osama i. al-dosary

I was a bit confused about what the difference is between FS and OSS. So I have been reading up on it. I’ve read about 5 different articles, and I’m still not sure what the difference is. Free Software does not mean software that you pay Zero money for as this article points out (by Richard Stallman.)

Free Software briefly means that you have the “freedom” to use, redistribute, study, modify and improve the software.

Which is similar to OSS. So far, I believe that the main difference is that “Open Source Software” sounds cooler, and is easier to market than “Free Software”. And that is the problem, as I understand Stallman tries to point out: market share should not be the primary goal, but the primary goal is the freedom itself that FS/OSS provides. So in this quest for market share, some freedoms are being sacrificed. (Such as using non-free software with the GNU/Linux, and all the problems that might entail.)

So to rephrase my current understanding of this issue: the primary difference between the FS and OSS philosophies is that FS refuses to use non-free software even when there is no alternative. (Please correct me if I’m wrong .)

Myself, I don’t know what non-free software that I’m using on my machine other than the Flash plugin, and maybe some codecs. (I wonder if there are Free flash and realplayer alternatives for Linux?) Maybe there is more to this issue than I currently understand.

Now I know that it is important to call it GNU/Linux, not just Linux — give credit where credit is due (click here to read more.)

I stumble on this nice Linux tutorial. The title of the site: “Jansen, The Linux Apprentice, a rather frazzled lady, has a wild eyed stare, she’s learning Linux or bust”
Take a look here.

Ubuntu - Components Main, restricted, universe, and multiverse.
Correction on my previous statement about multiverse being like Sid. That was totally wrong. The Ubuntu repository components are divided as follows:

• Main: Which has the basic fully functional Ubuntu. It is Free and supported by the Ubuntu team.
• Restricted: Which has some hardware drivers that no Open source alternative exists. This component is not completely free.
• Universe: Which has much of the Free Linux software. These packages are NOT supported by the Ubuntu team, and don’t have security fixes.
• Multiverse: Non-Free software

Unofficial Ubuntu 5.04 Starter Guide. Ubuntu is very easy to set up, so I don’t think you’ll need this site for basic setup. This is an excellent site, though, to help quickly set up addition stuff: Flash, realplay, mplayer, codecs, bittorent, jre, etc.
I found the Add-On Applications very useful. To use the Add-Ons You first need to add a few repositories to your /etc/apt/sources.list. Detailed Here. Basically your are un-commenting existing lines of sources. Also, you are adding a few lines of sources:

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary multiversedeb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary multiverse## Backportsdeb http://ubuntu-backports.mirrormax.net/ hoary-backports main universe multiverse restricteddeb http://ubuntu-backports.mirrormax.net/ hoary-extras main universe multiverse restricted

I’m not sure what these other sources are. I don’t know what the different designations are (main, universe, multiverse.)
I’m guessing multiverse is like Debian’s Sid/unstable, I’ll try to read up on it when I get a chance. I’m also guessing that the Backports source stuff has codecs and stuff that the Ubuntu Official source might not want to carry to avoid legal issues. I haven’t tried an “apt-get upgrade” with these new repositories, so you might want to remove them once you are done installing the packages.

Ubuntu Linux.

I tried using Ubuntu Linux briefly, a while back. It didn’t hit me. It seemed nice. I liked how it automatically detected my video/screen capability — which no other Distro could do properly. At the time, I was also looking at MEPIS, which had a graphical installer, KDE and the ability to partition and install from the live CD. That combination makes MEPIS almost ideal for showing off Linux to Windows users.

Later I found out that the Ubuntu team added XFLD/XFCE into their repository, and then I kept reading all the great reviews and posts of Ubuntu. So I decided it was time to take another look at it.
Once installed, I can add the XFCE to it by:
remove comments from apt sources in /etc/apt/source.list
# apt-get install xfce4
Then re-login, and GDM will alow you to choose it.

You can also do the same for KDE including the KUbuntu packages, by:
# apt-get install kubuntu-desktop