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Re: [LUG] Meetings and OSX vs GNU on ppc (was Events and Databases)

 

Richard Brown wrote:

> 1. Firstly, if I arrange an event in June/July will folks be up for it 
> and what would be the best Saturday.

Personally, I am unlikely to be around for a June meet but July is good.
I tend to be working nearly all Saturdays though. Sundays are better.

James has offered to host another BBQ meeting in August - previous BBQ's
have been very popular and effective. It's fantastic to have a central
venue for regular meetings, thanks again James!

Another meeting in June/July is great news, the more the better.

> 2. Having migrated from Mac OS X (through lack of funds for hardware)

I've just left OSX - installed Debian on the ppc hardware and (apart
from the suspend that is always tricky on laptops) everything is working
fine. If you replace OSX with GNU/Linux, you'll suddenly find between 5
and 10Gb of free space suddenly appears. Honestly, OSX is *incredibly*
bloated. GNU software is available via Fink but is several releases
behind. To get Gnome 2.14 or KDE 3.4 (let alone 3.5), you'll need to
replace OSX with something like Debian. Last time I checked, Fink was
Gnome 2.10. I've looked at Yellow Dog and one or two others but it
depends how up to date you want to be.

> I 
> am needing to set up a database of clients, passwords, contact dates, 
> renewal dates, etc. and wonder whether anyone knows of a good programme 
> that will do this please?

Needless to say, recommendations here will be for GNU/Linux programmes,
which will require Fink which will provide old versions compared to the
ones in use by the person making the recommendation. Some of the
features described in a recommendation may not be in the Fink version.
:-(

Check the fink website for versions and note that updating from the
'CVS' branch is a *serious* drain on time. It's no fun building the
whole of Gnome or KDE from source code. The binary branch is older
again. 'CVS' is a misnomer really - what Fink mean is that you build
from released source code according to the versions that Fink has
already built before - not the bleeding edge upstream CVS code that is
changed on a daily basis. The actual release code is held on Fink
mirrors and represents previous release tarballs of upstream code. Fink
'CVS' downloads these tarballs, along with packaging files that describe
how to build a Fink package, and then tediously builds all dependencies,
all libraries and all applications from source. Think gentoo without the
appeal of actually being up to date.

OK, I'm biased - I abandoned it and the frustration is still simmering -
but the memory of upgrading a Fink installation does still give me
headaches. (What automation exists is not reliable.)

-- 

Neil Williams
=============
http://www.data-freedom.org/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/


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