Linux Ideas - Just the Desktop

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davidwolsen
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Linux Ideas - Just the Desktop

#1

Post by davidwolsen »

First, I am not promoting the Linux operating system or any of its distributions. Secondly, in future posts, I just going to talk about how beginning to advanced Linux users can create a unique and appealing desktop of the true gospel of Jesus Christ. I will share how I accomplished this task using the Ubuntu distribution. I will also discuss how to install windows church oriented software to Ubuntu.
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marianomarini
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#2

Post by marianomarini »

Did you test also MLS with wine?
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Life is a endless lesson of humility (Anonimous).
davidwolsen
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The answer to your MLS and wine question

#3

Post by davidwolsen »

marianomarini wrote:Did you test also MLS with wine?

I have not tested MLS with wine. However, wine will only install one Windows .exe (program) at a time; therefore, wine will not work because MLS requires that you install "other" software for it to run.
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marianomarini
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#4

Post by marianomarini »

So, when you say "church oriented software", what do you mean? Alternate soft for Linux?
La vita è una lezione interminabile di umiltà (Anonimo).
Life is a endless lesson of humility (Anonimous).
davidwolsen
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Sorry I meant...

#5

Post by davidwolsen »

I am sorry I meant KJV of the Bible verse Windows software I install using Wine. I never have found the scriptures or any other kind of gospel software for the Linux. I use MLS as second assistant to my High Priest group leader and I really do not think you can install it with Wine. I think I made a little mistake posting here. Thank you for your understanding.
russellhltn
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#6

Post by russellhltn »

davidwolsen wrote:I use MLS as second assistant to my High Priest group leader and I really do not think you can install it with Wine.

Testing would be problematic at best. I don't think you could do much except see if it works with the test data without violating church policies on not using ward data on personal machines. Unfortunately the test data would not allow you to test and see if you could send/receive or download patches. Bottom line, I don't think that's a project suitable for the community.

However, I think davidwolsen point is to create a LDS theme for personal use where there's no problems with church policy.
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marianomarini
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#7

Post by marianomarini »

I use Ubuntu on my laptop and it work fine with almost all church related soft, both proprietary or free. So I was wondering to what davidwolsen really mean.
La vita è una lezione interminabile di umiltà (Anonimo).
Life is a endless lesson of humility (Anonimous).
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mdyoung
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#8

Post by mdyoung »

RussellHltn wrote:Testing would be problematic at best. I don't think you could do much except see if it works with the test data without violating church policies on not using ward data on personal machines. Unfortunately the test data would not allow you to test and see if you could send/receive or download patches. Bottom line, I don't think that's a project suitable for the community.

However, I think davidwolsen point is to create a LDS theme for personal use where there's no problems with church policy.
I have tested MLS (3.3.1) under Wine (1.2.2). Before the 3.3.1 release there were a number of problems that caused MLS to not run well under wine. Currently, the 3.3.1 release seems to run without any of those previous problems and installs without any difficulties.

I am not a software developer but isn't MLS a java based program? If so, it would be trivial to implement MLS on any operating system.

I think the idea of Linux based church software is very appealing. The church wouldn't even have to create some type of customized distro like Sabily (Islamic Ubuntu). All I would want would be a church repository from which I could access church software like scriptures etc.
jdlessley
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#9

Post by jdlessley »

mdyoung wrote:I have tested MLS (3.3.1) under Wine (1.2.2). Before the 3.3.1 release there were a number of problems that caused MLS to not run well under wine. Currently, the 3.3.1 release seems to run without any of those previous problems and installs without any difficulties.
So how were you able to fully test MLS on a non-Church computer without violating Church policies? As Russell stated there is more to the full functionality of MLS that is not testable on an installation on a non-administrative computer. The Send/Receive function depends on another program, UDX. How were you able to test that program? Or rather how were you able to test whether the Send/Receive functionality worked?
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mdyoung
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#10

Post by mdyoung »

That is a good point. I used the test data which avoids violating church policy.
11. Ensure that priesthood leaders and clerks do
not install Church record-keeping software
on their home computers, except for training
purposes using test data, and that they do not
reverse-engineer record-keeping software
code.
It seems that the rules where somewhat more stringent between 2005 and 2009, however as of the 2009 Policies and Guidelines for Computers Used by Clerks for Church Record Keeping it is okay to install MLS on personal computers for training purposes (and I am a Ward Clerk).

From Installing MLS (another forum post) I read that,
When MLS normally does a Send/Receive, it uses a Windows-specific communication component (Afaria). This makes MLS run only on Windows at this point, even though the rest of it is Java and so would probably run on Linux and other platforms.

However, if you are running MLS with test data (ward #108 or stake #2224445), MLS does not actually do any transmission when you select the Send/Receive option. Rather it simulates the Send/Receive and creates a couple of messages in the MLS message list. Thus the Afaria client is not actually used when you are using the test data, so that dependency is not an obstacle to running under Linux if you only want to use test data.

The installation program for MLS does install the Afaria client, so I imagine you would get some errors if you tried to run the install on a non-Windows platform, and thus the current packaging of MLS does depend on Windows.
I wasn't aware that the test data "send receive" is a simulated transmission which doesn't actually communicate with church HQ, which is good to know since newer audit forms come down via the "send receive" function and without it you are stuck with the older audit forms unless you have access to a unit's machine.

It is interesting that you don't get any errors when installing MLS on a non-Windows machine, though if I were to try again I would now pay closer attention to the terminal to ensure that there aren't any silent errors. I do wonder if Afaria (or other communications clients like UDX) is being installed and if it would work though obviously I shouldn't and won't test that since it requires actual data.

Anyway, what I had intended for the post was that MLS, at least the part which doesn't depend on the communication software like Afaria, is working better then it had before the 3.3 release.

And while I find it interesting to speculate on what implementing Linux might be like, I generally agree with WelchTC who said in MLS=Windows!,
While I think that it is nice to find the advantages and disadvantages of different solutions, let's leave this topic for our IT department to handle. Different operating systems tend to be polarizing and debating the merits of the different OS's is outside the scope of this website.
What I personally think would be very interesting is what the original poster had in mind and that is customizing your desktop environment to reflect your needs as a member. I think the Church could provide a PPA repository with software not unlike what it provides for mobile devices like the iphone and android smart phones. I would be very interested in having applications like "Gospel Library" and especially "LDS Tools" available in the desktop environment though I understand the real advantages of these tools is having them on the go.

I haven't tried this yet, but you could try installing "LDS View" through wine and that would provide you a very robust "Gospel Library" like feature for Linux.

I think a really good question is what would you want to have on your computer to help in your church service and personal religious life that is provided on Windows and not on Linux?
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