Why GNU/Linux Rocks

[sgreger1]

Well, it seems I was reading something outdated and rtorrent support magnet links from a couple versions ago, so there's not much to be gained from installing it from source right now. For IRC clients, I'd say irssi is my favourite. It's got a pretty good guide for how to use it online, and like rtorrent, it'll play pretty nicely with screen. If you fell like trying those two out,

sudo yum install screen rtorrent irssi

will grab all three for you, plus any dependencies. And lx, I don't think synaptic really does anything on Fedora. At least not anything useful. There's a different graphical frontend for yum, although long term, it too is kind of crap.

Thanks Shiki! The thing is that I already did sudo yum install rtorrent and downloaded it but it doesn't appear in my list of applications, I figured maybe there was other steps or something. I will have to double check when I get home. I love using yum, it's so much easier than going through an install wizard on windows.

[shikitohno]

I don't know about aptitude, but with yum (and pacman) you can be pretty vague with your searches. You can even just search a function, like running a search for "filemanager" and it'll spit back a few options at you. Besides which, most of the time if I'm looking to install a program and I'm unsure of which one would be best, or don't even know of any yet, I'll just search "progam for doing 'x' linux." By the time I've read enough to decide that I want to install it, I already know the packagae name, so it's a non-issue here. Add/Remove Software would probably be the equivalent, but I haven't really used it, so sgreger1 is on his own with any issues he encounters with it.

[lxskllr]

And lx, I don't think synaptic really does anything on Fedora. At least not anything useful.

It didn't click that fedora uses a different system. A quick DuckDuckGo says that Synaptic can be installed, and used. Also it appears there's some graphical front ends for yum. I prefer using graphical managers, as you can get close to what you're looking for, and don't have to rely on exact package names.

Edit:
Looks like Add/Remove Software tool is the one for fedora, eh?

http://www.muktware.com/articles/2936

[shikitohno]

Well, it seems I was reading something outdated and rtorrent support magnet links from a couple versions ago, so there's not much to be gained from installing it from source right now. For IRC clients, I'd say irssi is my favourite. It's got a pretty good guide for how to use it online, and like rtorrent, it'll play pretty nicely with screen. If you fell like trying those two out,

sudo yum install screen rtorrent irssi

will grab all three for you, plus any dependencies. And lx, I don't think synaptic really does anything on Fedora. At least not anything useful. There's a different graphical frontend for yum, although long term, it too is kind of crap.

[lxskllr]

Okay so i figured out that cd lets me change the directory I am pointing it at like you said. Oddly if I for example have a folder called rtorrent in my home folder I can't cd /home/rtorrent, it won't recognize the folder.

I need to figure out how the file structure works so that I can get the directories right, do I need to enter my username in the path like /sgreger1/home/rtorrent? I need to play around with it more tonight to figure that out.


Is qtorrent better than utorrent? What exactly are "repos"?

Unless you've done something strange, when you first open your terminal, you're in your home directory. In your example above cd rtorrent should get you there.

qBittorrent looks very similar to uTorrent. Honestly, it isn't quite as good, but for the average user, it works just as well, and looks familiar. Put it this way, I like it well enough that I'll use it on Windows if I go back to that system. Being free is more valuable to me than the features uTorrent provides.

rTorrent is probably a better client, but perhaps not as user friendly. If you have a fringe need, like setting up a torrent server, or doing weird stuff, rTorrent might be better for you. I haven't used it, but ruTorrent is a graphical front end that makes rTorrent look like uTorrent. That might be worth a shot if you stick with rTorrent.

"repos" is just a slang term for repositories, or "app store" if you prefer. Every distribution has a repository where you get software, and updates to your software. The "Software Center" you were playing with earlier is a graphical front end for fedoras repository. Synaptic(which I believe you also have) is more finely grained, and lists all the little things. That's what I prefer to use on my systems.

Anyway, if you want rTorrent, qBittorrent, Chromium, or what ever, your first stop should be the repository. Open up Synaptic, or Software Center, and search "rtorrent" it should then popup, and you click to install it. You'll then get updates whenever that package is updated in the repository. When you compile from source, you don't get those updates. You'll have to keep track of it yourself, and update as necessary. That's why compiling isn't ideal, aside from being a minor PITA.

[sgreger1]

cd means change directory; just like DOS

rtorrent should be in the repos. Compiling from source should be the last step you take. Check your package manager first. I prefer qTorrent btw for a desktop client.

Okay so i figured out that cd lets me change the directory I am pointing it at like you said. Oddly if I for example have a folder called rtorrent in my home folder I can't cd /home/rtorrent, it won't recognize the folder.

I need to figure out how the file structure works so that I can get the directories right, do I need to enter my username in the path like /sgreger1/home/rtorrent? I need to play around with it more tonight to figure that out.


Is qtorrent better than utorrent? What exactly are "repos"?

[lxskllr]

cd means change directory; just like DOS

rtorrent should be in the repos. Compiling from source should be the last step you take. Check your package manager first. I prefer qTorrent btw for a desktop client.

[sgreger1]

Also, what is the best IRC client for linux? I see lots of them but am not really into IC and am not sure which is best for linux.

[sgreger1]

I am guessing I have to first install the trunk so that when I point to it, there is something there for it to find.

Under the install page it takes me to this link of "releases", but I not sure which release is the correct one. Should I choose the one at the bottom which appears to be the newest release?

http://libtorrent.rakshasa.no/downloads/

[sgreger1]

The questions who's answer wouldhelp me the most is letting me know which words are used to describe things. I.e. if something says

[code]cd /home/rtorrent[/quote]

Does CD mean something, like should I replace it with something or just type it as is?

When reading instructions on what to enter into the terminal I just want to be clear on which things I should copy verbatim and which things require me to modify them to my specific system.

While trying to install rtorrent I am using this guide from the rtorrent website:

http://libtorrent.rakshasa.no/wiki/Install



[quote]
Building

./configure; make; make install

Building from latest development version (trunk)

(note: you need to have SVN installed)
Before the first use, you have to get the latest trunk version. This needs to be done only once. In this example, the directory in which you store the sources is /home/rtorrent/trunk

cd /home/rtorrent 
svn co svn://rakshasa.no/libtorrent/trunk

Then, everytime you want to update your copy and recompile libTorrent and rTorrent:

cd /home/rtorrent/trunk svn up cd libtorrent ./autogen.sh ./configure make make install cd ../rtorrent ./autogen.sh ./configure make make install

(hint: you can put that in a file and run it everytime you want to recompile from trunk)


So here for example I am entering cd /home/rtorrnet but it says no such file or directory. I already did yum install rtorrent and also yum install svt + it's dependencies.


If you could help me understand some of the syntax here so that I know what to copy verbatim and what to modify that would be a big help. Example, I don' know what a "trunk" is.

[sgreger1]

I'm going to give installing rtorrent right now. Is there anything worth torrenting software-wise in Linux? I didn't think most programs were even compatible with it?

What I would like to do is figure out how to run Usenet on it. Gonna have to figure that out next.

[shikitohno]

Lol, if you think Gnome3 is minimalistic, try installing WindowMaker or ratpoison. I use ratpoison in day to day use, and it makes the default interface look cluttered as all hell. For installing software, first check if it's in the repos.

yum search something

will print out any matches for the search term, and if you see what you want, you can install it with

sudo yum install something

. Photoshop may run through wine, and it might even run pretty well, but you may want to invest some time in learning how to use native tools. They're a lot less likely to suddenly crash on you right after you finish doing some important work and leave you with nothing but a cryptic error message. There's two ways to install programs in Fedora, aside from using yum. You can install from rpms or by compiling the source code yourself. Rpms are relatively easy to use, but don't offer much benefit compared to compiling from source, and I'd consider them inferior for most purposes to just installing binaries from the repos, when they're available. Compiling from source allows you to optimize the code for your specific hardware, so that it'll run as efficiently as possible. In the past, this used to make a huge difference, but these days the difference can often be negligiable, especially when you take into account all the time you spend compiling software and mucking about with your CFLAGS and stuff. I'd recommend waiting until you've got some time to sit down, and learn how to install things from source properly. That'll account for 99% of what you download off the internet to install, if it doesn't come as a pre-compiled binary you can just run immediately. Something relatively simple that could serve as a basic example that covers most aspects of source compilation would be compiling rtorrent. I think the Fedora repos are somewhat out of date, and they still haven't included the patc enabling support for magnet links in the main branch. So compiling that would teach you the basics of applying patches, tracking down dependencies and compiling software. Let me know when you've got a couple hours free, and we can have a back and forth in a chat or something to go over it.

[sgreger1]

Have you tried using Gimp for images?

For your video card, searching can be fruitful. In my case "8800gt ubuntu 10.04" would likely turn up some good results.

Yah i've used GIMP. I know it's allegedly just as powerful but I don't have time to learn a whole new interface and workflow. Easier to just boot into Windows for me. I did download it in Fedora and am going to try and play with it and hopefully learn something.

Also this:

[lxskllr]

Have you tried using Gimp for images?

For your video card, searching can be fruitful. In my case "8800gt ubuntu 10.04" would likely turn up some good results.

[sgreger1]

For bumpage, sgreger1, since we haven't seen this thread shoot up to the top again, is it safe to say all is going well with your system for the time being? Or just not playing around with it, since it's a weekday and all? Anyway, when you've got time to play with it again, feel free to bump this thread up with your questions, and I'll do my best to answer them.

Oh no i've been using it every day. I only booted to Windows once to work on some photos in photoshop but have been using Fedora ever since. The desktop interface is very minimalist and very snappy, both things I prefer over Windows.

I am kind of confused about how to install things, as in Windows it all comes in an .exe installer file that does all the work for you but in Linux it seems that there may be a different process depending on what you are installing. I am still playing around with all of the software that comes in the "add/remove software" section so havn't gotten around to downloading anything online yet. Lots of indie games in there that are pretty cool, including some classics. The one I really want to work though (Glest, kind of a warcraft 3 kinda game) doesn't run properly because again my graphics card doesn't jive with it. I guess the graphics card issue is something I will need to work with for the time being. I may try tonight to get photoshop installed there using Wine, but i'm not quite that far yet.

Anyways, everything has been running smoothly and I am loving it. As an OS it is much cleaner, simpler, and faster than Win7 imo. If I had a laptop it would be Linux only. Everything has a small file size and runs without taking up any processor speed which I think would be great for lower end laptops or netbooks.