| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Silvrwolf
n00b
Joined: 07 Aug 2004
Posts: 11
Location: Lebanon, TN
|
 Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 7:53 pm Post subject: Questions for Conversion of Another |
 |
|
It's been a Long time since I've wandered in these forums, mostly because I was busy playing games in XP (sorry, hehehe).
However, I'm coming across the standard windows problems again, and while I can fix My problems, my wife can't fix hers all that easily. She's not a "techie" person, but she's competent. I've been seriously considering getting her to switch to Gentoo for a while, and with recent security problems (that are inherent with XP without a "General Army of Firewalls"), I'm taking the initiative to find out solutions to problems that might arise with her switching away from Windows.
Her hardware isn't a problem (I've already looked into that, and can work around the oddities).
The big problem is Software. Certain things she will NOT give up, and I need to find a workaround. Here's the List, and usually a reason that she won't be persuaded.
1: Paint Shop Pro (According to her, The Gimp sucks in comparison, it's bulky and doesn't work as cleanly or efficiently)
- I Have noticed that there's an "unstable" version that's supposedly closer to PSP. Can anyone tell me HOW close it is to PSP?
- Is there a way to run this in WineX or Cedega in the event she -still- hates the Gimp?
2: Yahoo! Messenger (I haven't seen a "clean" native of that one yet, if there is one, please let me know)
3: Winamp (Mainly for the Plugins. XMMS will work for most of it)
- The only "plugin" that I haven't seen a counter for is Y!Amp, a plugin that changes her "status" to include the song she's listening to at the time. I figure something like this could be coded fairly simply if there isn't something out there already.
- Any other viable options besides XMMS would be appreciated as well
4: The Sims (one, not two)
- I'm sure there's a way to run this, whether it be a native from the company or running through Wine
5: Kyodai Mahjongg - This is a very NICE 3d Mahjongg program, alternatives would be great
- I'm sure I can get this running in WineX if nothing else
6: She's also a big fan of PopCap. Can someone run over to popcap.com on FireFox and see if the games there work properly? I never really tested that with my last installation, and haven't reinstalled Gentoo on my system yet.
7: PowerDVD (or similar) that will allow ScreenCapping
8: A GOOD video player (i.e. Windows Media Player with codecs): This is imperative, and I don't know the best solution
9: Animation Shop 3 (Jasc) (All she has it for is Animated Icons)
- I'm sure there's SOME solution for this, either in Gimp, or some other program. If nothing else, again, I'll run it in WineX
10: Kodak Easy Creator for a Kodak Digital Camera we have. This IS an issue
- I'm not sure what solutions there are for this, anything suggested will be looked at.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
shadow255
Guru
Joined: 04 Apr 2003
Posts: 412
|
| Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 9:41 pm Post subject: Re: Questions for Conversion of Another |
|
|
| Silvrwolf wrote: | 1: Paint Shop Pro (According to her, The Gimp sucks in comparison, it's bulky and doesn't work as cleanly or efficiently)
- I Have noticed that there's an "unstable" version that's supposedly closer to PSP. Can anyone tell me HOW close it is to PSP?
- Is there a way to run this in WineX or Cedega in the event she -still- hates the Gimp? |
My wife really liked Paint Shop Pro, and when we both converted over to Linux she kept running it using Win4Lin for some time until she got comfortable and competent with the Gimp. That being said, my wife is possibly more technically savvy - after all, she was the first of us to be running Linux on the desktop  . I do not know whether Wine/WineX/Cedega can handle PSP, however.
For what it's worth, the differences between PSP and the Gimp are more along the lines of UI philosophy rather than actual functionality. Unless things have changed a lot since PSP 5.0 (and they may have, I don't know), the major difference is that PSP uses a multiple-document interface approach whereas the Gimp uses separate windows for everything. The nice thing in Linux is that you can easily have multiple desktops in your window manager, so all those Gimp windows can go on one desktop and don't have to interfere with other stuff.
It's possible your wife may do the same as mine, and come to use and even perchance like the Gimp
| Silvrwolf wrote: | | 2: Yahoo! Messenger (I haven't seen a "clean" native of that one yet, if there is one, please let me know) |
If she is attached to IMvironments in Yahoo, I'm afraid nothing on Linux is going to please her. I find that Gaim's handling of Yahoo IM is very satisfactory for me, though.
| Silvrwolf wrote: | 3: Winamp (Mainly for the Plugins. XMMS will work for most of it)
- The only "plugin" that I haven't seen a counter for is Y!Amp, a plugin that changes her "status" to include the song she's listening to at the time. I figure something like this could be coded fairly simply if there isn't something out there already.
- Any other viable options besides XMMS would be appreciated as well |
Is it a deal-killer for her if she can't show off what she's listening to in her status? I can't suggest anything besides XMMS for audio streaming playback, but someone else probably will. By the way, if you were to use kopete as the chat client there is a plugin for showing what you're listening to. I haven't tested it to see how well it works, though.
| Silvrwolf wrote: | 4: The Sims (one, not two)
- I'm sure there's a way to run this, whether it be a native from the company or running through Wine |
Native port, no. Cedega or something like it, yes.
| Silvrwolf wrote: | 5: Kyodai Mahjongg - This is a very NICE 3d Mahjongg program, alternatives would be great
- I'm sure I can get this running in WineX if nothing else |
The kdegames and gnome-games packages both have some really great Mahjongg-style tile games in them. She may actually find a variant she likes better than Kyodai
| Silvrwolf wrote: | | 6: She's also a big fan of PopCap. Can someone run over to popcap.com on FireFox and see if the games there work properly? I never really tested that with my last installation, and haven't reinstalled Gentoo on my system yet. |
I'm running an amd64 which has some issues with java plugin support, so my findings should be considered inconclusive. With that disclaimer out of the way, I have to report that I was not able to launch either of the 2 web games I tried from their site. Could be an issue for you too.
| Silvrwolf wrote: | 7: PowerDVD (or similar) that will allow ScreenCapping
8: A GOOD video player (i.e. Windows Media Player with codecs): This is imperative, and I don't know the best solution |
Not areas I can be of much assistance in. I am pretty sure another will have useful input for you on these, though.
| Silvrwolf wrote: | 9: Animation Shop 3 (Jasc) (All she has it for is Animated Icons)
- I'm sure there's SOME solution for this, either in Gimp, or some other program. If nothing else, again, I'll run it in WineX |
The Gimp can handle animated GIF images... I'm not sure about icons, though.
| Silvrwolf wrote: | 10: Kodak Easy Creator for a Kodak Digital Camera we have. This IS an issue
- I'm not sure what solutions there are for this, anything suggested will be looked at. |
There is a project called digikam which aims to provide similar all-in-one-program functionality. My wife hasn't tried it out yet - she does manage digital photos from a Kodak DX3600 using gphoto2 to fetch and the Gimp to process.
All in all, I'd say there are some potential obstacles in your path, depending very much on how willing your wife will be to adapt to the inevitable differences in environment. Your best bet to minimize the differences is probably KDE for the desktop, in my opinion (and I'm sure I'll hear numerous times how wrong I am!). Good luck, and tell us what happens if you make the switch!
_________________
Vogon poetry is of course the third worst in the Universe. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
TheChuckster
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Posts: 91
|
| Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 10:04 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| There's a native port of The Sims by Transgaming so they refuse to run it with their Cedega products. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Silvrwolf
n00b
Joined: 07 Aug 2004
Posts: 11
Location: Lebanon, TN
|
| Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 10:11 pm Post subject: Re: Questions for Conversion of Another |
|
|
| shadow255 wrote: |
My wife really liked Paint Shop Pro, and when we both converted over to Linux she kept running it using Win4Lin for some time until she got comfortable and competent with the Gimp. That being said, my wife is possibly more technically savvy - after all, she was the first of us to be running Linux on the desktop . I do not know whether Wine/WineX/Cedega can handle PSP, however.
For what it's worth, the differences between PSP and the Gimp are more along the lines of UI philosophy rather than actual functionality. Unless things have changed a lot since PSP 5.0 (and they may have, I don't know), the major difference is that PSP uses a multiple-document interface approach whereas the Gimp uses separate windows for everything. The nice thing in Linux is that you can easily have multiple desktops in your window manager, so all those Gimp windows can go on one desktop and don't have to interfere with other stuff.
It's possible your wife may do the same as mine, and come to use and even perchance like the Gimp |
I can honestly say that the Gimp is most likely not even remotely an option until she's been in linux for a few months. She's, well, stubborn about it. I hope that WineX can handle PSP 9 (and Animation Shop 3), because otherwise she's going to either dual-boot or have a second PC with no Internet connection that just runs PSP & AS3 and is connected to the local network. Either solution is problematic, but she basically put her foot down and said "I will NOT give up PSP. Period."
| shadow255 wrote: |
If she is attached to IMvironments in Yahoo, I'm afraid nothing on Linux is going to please her. I find that Gaim's handling of Yahoo IM is very satisfactory for me, though. |
She doesn't care about the IMvironments. The audibles are an issue for her, but I don't know whether they'll cooperate or not.
| shadow255 wrote: |
Is it a deal-killer for her if she can't show off what she's listening to in her status? I can't suggest anything besides XMMS for audio streaming playback, but someone else probably will. By the way, if you were to use kopete as the chat client there is a plugin for showing what you're listening to. I haven't tested it to see how well it works, though. |
XMMS is the player of choice, of course. I'm just seeing if there's anything else worth looking in to. I know XMMS outputs data properly with the proper plugins, and it wouldn't be terribly difficult to write a plugin for either the Native Yahoo Messenger or to test & enable the KoPete plugin. Either would be sufficient in the long run.
| shadow255 wrote: | | Native port, no. Cedega or something like it, yes. |
This is as expected, and good news.
| shadow255 wrote: | | The kdegames and gnome-games packages both have some really great Mahjongg-style tile games in them. She may actually find a variant she likes better than Kyodai |
I can honestly say everything I've seen in KDE & Gnome to date are nowhere near as pleasant as Kyodai. We'll see what happens when I switch back to Gentoo myself. I can spend a lot of time finding out what she's looking for. I'm asking here beforehand to make sure there IS some kind of viable option for her "non-negotiable" items. I think PSP is the only true non-negotiable, but if I have the others taken care of, she'll be much happier with the whole situation.
| shadow255 wrote: | | I'm running an amd64 which has some issues with java plugin support, so my findings should be considered inconclusive. With that disclaimer out of the way, I have to report that I was not able to launch either of the 2 web games I tried from their site. Could be an issue for you too. |
That's not very promising, but I've heard of the problems with 64 bit chips Can someone on an Athlon (non-64) that is running FireFox with the appropriate plugins please check on running PopCap games? Thanks Someone with an Intel checking this would also be helpful.
| shadow255 wrote: | | The Gimp can handle animated GIF images... I'm not sure about icons, though. |
She's looked into the Gimp Communities & Tutorials found in various places on the web, and that was not really a viable option. Man, this system is going to be Rife with WineX.
| shadow255 wrote: | | There is a project called digikam which aims to provide similar all-in-one-program functionality. My wife hasn't tried it out yet - she does manage digital photos from a Kodak DX3600 using gphoto2 to fetch and the Gimp to process. |
Well, THAT is good news. She's not fond of the Kodak software to begin with, so something that runs smoother might help her feel a little better about the whole thing.
| shadow255 wrote: | | All in all, I'd say there are some potential obstacles in your path, depending very much on how willing your wife will be to adapt to the inevitable differences in environment. Your best bet to minimize the differences is probably KDE for the desktop, in my opinion (and I'm sure I'll hear numerous times how wrong I am!). Good luck, and tell us what happens if you make the switch! |
Yeah, KDE was what I was planning on for her to begin with. She might install other DE's later. However, simple, clean, and nice-looking are the foremost items for her system to begin with. I'll get her in to the CLI later.
I appreciate your time reading through this and responding. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Carlo
Developer
Joined: 12 Aug 2002
Posts: 3356
|
| Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2005 1:14 am Post subject: Re: Questions for Conversion of Another |
|
|
| Silvrwolf wrote: | 1: Paint Shop Pro (According to her, The Gimp sucks in comparison, it's bulky and doesn't work as cleanly or efficiently)
- I Have noticed that there's an "unstable" version that's supposedly closer to PSP. Can anyone tell me HOW close it is to PSP? |
Gimp got better, but the usability still sucks. I can't compare with PSP, but Gimp does the job, if you can accept a slowdown due to have to fiddle with the GUI. If you have big images (30MB+), it can be a pain. My old Photoshop 6 is in a VMWare session faster than Gimp on the plain box.
| Silvrwolf wrote: | | 6: She's also a big fan of PopCap. Can someone run over to popcap.com on FireFox and see if the games there work properly? I never really tested that with my last installation, and haven't reinstalled Gentoo on my system yet. |
Works.
| Silvrwolf wrote: | 7: PowerDVD (or similar) that will allow ScreenCapping
8: A GOOD video player (i.e. Windows Media Player with codecs): This is imperative, and I don't know the best solution |
Xine, mplayer, VLC, lots of codecs, lots of frontends. I'd miss something, if I had to use Windows.
| Silvrwolf wrote: | 10: Kodak Easy Creator for a Kodak Digital Camera we have. This IS an issue
- I'm not sure what solutions there are for this, anything suggested will be looked at. |
dcraw, Gphoto2, Digikam
_________________
Please make sure that you have searched for an answer to a question after reading all the relevant docs. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
wjholden
l33t
Joined: 01 Mar 2004
Posts: 826
Location: Augusta, GA
|
| Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 6:20 pm Post subject: Re: Questions for Conversion of Another |
|
|
| Silvrwolf wrote: | 2: Yahoo! Messenger (I haven't seen a "clean" native of that one yet, if there is one, please let me know)
3: Winamp (Mainly for the Plugins. XMMS will work for most of it)
- The only "plugin" that I haven't seen a counter for is Y!Amp, a plugin that changes her "status" to include the song she's listening to at the time. I figure something like this could be coded fairly simply if there isn't something out there already.
- Any other viable options besides XMMS would be appreciated as well |
I took a screenshot of the cool stuff you can do with XMMS and Gaim (click me). To install:
| Code: | | emerge gaim xmms gaim-xmms-remote |
On the side of the screen you see a media player and Tux -- those are both XMMS plugins (wmxmms and xmms-wmdiscotux). I woudl also recommend emerging xmms-themes for fun. As for a good DVD player that can take snapshots, I recommend Xine. As far as I'm concerned, Xine is the greatest Linux DVD player around.
As for emulation software, I own CrossOver. It's a fantastic piece of software. But if gaming's an issue, which you say it is, I would say go with Cedega (formerly known as WineX).
Just so you know, if you choose to use KDE you can access almost all digital cameras by typing camera:// into the address bar! You can actually "emerge konqueror" to just install Konqueror without all the other KDE stuff. Unlike a lot of these hardcore guys who use ROX, I use Konqueror all the time.
I really can't tell how happy you and your wife will be if you make the switch -- after three weeks. It may be a good idea to say "this is my idea and I know you don't like it. Just try it for one month, and if you still can't stand it after a month we'll go back to Windows." This helps your wife look at Linux with an open mind knowing she can go back, instead of being forced to use something she doesn't like. Chances are, she'll realise how Linux is so much faster and more fun, not to mention stability, reliability, and security, and she might say to stick with Linux after that one month is up. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Chaosite
Guru
Joined: 13 Dec 2003
Posts: 540
Location: Right over here.
|
| Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 7:39 pm Post subject: Re: Questions for Conversion of Another |
|
|
| Silvrwolf wrote: | It's been a Long time since I've wandered in these forums, mostly because I was busy playing games in XP (sorry, hehehe).
However, I'm coming across the standard windows problems again, and while I can fix My problems, my wife can't fix hers all that easily. She's not a "techie" person, but she's competent. I've been seriously considering getting her to switch to Gentoo for a while, and with recent security problems (that are inherent with XP without a "General Army of Firewalls"), I'm taking the initiative to find out solutions to problems that might arise with her switching away from Windows.
Her hardware isn't a problem (I've already looked into that, and can work around the oddities).
The big problem is Software. Certain things she will NOT give up, and I need to find a workaround. Here's the List, and usually a reason that she won't be persuaded.
1: Paint Shop Pro (According to her, The Gimp sucks in comparison, it's bulky and doesn't work as cleanly or efficiently)
- I Have noticed that there's an "unstable" version that's supposedly closer to PSP. Can anyone tell me HOW close it is to PSP?
- Is there a way to run this in WineX or Cedega in the event she -still- hates the Gimp?
2: Yahoo! Messenger (I haven't seen a "clean" native of that one yet, if there is one, please let me know)
3: Winamp (Mainly for the Plugins. XMMS will work for most of it)
- The only "plugin" that I haven't seen a counter for is Y!Amp, a plugin that changes her "status" to include the song she's listening to at the time. I figure something like this could be coded fairly simply if there isn't something out there already.
- Any other viable options besides XMMS would be appreciated as well
4: The Sims (one, not two)
- I'm sure there's a way to run this, whether it be a native from the company or running through Wine
5: Kyodai Mahjongg - This is a very NICE 3d Mahjongg program, alternatives would be great
- I'm sure I can get this running in WineX if nothing else
6: She's also a big fan of PopCap. Can someone run over to popcap.com on FireFox and see if the games there work properly? I never really tested that with my last installation, and haven't reinstalled Gentoo on my system yet.
7: PowerDVD (or similar) that will allow ScreenCapping
8: A GOOD video player (i.e. Windows Media Player with codecs): This is imperative, and I don't know the best solution
9: Animation Shop 3 (Jasc) (All she has it for is Animated Icons)
- I'm sure there's SOME solution for this, either in Gimp, or some other program. If nothing else, again, I'll run it in WineX
10: Kodak Easy Creator for a Kodak Digital Camera we have. This IS an issue
- I'm not sure what solutions there are for this, anything suggested will be looked at.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance. |
1: I hear PSP runs just fine in wine (not winex or cedega - those are for games). It will probably run great in Win4Lin.
2: Tons of these around, though my favorite flavor of instant messengers is ICQ. Gaim should be able to handle y!, and there are a few dedicated messengers.
3: My favorite in this area is the mpd + ncmpc (in transparent borderless aterm) combo. Its not exactly pretty, and it doesn't have plugins (visualizations), but once you get the hang of sed you realize its true potential. For example:
| Code: | chaosite@Aurora ~ $ mpc
Blink 182 - Asthenia
[playing] #57/76 0:32 (12%)
volume:100% repeat: on random: on |
From which you could get any sort of information. This probably isn't to your tastes, so xmms (or amamroK, its pretty good) will have to do.
4: Native version for The Sims 
5: we have games-board/xmahjongg and kde-base/kmahjongg (This is masked, but the unmasked version comes with kdegames I think). If its OpenGL, wine will probably do. Use cedega as a last resort only!
6: Probably do. Download Firefox for windows and check yourself
7: Of course. mplayer, xine, totem...
8: See 7. Mplayer plays anything out of the box, but is a little rough gui-wise (gmplayer doesn't do everything that mplayer can do). So do the others, I think.
9: I haven't seen anything media-gfx/gifsicle can't do, yet. Its CLI, though - but you just feed it images.
10: gphoto2 and gimp-2.0 . |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
Gentoo Chat
