[Haifux] Haifux Digest, Vol 17, Issue 15

[Shlomi Fish]

On Tuesday 27 January 2009 08:59:51 Eran Arbel wrote:
> Hi, some time reader, first time writer.
> I'm a second year CS student and had to work with the Linux in the farms
> for a while now and frankly, I love the idea that someone finally forced me
> to use Linux. I think it's a good thing.
>
> I've already had stuff explained to me and had a chance to explain things
> to others. I already told people that they better get used to using the
> Linux and Unix on the farm machines. Firstly, because they have to;
> Secondly, because it's better; And thirdly, because it's fun.
>
> Problems of Windows\Linux compatibility with code files I solved with
> Notepad++. I don't know if there's a Linux version or a Linux substitute
> but it's an awesome writer for windows that can display context in many
> languages and can also convert to\from Windows from\to Linux formatting.
> Saved me a lot of trouble

First of all, you can always use tofrodos to do the conversion if needed:

http://www.thefreecountry.com/tofrodos/index.shtml

And otherwise, vim and other text editors for Linux are capable of converting 
from CRLF to LF and vice-versa, but I cannot tell you off-hand how to do that. 
(See the online help).

As for Notepad++ - while open-source, it directly uses the Win32 API and so 
will only potentially run on Linux using Wine or libwine or whatever. I 
haven't tried that, so I don't know if it will work or not.

>
> The new Open Office version (3 and up) is completely compatible with
> MS-Office 2007 documents and gave me no trouble as much as I've used it,
> making it better than MS-Office if compatibility is the question. It looks
> different but doesn't require that much of a leap to change to. And it's
> freely available to both Windows and Linux users.
>
> I used vim to program on the Linux and Unix machines but my brother
> recommended Eclipse so I want to try that if anyone is willing to teach me.

I've been happily using gvim for Perl, Python, Haskell, Bash, C and C++ 
programming. I have tried using Eclipse for C++ debugging with CDT and was 
heavily disappointed. The menus were way too crowded with menu items, and it 
barely run on my work machine which "only" had a 1 GB of RAM. Eclipse is still 
reportedly better for Java development, but I haven't done a lot of that.

There are a few projects for Eclipse and Vim integration out there if anyone's 
interested:

http://www.google.com/search?q=vim+eclipse&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

>
> I know of a Linux geek in the CS farm's support team but I think it takes
> more than that. I don't know how the W2L lectures went before but I agree
> that installing Linux, as far as I tried Ubuntu, is pretty straight
> forward. It's all the configuration afterwords that's troublesome. Up until
> now I have failed completely at configuring mine for WiFi and a secondary
> display and those two, along with 'How the hell do I run a Virtual
> Machine\Box on my Linux?' are the major hurdles before I completely switch

I didn't have trouble running Virtual Box on my Mandriva Cooker system. It 
should be present in the repositories of Ubuntu. Virtual Box is open-source. 
You can also try VMware Server, which is proprietary but gratis.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish       http://www.shlomifish.org/
Interview with Ben Collins-Sussman - http://xrl.us/bjn8s

<mauke>    I'm not interested in what you're doing; what are you trying to 
           achieve?
<PerlJam>  mauke: I'm trying to achieve world peace and this regex is
           the last thing standing in my way! ;)