run NB is overkill. I know VMware runs it perfectly fine, full functionality, but I'd never throw the overhead at it for something that works reasonably well in wine. I think if you deal with the dcom business(possibly just disabling MOTD completely for now as a workaround), that will make things a little smoother.

DT

[bwall]

I am already running a VM environment for MS Money. I have used MS Money for 10 years, and it's the 1 Windows program I'm not going to give up (The Linux personal finance apps aren't close to Money or Quicken - that's a big gap in the OSS community IMHO). My PC is so fast (Intel Q6600 quad core) that VM's do not create any real overhead. Running other things in the VM wouldn't be a problem. MS Money can be made to work in Wine, but my confidence isn't such that I want to try it yet, and risk corrupting 10 years worth of financial history. I may try it once I am more confident with Linux/Wine. I have been a DOS/Windows person for 25 years I've only been running Linux as my primary OS for 2 weeks...

I am a Vista refugee, BTW... I don't even want to try it...

On an unrelated topic, does 32 bit Linux have the same issues with 4 GB of RAM that 32-bit Windows does? (i.e. can only use 3.x GB).

[DThor]

Oh, I think there's plenty of applications that have far better representation on Windows than Linux...and that will probably never change. Moneydance is the closest thing to Windows finance programs I've seen, and you're quite right - not really there. And I can tell you're not a big gamer, either.

Vista, yeah, everything I've heard is avoid until at least SP1, if not SP2. I certainly wouldn't use it anywhere near work.

Linux has that same memory issue, it's a 32 bit addressing issue, inherent with the technology.

DT

[bwall]

Actually, I am an occasional big gamer. I like gaming, but don't have as much time to do it as I used to due to work, kids, etc... I get in a 3-6 hour play session every now and then...

I have a Playstation 3, PS2, Gamecube, Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, and a half-dozen other systems, generally gathering dust I play RTS games on the PC more than anything; I did consider that before switching. Most of my favorites do work to some degree on Wine. http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iVersionId=147

A buddy at work thinks I'll cave and install Vista when SP1 comes out. It could happen, but I'm going to give Linux a real effort as long as possible.

[Quade]

What does Vista add that XP64 doesn't already do? Other than punishing yourself, I see no reason to install Vista, ever.

I'm using Vista here on my laptop and it makes me sick. I have to have a Vista machine to test on but, I couldn't use it every day. It might be the greatest thing since sliced bread (which is isn't) but, a couple GUI issues just trashed usability for me.

[bwall]

I made myself a new avatar using GIMP...

One other Windows program I really miss is Mozy backup... BTW

DThor, Ubuntu is just Debian with a better installer and better drivers, IMO.

[newsraider]

I am a long time Newsbin user and a new convert to Linux.

I have Newsbin installed, but am having a few issues, some of which have been reported before.

1. Sometimes I get the message that Newsbin is already running (which it's not) sometimes immediately after a reboot

2. Sometimes Newsbin will show as "Zombie" in task manager... and it's grayed out in the GUI. All I can do it kill it and start over. I haven't gotten past this long enough to get NB to do anything useful..

3. I get a red X error in the MOTD when I start NB... (I guess I'll just turn off MOTD, but I'm a fan of the automatic MOTD)...

I am running NB 5.35 and Ubuntu 7.10... latest version of Wine available.

I didn't put any DLL files anywhere.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Would I be better off running it through VirtualBox or VMWare? I have found VirtualBox to be excellent, BTW...

i ran in to alot of these same errors when i was 1st setting up newsbin with ubuntu.
for me it had alot to do with the video driver not set up correctly and me using beryl at the time was causing some problems.

at the moment i am using xubuntu 7.10 with compiz running and newsbin works great!! i haven't had it crash not once on me yet and it's running almost all the time.

but anyway let me get to your errors.

the message that newsbin is already running was the error i was getting all the time and it turned out that beryl was having problems displaying the wine programs. so the program was opened and running but you couldn't see it so you ran it again and of course that's when it tells you the error.

yeah the motd i turn off. so that it never a problems either. you shouldn't need any dll files either. you be ready to go after install.

do you have the restricted video driver enabled? are you using compiz? what type of video card do you have? i can't say for sure, but from my experience alot of these problems arise from the video driver not set right.

are you looking for something to backup firefox settings and cookies, favs?
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2109

always worked good for me.

i think if you stick with ubuntu for a while you will not want to leave. i have a ps3 so i don't really care about gaming on the pc that much. yeah not alot of good financial programs on linux but like you said you can use virtualbox or whatever.

[newsraider]

by the way stop by the ubuntu forums
http://ubuntuforums.org/

very helpful crowd over there.