Review: Free and Open Source Software Part 2

by Jo Shields on 29 June 2004, 00:00

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qayz

Add to My Vault: x

Multitasking

Having a system with music playing is all well and good, but now you're locked out, right? Well, actually... Hold the alt key on the keyboard, and press F2 - you should get a second login box. You'll find you have lots of these, meaning you can multitask, even without a nice friendly graphical environment. I promised earlier I'd explain what the packages you installed did, so I'll do so now. mpg321 is a command-line MP3 player, as you know. vorbis-tools is a set of tools for the Ogg music format, including the ogg123 command line player. smbclient is a package needed by smbfs to mount network shares. irssi-text is a command-line IRC client. links is a command-line web browser.

Since you now know you can do multiple tasks at once, try logging into one console (Alt-F2), and running irssi-text (just type "irssi-text")



Yay, we have IRC. Not only can we now discuss the merits of Counter-Strike with twelve-year-olds, but IRC is your first stop for any technical support problems in Linux - and for open source use, the irc.freenode.net server. Problems with debian itself, join #debian. Problems with an application, try #applicationname. Try to be polite, descriptive, take the advice offered, and never EVER join #debian as root.

Next, in another console (Alt-F3), log in and run "links". Hit G to enter a URL, and away you go!



So, you have music, IRC, and web browsing. Just like Windows, right? Oh yeah, no half-naked people as wallpaper. To sort this, we're going to need something called X.