Kudos for your persistence in getting Cisco VPN working... I didn't have the patience for that. Partly that was because I also had a mac at home, and there was a readily available client for the Mac... so I just couldn't make myself keep at it.
I'm a big Ubuntu fan, though. If I wind up getting a new laptop that is not an Apple, that (or some other Linux distro, if I'm feeling adventurous) is what would wind up installed on it...
Jake
· 1 year ago
Thanks. I had a hefty amount of Rich's help with the VPN stuff. I don't want my Macbook to be used too much for work though, but that line has blurred more in the past few years.
One thing I do prefer so far is OpenOffice to MS Office on the Mac. I really dislike using MS Office on the Mac; it's too jarring for me. I find OpenOffice to be pretty seamless on Ubuntu.
I'm still working out the kinks, but I do like it much better than XP.
Oh yeah, how's the new gig?
philcrissman
· 1 year ago
I agree on MS Office for the Mac... I do have NeoOffice (Mac port of OpenOffice) installed, but for most things I actually tend to use Google Apps, now.
The new gig is going great, thanks! I'm working with a group with a lot of Rails experience; I really couldn't have asked for a better opportunity to get started digging deeper into Rails, so somehow I think I really lucked out here.
I'll try to stay tuned to what's up with AppsLab; what you guys are doing is still (to me, at least) the most interesting stuff going on at Oracle. Good luck!
Jake
· 1 year ago
Yeah, I use Google Docs for a lot now, but for all that legacy stuff we all keep around, just in case, I need an office suite.
Glad to hear you're liking the new gig. I hear that Rails thing may catch on someday :)
Thanks for staying with us after you left.
Tom
· 1 year ago
Try, "sudo apt-get install vpnc".
That should install a GUI based VPN client that will connect to Cisco. Give it a shot. I used it because getting the Cisco-Linux VPN client to work was a major pain.
Jake
· 1 year ago
Thanks. I've seen that suggested a few places. There's someone internally who says he's got something in a GUI for Cisco; may be the same thing, but due to the Oracle-specific scripts, etc. I'm hesitant to jump in without checking out his solution first.
CLI version isn't that bad.
manalang
· 1 year ago
the gui for cisco VPN is gvpndialer. Google it. The bad part us you have to compile from source and from what I remember I had to symlink some libs in order to get it compiled.
Vpvc doesn't work with oracle's VPN concentrators... I spent many hours trying to get vpnc working.
manalang
· 1 year ago
btw -- I use cli script that uses "expect" to automate the login. It also auto sets the proxy settings systemwide. Let me know if you're interested.
Jake
· 1 year ago
I'm interested, gvpndialer sounds good, like an adventure.
oraclebase
· 1 year ago
Hi.
I think there's an element of emperors new clothes about reinstalling a machine. When I switched from CentOS 5 to Ubuntu 8 on one of my boxes I lived on it for a few days. After that I realized no matter what OS I run I spend 99% of my time in Firefox and virtual machines, so the OS doesn't really matter for me. Now it's just another box I use, rather than my preferred box.
Although I agree that Ubuntu has come a long way in terms of ease of use, I think one of the biggest things that's helped Linux on the desktop is the fact we do more stuff online these days. This frees us up from the constraints of the environment.
Cheers
Tim...
Jake
· 1 year ago
Another solid point, although for me, having a Mac and now a Linux box means I can dabble more easily in development. Not that XP prevented that, but the tools we use are very Mac/Linux friendly.
Frankly, for now it's a new toy, and even though I spend most of my time in a browser, I'm enjoying messing about with it.
manalang
· 1 year ago
check out gnome-do... Google it. It's one of my favorite productivity enhancements to Ubuntu.
Jake
· 1 year ago
Very cool, will check it out tomorrow. I still have a bunch of stuff to do, but I think it's going pretty well, except for displays.
megbear
· 1 year ago
for next time, I've recently found the web vpn information at ORCL so if you have trouble with Cisco that can be a work around. Let me know if you don't have that already and are interested.
Jake
· 1 year ago
Yeah, that's how I got to the instructions :) Again, thanks to Rich for providing that a while back for emergencies.
All Comments
I'm a big Ubuntu fan, though. If I wind up getting a new laptop that is not an Apple, that (or some other Linux distro, if I'm feeling adventurous) is what would wind up installed on it...
One thing I do prefer so far is OpenOffice to MS Office on the Mac. I really dislike using MS Office on the Mac; it's too jarring for me. I find OpenOffice to be pretty seamless on Ubuntu.
I'm still working out the kinks, but I do like it much better than XP.
Oh yeah, how's the new gig?
The new gig is going great, thanks! I'm working with a group with a lot of Rails experience; I really couldn't have asked for a better opportunity to get started digging deeper into Rails, so somehow I think I really lucked out here.
I'll try to stay tuned to what's up with AppsLab; what you guys are doing is still (to me, at least) the most interesting stuff going on at Oracle. Good luck!
Glad to hear you're liking the new gig. I hear that Rails thing may catch on someday :)
Thanks for staying with us after you left.
That should install a GUI based VPN client that will connect to Cisco. Give it a shot. I used it because getting the Cisco-Linux VPN client to work was a major pain.
CLI version isn't that bad.
Vpvc doesn't work with oracle's VPN concentrators... I spent many hours trying to get vpnc working.
I think there's an element of emperors new clothes about reinstalling a machine. When I switched from CentOS 5 to Ubuntu 8 on one of my boxes I lived on it for a few days. After that I realized no matter what OS I run I spend 99% of my time in Firefox and virtual machines, so the OS doesn't really matter for me. Now it's just another box I use, rather than my preferred box.
Although I agree that Ubuntu has come a long way in terms of ease of use, I think one of the biggest things that's helped Linux on the desktop is the fact we do more stuff online these days. This frees us up from the constraints of the environment.
Cheers
Tim...
Frankly, for now it's a new toy, and even though I spend most of my time in a browser, I'm enjoying messing about with it.