Arch Linux

Fleet

Member

Registered: 2008-07-09

Posts: 33

Arch for workstation-laptop

Hello Archers,

I really like Arch Linux and so I am keen on using it on my laptop, which I use for all my schoolwork. It might be a stupid question, but is Arch stable enough to use for examinations (math aso.)? Would you do it? My laptop runs Windows Vista now and I am interested in if the following software can be run on Arch Linux (Wine etc.):
- TI Interactive!
- The Geometer's Sketchpad
- Fathom
- MS Office 2007 Student and home edition (I use LaTeX for reports aso., but I would like to keep Office 2007)

The laptop's specifications are:

Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo T7300 @ 2.00 Ghz
GM965/ICH8 Santa Rosa (800 Mhz FSB)
4096 mb DDR2 PC5300 (667 Mhz)
GeForce 8600M GT with 512 mb GDDR2 ram
Realtek 7.1 Digital Surround Sound
100 gb Seagate Momentus 7200 rpm.
"Some Broadcom Gigabit ethernet controller"

Best regards

Fleet

Member

Registered: 2008-07-09

Posts: 33

Re: Arch for workstation-laptop

Sorry for posting in the wrong section. Maybe a mod could move it?

BurntSushi

Member

From: Massachusetts

Registered: 2009-06-28

Posts: 362

Website

Re: Arch for workstation-laptop

I can't comment on any of your programs, but I've been running Arch on my laptop for school for just about a year now. (I am also a Mathematics major.) Some classes tell me I need to use "excel and word" to write up documents, but LaTeX and a quick Python program have always been sufficient for all my writing/graphing needs.

No hiccups so far

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Education is favorable to liberty. Freedom can exist only in a society of knowledge. Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights, and where learning is confined to a few people, liberty can be neither equal nor universal.

Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito

Cyrusm

Member

From: Bozeman, MT

Registered: 2007-11-15

Posts: 1,053

Re: Arch for workstation-laptop

you could also take a look in the repositories, there are several nice mathematical programs (like octave for example) and several good graphing programs as well.
I'm not sure if they're a good replacement for the software that you are currently using, but they are still cool regardless

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Hofstadter's Law:
           It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

Cosmin

Member

Registered: 2008-10-06

Posts: 248

Re: Arch for workstation-laptop

Office 2007 works in wine. The other software I do not know.

what latex LaTeX software do you guys use? ... just wondering

axel668

Member

Registered: 2009-08-15

Posts: 168

Re: Arch for workstation-laptop

http://appdb.winehq.org/
should give you a pretty good idea, if specific software works under WINE ...

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"A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila."
(Mitch Ratcliffe)

BurntSushi

Member

From: Massachusetts

Registered: 2009-06-28

Posts: 362

Website

Re: Arch for workstation-laptop

what latex LaTeX software do you guys use? ... just wondering

kate + pdflatex

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Education is favorable to liberty. Freedom can exist only in a society of knowledge. Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights, and where learning is confined to a few people, liberty can be neither equal nor universal.

Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito

Fleet

Member

Registered: 2008-07-09

Posts: 33

Re: Arch for workstation-laptop

what latex LaTeX software do you guys use? ... just wondering

I use TeX Live 2009 and Emacs with AUCTeX on Windows atm. but I would really like to use Arch Linux

Last edited by Fleet (2010-02-10 21:01:59)

jkastelic

Member

Registered: 2010-02-14

Posts: 17

Re: Arch for workstation-laptop

As for The Geometer's Sketchpad: Wikipedia says "It also runs on Linux under Wine with few bugs."  [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geometer's_Sketchpad] Also you may try KSEG (http://www.mit.edu/~ibaran/kseg.html), which "was inspired by the Geometer's Sketchpad, but it goes beyond the functionality that Sketchpad provides."

toad

Member

From: if only I knew

Registered: 2008-12-22

Posts: 1,775

Website

Re: Arch for workstation-laptop

Also, if your laptop is powerful enough to run vista then why don't you stick windows where it belongs - in virtualbox (or qemu or vmware). That way you can have the best of both worlds

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never trust a toad...
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