Topic: Which Linux today?

Okay, I am fed up.

I hate Windows, and Windows hates me. It's not a software aimed at users anyway : it's painful to configure, intrusive on the simplest windows updates,
slowing down to a crawl when I relocate several files at the same times.

I like Mac OS X. It's user friendly and ubber geek friendly. It's what I pay for : a stable software that lets me control my computer, and makes things easier to me,
not the other way round.

I want a Linux on my non-Mac-OS compliant devices.

But which flavor? I would like to run XGL on it, possibly get decent ATI/Nvidia drivers, play video, develop, keep my Windows in some angles for times when I feel suicidal.

Ubuntu? Suze? A Debian? Which one should I opt for?

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But which flavor? I would like to run XGL on it, possibly get decent ATI/Nvidia drivers, play video, develop, keep my Windows in some angles for times when I feel suicidal.

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All of that's going to be the same on any distro - some might make it slightly easier to set up, but if you know how to read, it's not going to matter.

IMO Debian, Gentoo, and Slackware are the only distributions worth using. Virtually all other distributions fall into two categories: (1) they suck (this includes distros that have RPM package managers, & distros with lame commercial tendencies [Red Hat, SUSE]), (2) they're derivatives of other distros.

For a new person, I recommend Debian, but it's pretty easy to do your own research and choose one yourself. In the end they're all the same, it's mostly going to come down to the community, and the package manager.

If you do end up doing some research, don't overlook the BSDs.

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but if you know how to read, it's not going to matter.

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Errr... no, I don't. What did you say already?

Wow, bad antialiasing.

Hmmm... I may sound wack, but since I can't read I am pretty safe posting away newbie questions.

>> & distros with lame commercial tendencies

Ok, why are they lame, style concerns aside? Suse sounds sexy, it is named after a known beverage, and opensuse has the noble goal
of making it simple.

Ubuntu and it's derivatives are my recommendation, Although I've not tried the Linux distros mentioned by Reisio, Ubuntu has been the most new-user-friendly than any other distro I have tried.

Comes with all the software, hardware detection is usually straightforward, will work with XGL/Beryl whatever. The only thing you'll have to set up pretty much is getting some Microsoft fonts and mp3 playback, and that's dead easy the support forums tell you everything you need to know.

Ubuntu is based on Debian however, so Reisio is probably giving you the best advice, I'd compare them both and see which suits you best.

Let us know how you get on.

Cheers,

I am a bit stubborn in addition. Just a tad.

POSIX compliance sounds good. But how good exactly? Does that posix thing bake toasts for me?
BSD sounds very safe, very academic, a total bore.

...The concept here is "pluck your cd made from iso, start install, have 80% of your devices recognized and installed, and use right away" or as close as I can get. Now what happens to which distro in the field of high end hardware like gfx adapters?

What happens to killer video codec packs?
What happens to wine?
Which one is a pain in the behind to boot (long boot times)?

In other words, reisio's core know how is interesting here, why would you favor a distro more than another?

Ubuntu:
put cd in drive ..install..find 80%-90% of hardware boots relativly fast and i was surprised of how nice it worked from the start. we had world of warcraft running on it ..worked fine so graphics should not be a problem. wine should be set up rather easy.

so as a beginner i'd choose ubuntu

I'd hafta raise another flag for Ubuntu, it really easy outstanding for beginners. It *is* based on Debian so things will be- well, Debian rocks, even if it is like a brick wall sometimes. If you need any help, hop on over to UbuntuForums. I often hang out on their IRC channel #ubuntuforums on Freenode (if you need help with IRC, that's a whole 'nother thread).

Trust me, once you see how drop dead easy the install is on Feisty, you'll never think of Linux the same. It has its quirks, but you knew that.

If you tell me what hardware ya got, we can find out how compatible you are. I'll affront you that NVidia *always* trumps ATI on the Linux driver front.

The codec thing is not really a problem. When you load a video in some codec, Totem will automatically ask to download the codec. Some are bitchy (WMV), but time will tell.. everyone having all the codecs is a pretty new thing on Linux.

Wine is, well, Wine. Many things will run just fine, some after some hammering, and some will not even get close. For some things, CrossOver Office (for office apps) and Cedega (for gaming) will make things easier (both are 'for pay'). I've some details on Installing Photoshop on Linux with CrossOver Office 5.0.3

Ubuntu takes its time to boot, mostly because of all the services it loads on startup. I've heard it's trivially easy to configure for faster booting, but I've never gotten around to actually doing it. My stopwatch on my cell phone says 2:56 for Ubuntu vs. 0:35 for WinXP (both from GRUB). Thing is, with WinXP you can use hibernate and stuff to make it load even faster, ACPI on linux (it controls things like hibernate and suspend) is a bit of hit-or-miss depending on the hardware (the board, right?). One of the many reasons it takes a while to boot? It takes *forever* to load CUPS (the print server)- I don?t even have a printer!

POSIX Standards are basically the API that linux is based on. It's the standards interfacing that Unix uses and Linux has always aimed for total POSIX compliance. It has to do with the kernel APIs and commands that are available.

BSD is cool, but it's a little less open than Linux. As a result fewer apps are actually written for the BSDs (but most will work) but the system is super-stable.

When I get a little more time, if you decide on the flavor, I'll post some of my initial config and package stuff. I suggest you use PartitionMagic for partition work, it is the best app I've ever seen for that.

What kinda connection you got, or is the machine a laptop?

On the prehistoric intel front, I have two comps. Both 4-5 years old.

Respectively :
One on Nvidia (GeForce - one of the PCIxpress/AGP models, one on ATI Radeon mobility 9600)
One desktop, one laptop.
One on pentium 4, one on Centrino (don't know the frequency).
Both on motherboards forged by Neanderthals.
Both on deluxe displays.
Both on 500MB Ram.
HD's are probably Sata, 60GB vs 100GB.
Sound cards are cheap.
Connectivity is excellent, usb2 and plenty of internal/external adapters, mostly broadcom, and a wireless buffalo card (G54 I think)
and a wireless d-link usb device, some realtek probably, and a dreaded wireless intel R Pro.

What did I forget? The dvd drives of course! One floppy, two dvds, one rewritable, one read only.

In no particular order.

I'll give ubuntu a shot, I actually am a developer and accustomed to gcc under cygwin or mingw,
I understand POSIX compliance in theory, what I don't understand is the impact... but my guess is that is has an impact
when developping portable device drivers or other software that requires low level operations, or when desigining a file system.

My question about POSIX was more in the vein of "when do I really get to give a damn about POSIX compliance?"

Professional Linux friends seem to shout "Debian" or "Gentoo," I think I will opt for Ubuntu. Feedback about gentoo anyone?
(and thank you everybody).

gotta go- quick answer:
POSIX is important because applications generally work in every operating system... so apps work on every linux distro, on unix, on BSDs, and (sometimes) on Mac.

It's just the interfacing layer between apps. If the interfaces are the same, then I can run Stellarum on all linux's, Unix, and on Mac (and even on Win).

That's why it's important, because everything will work everywhere (everything with POSIX)

Get to the rest of your concerns later...

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argo navis said:

Ok, why are they lame, style concerns aside? Suse sounds sexy, it is named after a known beverage, and opensuse has the noble goalof making it simple.

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SUSE is Novell's Red Hat (and Fedora Core), which would be lame enough (Red Hat basically betrayed its entire user base by jumping from a free distro to a commercial one), but on top of that Novell is also allied with Microsoft. Also both lean towards RPM, widely accepted as a shoddy choice.

Sounds good enough to me - about POSIX, indeed, I had experience with simple libraries that strangely enough, worked on linux, unix and osx
- the code was relatively small though.

Thanks all, will try ubuntu. XGL looks quite cool. I will pop back to ask for interesting Linux software,
which will make for a nice knowledge base about Linux for beginners.

...Oh, yeah, ONE piece of software that I absolutely need is worms world party. Anybody is aware of a Linux version compatible,
network-wise, with Windows/DOS versions?

Quickie : since all the above sounds true and is useful, I chose ubuntu with KDE on top, in a Kubuntu bundle.

Now, once I have repartitioned my laptop for multiple boot drvies, I will install it and :

How to install XGL on Kubuntu on ATI gpus
Some of the best Linux applications

Feel free to add tips and stuff. First apps I will install once I am ready are FireFox, Java (not sure which VM and how),
OpenOffice and Wine.

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argo navis said:

Oh, yeah, ONE piece of software that I absolutely need is worms world party. Anybody is aware of a Linux version compatible, network-wise, with Windows/DOS versions?

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http://www.google.com/search?q=%22worms%20world%20party%22%20site%3Aappdb.winehq.org
http://packages.ubuntu.com/cgi-bin/search_packages.pl?keywords=dosbox&searchon=names&subword=1&version=feisty&release=all

quick note : if you go with Ubuntu, use the box with the nVidia card. using ATI with ubuntu (and maybe other linux distros) has been a nightmare for me.

Later,

C:\

Nah, my little kubuntu worked and works a threat, simply. Reisio, lovely.

Install went this way (maybe due to the partnership between Dell and ubuntu) : burn iso, dvd autoruns on Windows to offer testing of some famous opensource apps (Firefox, Thunderbird..).

Reboot on dvd (or cd, basically it is a 700MB cd image), ubuntu starts fine. One icon on the desktop : "install".

Only 3GB non partitioned space available, I click "install". The installer asks me five questions, one being "how do you want to partition..".
I leave it up to the installer to decide, I am a bitch at times (at the risk of losing some existing files).

I have yet to understand HOW it did that, I think it resized an NTFS partition or something, in order to create it's 3 partitions.
Anyhow, 10-15 minutes later, the install is over.

I reboot : ALL my devices have been identified, my external wireless adapter still has a couple of difficulties but..

ATI drivers installed great, those that work with XGL in addition. OpenGL screensavers are shiny. Some tweaking with the display,
I find my display in the "by constructor" hardware list and...

I am done.



I wish any Windows install would be as professional, transparent and confortable. Now I have to :
- setup XGL
- tweak and test my wireless drivers
- install Wine and move a couple of apps over
- install FF, Java, and some web stuff
- install codecs for divx and xvid

Then I can quietly redo the partitioning to have a common FAT partition (but I may simply define some Samba shares or something).

All in all, this thing ROCKS. Will keep you posted.

your experience is quite the same as my one whas. good to see your liking it

keep us up to date

cu

I have a fat32 partition for sharing- I find it easiest to settle the partition stuff and then reinstall both OS's. By the way, the maximum size of a fat32 partition is about 196GB- learned that the hard way...

Question: Why do you need wireless drivers on a desktop?

"maybe due to the partnership between Dell and ubuntu"- what are you talking about? The OpenCD Project has been around since at least early 2005.

This is my little laundry list whenever setting up Linux:

Enable metaverses

Add the Medibuntu repositories
Medibuntu is a packaging project dedicated to distributing software that cannot be included in Ubuntu for various reasons, related to geographical variations in legislation regarding intellectual property, security and other issues.

Can't compile anything without this package: build-essential
Contains gcc, make, etc...

My wifi chooser was this: Wifiradar, but the stock Network Applet (I believe that's what it's called) is pretty good about it nowadays. It's what's running on my laptop...

Install these for movies:
vlc
mplayer and mencoder

NVIDIA drivers and Envy
If you're not an NVidia boi, don't worry about the NVidia drivers. However, take a good long look at Envy. Don't know anything about ATI except some bad Juju- good luck.

All this stuff and others used to give me this huge line to run as root:
apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras vlc mplayer mencoder w32codecs build-essential xchat frozen-bubble chromium xmms banshee libdvdnav4 libdvdplay0 libdvdread3 libxine1-ffmpeg xchat-gnome libdvdnav4 libdvdplay0 libdvdread3 libxine1-ffmpeg envy generic-mouse-server

more visualizations for totem- apt-get install libvisual*

frozen-bubble and chromium are games, but the old version of Frozen Bubble was much better. I use Chromium to test out if my video card is giving me love.

I perfer xchat-gnome to xchat, but YMMV- especially on KDE.

Banshee is an iTunes-like music app.

I explained Envy above- look at the page to see if you need it.

That w32codecs is all of the codecs, though Totem will prompt you to download decoders for anything you don't have. Totem is for Gnome, however, but there'll probably be some similar function in KDE.

Add k3b to that for CD/DVD burning. It rocks, but I've never had to use it (well, recently- used to use it a lot).

After all that is set up, I will probably spend 6 weeks at http://www.kde-look.org/ downloading every theme, icon pack, wallpaper, window decoration, and other misc. crap I don't need...

You need to go to Really Slick Screensavers and download the "Helios" screensaver. You'll never take your eyes off of the screen again...

Other fun packages include:
Stellarium - Look into the night sky
Celestia - Navigate the universe
Open Arena - Quake ]|[ Arena clone
Blender - though I would kill for 3D Studio Max
Look at my earlier post about installing Photoshop because the GIMP never quite did it for me.

Keep in mind that all of these packages can be installed by checking the boxes in the Synaptic GUI, but I perfer typing all of that and going out for some nachos while it works. Also keep in mind that you can only run apt-get as root- so either type "sudo apt-get blah blah blah <return> password" or type "su <return> password <return> apt-get blah blah blah". Note that some people frown upon the second one, but it's the only way I do it.

Get XGL and Beryl or Compiz working and it will blow your screen away. Though I must admit it gets old really fast and I don't have it on right now.

Welcome to Ubuntu, argo. Ask any other questions right here or email me at petskull in the gmail-ness..

P.S. Isn't that installer to die for?

Thank you, I will post the questions here "for further reference".

>> Question: Why do you need wireless drivers on a desktop?

Basically, it's a laptop. But the desktop is on wireless as well : cable modem = expansive and not very practicle wiring. Wireless is much better.

>> what are you talking about? The OpenCD Project has been around since at least early 2005

I am talking drivers. Last time I installed a Suse, some 2 years ago, it was whining about drivers. Support for that is much better now.

For ATI, I am confident, XGL has been tested on ATI as well, and tested to work with my GPU, I *will* need to read but really, that's ok.

And thank you for the application list, will be useful during the few nights I need to make this new OS my home.

And yeah, the installer is completely stunning, by far the best piece of software I've seen in a while.

I got Beryl (XGL) up and running on my Xubuntu installation on an ATI card without any trouble what so ever, I didn't even have to install drivers, I used the defaults that Xubuntu detected for me.

The Ubuntu forums gave me everything I needed to know.

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Blaise said:

I got Beryl (XGL) up and running on my Xubuntu installation on an ATI card without any trouble what so ever, I didn't even have to install drivers, I used the defaults that Xubuntu detected for me.The Ubuntu forums gave me everything I needed to know.

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Glad to hear you all didn't have any issues with ATI and Kubuntu. I finally just gave up and put the nVidia card back in. I have an ATI Raedeon if anyone would like it hmmm....it could be because it was PCI Express?

Later,

C:\

A very timely thread for me, thanks argo navis and a belated welcome too.
I've just built, or more precisely, watched a friend build my new computer (Dual Core AMD 64bit loads of gigs - not raided). and during the whole process I debated what OS to install. After reading this thread I'm going to make a big Partition and install (probably) Ubunto to take it on a trial run.
Excellent heads up Petskull, if I wasn't persuaded by the sheer enthusiasm and humour in your post (and I was), then the "blow your screen away" link had me drooling.
I'm off for a more detailed search of all the links provided.

::tao:::: ::cell::
[flippin' 'eck] My typing skills plummet when using a laptop[/flippin' 'eck]

(Edited by Tao on 07-25-2007 22:51)

Glad this thread is helping make enthusiasts.

I am having my first problems though But will it discourage me? Naaaah.

When configuring the xorg.conf file for fglrx drivers, I got to reinstalling the system a couple of times because I basically killed my x server,
and wasn't able to restore it to a working config easilly, didn't make backups - my bad.

It seems that there are several approaches to getting the fglrx drivers to work properly, and in spite of the original speed
of my OpenGL screen savers, it wasn't working well or at all earlier.

It still isn't.

But I have few more approaches on those real nice ubuntu forums on my hands to help, plus feedback from all around the world
that my gpu may be made to work, so, for further reference.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=191944
edit : FGLRX wikki and compatibility chart

While we're at it, Wine installed beautifully as it is integrated in the systems control, and the visual package manager (upgrades)
is very nice too.

(Edited by argo navis on 07-26-2007 09:44)

Ok- I've just read your post 6 times and I don't understand-

Are you saying that you X isn't booting? or that it's not running fast?

Did you look at Envy? It's not just for NVidia drivers anymore. I wouldn't set up my drivers without Envy, 'cause I'm lazy like that.

Failing that, what I would do is ask on the #UbuntuForums IRC channel (Freenode). They will demand a feeling that you've done your homework, but they're lots of help. If you don't know what IRC is, let me know (Not an insult, lots of people have lost touch with IRC nowadays).

Petskull, you've been my guardian pet-angel all through the issue, I am sexy but I don't have
an ego large enough to overlook good constructive advice - no offense taken, even us youngsters know good old farts IRC ,)

For some reason, my X serv crashes mysteriously after updating the drivers and rebooting, but something went very wrong while updating the drivers - now how to get it right is the current question, and there are methods for this allover the web.

Anyway, off to continue, the more I see video of Compiz, the more I want it.

quote:

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argo navis said:

the more I see video of Compiz, the more I want it.

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It wears off

Later,

C:\

Maybe yes, maybe no, it's SO fast as a windows manager.

Good news : some struggle with the fglrx drivers and I am there.
It turns out my setup had all the quirks mentionned here : https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/ATI

So step by step, I followed the guidelines and finally got the dri module to load - so now my Windows wiggle.
But I am having a couple more troubles, this is, after all, expected.

Wine works great, xgl and opengl too, internet too, so far, so so good. In the process of setting up xgl, I set up xmodmap to remap so keys, following given guidelines
from one of the links above. But I can use my shortcuts to some xgl features, for example Alt+Tab, but I cannot get the cube desktop for example, it won't start, seemingly independently
from the key combination I use.

It's a Beryl/Compiz merge I am using, the latest version of both being a fusion.

Anyone, any idea on what may be going on here?

I want to play with the cube not only for the sake of playing, but I really do find it useful to be able to quickly switch desktops and glance at one while working on another,
this also connects to the thread about GUI, I like my desktop GUI to be 3d, it seems I can use that.

Ok, the experience is a *BLAST*.

@Tao : thank you for the welcome, and just install both OS's, you may end up using Kubuntu
as the primary OS and emulating apps from the old 'doz through Wine or some other solution,
and booting in Windows every once in a while.

What I have to say about Ubuntu in an almost ordered way :
1) The installer is amazingly simple, installation is so sexy I would reinstall just for the fun of it.
2) I had early issues with ATI drivers but now everything is perfect, I just followed step-by-step guidelines
to solve it - took me two evenings, but it was the only quirk.
3) Multitasking is wonderful : I kill 20 apps, the system remains stable.
4) All wizards and monitoring tool are at the same time complete, and simple.
5) XGL makes Windows sexy and too fast to handle.
6) I was able to run PHOTOSHOP CS 2 using Wine with the default config. Worms still has major issues.
7) I am on Firefox right now
8) All my IM accounts are now integrated in ONE IM agent
9) Security is far superior, I am user all the time except the few times I need root privileges and the system prompts me for a password.
10) Downlads and moving files is transparent.
11) All my NTFS partitions are listed and I can freely go pick a Windows app and start it using Wine, and the likes. WITH FEISTY FAWN I DON'T EVEN NEED A FAT PARTITION.

Don't know why or how, but it reads/writes NTFS beautifully.

I am completely stunned. I am 90% of the time on Feisty Fawn now, I don't need Windows anymore,
I had little difficulties installing, and everything is far more flexible and usable and stable
and powerful than it was on Windows XP.

So long Microsoft - I see the same gap between IE and Firefox as between Windows - any version -
and Ubuntu.

This thing rules, I am in love with my OS again - it finally FEELS like I am using my computer parts fully.

Thanks a lot everybody.

(Edited by argo navis on 07-28-2007 14:41)

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argo navis said:

I had little difficulties installing

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that's part of the fun Is this your first experience with Linux? If so, sounds like yours went a lot smoother than mine. I started with Slackware 8 way back when. That was a pain to install and get running but when you did, it stayed running.

quote:

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argo navis said:

I was able to run PHOTOSHOP CS 2 using Wine

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I'm a bit surprised to hear this. I was never successful in getting CS2 to run on Edgy. I still haven't upgraded to Fiesty yet though. Did you get Compiz running? I used Beryl for a while and loved the cube and the Emerald window manager. all that other stuff I disabled though. Took a toll on my piece of poo poo graphics card.

Glad you are having fun with it. Don't know if you are a web programmer of sorts but if you are, check out Quanta. It is one of the best editors out there IMHO. Just jammed packed with features.

Later,

C:\

Not my first experience no.
I am a developer, mainly in C/C++, but I am proficient regarding web technologies as well.

I tried Suse two years ago and it sucked. Big time.

Feisty is not running yet 100% as I want it, it seems I broke one of the sun java packages and this is now getting
in the way when I try to install other apps. XGL is installed and working, but a bit unstable still.

When I tried to install Compiz, probably due to the recent merge of the two, it's Beryl that came, so I get part of the juice and effects, I get the very fast display namely and wobbly Windows, but not the cube yet. Have added that to my "to make stable" list

As for Photoshop CS2 9, it is slow, sometimes it crashes, but it works, gotta love that :
Photoshop CS2 on Kubuntu/Wine

More of that funky stuff. Spooky. I overcame the Java package issue easily. I don't know what to say,
Windows XP feels awkward right now.

Some more pictures...
http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?id=10699946@N08&lang=en-us&format=rss_200

This is downright scary. The way this OS works, and since I cared to "read" and didn't bail on small
problems, the more I go, the better it gets. I am a total believer.

I am really under the gun and I will be for several days. Just wanted to let you know that I'm reading this thread intently. Please keep posting all of your experiences exploring the OS and its apps.

By the way- you try "Right-click-on-Titlebar > Always on Top", yet?

... And change your desktop names, noob! I only have 2- 'Alpha' and 'Omega'.. just in case, "Ctrl+Alt+Left" to change desktops

Noticed the wifi icon, but what's that icon next to it with the exclamation point?

seriously- 4AM? (Step 1) Find a woman (Step 2) Keep her

Hmmm... step 1 is covered, eventhough I still cannot read, not even the freaking manual,
I am getting married in October this year - so don't get me started on Step 2 (actually Ms. Navis is abroad right now).

I got all of the early quirks fixed : mainly, I was using a bad blend of gnome dedicated control panels,
and parallel versions of compiz/beryl. Reverted to the latest version of Compiz which fixed almost
all the problems I had previously - but will probably try the unstable "compiz fusion" soon.

Sooo....

Right now, Worms world party works on Wine, thanks to reisio - gotta patch it further myself to fix a couple of minor quirks.

All Compiz classics work like a charm : cube, water, and the various flavors of application switchers, which I find so useful - really, several desktops, two keys to switch, a dream with style. Wobbly windows are so useless... but so sexy, still.

NTFS works, but read only - my bad, I was wrong when I thought it worked in write mode as well.

All my usual dev tools work.

Divx, Xvid, Windows Media everything, MP3, DVDs, ogg.. work like a charm in VLC media player.

Firefox works perfectly - as well as Flash 9.

Several Java VM run smoothly side by side, and I tried some extreme cases of Java applications that ran
faster than in XP, like, a LOT faster - rendering complex fractal sets for instance.

The alert you see is my "adept package manager", an update avail. notification, for the synaptics packman is broken, for some reason.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

My impressions :

* multitasking is now something REAL to me, run 3 videos side by side, push the system, push further, it remains stable, all videos remain there, I can cube-rotate my desktop all the way and videos remain fluid, as well as sound.
SYSTEM LAGS DO NOT EXIST IN THIS KIND OF OS.

* There is nothing that I could do in Windows and cannot do here - aside a couple of game quirks. And there is nothing that does not feel better here.

* updating or installing is so easy through the package managers or utilities : I *wish* add/remove app in Windows would prompt me with 12'000 installable apps, among which Eclipse, Firefox, etc..

* Search (locate) options work instantly in Linux, or almost.

* One of my main concerns, parallel files moving, is now FAST.

* Everything I/O is fast : downloads, bittorrent, file copying, burning...

* Everything feels secure, and in a non-intrusive way : when I run sensitive tasks, I am prompted for the root password. Bye-bye spyware.

* I am watching some youtube demos of Beryl right now for instance, have loaded "Usual suspects" in VLC.

* Pet's tips make for a great reference.

So, I got something way more powerful than Windows XP, more robust and faster, I wasn't really accustomed to Unix/Linux five days ago, this one is free, and the user interface blows "Aero" and Vista away - as well as early driver detection, with the exception of the ATI drivers.

All this happens on a computer which did not pass the "Vista compliance test"

...Actually, Billy and his attempts at software are forever marked Z-- at my "customer respect-o-meter" and "human beings compliance test", for no version of Windows that I tested is anywhere near a match to
how my computer feels right now - it's as if I had plugged 1GB additional Ram or a brand new motherboard.

...

But as far as "Alpha" and "Omega" are concerned, I am mixed : what do you think of "Tinky Winky",
"Laa Laa", "Po" and "Dipsy (king)"?

cool. got it running nicely I'd say. A couple days late, but here is a guide on getting Compiz-Fusion running in 10 minutes on Fiesty.

Saw it on Digg

Later,

C:\

Better late than never, just an update before I hop over to the burning man thread :

- I added the repositories linked in your tut, Cprompt, upgraded from them while removing some useless compiz packages (compiz-gnome namely)
and guess what? I have flames, expo, etc.. all compiz-fusion plugins active and working. It fixed a couple of minor glitches also, with plugins load order, which I previously had to specify manually.

While 50% of compiz is eye candy, some features are so useful.

- I have probs with Envy, although my drivers are working like a charm. Have to dig into system logs, but Envy and Synaptics manager do never start, go figure.

Please keep this thread alive!

I will probably be needing it soon, as I switch.

There is no way I am going to install Win Vista on my PCs!

WebShaman | The keenest sorrow (and greatest truth) is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
- Sophocles

Okay. I will try to collect a bunch of good how-to's in an upcoming post, and will fill up my flickr space
with snapshots of my so sexy desktop.

Sooooo.... for the sake of keeping this thread alive and documenting lots,
here is a "fresh Ubuntu installation guide for the noob (like me)".

PICKING A LINUX
============

In favor of Ubuntu :
- designed to be user friendly
- supported to an extent by Dell
- based on Debian and the .deb packaging model

Unix/Linux basics, you get a kernel (OS core), a filesystem (drives), and a shell (text-type interface) with each version.
On top of that, GNU distributions include a set of basic apps.
On top of that, recent Linuxes offer graphical interfaces, among which the popular KDE and Gnome.

Knowing some shell commands is useful, but not required.

My general and basic understanding of Linux distinguishes three major "branches" to the family :
- deb / Debian based (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu..) - packages are fast to download, easy to install, and result in stable stuff that works.
- rpm / Red Hat based - less stable when I tried it, a couple of years ago.
- BSD, Berkeley software license, they go under a very heavy review process between each new release.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PICKING A DESKTOP ENVIRONMENT
=========================

KDE vs Gnome is a matter of choice / philosophy.
Gnome tends towards less redundancy. KDE tends towards Windows like windowing,
contextual menus with options available in several places.

Interesting comparison of KDE and Gnome

Theory says there is not such a thing as a Gnome only app or KDE only app, in theory they can be exchanged,
BUT I have seen Gnome made apps refuse to start on my KDE, and generally,
it seems better to stick with one or the other, as settings and config files and locations may vary a bit namely.

With this in mind, if you opt for KDE, then opt for Kubuntu : it is the distro I chose, and it works a threat so far.

INSTALLATION AND PARTITIONNING
==========================

Ubuntu and Kubuntu, and other flavors of Linux, generally come as iso images of bootable CDs/DVDs.
These will take care of installation as transparently as a Windows CD would do (at least). They allow repartitionning,
and seemless resizing of partitions.

However, if you can afford pre-partitionning your HD, keep in mind that Linux reads NTFS but does not write it,
reads and writes FAT, and that Windows does not read Linux partitions (let alone writing them).
So if you go for dual boot, try a partitionning scheme like :

20GB Windows OS
20GB Linux OS
xxGB Data formatted as Fat
a few MB Linux swap

Again, the installer will assist you when doing this, and you can repartition/remount your drives later on, but the easy way to dual boot seems
to be this. There are plugins in both worlds to extend capabilities, but more software may mean other difficulties, so sticking
with the default sounds good, and preparing your partitionning correctly sounds even better.

(end of part 1...)

GETTING STARTED
=============

First thing, you will want to make this new desktop home. During setup of Kubuntu, you are prompted for user accounts.
The password of the default user account will also work as password for your root user.

Root user is basically the superuser of the whole system, "God in Linux" so to speak.
Don't worry about him for now : the robust security of Ubuntu prompts you for a password each and every time a sensitive task must be performed.

Possible problems and troubleshooting :
--------------------------------------------
LOCALES - the keyboard mapping should be adjusted during setup, however, some keys may be incorrectly assigned,
and prior to logon, you will be on a default locale, most probably with an incomplete or incorrect keymapping. Keep this in mind.

There is a software called xmodmap which allows customization of the keyboard layout, and a variety of pre-made config files
that can be downloaded from the web and independently from your version of Linux. Neato.

NETWORK ACCESS - network cable connection should be pretty seamless. Under KDE/Ubuntu Feisty, the settings for fixed IP can be defined
from "Programs -> System settings -> Network settings". Wireless and encryption may raise other difficulties, regarding the type of keyphrase
in use, etc..

Past the limited system controls, use Network Manager for Linux,
it works a threat.

OTHER SYSTEM SETTINGS - Like the display size can be set through the System settings control panel.

INSTALLING NEW APPLICATIONS - can be done from the "Programs -> System -> Adept Package manager"
or using command line "apt-get" application.

But only one or the other at a time. When installing, both will lock some system resources so try avoiding a kill
while installing something. A graphical manager is easier to use because it allows for less freedom, and checks compatibility
of what it offers. It also contains search features.

Alternatively, the "add/remove programs" panel in Kubuntu allows you to do the same tasks.

The syntax of apt-get in command line, for an install, is :
sudo apt-get install program-name

sudo makes this command run as root (prompts you for password), apt-get is the installer, install is what it should do,
and package name is the name of the software you want to install.

If, however, and install fails and your system resources remain locked there ARE workarounds, don't bail yet, I will document them
in the "troubleshooting" section of this how-to.


And PLEASE RESTART YOUR SYSTEM BETWEEN EACH MAJOR STEP TO DOUBLE CHECK THAT IT WORKS AND IMPROVE OVERALL STABILITY.

Finally, HOW TO INSTALL NETWORK MANAGER ON UBUNTU, IN GRAPHIC MODE OR USING APT-GET

(end of part 2..)

(Edited by argo navis on 08-02-2007 16:52)

I'm back in front of my computer and connection now and I have just downloaded Ubuntu 7.04. I have verified the download with "MD5SUM on Windows" and I am now burning to disk with "Infra Recorder".
It's all a bit unfamiliar and scary. As the image is being written on slow speed I can see a few messages on the Infra Recorder dialogue box saying "This media cannot be written in streaming mode any more" and "If you like to write to 'preformatted RW media try to blank the media first."
I have no idea what all that means but the programme is still writing to disk.
Once this is done, hopefully correctly, I plan to partition my hard drive to install Unbuntu.

Well that was unsettling, just after posting ^that^ I went to the little boys room and when I returned I had a nice blue screen with all sorts of warning on it the only one I managed to write down before my system closed down and restarted was 0x000000D1 0x00000070 0x00000002 0x00000000 0xa8f72DFA

Perhaps I will step off the throttle and read a lot more before proceeding. New things make my head scratchy and my stomach hurt.

Hey, Infra Recorder is just a Windows app which happened to crash, no need to write down
the digits, I don't know anything about those All I know is that if it complains about "the media",
it complains about the dvd in use, saying "it cannot be rewritten once more in streaming mode"
(implying it has been written many times or is preformatted for read/write in a way that prevents further stream write - eg. fast action).

Basically, try either to set your recorder software to erase (blank) the dvd (media) first,
or another cd/dvd (media).

I just try to speak nerdy when I am face to face with weird error boxes.

Well it looks like i've been stopped in my tracks before I begun. My DVD-RW will not work after that last attempt to burn to disk.
Sod it, I'm going back to DOS 6:22

That was a weird CD problem.
So this is the first stage of the install and I am writing this using Firefox in Ubuntu. Yeah... Just wanted to let you know what stage I'm up to. I'm off to carry on with the install. Fingers crossed.

We're in and up and running. Completed the install and 104 updates, without a single hitch. It's getting a little late here in Blighty and I've an early start in the morning, but I think I'll have another look through this thread and follow the links to some more goodies.

Very good In the meantime I will document the "install XGL/Compiz" part of my mini-tut.
Although you can find very good directions all through the thread.

Haven't got down to screencapping, but I finished configuring all the visual plugins I wanted and benchmarking the whole lot
yesterday. This thing rocks, plain and simple.

Woke up to a Feisty Fawn morn, I love the smell of a free new operating system in the morning.
Some things to do today;
I notice there is a new email client called Evolution, I was going to stick with Thunderbird but I may give this a go too.
I've also noticed that my screen refresh rate has changed to a meager 60htz and I can't change it in "System". Now in windows this usually means I have to install an up to date driver I wonder if it's the same here.

I also need to find out how to play music on this. Last night it would look like it was playing MP3's but there was no sound. This was with Rhythmbox . I also need to adjust the sensitivity of the mouse settings the cursor's flying all over the place.

But first I must go and turn an overgrown wasteland into a beautiful nature garden for my daily bread

Btw argo navis, I hope it cool with you that I post my experiences here rather than start a new thread? I think it is better this way don't you?

I think you should be stripped off, covered in jam, feathers, and dragged through town for daring to post in my thread

Nah, kidding.... I think it illustrates the concept of "anybody can find what they need in Linux" pretty well,
and that it adds a live FAQ to the whole thread. Pretty neat.

>> Now in windows this usually means I have to install an up to date driver I wonder if it's the same here.

Most probably, this is part of the next steps I want to cover - give pointers about. Same thing for MP3 and the rest, so we should be fine quite soon.

quote:

---

keep in mind that Linux reads NTFS but does not write it

---

There are at least three different ways to read and write NTFS from GNU/Linux.

I mentionned ways to read and write, but probably you can add up to the topic, what are those three ways?
I also mentionned that, in my understanding, it required additional software modules, is that incorrect?

I know we are all rather excited about Ubuntu and Linux in general but I have to say the path is not easy. The initial install has gone well enough but tracking things down both on my system and online can be a nightmare.

For instance playing MP3's. On the help page here the recommendation is to "install the package libxine1-ffmpeg (which will install libmad0 as well). fine and dandy but why not provide a link to wherever I can find "libxine1-ffmpeg" to install?
I've also been informed by "Add/Remove" that I can't install Flash on my machine as it does not support 64bit! Major bummer.

So I'm still happy with learning and using the operating system but it's an uphill struggle There's plenty of documentation guides and support out there but that is part of the problem too. I've spent the last six hours of my life trying to get my screen to stop flickering (refresh rate) and to get my music to play. I still can't hear my music but I think the flickering has improved. I went to System> Administration> Restricted Drivers Manager and enabled my NVIDEA. The refresh rates offered then are still only 50 to 57 mhtz are the only screen res I can get is 1020x768.

OK I know the answer may well be staring me in the face but I want the answer to tap me on the shoulder and say "Try this buddy"
I think I'm getting Adobe withdrawal symptoms I'll have to switch to XP for a Photoshop therapy session.

(Edited by Tao on 08-03-2007 19:21)

I love the "try this buddy" metaphore.

It really sums up user expectations and where Linux stands in terms of... well, meeting those.

My guess is that your default "Nvidia drivers" suck and you have to update them with something more spicey - which is, btw, the very same difficulty I encountered with ATI.
Let alone the message "cannot install Flash", that doesn't make sense technically speaking, my laptop is 32 bits I swear and youtube plays stuff smoothly - so probably another improper driver
like motherboard driver. Or wrong file for install. All those things for which Linux doesn't tap your shoulder.

Still, you got it as far as installing on dual boot, running smoothly, and connecting, quite a way, so... my recommendation : get days of XP Photoshop, but don't bail until I finish introducing you to XGL
and a 3d desktop that does blow my screen away - AND - improves usability a lot.

To me, Linux means all that I summed up on page 1 : more in all possible ways, and it has been doing that only since I started this thread (again thank you).
I am also observing that I have a professional perspective on software, and as a C guy, that this background does come into play to compensate for the.. confusing support.

Let me screencap as I tweak more..

I'm just blowing off some steam argo but thanks for the calming balm
I tend to get a little twitchy if my music is taken away from me for any great length of time. I'm stumped as to why I can't hear my Miles Davis therapy in Ubuntu the system make noises but not the player. Ah well, I'll get there sooner or later.
I found this site quite helpful for panicky probies like myself. I know I can always post on the Ubuntu forum if I get really stuck but so far (all available tarsals crossed) this thread and the installer has been enough.

Tao-

Take a look at Envy for your video driver issues.

The sound thing is tougher- do you not have sound at all (an ALSA issue), or just playing mp3s and such (codec issues)?

if you need "libxine1-ffmpeg"- open a terminal and type "sudo apt-get install libxine1-ffmpeg <return> <root password>"- if it doesn't work, please post the error.

this is gonna sound bad, but go back and read all of my posts on this thread, I spoke to most of this already and in greater detail. I mean this with no disrespect- just strapped for time.

Most if these issues- ask about them on #ubuntuforums on freenode (on IRC), people there are really nice and helpful, I hang there a lot, too.

the "flash not available on 64-bit distros" is a known issue... it's why I run 32-bits even though I have 64-bit power here. You're not missing much unless you have > 4Gb of RAM; the tech will catch up.

Yes, the install is the easy part, the config is the "hard" part. Don't despair; the internet (us) is your tech support!

Open yer Miles Davis in Totem- does it offer to download the codec?

You can run Flash on an otherwise 64-bit system.

I stand corrected:
Flash 9 install script for AMD64 (nspluginwrapper) - Ubuntu Forums

Warning: Haven't tried this.... YMMV.... etc....

I will go back and read through your posts again Petskull thanks, and no, I do not take offence at your suggestion. You are a good pal who is trying to help me so I can handle it. I am a plodder when it comes to learning new stuff I have found over time, but I do get there in the end.
On the Flash thing I followed the link and down;loaded the nsplugin-wrapper but on install where I get to this point;
3. Inside the folder that extracts is a "nspw install" file, double click on it.
4. Select "Run in Terminal"
The terminal window asks for my password but the window will not let me type anything, cursor stays blinking is all.
Also I tried Envy which seemed to work but I followed some geezers suggestion in a blog to perform a clean-up of install files after I did that all my Firefox windows lost the top navigation and title bars so I could neither move the browser window or close it
and now that I've come to look I can't find said geezers blog or name to check I followed the instructions correctly.
I think I damaged the install trying too many things at once so I'm considering wiping the partition clean and starting over. Which should be fun.
Perhaps this time I will go for the 32 bit install.
The daily grind went well to-day so I wont have to work outside all weekend. That means I can have more fun doing this.
Did I mention I got wobbly windows to work? gotta love that.
I can hear the land of Nod calling.
See yo over the weekend, be careful, it's a jungle out there.
Tao

The terminal window will appear not to take anything- as protection against people over your shoulder. Just type your password and hit <enter>.

I reinstall all the time whenever I poke around too much in my system. I keep all of my data on a separate partition, so it's no biggy. Then everything seems so clean... remember to write down all of your lessons learned (I just keep replying to this email from myself)

for example, today I learned that bootchart will make charts of your system as it's booting- so you can catch the bottlenecks. They get dumped in '/var/logs/bootchart/'.

Then, in /etc/fstab', I changed the '1's at the end of the lines to '0's and it boots *much* faster. NOT TO MY ROOT PARTITION... but to my fat32 drives and such... must make a note to do this periodically, though a defrag of those partitions from Windows works just fine.

I poked a few more bootup things in sysv-rc-conf in my laptop and now the boot takes FOREVER.... may reinstall. I've been thinking about it anyway as I don't like what I've done with the panels and the colors and it's just easier to reinstall.

I leave Envy alone... it loves me, I love it... I don't mess with it too much..

be back soon...

quote:

---

Tao said:

For instance playing MP3's

---

MP3 format is not open source so it's not included with Linux (at least that's what I have been told). If you are ripping CD's then I might suggest trying the ogg format or FLAC. flac is awesome and lossless format

The lib that you need should be available in the adept manager. If it isn't enable the "Universe" repositories and it should show up. Just do a search for MP3 and it should give you a bunch of stuff. Try XMMS player as well.

If you are playing a cd and no sound, I had that problem once a while back. The CD player needed to be ran into the sound card. Not real sure why Winders could play without it being connected directly to the sound card and linux had an issue with it, but it worked after that.

On another note, my linux hard drive just took a nose dive last night apparently. I have 2 hard drives, 1 SATA with WindowsXP and an IDE with Linux on it. I set it up so that GRUB would give the option of either Windows or Linux...and apparently it all went south for some reason.
I got up this morning and flicked on the monitor to find a black screen that said "Primary Drive not Found. Press F1 to continue". Well, F1 did nothing but give me the error again. Unplugged the Linux drive and got the same screen but F1 will now boot into Windows. Plugged up the Linux drive and unplugged the Windows drive and nothing. So...going to just re-install with a fresh Fiesty Fawn. Although, I might just try Gentoo for giggles and see what that is all about.

Later,

C:\

(Edited by CPrompt on 08-04-2007 16:31)

It's not that mp3s won't work with Linux, it's that the licensing issues made installing the codecs on Linux, well, a bitch. Take Ubuntu for example- they try to keep is as free as possible, and as a result they don't bring the codecs by default.

HOWEVER, nowadays Totem will prompt you to download and install the encoders the first time you play an mp3.. the following links will show you how easy it is.

http://medibuntu.sos-sts.com/index.php
http://hivltg.co.uk/?p=8

I still rip to mp3 for the same reason I still keep my data on a fat32 partition- it may not be the best, not even close, but damn if it's not universally accepted...

That (restarting from scratch) is what I did a couple of times the first days, but now that it works, I am removing one remaining glitch at a time
and customizing to the extreme.

The above posts should be packed in a FAQ, me thinks, with a link to this : detailed answers are good, but I like several levels of details.
General pointers -> links -> more detailed information -> links -> etc..

This said, I fixed three minor glitches in a row today, namely, MP3 and all media was working through VLC (I was adding whole folders of MP3 since there isn't a real playlist there),
but now my xine engine is equipped as well.

Other than that, my grub is shining with colors, and all my data is on an ntfs partition that I can read AND write, including wallpapers and stuff.

This thread deserves a perma-entry in the faq, off again to do that AND post my screencaps. Glad you're enjoying it Tao, past the Wobbly Windows, when you get the cube and other things to work,
you'll find some stuff that is very useful eye candy (alt tab and variations, I cannot stop switching windows now). I had problems with the first install of compiz for two reasons :
past versions need plugins to be loaded in a specific order (but not compiz-fusion), and my key mapping... my <Windows> keyboard key is still not decoded as what it should, so shortcuts for 3d desktop features... er.
did not work until I configured them properly.

From boot time to shutdown, I want, and now can afford every second of my user experience to be as I want it.

Just to keep you updated, I went off the radar there for a while on all OS but I'll talk more of that "episode" at a later date. Thank goodness i have burnt a live Ubuntu CD.
I have been using Feisty 64bit but I'm following Petskull's advice and I'm downloading the 32bit version as I type and so hope to burn this to disk (never done that before in Ubuntu) and use that as my default OS. Then I should be able to use Wine to install Photoshop.
I still have no music or video yet but I'll worry about that on the 32bit install. Just before I start I'm going to take the machine apart to check that I have the sound card connected physically to the CD drive.
Funny thing, I started off trying Ubuntu as a matter of interest and experiment. Now it is my only OS and any difficulties I have experienced have be down to my ineptitude.
I'm checking the Forums, reading the FAQ's and starting to really enjoy the experience.
Tao

btw- run this as root to get your DVDs working-

/usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh

/me rushes out again...

Well, I'll post a little tip if you want to have a dual boot with two hard drives. My setup is one SATA drive and one IDE but it should work the same with matching drives.

• Windows installed on one drive.
• Disconnect Windows drive and put in other drive, set to primary and install Linux. I disconnect the drive because the first time that I did this, even though I told Linux to install on the SATA drive, it still wrote over my Windows (bad day that started out to be)
• After Linux is installed on the second drive, it should be Primary drive at this point of course, put in Windows drive and set it to slave. Of course there are no jumpers on a SATA drive but the motherboard will take care of which is primary and which is slave. Mine has markers stating SA0,SA1 on the connectors.
• Now we have one drive that is Primary and it has linux on it and one drive that is slave and it has windows on it.
• Windows is picky and wants to always be the Master drive so we have to trick it into thinking that it is. From a command line, edit the file /boot/grub/menu.lst

You will see a bunch of stuff in there but what you want to have is a section like this :

title		Windows XP
rootnoverify	(hd1,0)
savedefault
makeactive
map		(hd0) (hd1)
map		(hd1) (hd0)
chainloader	+1

The section of "map" there you will see there are 2 section of it. That is what makes Windows think that it's still in charge but we are actually using GRUB as our bootloader.

The other file is still in /boot/grub and is called device.map. You should have something like :

(hd0)	/dev/sda
(hd1)	/dev/sdb

This is where hd0 is pointing to the Linux drive and hd1 is pointing to the Windows drive. You should be able to look at fstab to see how your drives are mounted for the /dev/sda and /dev/sdb. Should have to change the device.map file but it will give you a good reference of how your drives should be mapped. The key file is the menu.lst and the dual map section.

Hope that makes sense.

Later,

C:\

(Edited by CPrompt on 08-05-2007 16:08)

Petskull sorry, I don't understand what "run this as root" means, or how or where /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh may be used I tried that in a Terminal window but the machine just laughed at me

Don't forget, I am a bear of little brain.

I've downloaded Ubuntu 7.04 32bit twice now but each time I try to burn to disk at medium and slow speeds I get an error message. I don't know how to do the MD5SUM thing in Ubuntu, to verify the contents. I did it in windows for the 64 bit version. (nb just realised the "Check CD for Defects" option on the intro screen. I'll do that now)
What to do??? I am going to download another 32 bit version of 7.04 and read some more to see if I can ascertain how to check its integrity.
I'm not particularly asking for help here btw, I'm just documenting my difficulties and successes as I go along. Though help is always welcome in any walk of life.
AT the moment I have nothing on my 400gig drive and it seems I've been blocked from transferring my XP home from my old machine to this so I'll be using the full amount for Ubuntu.

I read how to check the integrity of the download, but this does not really mean anything to me.

quote:

---

Go to the download directory
Then run the following command from within the download directory.

md5sum ubuntu-6.10-desktop-i386.iso

---

I downloaded to the desktop so what do I use to run the command. That is the question that bothers me. I opened up a Terminal window but I do not know if it worked or if that is the correct procedure.
I guess it's time I introduced myself to the "Absolute Beginners Forum" now that I have registered.

(Edited by Tao on 08-05-2007 19:15)

Cool to see more linuxers here

Tao, "run /path/to/executable_file as root" with ubuntu means, "enter 'sudo /path/to/executable_file' into a terminal."

The sudo command gives you administrative ("root") priviliges for that command and asks for your password... If you want all the details :

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UsingTheTerminal

Cheers kuckus
Do I check the integrity of a download (7.04 32bit version) in the same way when it says

Go to the download directory
Then run the following command from within the download directory.

md5sum ubuntu-6.10-desktop-i386.iso

No, as you are the owner of that iso file you should be fine without sudo there...

What does it say when you cd to the directory and run the command, perhaps md5sum is not installed on your system?
"sudo apt-get install md5sum" would download and install the MD5 sum tool if it isn't present.

I have to admit I never check downloaded isos, I just burn & install and never had a problem.

what's the error it gives you when you run it? Just copy-n-paste it in here...

are you running "md5sum ubuntu-6.10-desktop-i386.iso" when you should be running "md5sum ubuntu-7.04-desktop-i386.iso"?

(Edited by Petskull on 08-05-2007 23:48)

There are two messages saying the same thing. One on the pop up box that shows the progress of the image being written and another pop up when the disk is ejected. Both messages are "An error occurred while writing" One box gives an option to "Make another copy" and the other suggests writing at a slower speed.

This has happened about six times now at different speeds I have written at almost the slowest speed offered on one of them.
I have a copy of Ubuntu 7.04 64bit, that checked OK with md5sum while I was using windows, but I decided that I was going to install the 32bit version as the 64 bit does not support Wine and I want to be able to use Photoshop.

The thing is I am now using one of the disks that was reported having an error while writing. I have installed it and updated it and so far it has behaved. I have done this once before but then that installation started to freeze and the screen started to break up on boot so I felt I had to start over again.
I'll try to install PS on this present installation with Wine and see how that goes, at least that is the plan.
I do not know how to run md5sum in Ubuntu I wish I did, as I mentioned earlier the instructions given on the help page made no sense to me.
This is the help page https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM


(Edited by Tao on 08-06-2007 00:20)

(Edited by Tao on 08-06-2007 00:22)

Hm.. do you know how to change directories in a terminal window?
After opening a new one, you're usually in "~", short for "/home/tao/".
Now to get to the folder you downloaded the iso file into, you'll have to use the "cd" command - e.g. "cd Desktop/" if you let FF save the file to your desktop.
You can use "ls" to get a list of the files in the current dir to check if it is the one containing the ubuntu iso.
If it is, enter "md5sum ub", press the tab key, and the shell should automatically complete the file name for you

Up to me for a question, and a rather advanced one to challenge your inner geekiness

I am running XGL as a separate Window manager, starting my sessions under KDE or XGL at will.
Now, I encounter on XGL the problem described here : shutdown/restart 'n' the likes are missing from my log out dialog

See linkie for details : http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=244662&page=8

So, the only fix that seems to handle this under kde is the one mentionned about linking special files like this :
maverick:/var/run/xdmctl# ln -s dmctl-:0 dmctl-:1
maverick:/var/run/xdmctl# ln -s xdmctl-:0 xdmctl-:1

In fact, those dmctl and xdmctl files represent, respectively, a pipe and a socket used by the system to send restricted calls to shutdown/hibernate/restart functions.

So far, so good, but in KDE 3.3+, kdm shoots the xdmctl folder on each restart, to recreate it.

...One easy fix would be kicking xorg off and using xgl and only that (given the fact it works better for my needs).

But I don't want that at all, I like my session switcher.
So, I went all the way to the debian bug tracking mailing list, to find that the following is supposed to do the trick :
sudo touch /var/run/xdmctl.keep

Eg. this command is supposed to prevent kdm from further overwrites on the mentionned xdmctl folder.
But it fails miserably.

...Anybody has an idea what this stands for? Currently, the reported bug (it is one) is on status "wishlist", and it's... well, bugging the hell out of me.

Any pointers are welcome.

(tried all possible ways to issue a - sgrunt - damned ln command from startup scripts : kdm's, kde's autostart, debian specific /etc/init.d/... painful problem :
best would be a script that runs as root from my kde autostart, but how do I set that script to run as root without hindering the security model... mumblemumble...
eg. how do I set a script to run as root without granting root access to many things of the system at once?)

Anyway, I went off to the search/faq only, typed "Linux" in and found plenty of entries already.
But none about XGL (yet) and some broken ones, linking statically to html files from a previous instance of the Asylum (I guess?).

Seems I'll have to do the job, more carefully, of making a thread synthesis over there. Good. (sets reminder to self : get a life, pal..)

Sorry I can't be of any help argo.
I kept the disk that was reported as a faulty burn and have had it installed for a couple of days now and so far so good. I still can't get my sounds working though. I have had help from the Ubuntu "newby" forum but sometimes I just don't understand what they are talking about. The thread is here if you are interested.
I've been advised

quote:

---

basically you have to recompile alsa which you can download from their page. to compile it you need to extract it and then go like this in terminal from the folder you extracted your files to:

Quote:
sudo ./configure --with-cards=intel8x0 --with-sequencer=yes ; make ; make install

---

I had a look at their page but I have no idea what I am supposed to download.
As much as I like Ubuntu, and I do, It's proving to be a pain. I've tried installing Photoshop with Wine but at the very last hurdle I find I can not type in the box for the serial number and personal info. (Nuclear bummer).

I'm working on my other machine now (it's in bits atm) and I'm actually looking forward to installing my original version of XP back on it again for soothing tunes and loadsa Photoshop therapy.

Ubuntu is a great OS but not good enough to be my only OS and perhaps not my main OS either. It demands far too much from me, more than I can give at the present moment.
Tao

It's ok pal, I don't own shares of Ubuntu o) - I am sad people jumped at giving you "tech savvy" command line based
advice when all you needed was probably a bunch of clicks in the right dialog : listening and talking to others
in appropriate words is a far more difficult skill than computer science.

I understand that if myself, having a technical background, am facing difficulties that take hours and tons of reading to resolve,
the OS is demanding too much from users with other interests.

But I still want to stress that using a commercial XP opposed to using a free Linux is, with appropriate time and experience..
well, how can I phrase that?

It's not only about enthusiasm : my compiz fusion unloads the CPU to lay most of the drawing charge on the GPU, multitasking
is so stable I can run three high def videos side by side, and as opposed to Windows, in *this* world I can configure everything
- so basically, my computer does feel put to better use for reasons.

All in all, it's a lot less "marketable" yet in free distros, but a LOT more professionaly and cleverly conceived in technical terms, and with
the appropriate configuration, is THE tool of choice for anyone who is about using 100% of that cutting edge hardware,
and not the 66% Windows barely delivers before slowing to a crawl as the registry and file system get bloated.

I have no analogy, but no doubt the little guy in Die Hard 4 is running a Debian (as well as trinity in Matrix btw)

Good stuff argo made me smile
I'd say i haven't a technical bone in my body, but I have built computers from scratch before and I do nearly all my computer servicing myself. I am slightly dyslexic too, numbers make me feel ill.
I really want to support all open source projects like this and I still intend to use the likes of Ubuntu, if it will let me in to play.
I have about 4/5 gig of RAW photographs to process this week and most other weeks too. I really need Photochop for that (heh meant Photoshop). So not having that hurt, especially as my other machine was in bits in the bench at the time. I know it is possible to use PS in Ubuntu using wine, but I have yet to master that magic.
No sound or video for that matter on my Ubuntu. I've perused for answers but received some gibberish as advice, gibberish to me anyway, perhaps it was Klingon.
I have not given up the good fight, and it does seem like a battle at times, I've just put this project on the back burner until I can get some more usability out of the software.
I do like the Cube desktop and other pretty things like burning windows so I'll be checking back often.
Good luck with your "glitches" too



(Edited by Tao on 08-07-2007 13:22)

I think I should add that I would encourage anyone who is interested to try it out at least. You don't need to make a partition for that either. When you burn the ISO to disk it acts as a Live disk, you can get a flavour without committing yourself, although you need to install to save any documents or work you may create.
The difficulties I have experienced may be due to the configuration of my particular computers hardware and software and not Ubuntu itself.

Amen Tao. Peace, quiet, goat cheese, good order and Kubuntu to the whole wide web.

..When I finally get round to posting those screencaps, as I said, you'll all call me Neo and devote the rest of your lives
to a cult of me. All this thanks to Linux.

Tao,

do you have system sounds? Like when Ubuntu starts up, do you here the start up sounds? Kind of like the windows sounds at start up?

Later,

C:\

I don't hear anything while in Ubuntu C:/ I haven't got the system running atm but from memory there is a "Sounds" tab under Prefs' I think it is. When I test the sound there I get a very faint tone as the sound is tested. Apart from that nothing.
I followed as best i could the advice given on the forum (there is a link to it in my previous posts) but with no positive result I'm sorry to say.
Thanks for asking though, I think I'll spend the rest of the year on intelligence enhancing drugs and then try Ubuntu again next year.

Well, when you get back to it, maybe we can help a bit more. I had some major problems with my sound card at one time and it was simply a data cord that needed to be hooked up from the cd player to the sound card. LOL

I got mine running again. It was weird. I swapped out the video card to see if I could get it to work. Couldn't so I put the old card back in. After that...poof. It was all gone.

I do have a question though. Is there something special you have to do to get it to run on a different kernel? I have the option to load 3 different kernels. .10, .11 and .12. I can run .10 but if I choose 11 or 12, it goes to a command line and if log in and do "startx", it gets so far and freezes or just goes back to command line.

I wonder if I just need to load the video drivers for that kernel?...

Later,

C:\

don't know much about your issue.... but most every time my graphics drivers update, I have to run Envy

In the continuity of the "new Linux user journal", I have an update.

Firstly, I fixed myself a kdm "bug" (currently filed as wishlist in debian bug tracking lists because it does only hinder users who have dual kde/xgl setups like mine on debian-likes, it seems), and posted about it on the ubuntu forums :

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=3166711#post3166711

Being able to easilly patch one's own OS is something very new to me, and quite specific to Linux as everything is open including bug tracking. Yaikes! In the process, I learnt a lot about the system and inner workings of kde/kdm.

As of today, my "to stabilize list" includes :
- fixing the couple of broken keys like "Windows" key.
- fixing the green strip at the top when I play quicktimes using VLC media player and/or plugin for firefox.
- fixing google earth (hangs at startup)
- fixing eclipse (starts and runs greats, but whines about privileges when compiling - certainly some misconfiguration of mine)
- fixing a couple of broken control panels related to ATI and the display (only when in XGL, I can work around this by using standard KDE)

For the rest, everything seems to run great : I can play music and organize/synchronize it from Amarok, got niftey screen savers and my desktop all customized in 3d with Compiz fusion, can play any video media from Xine engine compliant software, can produce office documents using open office, browse great using Firefox and Flash 9, gimp away, Wine/Photoshop when I need to, etc...

The latest addition to my software bank is Picasa itself Works a threat on ntfs or ext3 partitions, and certainly all the other types supported.

Google earth should follow shortly, as it does work right from the start for the vast majority of Ubuntu/Compiz users, soo..

I also got all the screencaps I wanted to demonstrate how useful compiz can be in addition to eye candy, haven't got round to updating my flickr space accordingly, will do that this weekend.

In spite of some Windows "conveniences out of the box" I am permanently disgusted and will never switch to Vista. My next powermac
will, instead, dual boot on Kubuntu and OS X Probably the upcoming version, I am waiting for that to buy.

Photo gallery updated.

I have zattoo working and stable. I also was able to run google earth for a while. it's amazing how much free software
I used in Windows already.

Tao,

I think I might have found out what was causing your "no sound"issue. I just had to re-install Kubuntu on Saturday after a major crash during dist-upgrade. I got everything back and working and bam!! no sound. After checking to see if I had the codecs and everything configured, I still had no sound. I went into "KMix" (I think that's what it's called) and the damn input was muted. Click of a button and my speakers where wide open LOL. Good thing my office is in the basement as it was 7:30 in the morning and my wife was still asleep

Anyway, get yourself a secondary hard drive to put linux on and keep messing with it. I might be able to help with getting it to dual boot with 2 hard drives as now I have done it a few times. Getting pretty good with editing the grub config

Later,

C:\

Thanks C:\ I don't think I checked "KMix" so you may well have the answer there. I've just finished a complete re-install of XP and I'm gradually getting the most used programmes back on board so I'll actually have another drive to install Ubuntu on to this time instead of a partition.
Have you installed the 32 bit or the 64 bit version? I've burnt both to disk so I suppose I could use either though I have a feeling the 32 bit may be a little more straightforward.

don't have a 64-bit machine so I have to go with the 32

I've never had an issue with downloading and burning a linux image at all. Well...I take that back. I burned the ISO file a couple of times instead of the actual image...but that was my fault

Later,

C:\

Hmmm.. good and bad news on my personal front.

Good news is I am playing a worms lan tournament using Wine in VM mode right now.

Bad news is I've been there as far as XGL/ATI issues are concerned, and Xorg as primary server
is bad because it doesn't fully support compiz. Well, it does using AIGLX and ATI open source drivers,
but all feats. are not there, and those drivers are slow.

Native XGL is neither compliant with dri or AIGLX, in addition, so the best is a mix of the two.

Running Xorg with XGL on top, I have some things to hack, namely, redirect all applications that request DRI
to display 0.0 and I get it all : Worms, Photoshop, Google earth, Picasa...

Lovely still.

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1108195900&size=l <<-- caps of Worms playing on a face of the desktop cube.

And since PS was already running well and I am deep-testing wine, I should be able to make it fully usable as well.

Argo-
1. I'll need that background, post haste..
2. you wanna bring it on in worms?! Just name the time and place, Tiny! Just find me on MSN at petskull@hotmail.com..
(you know about gaim, right?)

Background comes from http://www.kde-look.org/index.php?xsortmode=high&xcontentmode=1x2x3x4x5x6x7x29x71x72x73&page=1
It's called Snaiya, and yeah, I did follow all the links you gave

And if you want more (hotter) of the kind (warning: explicit content ahead) you can hit http://www.vexiphne.net

And yeah, worms... but beware, last guy who challenged me got 5 matches lost and 0 wins
Will catch you sometime on im, maybe this we.

gonna hijack this thread for a second.

Has anyone had any luck getting dual monitors working with nVidia? I got TwinView to work but that was one big screen and it sucked. It was more like it was set to "BigScreen" instead.

Looking at this it doesn't seem I have much of a choice.

my graphics card is a nVidia FX5200 (yeah I know...not the best card in the world but I don't play video games )

Later,

C:\

Maybe related, maybe not, but beware of the kind of XGL flavour you are using, basically (or the kind of X server for that matter).

Some ways of running xorg with some device drivers, namely proprietary ones, block some stuff (example : ATI fglrx with
XGL as Xorg replacement disables dri).

The general trend is that open source drivers give a lot more options, and are compatible with many built-in system features,
but slow. So, usual trackback / root cause analysis process : check at what point things seem to go wrong.

Is the feat avail. in some control panel?
What does xorg.0.log (from var/log/) mention as errors or warnings (errors are EE entries)?

In any event, xorg will have to handle calls to distinct displays at some point, or enable a direct rendering context for these calls to pass through,
so start there. Find what's not where it should be.

Sorry can't help with the dual screen set-up C:\ I seem to remember JKMabry, poi and I think mas have a good dual screen combo but I'm not sure what video card they were using.

I've been reassessing my choice of Ubuntu recently, and I can't remember why I did not choose Kubuntu. What were the deciding factors for you argo navis in choosing Kubuntu? Actually I'd be interested in hearing everyone's reason for choosing the OS they are presently using. I am about to download another copy of Ubuntu 32bit as the last download did not seem to check out properly.

I'd recommend Kubuntu over Ubuntu, the KDE desktop is just much more accessible to someone coming from a Windows background, also as I understand it most Linux devotees prefer the KDE WM including Linus Torvaldis himself.

However it comes down to personal preference and productivity, choose which suits you best, I'm personally a fan of Xubuntu and the XFCE WM.

Cheers,

I second the choice to use Kubuntu. I like KDE better maybe because I'm used to windows. I do think it is lighter than Gnome but don't know for sure. It is prettier. I am just not a big fan of the way Gnome "looks".

Besides, who wants a big foot as their logo when you could have a groovy K with some gears?

Give Kubuntu a go and see what you think.

Later,

C:\

(Edited by CPrompt on 08-16-2007 03:37)

Kubuntu is Ubuntu with KDE. KDE is a Windows Manager (WM). Gnome is another. XFCE a third. Their job is just managing your windows.

Kubuntu is merely a bundle, but a good one because you'll find 90% of what Windows gives : "control panels" called system settings,
a home folder for "my documents", and so on and so forth, transition is easy.

Essentialy, KDE is : info at many locations (right click OR some key combination OR...), redundant info for the user to have several ways to get stuff done.
Gnome is : purist stuff, minimalist when compared to KDE.

Docs are the area where the Ubuntu system is a bit lacking at the moment, in spite of excellent forums and tons of tutorials.

Go for Kubuntu, it's "ready to really go" and doesn't remove anything from Ubuntu.

BUT the drawback is : many tutorials are made for Gnome, many users claim their linuxishness this way, and this has misled me a couple of times.
Even if an application is designed for one or another Windows manager, you can use it in another (so apps with "gnome" in the name, you can use in KDE).

Tao, we can do something : since you want to give it a serious go, pick Kubuntu, I am now confortable enough with the system to tailor my assistance
to your needs, hopefully, step by step, I can guide you through quirks to success.

(and I owe most of my discoveries to this thread, reisio, Petskull, thanks a bunch).

If you can, post about your hardware : motherboard brand (AMD, Intel?), graphic card, sound card, resolution, special peripherals (dvd r/w? multi layer?).

At Cprompt, nono, you can dual monitor, I could swear.

Your card is equipped with the capability, right? What that thread says is "merges screens into one virtual, bigger display". It does not say
"one desktop to rule them all", a display is a thing, a desktop is another.

This says "one virtual physical display (on which xorg, by design, can then do whatever it wants), know what I mean?

Choose twinview, but... there goes my previous question : nvidia binary drivers? Are you using them and/or ready to strive with them?
I'd say go for it, card makers know how to harness the power of their hardware in a nifty driver, just check that you don't have something
installed that is very incompatible with them (for instance, if you are using XGL/AIGLX on open source drivers, you'll need to tweak xorg.conf
and/or kdmrc accordingly, in a first step, then address the twinview issue).

(and last but not least : the key reason for me to pick KDE years ago is that suomen, aka natives from Finland, home of Linux, use it -
in general, common sense of the self or experienced others is a good indicator, whatever you want to achieve).

Thanks Blaise, C:\ and argo navis.
I went to the Kubuntu website and ended up downloading two versions. the first being, PC (Intel x86) alternate install CD. and the second, PC (Intel x86) desktop CD. Why? Well I downloaded the "alternate" one by mistake
My machine specs are:
Abit AMD64bit KN9 Ultra MoBo
Two Hitachi HDT 400gig Disk drives
NVidia 7600GT video card
RealTec HD onboard Soundcard
ATAPI DVD DW R/RW
Four gig DDR2 RAM (although XP Pro will only read/show 3.5 gig)
I have my screen res at 1024 x 768 refresh rate 75htz
Eyes are green/blue
Hair long brown/grey
I like walking in the park and picknicks
er....
Oh sorry I forgot where I was for a moment.

I'm on walkabout for the next few days so probably will not be able to get on-line until I get back. Just so you know I won't be able to reply quickly.

Well the after hours of getting the dual monitors working...the extra monitor I had went *POOF* LOL Good thing it was free

@ Tao, you won't have any issues with your hardware. For the nVidia card get Envy once Linux is installed and get the drivers. Much easier
Go back a page and follow those instructions on setting up a nice dual boot on two hard drives

I can also post my menu.lst for you to see.

Later,

C:\

Alternate sounds to me like you want it to feel experimental Good.

Cprompt is right, you have a hell of a computer, you should be in within a bunch of Envy clicks, just fresh install that one
from adept or add/remove. I am awfully jealous right now.

Personals & Nurses section is down the south wing while we're at it, I think, just turn left, right, up.. or was it? Oh hell,
google "blender nurse" and you should be all set.

See how easy it gets in Arkham? ,)

The only difference I can see with the alternate install is that it boots to an install menu straight away and allows server installation, where as the LiveCD loads up the desktop into RAM for you play around with before installing.

Just a couple of good resources, as I keep fooling around :

http://linux.byexamples.com/archives/231/create-screencast-using-xvidcap/

This is for screencast. I tested both Istanbul and xvidcap, xvidcap is very good (but I run at such a resolution with so little a ram
that I am unable to get decent fullscreen casts for now).

The other is full of video tutorials for all things ubuntu : http://ubuntuvideo.com

All this in the vein of making a FAQ for people around here interested in Linux.
But with all the docs available, what should that FAQ cover exactly?... Simple answer : everything for the web designer to switch from another OS.

So, stuff like :
- How to get Linux?
- Which Linux should I get?
- What are Gnome/KDE/you name it?
- Will it handle my hardware xxx?
- Which programs should I install?
- Which program can I use in Linux to replace xxx Windows program?

And so on and so forth... As I was saying, most issues for me I covered, and thing run very smoothly around here.
I just played a couple of GLtron games for the hell of it Tested google earth toroughly also, with 3d views of the grand canyon and the likes.

Lovely. No way for me to revert to Windows, I have started once within the past two three weeks for a video file which refused to play in Kubuntu :
guess what? File was corrupt and could not be played in Windows either.

Lovely.

Hmmm... FAQ works. Difficult, but useful. I am here right now : http://www.ozoneasylum.com/5097

Poking around, trying to unify without altering, trying to gather what this thread has to give. Petskull, my kopete is running,
my nick.name at yahoo.com under yahoo protocol, and you should be able to catch me. For faq edits or worms. Please be my guest.

I think "Will it handle my hardware xxx?" and "What are Gnome/KDE/you name it?" should contain *very* brief descriptions and links to other, better resources. That could turn into a monolithic FAQ all too soon. Besides, there are much better resources out there that will be kept more current.

download (on apt or synaptic) open-arena.... and don't you owe me a worms game?

Oh damn... my pants.... http://ubuntuvideo.com/ubuntu_7_04_on_dual_19_lcd

(Edited by Petskull on 08-19-2007 18:46)

By the way- how do you delete double posts?

(Edited by Petskull on 08-19-2007 18:47)

Agreed on all fronts, but there is no way I am getting myself a "windows hotmail live id" for chatting purposes,
what about you contact axxx.nxxx at yahoo dot com instead? (or any other IM type for that matter,
just not "Windows Live hotmail", what does "live hot mail" mean anyway? The name will be deserved when I can download
a cutie within a reasonable amount of clicks)

ICQ (67751342)?

To not waste the post, lemme throw some useful links this way:
http://www.gnome-hacks.org
http://www.whylinuxisbetter.net

... and I had forgotten to mention that more on your Snaiya friend may be found here:
http://www.volpejpr.cz/hry/snaiya/
http://www.mota.ru/images.php?path=games/s/snaiya

(Edited by Petskull on 08-20-2007 08:45)

Well, I'm back for another round of installing/configuring ubuntu/kubuntu.
This time I have installed kubuntu to test out and it's all so new. With ubuntu I know how to install video drivers but it's not where I thought it would be in kubuntu. I'm half tempted to un-install it and install ubuntu instead as It's slightly more familiar. I don't have too much of an aversion to learning new things but as I said earlier, life really is too short and it can be like swimming in treacle trying to find specific answers for this on the net.
Be still my impatient mind.
So I need to find out how to install drivers for my Nvidia7600GT and KN9 Ultra MoBo onboard sound card. I'm guessing that this should be done inside kubuntu rather than trying to find the driver, downloading and then installing it myself, but I'm not that sure.
I know I'm going to (have to) read through this thread again and extract pertinent links. My flaky memory spills information like a leaky bucket looses water on the way back from the well. It's not that efficient but over the years the path from the well gets more beautiful as the dry ground gets watered and flowers bloom all along.
Time to go grasshopper.



[edit] This kind of help makes me laugh.

quote:

---

Install Latest nvidia/ATI drivers

sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx

//Note: This can break your installation. If you have newer hardware or are using Tribe 4 or newer, it is recommended to install nvidia-glx-new instead. If by chance you realize that you messed up after the fact, use 'dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg' and change your graphics card to 'nv' and then install the newer package after the jump.

---

I have only just installed the OS so how this is meant to help a new user is just plain bad planning in my mind.
Aaaaanywayyyy, back to the drudge of reading dry incomprehensible "help" pages on the kununtu guide pages

(Edited by Tao on 08-30-2007 13:11)

Just get on with it Tao, stop blathering, and don't forget.

[quote]
you've got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In-Between

You've got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium
Liable to walk upon the scene

(To illustrate this last remark
Jonah in the whale, Noah in the ark
What did they do
Just when everything looked so dark)

Man, they said we better
Accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In-Between
No, do not mess with Mister In-Between
Do you hear me, hmm?

AC-CENT-TCHU-ATE THE POSITIVE (Mister In-Between)

(Johnny Mercer / Harold Arlen)

:::tao::: ::cell::

I happen to like Dr. John's rendition

I've not heard that version, have to give it a spin.

Questions, questions.
I'm running the latest kubuntu, how can I install drivers for my NVidia 7600GT? I can't find anything in the system that might let me use/download Envy, which was the solution I had for Ubuntu.
I have an ABIT MoBo with an on-board sound card, (Realtek High Definition) the sound does not work so I am assuming I'll need to install a driver. again I do not know how to do that.
I am searching the forums but I have not found anything useful. A lot of the times I get directed to ubuntu help pages not kubuntu, so a lot of the instructions contain names and terms that i have never heard of before, nor can I find them in the "KMenu" or "System Menu".
The screen flicker is driving me to epilepsy and the lack of sounds is tortuous too.
I'm trying to take things slowly so as not to mess the system up.

tried to install the nvidia drive through (can't remember the stupid name) thing in settings and it crashed the computer on restart. B*****
So I can't get in now it looks like I'll have to do a complete reinstall

Why am I putting myself through this?

Tao, have you tried installing Envy from the deb file off the website as I understand it deb files can be opened up quite easily from within (k)ubuntu and run.

Thanks Blaise, I have tried that in ubuntu, and I wanted to in kubuntu but could not find the link on the ubuntu sites. I'm having to do another re-install as the other one is trashed by me trying to fix the driver issue.
I'm trying to decide which flavour to attempt this next install. I had marginally better results with ubuntu so I may try that again.
~Deep breath, plunge back in~

Far out! Installed ubuntu 7.04 updated it used the restricted drivers manager to install a driver for NVidia and things are looking good. Got wobbly windows if I want it and Beryl too.
~tentative sigh of relief~
If I could get all these working in kubuntu as easily as I have here I think I would have stuck with that. I do like the ubuntu interface too though.
Now the big one is to get my sounds working I don't really know how to do that yet so I'll go to ABIT and check their site, I'm sure I've seen drivers for Linux there.

I have found a driver on the RealTec site that I think may solve my sound problems, but I'm too scared to attempt it
I have just started getting the OS running a little better but I don't want to freeze up the whole shebang by installing the wrong thing or wreck my settings.
I have unzipped the "audio pack" and there is an installer that comes with it but I'm guessing that I perhaps should install it using something in ubuntu. You know that console thingy like the dos prompt. Or perhaps "add/remove progs"?
here is the advice in the text file that came with it.
Sorry for the large cut and paste.

quote:

---

The source code copy from www.alsa-project.org. ver:3.3-4
Linux Source Code for ALC audio codec
Support Codec list:
====AC97 Codec=====
ALC100,100P
ALC200,200P
ALC650D
ALC650E
ALC650F
ALC650
ALC655
ALC653
ALC658
ALC658D
ALC850
ALC101
ALC202
ALC250
ALC203

====HD Audio codec ====
ALC260
ALC262
ALC880
ALC882
ALC883

Installation:
This Source Code is from www.alsa-project.org.
For driver installation, please follow below steps.

Automatic install:
execute

./install

Manual install:
Step 1. unzip source code
tar xfvj alsa-driver-1.0.9b_1.tar.bz2

Step 2. Turn on sound support (soundcore module, default turn on)

Step 3. Complied source code
a. cd alsa-driver-1.0.9b_1.
b. ./configure
c. make
d. make install
e. ./snddevices

Step 4. Edit your /etc/modules.conf or conf.modules depending on the distribution
(Please refer to the attached modules.conf)

snd-xxxx is the card ID.

-- Azalia controller --ALC880 ALC882 ALC260 ALC262
--- Intel ICH6 ICH7 ---------
snd-hda-intel
--- ATI chipset -----
snd-atiixp

-- AC97 controller --ALC655 ALC650 ALC250 ALC255
--- Intel ICH6 ICH7 , SiS 7012 and NVidia----------
snd-intel8x0
--- Via8233 Via686a -------------------------------
snd-via82xx
--- ATI Chipset -------------------------------
snd-atiixp

Copy and paste this to the bottom of your /etc/modules.conf or /etc/modprobe.conf file.
# ALSA portion
alias char-major-116 snd
alias snd-card-0 snd-xxxx
# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
# card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

Step 5. reboot your machine

Step 6. Use the alsamixer the disable mute (All audio line default is mute)
*Must to compile and to install the ALSA library and utility. (Use automatic install is already install)
excute alsamixer

Note: 1. The most detail information, can refer the alsa-kernel/Documenttation/ALSA-Configuration.txt in the azx-021705.tar.bz2.
2. Kernel Version must be 2.2.14 or later.
3. All mixer channels are muted by default. You must use a native
or OSS mixer program to unmute appropriate channels.
4. If can not compile the source code, try to rename the /usr/src/linux-2.x -> /usr/src/linux.
5. The driver added to support the SPDIF functoin.
6. a. You can download the alsa-lib-1.0.9 and alsa-utils-1.0.9a form the www.alsa-project.org, then unzip and install them.
b. Suggest use "alsamixer" to control mixer function.
c. Used "alsaconf" can autodetect which drive you need to install (step 4).
7. SUSE Distribution must install the ncurses package.

---

Does anyone know what "A windows Box" is in ubuntu, and how I would go about creating one?
I miss Photoshop too much, more than I miss my sounds.

Sorry Tao, I was so busy with the other life, the one where I am flesh and bones.
Back to bytes, I don't have enough time right now to read through all your questions (or play worms for that matter),
but a "Windows box" is something like Wine, which you will find from your system settings.

Eg. it is a sort of "Windows emulator (Linux addicts, don't lash out at me, I KNOW it's not an emulator).

Turn wine on from your system settings, and if you have access to your windows partitions, you can use the "wine file" utility to go pick photoshop and start it.
It may be slow, I think Pet put up a "fine tuning" guide based on the commercial version of Wine.

My life online may be sporadic, but I'll try to drop by this weekend and READ and HELP some more.

Thanks for that argo navis I need all the help I can get at the moment
My system crashed again because I did something (don't know exactly what) while trying to configure my NVidia settings. I have now just finished a complete re-install and am starting again.
One of the best things I have learned today is that one uses the terminal window while in the folder where the zipped file is. Gosh I wish I had known that three weeks ago.

The learning (and stumbling) curve has been rather steep at times but I'm completely delighted to say I have my sounds working. it took a little bit of work in the terminal window, which reminds me a lot of working in DOS, but it is up and running
Tomorrow I'm going to try to get Photoshop working with Wine. I've been so preoccupied with getting my sounds to work that i have not my head around this method yet. I've just booted up XP.
I've also installed an nVidia driver with "ENVY" so my screen's not flickering at all and I have Beryl installed but I don't have it running all the time.
I'm boppin' 'round the computer while I'm typing this listening to the Stones "let it bleed"
Can you feel the smiles?

Hey, coolness : congrats Ubuntao. Now you can start with apps, and other media codecs, and so on and so forth. Seems I am too late to help much,
yet on time to welcome you in the world of Oo-boon-too.

Here's a thought, I have an old Dell Latitude C600 and I'm thinking of installing some flavour of Linux on it. It has a 20 gig HD, 751 MHz Pentium 3 processor and 256 MB of RAM.

I have tried to run ubuntu 7.04 Live disk but it seems to hang when loading. It takes a good half hour go get to the stage were there are icons on the desktop, then freezes.

I am also searching the net myself for information but I thought I'd ask here too.
Well y'all did get me started on this road


Those who look for monsters should look to it that
they do not become monsters. For when you gaze
long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

Damn Small Linux

Later,

C:\

The only thing stopping me from using DSL just now is I can't seem to find an option in the boot menu to boot from USB (USBHDD) or something like that. I'm just looking for a tool to burn it to USB with, I had one knocking around but not on the laptop it seems.

I bet there is a link to it in this thread.
~runs off to check~

quote:

---

Tao said:

I have an old Dell Latitude C600 and I'm thinking of installing some flavour of Linux on it. It has a 20 gig HD, 751 MHz Pentium 3 processor and 256 MB of RAM.

---

The answer to that partially depends on what you want to do with the machine. There are several Linuxen that will fit on a floppy and run on older machines. However, you probably won't get a GUI with them.

I've been using Brazi Firewall as a firewall/gateway for our InterNET access for several years.

.



-- not necessarily stoned... just beautiful.

I do not have a floppy drive on the laptop atm unfortunately hyperbole. I fairly certain that the bios does not support a USB boot. I am however still looking to install linux on it so I'm still checking the numerous releases.
I'd be using it to browse the net, to view and classify photographs in JPEG and RAW format and listen to music.
I will also need something like Open Office.
There really is a lot out there to choose from it seems.
http://www.linux.org/dist/



(Edited by Tao on 09-08-2007 18:16)

I may make some time this weekend to update the Linux FAQ, so *bump*.

Tao:

About two months ago, I was trying to do the same thing. Bobbins has a laptop with 256Mb with a 10GB drive and CD-ROM drive. I tried loading a couple of different releases (SuSE and Ubuntu) before Bobbins ran out of patience and installed Win2000. The problem with the machine is that in the last five years Linuxen GUIs have started using so much memory they consider machines with "only" 256MB too small. From what I can tell there is no way to run OpenOffice to run on a machine with less than about 500MB.

Of course, there are others here that have more experience installing various releases of Linux than I do. If so, I hope they can make a suggestion to get a GUI-Linux running on that machine.

.



-- not necessarily stoned... just beautiful.

Don't run OpenOffice on light machines!!!! Use Abiword, gNumeric, and let me know it you find any light 'Powerpoint' program. Also, try 'IceWM' for a window manager.

If you're building for a light machine, consider building your own Linux from Scratch. All the pieces work together famously and you can keep the system light.

Look around the net for 'Running linux on 1MB Ram' and such, and you'll probably find articles with people getting their systems to speed on low gear...

http://jbakshi.50webs.com/PART-II/INDEX.html
http://www.linux.com/articles/52134
http://polishlinux.org/choose/linux-on-old-hardware/
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/applications.html

haven't read all the article but this might be something looking at installing on the laptop

Later,

C:\

Sorry for not replying sooner but I'm rather strapped for time at the moment, busy time of the year in gardens for me.
As it happens I managed to format the drive in the laptop while I was trying to install Xubuntu. The install did not work as i was presented with an outrageously obscure text install screen, I was using the "alt" install disk. After the install failed due to the screen not displaying properly. I re-tried Ubuntu and it worked.
So now I have Feisty Fawn on my laptop. It's not the best installation though, the CD-ROM will not mount and the system is slightly sluggish, but it works and I'm happy for that (for now). I can listen to music, review RAW photos, and get connected with wireless or cable.

I plan to try to install Xubuntu again, I may wait until the new release later this month. This time I'll try the "regular" install method, the one with a usable GUI.

Meanwhile on my AMD system I still have XP Pro on one HD and Ubuntu on the other. This works well for me, I use Ubuntu for as much as possible to get used to it, and XP for things like Photoshop which I still have not got working in Ubuntu.

I haven't read all those links yet Petskull and C:\ but I will upon my return to a more leisurely lifestyle in a week or two


Those who look for monsters should look to it that
they do not become monsters. For when you gaze
long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

I'm slowly finding my way around this Linux malarchy
At the moment I'm using my laptop with a Ubuntu install and connecting through a wireless network that was very easy to set up. I tried your suggestions for a file manager Petskull but I could not navigate my file system using IceWM, I just could not find a way to open my home directory. Undeterred, I decided to try the Xubuntu file manager "Xfce" and I liked it, so that is what I am using now. It should get me prepared for installing Xubuntu 7.10 on my laptop in 8 days time.
I also un-installed Open Office and installed AbiWord, it definitely runs a lot quicker, thanks. I still can't get my CD-ROM to mount which is a bummer but I can get around that using memory sticks for file transfers.

So now that I feel more comfortable with this set-up I shall endeavour to check out other flavours but will concentrate on becoming more familiar with this one. Thanks for the links and suggestions Petskull and C:\ I really do appreciate your input and beingthereness.

Petskull you asked about a "light 'Powerpoint' program". I've just noticed on my "Liferea" RSS reader that Slashdot has an artical about a soon to be released competitor to OO called KOffice 2.0 That sure looks interesting.

I'm really looking forward to the next new release of Ubuntu "7.10" Gutsy Gibbon due for release in eight days. I'm not sure if I should do an upgrade or a complete new install. What would you chaps recommend?


Those who look for monsters should look to it that
they do not become monsters. For when you gaze
long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

quote:

---

Tao said:

I still can't get my CD-ROM to mount which is a bummer but I can get around that using memory sticks for file transfers.

---

Tao, What are you doing to try to get hte CD-ROM to mount? Are you using the mount command or are you expecting it to mount automatically?

quote:

---

Tao said:

I'm really looking forward to the next new release of Ubuntu "7.10" Gutsy Gibbon due for release in eight days. I'm not sure if I should do an upgrade or a complete new install. What would you chaps recommend?

---

That would depend on what your goal is. If you want to become more comforatble with installing new systems, upgrade to the new version. It may have some new drivers and security measures which would make the install easier. If your goal is to get the machine up and doing something else useful, I would wait to upgrade until you have completed this install and it is stable enough that you feel comfortable upgrading it. If there is a specific new feature you want in the next release, then go ahead and upgrade immediately.

Upgrades can be a problem. An associate upgraded one of my computers earlier this year and it broke the machine. It didn't harm the hardware, but we couldn't get the programs on the machine run for over two months until we were able to figure out what had caused the problem and downgraded the OS to the older version.

I think you should be a little cautious about upgrading machine willy-nilly.

.



-- not necessarily stoned... just beautiful.

Sorry for the delay in replying hyperbole. The CD mount problem on my laptop has been solved. What I was doing was just loading a CD into the drive and waiting for it to mount. After a few minutes a notice would appear saying that the drive could not be mounted. I also tried to mount from the file browser with the same result.

A couple of days ago I decided to try to install the new version of Xubuntu 7.10 on the laptop. I must gave tried approximately six or seven times at least with the install hanging at various stages. Sometimes on the initial load of the live CD, sometimes as far as 55% into the actual install. At this stage of the install I would get a message that the CD Drive may be faulty or need cleaning, the hard drive may be faulty or be overheating, and there was another part of the message suggesting what the fault may be but I'm sorry to say I've forgotten what that was.

I tried to get some extra RAM memory for it but my local computer shops don't have "such old memory types" in stock.
SO I got myself a lens cleaner and then I put the laptop in the fridge for a few hours tried again and on on the second attempt at an install it managed to complete. So I know have a complete new install of Xubuntu on my old Dell Latitude laptop.

Now with Xubuntu my CD drive is fully working and wired and network connections have been recognised and established almost fully automatically with the minimum of configuration from me. I'm most definitely not going to fiddle with the system on the laptop any more as I have the feeling it is drinking in the last chance saloon. I'm going to treat it with kid gloves and not go overboard with simile, metaphor or analogy.

Now on my desktop I have Ubuntu 7.04 and it is working really well. I have al the eye candy I need and apart from Photoshop and perhaps Dreamweaver, I have everything I could want to make me a happy camper. I can listen to music, stream internet radio and video, view and do basic editing to my RAW photographs browse like a demon, email etc.
But....
My update manager is tempting me to update to Gutsy 7.10 I must say it is very tempting. Apart from Compiz being installed by default I would really like to be able to write to my NTFS partition from Ubuntu in ext3. Having said that I notice there are some people who appear to have problems with the upgrade especially with Compiz - Fusion.

So I think I'll take your "willy-nilly" advice and not upgrade just yet. Following the old adage, " If it ain't broke then don't try to fix it". Then over the next few weeks or perhaps months, I'll keep my eyes on the Ubuntu forums for problems and their solutions before "going for the burn"
Anyone here upgraded yet?


Those who look for monsters should look to it that
they do not become monsters. For when you gaze
long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

Screen shots I've just taken, Ubuntu alt-tab

and the cube.

Nice work Tao,

You mentioned not having Dreamweaver, can I ask what it is specifically about Dreamweaver you require/like?

Have you tried out Aptana?

Cheers,

Thanks Blaise.

I suppose it's just because I am now so used to using Dreamweaver in the Code and Design mode.
I initially started using this mode so I could experiment with changing the code and I could see more or less straight away what the results of my twiddling was. I have been sooo (three o's lazy) lazy teaching myself html xhtml and CSS that I now need to constantly check in the Dreamweaver GUI and in the browser.

I have started to look at the html editors offered from within the ubuntu repositories but as I have to switch to XP for Photoshop anyway I use Dreamweaver in that same session.
I set myself sessions in XP where I edit photographs ready to upload or print or whatever So I also use that session to do any editing to my site (which is in a mess atm) then when I've finished those tasks I switch to Ubuntu for the rest of the time.

I'm off to follow the link you gave me it looks good at first sight. Oh yes I should add that I know next to nothing about coding. It is all hit and miss with me. For instance I plan to have a good look at the AJAX & Javascript Galleries, Slideshows and Effects Redux that po1 provided and see if I can incorporate one or two of them in my site. Cut and paste with a mallet handy in case of difficulty


Those who look for monsters should look to it that
they do not become monsters. For when you gaze
long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

Aptana doesn't have a design view, but it does have a tab to view in a browser (in the app) so it's just as effective, just no drag 'n' drop.

I like Quanta But Aptana looks pretty nice. Gonna have to give that a shot later.

Might upgrade to 7.10 this weekend. Kind of nervous about it since my upgrade from Edgy to Fiesty left me with pretty much a dead hard drive.

Later,

C:\

Just wondering if you do your upgrade via the update manager or if you do a complete new install from CD-ROM?
I've kept most of my working files on a separate partition so I could go either way. Though I suspect that the update manager should be more straightforward if it works properly.

Once the system is up and running, it is better to keep the system up to date using the update manager. If you've kept your system up to date with the manager, you can actually use it to do a major version update when they are released. Some update managers sometimes have a problem with major version upgrades. I know they work on Red Hat. You will need to look for comments from people who have used your specific distribution to see if they have had problems doing major upgrades.

If you are more than one major version behind, or if your update manager has a reputation for not handling major updates well, you will be better off burning a CD and doing a new install. For the rest of your needs it is easiest, and safest to let the update manager handle the updates.

.



-- not necessarily stoned... just beautiful.

quote:

---

Tao said:

via the update manager or if you do a complete new install from CD-ROM?

---

I tried it the last time with the "Update Manager" and it bombed hard. I've heard that using this method has worked 99.9% of the time. Most of the failures have come from what hyperbole was speaking of. Not a completely up-to-date system. If there are new packages for what you have installed, get them, then upgrade following those instructions and you *should* be OK

I've heard via IRC that Gutsy is nice and fast. Faster than Fiesty.

Later,

C:\

Thanks hyperbole and C:\
I'm still running Feisty and I have taken your advice about methods of upgrade. When I do decide to upgrade I'll make sure I'm totally up to date with my updates. Another thing I may well do is un-install everything relating to Compiz prior to update via Update Manager. This is just in case of any conflicts. I have also downloaded 7.10 and have that burnt to disk just in case the other method goes wrong.
For now I still have Ubuntu working wonderfully well on it's own drive and the CompizConfig Settings Manager has been running as smoothly as a smooth thing on automatic smooth control.
Thanks for the linkage too.

A nuther update for y'all.
In an attempt to cover all the bases I could, I went for a clean install of Ubuntu 7:10 "Gutsy Gibbon" in a separate partition on the same drive that I already have Ubuntu 7:04 "Feisty Fawn". I did this so if anything went nasty I would always have a working OS to play with.
The installation went very smoothly indeed, then there were quite a few upgrades to download and install to bring my system up to date and this also went without a hitch. With this new version I can see, copy and write to all my other partitions and drives including the NTFS ones.
I still have to tweak my sounds as they are not working yet (the same thing happened with the 7:04 installation) but if I follow the same tweaking method as before I'm sure I'll get that up and running. All the lovely eye candy like Compiz is (more or less) built in with this version so no complimacated command line installs and hours reading the forums to get the thing up and running
So far I am very impressed with Gutsy Gibbon. The people who name these versions are really having a good laugh are they not?


Those who look for monsters should look to it that
they do not become monsters. For when you gaze
long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

To get Compiz flying, install the compizconfig-settings-manager and compiz-fusion-plugins-extra packages.

This might be a good time to mention that as soon as I install/update Ubuntu, I run the following line:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras vlc mplayer mencoder build-essential xchat xchat-gnome frozen-bubble chromium openarena zsnes xmms banshee libdvdnav4 libdvdread3 libxine1-ffmpeg libxine1-ffmpeg wine stellarium celestia blender bootchart sysv-rc-conf gnochm conky compizconfig-settings-manager compiz-fusion-plugins-extra

... and then run a few videos and music files on my computer to install the codec packages.

YMMV, etc, etc.

Ubuntu naming follows a community wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DevelopmentCodeNames

quote:

---

Tao said:

I still have to tweak my sounds as they are not working yet

---

unmute the sound in the sound manager. can't remember the name of it but I'll have a look when I get home

Petskull : you need libdvdcss2 as well

Later,

C:\

(Edited by CPrompt on 12-10-2007 18:32)

Thanks Petskull I've already installed the compizconfig-settings-manager and compiz-fusion-plugins-extra through the Synaptic Package Manager. I was the first thing I did after installing all upgrades
I really wish I had kept notes on how I got the sounds working last time I'm sure it was through ALSA but I'm not sure of the steps I took. As I type I am using Automatix2 to install a shed load of things like Acrobat reader, Flash (I think) Google Earth and so on and on.
I'm going on walkabout tomorrow for a few days so I'll carry on trying to get the OS tuned to my needs when I get back. I see it has a free trial version of Crossover Office set up to install so I may give that a whirl too see if i can get Photoshop running.

C:\ I can't find where to "unmute the sound in the sound manager" There is under System>Preferences>Sound, an interface to mess with system sounds but no "Mute" button to be seen

Petskull or C:\ you did not mention if you have upgraded to Gutsy yet? Or anyone for that matter.

I think this is a great thread. The following question relates so closely to the theme here that I am posting it in hopes it is considered appropriate. Thanks so much...

Ok, I have been in computers about 25 years but not at the bits and bytes level. A year ago I bought a Dell desktop and had a very long difficult experience with the machine they sent and the customer service they provided. The NYS AG is suing Dell in a class action suit for many of the problems I encountered.

It is my understanding that MS will stop supporting XP Pro effective August or sometime in the next year. I am seriously thinking of moving to Linux so as to simplify my life. But the question is will it truly simplify my life?

Or put another way, for someone who just wants a simple reliable computer, does it make sense to move to Linux? I mean China and other countries have decided to go with Linux. I just want a simple computer system that I can rely on and MS with its plan for Vista, etc. is getting me very tired of all their problems.

I have read the following:

http://linuxondesktop.blogspot....u-704.html

http://linuxondesktop.blogspot....u-710.html

and think Linux on the desktop might require more work than I want. I am a simple man with simple needs. Isn't Linux still a ways off from being sufficiently GUI for me?

Do you know of any websites that address my particular level of questions?

Thanks.

CountryBoy
( i am beginning to think I am a Luddite.....)

quote:

---

But the question is will it truly simplify my life?

---

I'd say "not quite yet, but almost". If you don't toy around with Beryls and Compiz, you should be fine "for the most", but still, I found myself issuing shell commands
after two or three days of Ubuntu. It's great, don't get me wrong, but I recommend opting for something like OSX, which combines the nerdy charm of Unix to
an extremely intuitive and refined user interface, if you want to avoid Vista.

For an Ubuntu for home users, a really real one, you should wait a few months, end of next year, the baby should be a boy, then it will really make your life easier to switch.

My 2 cents.

Many thanks for your patient guidance on this matter.

CountryBoy

quote:

---

Tao said:

C:\ I can't find where to "unmute the sound in the sound manager" There is under System>Preferences&gt;Sound, an interface to mess with system sounds but no "Mute" button to be seen

---

Ubuntu right? So you're running Gnome? In the right hand corner on the top, there should be a "speaker" icon. If you right click it, you will be given the option to "Unmute" Right now it probably has a red "x" next to it.

quote:

---

Tao said:

Petskull or C:\ you did not mention if you have upgraded to Gutsy yet? Or anyone for that matter.

---

Yes I did upgrade to Gutsy, and no it didn't go so well. I lost X completely. So, I installed Debian LOL

Later,

C:\