Slashdot Mirror

It seems some of your problems might be solved with a little help from the excellent Ubuntu Guide and Ubuntu Forums. Packages like DVD::Rip and avidemux sit in some repos that are turned off by default (at least DVD::Rip is; haven't checked avidemux as I pulled my deb install from a forum user). A quick edit to /etc/apt/sources.list and an apt-get update should help.

Ubuntu Guide has a lot of great tutorials for practical tasks (e.g. -- getting DVD functionality to work, setting up DHCP client, installing nVidia drivers), and any questions I've had not found there I can usually find at the Ubuntu Wiki or the Ubuntu Forums. And it's all pretty much top-notch. The forum people and IRC people are really helpful and friendly too -- I've not encountered any of the sort of snobbery that I found in other distro support forums and channels *cough*Gentoo*cough*.

Totally agree with the kernel bit. One of the first things I do after an Ubuntu install is install a new kernel. So, if any Ubuntu devs are reading this, more kernel options for an install would be greatly appreciated kthx :)

Have you tried Ubuntu and then http://ubuntuguide.org? I've gotten quite a few people to use Ubuntu for months w/ only a couple minute tutorial and little to no questions with Ubuntu and the Ubuntu Guide.

As far as the font rendering. It turns out Microsoft doesn't actually render fonts correctly. Wifi is as easy for me as System->Administration->Networking (this is a menu structure), enter password (as this is not something a person w/o admin rights should be able to do), click on my wireless card from a list with pictures, click properties (or I could have double-clicked the wifi card), then choose the ESSID I wanted from a dropdown list or manually enter the ESSID I wanted, click Ok.... done. Sounds kinda long in words but it's just "open program, choose wireless card, choose ESSID, leave program"

As far as the IE thing, you can get IE to run w/ Wine quite easily. It's dead easy if you use CrossOver Office (www.codeweavers.com)

THIS is why Ubuntu rocks and will wipe Debian out of this planet! Everything's just a few clicks away. Mediaplayer codecs, Java plugins, MPlayer firefox plugin, Shockwave plugins.. It is just too easy to get this apps up and running on Ubuntu!

Debian is dead, Ubuntu takes it's place as the king.

..And why I trust Mark Shuttleworth and Ubuntu Linux??? NOBODY CAN BUY HIM! Microsoft would probably love to buy him and make him a Microsoft employee just like they did to Gentoo founder Daniel Robbins, but THEY CAN NOT touch this guy! This guy got 575 million dollars for selling his company in 1999 for VeriSign. He doesn't need Microsoft's money! He doesn't need anybodys money! That is why we can trust this guy!

What they have done with Ubuntu is just amazing! It feels like Ubuntu will become the de facto desktop OS and it will beat Microsoft Windows in a long run.

Everything you need to know to get the applications running.

try http://ubuntuguide.org/. Kinda handy for all the addons that one needs to be happy.

OK, well, if you can't find amule (and assuming you have searched for it) it might be because you might need to add a few extra repositories, but you can do this via Settings --> Repositories --> Add in Synaptic. Try adding the ones listed here.

With those repositories, typing "amule" into Synaptics search box brings up two hits. Not exactly a massively unwieldy list. The top hit is titled "amule".

I assume that whatever Citrix software you are trying to install is supplied as source for Linux. As I said, that really is'nt a problem with Ubuntu, and there is simply nothing anyone in the Linux community can do to force them to change how they supply their software.

Ubuntu disables the root account. If you need to run root commands, you use sudo from your user account. This operation will ask the password for this user account.

To enable root, just do sudo passwd.

More information here: http://www.ubuntuguide.org/

I find highly incredible someone willing to compile an entire os and apps; can't figure something this simple. Its just like knoppix, but sudo in ubuntu asks you the user's password.

The rest of your problems might be addressed in the forums, chat or wiki.
IMO the strongest point of ubuntu is the community.

Well, now that I have it running - I like it.

The reason why my mediaplayer didn't work was a sound issue. I also couldn't figure out why RealPlayer wouldn't spawn.

I figured it was related to my Microsoft Digital Sound System 80 USB Sound system. It appears that was it. Although the sound system worked fine under fedora, it didn't here. But after I found driver support for it, and got it running, I had this problem:

http://ubuntuguide.org/#configuresoundproperly
Luckily, the technique there fixed it.

My NVIDIA card did not work correctly, and running the shell script from init level 3, and getting it configured - and then STILL not having work because I didn't have a base scan rate in xorg.conf to match my Sylvania monitor so I had to make one, which took my about 4 hours to figure out why it wouldn't go past 800x600, and now - after all of this - finally haviong WMV support for Mozilla and all the tools working like Eclipse that I want to code with... now... ok, it works pretty good and I like it. It does some wasteful things I had to tweak to get turned off, like run cupsd for printing and syslogd. Xorg sits memory resident at about 45M, and javaw runs at a whopping 80. Compare that to XP's java runtime and explorer.exe footprint. And, now that I have native Nvidia drivers loaded and have the desktop with virtualization (something the XP powertools will give you, btw) it runs good - but it's a bit slow on refresh. I optimized Mozilla but clicking through tabs has a noticeable laggy nature.

Still, I'm glad to be free of Microsoft. I can use GNUCash now to manage money, and a host of other tools I am much happier to work with, not the lease of which is the fact I have a bash shell, gcc and g++ on my desktop machine.

But let's not pretend this is fun, or that XP lacks package management (.msi) or that I am completely off base.

Having said all that, I am happy here and am leaving my home server on Ubuntu. Your bafflement baffles me.

Oh, I think you're wrong on Valerie Plame as well. Anyhow...

Totem with the xine backend and the codecs have been able to play every file I've thrown at them, including Real audio/video formats.

Hello, I'm a moderator on the Ubuntu forum. After looking at your post I conclude you need to do two things:

First you need to install and enable the official Nvidia driver. You are lucky enough to have an Nvidia card (their drivers are the best) and so you might as well get your money's worth. The directions here will guide you.

Secondly, we need to get your apps starting faster. To do that, follow this how to. I know its a Warty How To, but it will work for every Ubuntu released. And after it is done, things will speed up...

Also I know for a fact that your card will work with Xcompmgr. Look at the guide here. Don't use the drop shadows (the -cC command), just use the fading (-fF) and everything else will speed up as well (no more draw issues). I usually run the program in a terminal in my fourth desktop, out of my way. With xcompmgr and prelinking with the official drivers, on your laptop Ubuntu will fly!

Thanks for posting so much info so I could help, have a nice day.

I've tried a number of different distros, and the two I like the best are Ubuntu and ELX. ELX is more Windows-like, it even has wine (windows emulator) already set up so you can run most windows programs, but it's not as popular, so if you run into problems, it'll be rather hard to find to find help for it. I use Ubuntu as my main OS. It's pretty simple to use, and there are some good websites to get you going on it.

As for games, it depends on what kind of games you like to play. If you like puzzle games, you'll find 8 gazillion of them for linux. If you like FPSs, UT2004 runs on linux. Many other games will also run under wine. I'm a gamer too, but I tend to stick to consoles so I haven't tried many games under linux.

Pretty much all files that work with windows will work in linux, as long as you have a program that reads them. MP3s are rather universal, and almost every linux distro comes with an MP3 player, usually XMMS, which is a lot like winamp. The default office program in most distros is Open Office, which also runs under windows and works with MS Office files. As for compression, well, I'm still a little bit of a n00b myself, so I'm not quite sure. I know in Ubuntu I can easily compress stuff to tar.gz format in the file manager, and I can open .rar and .zip files. I'm sure I could install a more elaborate compression program, but I haven't really found a need for that yet.

I'ld recommend you look around at other websites too, and find out more about linux in general. TuXfiles has some pretty good articles and guides, and I;m sure you can google around for more stuff. Or you can just email me. Good luck.

You can play WMV on linux ... Ubuntu / Debian has packages for it.

See http://ubuntuguide.org/#codecs for example.

The rest of your issues seem distro related. You should try Ubuntu (with Totem-xine, see the Ubuntu guide) or any other friendly distro. Just because something costs money, it doesn't mean its any better.

" I'd love to hear some feedback if someone's found a nice and easy way to manage packages on Linux to get a good installation of:

Firefox,
OpenOffice,
VLC,
XMMS,
ACPI,
Fluxb ox (or Gnome)"

I'm a Linux newb but....

Firefox - comes with Ubuntu
OpenOffice - comes with Ubuntu
VLC - can't help you here, ask about it on ubuntu forums
XMMS - Get the Ubuntu Add-on (zip or cd) from mr. bass..makes everything nice and easy.
ACPI - ask on ubuntu forums, might want to ask with specific problem and hardware info.
Fluxbox (or Gnome) - Ubuntu comes with Gnome. If you're having probs with Fluxbox, maybe try xfce (another lightweight) instead? I installed xfce (can be found from mr. bass, with the other stuff) and works great for me.

One thing I love about ubuntu is the forums. No matter what level of experience you have people seem very willing, even happy, to help. Without any perceptable elitist attitude either.

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/ - Forums
http://www.ubuntuguide.org/ - Unofficial Ubuntu Guide 5.04

BUT one thing I have not figured out is how to play things like WMV files on my Linux box.

Its not nearly that bad. The first program the Ubuntu Guide (a very well known documentation) tells you how to install Smeg to do the job.

Plus, that is a Gnome problem, not a Linux problem. Its easy to do in KDE.

And then -- once you figure out that you need to create a .desktop file, and where this file needs to go, and what format this file needs to be in, and you actually go and create it -- nothing happens! That's right, you don't see the item in your panel until the next time you log in, unless you manually restart the X server with CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE.

Actually you don't even have to do that. You can restart the gnome panel by running this:

killall gnome-panel

I know all these solutions involve the CLI, so if to you "desktop user=GUI" you will no doubt conclude that its not "ready." Its fine for me (and you I guess).

Actually, even java is pretty easy to install. I wish there was a way to do it without that one text file edit:

http://ubuntuguide.org/

As a previous poster pointed out, pilot-link is how things get done as far as Palm/Linux integration go. Of the GUI front-ends to pilot-link, I have always found JPilot the best. (http://www.jpilot.org/) It even uses GTK2 now.

When they worked at all, I found that both KPilotd and Gnome-pilot/evolution would make duplicate entries and cause some stuff just to disappear. Then there's the fact that, IIRC, Evolution still has no notes function. JPilot is small, fast, simple and just works. You can even use it to sync up with AvantGo with the mal plugin. I even use JPilot without the palm, as it's a nice little PIM program.

And before you ask, there is no working Mozilla/Thunderbird/Sunbird integration that I am aware of. JPilot can integrate with Sylpheed's address book, and I've written scripts to go to and from Thudnerbird, but it's usually a boring, tedious job that I tend not to repeat too often.

I use JPilot with my Sony Clie TJ-37, a great PalmOS device. As a bonus, the drive mounting works quite well with newer 2.6 kernels.

If you're planning to use Ubuntu, check this out too: http://ubuntuguide.org/#configurepalmosdevices

Glad to see it worked out for you. You may be aware of these but these are good Ubuntu resources. Maybe they can help with your problem:

Ubuntu Wiki
Ubuntu Beginner Guide
Ubuntu Discussion Forums

Cheers!

DEFINITELY try Ubuntu then. I have it working on my A31P with nary a hitch. It even likes my PCMCIA wireless B/G card (Netgear WG511T).

I have several friends on newer (and several on older) Thinkpads. And the problems are damn few.

Also, DEFINITELY hit the Ubuntu Starter Guide. Even if you're an old hand with Linux, the SG will point you in the right direction to get everything purring right from the outset.

http://www.ubuntuguide.org

Hello. I noticed that you will be undertaking a task I recently went through, putting Linux on an original iBook. That link has most of my experiance, but here is a quick summary:

For a good experiance in Ubuntu, at least 256mb of RAM is needed. You can get by with less if you are willing to hack and try other window managers, but if you want the nice integrated experiance you have to have at least that much ram. I have 300 in my iBook and it runs great. Better than the original OS in my opinion. But that Live CD might not run so well, as the iBook's cd drive is slow.

You will be happy to know that the Airport card works without a hitch. I use WEP and Wireless networking all day long. With this howto you can get the great Kismet to work.

PPC Linux lacks a real flash pluggin. There are free ones but they don't work so good (they require more CPU power than iBook has most of the time). Looking at broken puzzle pieces suck, so I use this extension and never click play.

But sure to check out the Ubuntu Guide, as most of the advice (everything cept windows codecs, those don't work) is the same for PPC. Also check out the PPC wiki.

Good luck and be sure to come to the forums if you need help.

Only occasionally does this new release differ from Ubuntu.
As a casual linux user, I see that Ubuntu is much more 'non-geek' friendly than Debian. That is probably the biggest difference.
Also, take a look at the Unofficial starter guide.. http://ubuntuguide.org/. This is exactly why users like me are flocking to Ubuntu.
If there is a comparable guide to Debian, I am not aware of it... or havent found it yet.

You really need to give Ubuntu a try. I have worked with all of the "newbie" distributions, and this one BY FAR is easier to work with than the others (Fedora, Mandrake, etc.). Also, if you decide to check it out, Ubuntu Guide will help get your feet wet. It will solve your #2 problem. As far as your #1 problem, you just need to spend more time in linux.

Well, despite the fact that I disagree with the basic point of his post, I must agree that I've not yet setup a Linux system "all the way to where granny can use it" without having to drop to the shell. Now, I think that's probably ok...I'd rather use the terminal anyway, and once I get done, she doesn't have to. That's the stem of my disagreement with the GP; I *can* setup a box so that the end-user doesn't need the shell....I just have to use it to get them there. HP should be able to do the same...although it remains to be seen whether they will.

But if you're looking for specifics, and keeping Ubuntu-centric here, head down to http://ubuntuguide.org/ ...don't get me wrong, I'm happy that the site is there. But that's about 50 examples of initial-configuration tasks that require the shell. In my opinion, every one of those tasks should either a)be done automatically (without asking) when you install the OS, b)be installation options, or c)be simple, no-terminal-needed operations.

If I only got to pick one thing for Ubuntu to do at install time that it's not doing now, it would be to give the user an appropriate /etc/apt/sources.list file.

Hope that helps; you're right, there definitely is a *lot* of usability work going on these days. I started with RedHat 5.2, and we've come a long, long way.

They may not be friendly because "Why is x.org NOT in debian-unstable?" is a stupid question and they've probably been asked that a million times. Try google instead of expecting other people to answer your trivial questions for you.

Thanks, it's been a bad day, and I needed a good laugh. It's like the parent said "Longtime Debian users are abusive, loud-mouthed drunkards."

And then you staggered in, wreaking of Jack Daniels and yelling, while slurring every other word, "Yeah, well you're a f%#!ing idiot."

I remember when i first cracked my teeth on OSS - it was FreeBSD. I found that often the forums seemed to be full of some 'old guard' that didn't want us noobs coming in an wrecking everything. I was more than happy to oblige =)

That's why I bounce back and forth between Gentoo and (K)ubuntu - both represent a new take on Linux with recent -> bleeding edge enhancements. I'm not posting to say either of them are the Linux Holy Grail, just two that I've been happy with, backed by a community of users who actually enjoy helping others out.

Documentation is huge also - I like what Ubuntu has done here - and easy to follow startup guide that someone who is brand-spaking new can follow. In less than an hour you have a fully functional multimedia-capable desktop, without paying the M$FT tax. What could be better? YMMV.

Ubuntu, in an attempt to be totally free, can't do things like play DVDs right "out of the box," or isn't configured to list or mount Windows partitions in Gnome. Even if you are a total beginner, spending half an hour at the Unofficial Ubuntu Startup Guiide will get you up and running and totally happy with your new distro.

The Unoffical Startup Guide should be required reading for any Ubuntu user. Heck, EVERY Distro should have a site just like it -- the Linux world would be a better place for it. And no, I have nothing to do with it other than being a grateful reader...

add the hoary repositories to /etc/sources http://ubuntuguide.org/4.10/index.html%23upgradewa rtytohoary

Following the really simple steps of the Unofficial Ubuntu Starter Guide will get you configured for about every media type out there in just minutes. It's one of the best Linux resources I've ever seen.

Same here. I switched to Ubuntu some time ago and just kept debian-unstable/sid on my development machines.

Ubuntu surprised me my automagically configuring *everything right* on my wierd hardware combo. Also, with a bit of theme tweaking it looks smooth, really smooth. UI practically on par with OSX, for example.

For first time I can easily setup a maintainable desktop for Joe Average (and I've set up 3 of those on Ubuntu now).

Here's the thing. If your Joe Blow doesn't need gaming - Ubuntu is faster to install than Windows, loads faster than Windows, doesn't need a key like Windows, comes with all the necessary software unlike Windows and an apt-get ssh-server gives you remote admin. Ubuntu rocks.

It does require a bit of post-install tweaking to get it all polished - read the (easy) steps here: http://www.ubuntuguide.org/.