Return of the Linux

Saturday May 12, 2012 at 10:00am computers, work, linux Comments (2) »
Return of the Linux Image

A few weeks back I was having some trouble with my work computer's windows install.  (And, oh hey, I've been at this job over a year now.  I think they like me. :))  As luck would have it, I also had a machine in my "custody" that was no longer needed.  

I swiped the harddrive from it, stuck it in my machine, and installed Linux Mint 12 KDE on it.  Now, it had been a while since I've used Linux as a primary machine (about 6 years now, actually), so some things are...different.  

I'm not sure what I think about KDE 4/Plasma.  The cashew thing is a little annoying, but maybe I just don't understand how to use it (which is to say, I don't).  Also, current support for ati + dual-head is terrible.  Xinerama (which i understand is deprecated) won't play nice with desktop effects modules (xcomposite & xdamage...or randr), but I can't get both displays recognized as one unified desktop without using it (even though I think that's theoretically possible).  I mess with it at lunch occasionally (edit: figured this out - requires downloading ati driver w/ catalyst control from ati, running aticonfig --initial -f, disabling xrandr in xorg.conf (can be done with aticonfig), restarting and running amdcccle to use catalyst to set up monitor configuration).  Since I seem to be pointing out the "bad" things first, I also haven't been able to get Likewise Open to let my PC join the AD domain.  I keep getting an "OU format is invalid" error.  What's weird is that the connection attempt actually does add the machine to AD in the correct OU - it just won't establish/use the connection.  I also wish there was a mail client that would play nicer with Exchange 2007 (actually, I wish we weren't *using* SBS & Exchange, but hey).

On the upside, however, I've discovered a few cool things linux now (or things that are easier).  Support for RDP is good.  Samba sharing is less of a headache.  USB plug-&-play support is more reliable (at least with external storage, etc).  I've also discovered Sun's Virtual Box is pretty awesome for virtualization.  One of my biggest grievances with The Gimp has always been the fact that it doesn't have photoshop-like layer manipulation & effects...   ...but I've now found this plugin which mostly solves that problem (and, in some ways, is better than the photoshop equivalent).  There's even an open source xen manager.

Despite some minor issues and limitations (as mentioned), I really like being on linux again.  It's nice to be able to have more direct control over what my machine is doing.  Multiple desktops are extremely useful.  The ability to easily find a program to do almost anything for free is awesome.  And, even on our sbs network, there's nothing I could do on my windows machine I cannot do on this linux platform (some things are harder, some things are actually easier).

~PS

Craig says...

Did you ever get likewise-open to work? I'm hitting the exact same error and yes, my machine has been added to the domain successfully too...

Penguinsushi says...

Hey, Craig - Let me say, I don't *think* so. I never got it to join without giving me the OU error, anyway. Eventually, I quit trying. That said, I kind of discovered I didn't need it. I was able to get thunderbird to play with Exchange 2007/2010 reasonably well, and I am able to mount network shares (smb) by ip or hostname and can use my domain user/password to access them. In my case, I don't think there's anything else I needed to actually *be* on the domain for. ~PS

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