qptech blog

I'm thinking of getting into programming again (C,C++, and that stuff).

But I still don't own a computer. John's giving me some old parts though. I can probably scrounge one up.

BitTorrent is a file distribution system similar to peer-to-peer systems (like Kazaa and eDonkey), but which requires a specific provider for a file (like FTP/HTTP). It distributes the bandwidth across the network. Everyone downloading is also uploading to someone else. The main server distributes different parts of the file to everyone so that they can then share the different parts with each other rather than getting it all from the main server.

Basically, you can download stuff really fast and you can share large files without killing your bandwidth.

There's no search client or central server. It doesn't allow any kind of file sharing more than a regular http server would.

I have some Gmail invitations available if anyone wants one, let me know.

It's worth it just for the web interface (much better than Yahoo's) and the text-only context relevant advertisements (gotta have ads for a free service you know.)

PCLinuxOS - just another linux liveCD
Flonix - fits on a usb drive or mini cd
Morphix - just another linux liveCD
Feather Linux - fits on a 64Mb usb thumb
Damn Small Linux - another business card linux
The Perfect Desktop - Gnome+Debian wiki
Gnoppix - Gnome Knoppix
dyne:bolic - looks like a pretty good one

This is one of the best linux live CD's I've ever seen - In fact, I'm using it to post this right now.

A live CD is a cd-rom which contains a complete operating system and other software. It runs from the CD and doesn't require a harddrive. It's nice because you can get a familiar environment on any computer anywhere.

KNOPPIX runs well on every computer I've ever tried it on. It detects all the important hardware (video card, ethernet, etc). Connects the the internet using DHCP if you have an ethernet connected Cable modem, DSL modem, or any other broadband connection on a network using DHCP.

I haven't tried printing from KNOPPIX, but I believe that it will detect and use most printers.

It has a lot of software (about 1700 Mb compressed to fit onto a single CD-Rom). There's the web browser Mozilla, the Desktop Publisher Scribus (can make PDF's), The GIMP (kinda like Photoshop). It uses the KDE desktop environment (with lots of eye candy - truely transparent menus and mouse cursor). I'm using version 3.3 which is kinda old (3.4 is available now), but it's very stable and capable of everything I need it to do (uh, browse the web... I don't need a computer, why don't I just get a web enabled cell phone or something - oh yeah, it takes forever to type on those little numerical pads - not good for blog posting)

Slashdot is news for nerds. It's a lot of computer related stuff, and other stuff that nerds might find interresting.