Beginning Ubuntu Linux

Ravi writes "Anybody who have heard about Linux would be aware of Ubuntu which is a very popular flavor of Linux created by the South African firm Canonical founded by the space tourist Mark Shuttleworth. In fact, they set the precedent of supplying free CDs of this very popular OS to any one interested in installing and trying out Linux on their machine. Recently, I got hold of this wonderful book named "Beginning Ubuntu Linux - From Novice to Professional" authored by Kier Thomas. Being a Ubuntu user myself, I was pleased to see a Linux book specifically concentrating on Ubuntu, finding its way to the book stores. This book is aimed at people who are new to Linux and who wish to start their Linux journey by installing Ubuntu on their machines. Read the rest of Ravi's review. Beginning Ubuntu Linux - From Novice to Professional author Keir Thomas pages 600 publisher APress rating 9/10 reviewer Ravi Kumar ISBN 978-1-59059-627-2 summary A good book targeted at neophytes in Linux who wish to install and use Ubuntu on their machines

The book's 600 pages are divided into 7 parts each concentrating on a particular topic. And there are in total, 34 chapters and 4 appendices.

The first part of the book concentrates on giving a firm foundation to the readers as to what Linux is all about, its history and the benefits of using Linux over any other operating system.

From here, the author moves into explaining how to install Ubuntu on ones machine which forms the basis for the second part of this book. This part is divided into 3 chapters, one each dealing in pre-installation steps like partitioning ones hard disk, the actual installation steps and the equally important part of the most common issues faced by users before, during and after the installation and their solutions. In fact, the author lists over 18 problems that any user could encounter and gives their possible solutions.

The third part of the book which contains 6 chapters focuses on giving a fly-by tour of different aspects of Ubuntu Desktop, its various elements like menus, panels, virtual desktops and applets. I especially liked the section which listed the Microsoft Windows desktop functions and their equivalents found in Ubuntu. There is a special chapter titled "Ubuntu replacements for Windows programs" which could be an eye opener for any one interested in embracing Linux. In fact, the whole book is geared towards neophytes who are hoping to take their first steps in Linux.

Part 4 aptly named - "The Shell and Beyond" - contains 5 chapters where the author gives a sound introduction to the shell in Linux as well as takes the reader through the most useful and commonly used commands which would help a user save time. This part of the book contains a chapter on the Bash shell where the author explains the uses of the command line and how one can benefit from it. I really liked the table giving the DOS commands and their equivalents in Linux and also the section on how to disable the graphical desktop and boot into the console. And surprisingly the author explains how to do it the command line way which I found really interesting. This section is full of useful tips for people who have an affinity for the command line - like creating aliases, getting more help on the command usage, the file hierarchy in Ubuntu, file permissions and much more. The icing on the cake is the chapter named - "Cool Shell Tricks" - which contains many command line gymnastics that showcase the true power of the console in Linux. But what is amazing is that the author explains all these topics in a very simple and lucid manner which makes it easy for even a lay person to understand.

The fifth part of the book deals entirely with the topic of digital music, movies and image editing and is spread over 3 chapters. Here one gets to know the various software used to play different media formats as well as an introduction to the fine art of image manipulation using Gimp. One of the biggest drawbacks for Linux users is the lack of out-of-the-box support for popular media formats due to license restrictions. The author explains how one can enable the media players bundled with Ubuntu to play most of these media files including the ever popular mp3. By going through the chapters in this section, one gets to know more about the different audio and video formats which could be an eye opener for any tech neophyte.

What is the use of a desktop if it does not suit an office setup right? The next section comprising of 8 chapters cover how one can use Ubuntu at one's work place. The author takes the users on a trip of using OpenOffice.org office suite to create documents, spreadsheets, presentations as well as configuring an email client to send and receive emails. The last chapter in this section is exclusively dedicated to installing and running Microsoft Office in Ubuntu using Wine.

Till now if the book was dedicated more or less to new users of Linux, then in the seventh and final part of this book, the experts among us have something to look forward too. This part of the book covers the finer nuances of maintaining the Ubuntu system which includes installing and updating software, managing users and groups, ways of backing up data, and most interesting of all, steps to make the system more responsive which includes disabling unnecessary services, optimizing the hard disk, the concept of prelinking and much more.

The inclusion of 4 appendices which contain among others a glossary of Linux terms, the bash shell command index, information on getting further help online as well as a synopsis of the different flavors of Ubuntu makes this book a perfect guide for new users in Linux.

Having said that, even though at first glance, a person who is well versed in Linux might be tempted to pass it on as a book for newbies; on close scrutiny, one will find interesting nuggets and tips which even an expert would not have known. One example of this is the part where the author explains how one can configure Ubuntu to communicate and transfer data with one's bluetooth enabled cell phone. And it is to the authors credit that all these technical topics are explained in clear and simple language. The book is interspersed with images and screen shots making it easier to visualize the steps being explained. All in all a good book which is both informative and entertaining at the same time, and which would appeal to anybody interested in installing and using Ubuntu Linux on ones machine.

The author, Keir Thomas has been writing about computers, operating systems,and software for a decade. He has edited several best-selling computer magazines, including LinuxUser & Developer, PC Utilities, and PC Extreme, and worked as part of the editorial staff on a range of other titles. He was formerly Technical Group Editor at Live Publishing. Throughout Keir's career, his aim has been to explain advanced and confusing technology in ways that the average person can understand. Keir works as a freelance editor and writer. He lives on the side of a mountain in England, and his pastimes include hiking and playing musical instruments.

Ravi Kumar is passionate about all things related to Linux and likes to share his experiences through his blog on Linux."

You can purchase Beginning Ubuntu Linux - From Novice to Professional from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

Canonical's not South African

[Anonymous Coward]

Canonical isn't a South African company. It's a Manx company. Or a British one at a stretch.

Re:Canonical's not South African

[dustinl4m3]

Canonical is a global organisation headquartered in the Isle of Man, with employees throughout Europe, North America, South America and Australia. http://www.canonical.com/

Many people who have never been to the Isle of Man are not sure exactly where it is! The answer is that it lies in the Irish Sea, between England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, less than 60 miles west of the Lancashire coastline http://www.isleofman.com/about/

Re:Canonical's not South African

[Saven Marek]

Many people who have never been to the Isle of Man are not sure exactly where it is! The answer is that it lies in the Irish Sea, between England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, less than 60 miles west of the Lancashire coastline http://www.isleofman.com/about/ [isleofman.com]

In other words, South African.

Re:Canonical's not South African

[tpgp]

Canonical isn't a South African company. It's a Manx company. Or a British one at a stretch.

For those who are wondering what the hell AC is talking about (I know I was):

1) Manx means 'native of isle of man' (Like the cats)
2) Isle of Man is an Island between the British Mainland & Ireland - its neither part of the UK or the EU & certainly not british (although Britain represents them to some extent)
3) Canonical is registered as a company there.

I'll leave it the reader to judge whether Canonical (founded by a South African, employing people all over the world, with a heavy South African presence, but registered in a tax haven) is South African or Manx.

Re:Canonical's not South African

[Anonymous Coward]

... and here I was thinking it was 'Marx,' and I was wondering if it meant 'Communist' or 'Comedic'.

Re:Canonical's not South African

[Anonymous Coward]

and just to be clear the expression "british mainland" shouldn't imply that there is anything else that's british; great britain is just the one island which oddly, the british, who live there call "the mainland".

Re:Canonical's not South African

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Wonder what all the people living on the Hebrides, or the Orkneys, or the Shetlands, or the Scillys, or the Isle of Wight think about that.

Re:Canonical's not South African

[Anonymous Coward]

"Registered" is not the correct term. It is incorporated -ie came into existence and continues to exist- under the laws of Man, specifically the Companies Act, and is subject to the jurisdiction and oversight of the High Court of Justice of Man, and if you wanted to enforce a claim against it you would have to do so in Man. It exists as an entity because the laws of Man say it does and there is international mutual recognition of such laws on legal personality. So I can't see that describing Canonical Ltd as anything other than Manx is particularly useful.

Re:Canonical's not South African

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, they should mention there is an entire section on Multimedia, CD's, MP3's, etc.... you will need it in order to get anything to play!!!! The distro comes without any kind of codecs, so those need to be installed, just for basic MP3 playing. Sometimes they work, sometimes the do not, and forget about playing any music from an external drive, the files must be local in order for them to play...Not ready for primetime.

Re:Canonical's not South African

[edgarde]

forget about playing any music from an external drive, the files must be local in order for them to play

What a weird accusation. I do some tech support for Radio Volta ( me ), which recently moved to Ubuntu desktops, and the music they play on the studio PC is NFS mounted from another Ubuntu workstation.

It worked for me, and the DJs are a bunch of Windows-lovin' crybabies, so I'm sure I'd hear about it if there were problems.

I think yr making stuff up.

Re:WOW

[Machina Fortuno]

You should feel really cool... I mean, really. The fact that you have displayed so much skill, as to click fast and type a mind-boggling 5 character comment has earned my immediate respect. Congratulations you Anonymous Bastard.

It is nice to see some good software manuals out there. It seems like so many of the ones that you run into might aswell have been written in a different language. I am also just fond of the word Abuntu! Might have to tell my friend about this one... the other day he was complaining about his new box, and how it is hard to use, haha.

Meaning, for those who are curious.

[PIPBoy3000]

Taken from the site:

"Ubuntu" is an ancient African word, meaning "humanity to others". Ubuntu also means "I am what I am because of who we all are".

My favorite meaning comes from Wikipedia:

"a person is a person through other persons"

To me, it gets at the root that concepts of self and other are fairly arbitrary. It often makes more sense thinging about who I am in the context of family, work, and society.

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ubuntu" is an ancient African word...

That line just drips with well-meaning condescension. It's not an "African" word, it's a word in an African language. And it's ancient compared to "Linux", obviously, but not to non-technical words in any other language.

Again, it's well-meaning but unhelpful to pretend that Africans speak "African".

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[frank_adrian314159]

a person is a person through other persons

Ooh! Ohh, ooh! Cue the Randroid flamers!

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[Saven Marek]

The problem is many people see that as being "communist" or "hippie"

I know two managers who found the meaning of ubuntu and immediately demanded a de-install of all linux systems.

This is not what is needed. Maybe not for the USA.

I think call it "Ubuntu" for the rest of the world and "Individual" for the USA. or "Freedom".

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[TheCarp]

Reminds me of Pirsig's rants in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance about "subject-object duality". Its right in the root of our language. I am me, as seprate from us and them.

I never really exists sepratly from anything else though. What is my keyboard? My finger comes down and intersects a peice of plastic... there is an edge where the keyboard ends and the free space begins...

The keyboard is not the edge, it is not the free space above it, but it never exists as a seprate entity from those things. Everything that is not my keyboard defines my keyboard by providing the contrasts of all of its properties.

Or as one talk in some other book noted (I think it was "the 3 pillars of zen"), everything we see is just the mental representation of visual input. We don't see a chair, our eyes detect the patterns of light bouncing off the chair, and what we experience is a mental composite of that image and our thoughts and ideas about chairs. In essense, what we experience isn't the chair, but our own mental image of a chair. Fundamentally every experience is not external but internal, the chair that we see is actually as much a part of us as our arm or our leg or our thoughts.

Of course, its not usually very useful to think that way... subject-object duality makes a very nice abstraction when you want to convey information.

-Steve

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[jotok]

To me, it gets at the root that concepts of self and other are fairly arbitrary. It often makes more sense thinging about who I am in the context of family, work, and society.

Not completely arbitrary. If asked, "Where are you?" you can answer "So-and-so from that other point." If they ask "Where is that other point?" you can say "So and so from where I am." It is circular. It is no different from saying "I yam what I yam." True, but devoid of really useful content.

However, I do agree that we are not 100% as autonomous as some would have us believe. Interdependence is important; who I am depends in part on my location in a big web of relationships. It must necessarily influence me, but the me-node is more than just a node.

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[uglyduckling]

Hmmm, well I'm not sure that you know what you're talking about. There are 11 national languages in South Africa, and some words do become quite universal, for instance "yebo" means both "yes" in the affirmative and also as a response to a greeting. Practically every South African would recognise it as such regardless of which language they speak. "Ubuntu" has been described as both a Zulu word and a Xhosa word - I suspect it's well-known in both languages and probably several others.

I do know what you're getting at, but the reality is that there are concepts that are fairly ubiquitous across most of Africa, so it's not unreasonable to describe a particular word or concept as "African" just as there are words and concepts that are particularly "European" despite the size of my continent (I'm British). In fact, there are concepts that are distinctly "Western" (covering, I suppose, Europe, North America and arguably Australia and NZ) for instance the idea that every bad event must be blamed on a named individual.

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not bad, but you blew your plausibility on two points:

1) Your English isn't American. I can't put my finger on why (it's not grammatically flawed) but your phrasing is just ... off.

2) The "two managers" is pushing it. You should have used "a manager" instead of getting carried away.

Not bad, though. Keep at it!

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[OwnedByTwoCats]

Or as one talk in some other book noted (I think it was "the 3 pillars of zen"), everything we see is just the mental representation of visual input. We don't see a chair, our eyes detect the patterns of light bouncing off the chair, and what we experience is a mental composite of that image and our thoughts and ideas about chairs. In essense, what we experience isn't the chair, but our own mental image of a chair. Fundamentally every experience is not external but internal, the chair that we see is actually as much a part of us as our arm or our leg or our thoughts.

But we do experience things that are external to our mental image of things. If I sneak up behind you and clonk you on the head, you have no preparatory mental experience of me, but you would experience cuts, bruises, and (possibly) broken bones. Fundamentally that experience is external, as you had no internal experience or expectation to which it could corresponded.

Pathogenic Disease is another area where you have no internal states at the outbreak of symptoms, but there is an external agent causing your experiences.

I find the whole internal/external debate to be useless and sterile. There is an external world out there, and it will affect you, whether you want it to or not, and no philosophers can change that.

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[Brushfireb]

To me, it gets at the root that concepts of self and other are fairly arbitrary. It often makes more sense thinging about who I am in the context of family, work, and society.

Thats interesting. Seriously, becuase I really dont think about that. For me, it often makes more sense thinking about who I am in the context of my personal accomplishments and failures, dreams and aspirations, and all of my past experiences. Family and Society only come in loosely, but dont really affect how I think about myself.

Speaking with my japanese friends about topics like this, they seem to tend more towards you. Oh well.

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[Terrabite3]

"Ubuntu is what Ubuntu is because of what Windows is"

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[Anonymous Coward]

My favorite definition that I've come across...

Ubuntu is an ancient African word, meaning "can't configure Debian"

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

It often makes more sense thinging about who I am in the context of family, work, and society.

But then, if society is an illogical, random, unreasonable conglomeration of nonsensical ideologies, beliefs and traditions.... what would that make me?!

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[Anonymous Coward]

How about "Charity"? That's a good Christian concept...

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[sydb]

the idea that every bad event must be blamed on a named individual.

That's not the idea. The idea is that in an organised effort to achieve an objective (run a restaurant for a night, put a man in space, create a piece of software), there should be responsibility allocated for the different kinds of risks which might derail the effort. When the effort is in fact derailed in an uncontrolled manner, either the individual with responsibility for mitigating the causative risk is to blame, or the person with responsibility for identifying risks and allocating responsibilities is to blame.

We don't blame weathermen for bad weather. We do blame them if they predict good weather and it turns out to be bad, because their job is to provide the information we need to mitigate against bad weather.

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[Anonymous Coward]

... despite the size of my continent (I'm British).

And despite the fact you are not on the continent.

To moderators: don't hesitate, this post is a troll.

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[Robin Lionheart]

Nah, any self-respecting red-baiting commie-hating paranoid isn't going to touch an open-source operating system (fear the viral licenses!) to begin with.

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[Syberghost]

Nah, Jeff Waugh got it right:

Ubuntu actually is "an ancient African word for I am sick of compiling Gentoo".

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[ktistec]

I know two managers who found the meaning of ubuntu and immediately demanded a de-install of all linux systems.

Awww, they wouldn't have done that if they'd really "found the meaning of ubuntu"...

(Did you give them a hug?)

But, all kidding aside, would you say that my new distribution, Woo-woo Linux, might be facing some problems?

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[Pxtl]

This is the Tux that exists for Rei Ayanami. /NEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD!!!!1111

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[ktistec]

(Stop Me Before I Reply Again. ;-)

call it "Ubuntu" for the rest of the world and "Individual" for the USA. or "Freedom".

Well, that might remind people of Richie Havens at Woodstock...

I'd suggest "Weakest-to-the-Wall Linux", or "John Galt Linux".

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is many people see that as being "communist" or "hippie"
I know two managers who found the meaning of ubuntu and immediately demanded a de-install of all linux systems.
This is not what is needed. Maybe not for the USA.

Sad. What does that say about us? We are the society that most needs that meme.
And before you jump with the flames, remember that most of these critics would scream we are a republic. Under roman republic theory the citizen had a duty to the state and his fellow citizens.

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[fsapo]

There is another definition too :)

"Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning I can't configure Debian"

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[grcumb]

"For me, it often makes more sense thinking about who I am in the context of my personal accomplishments and failures, dreams and aspirations, and all of my past experiences. Family and Society only come in loosely, but dont really affect how I think about myself."

"L'enfer, c'est les autres." (Hell is other people) - Jean Paul Sartre

I think he used a Mac. 8^)

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[hotspotbloc]

I thought is was "Ubuntu is an ancient African word, meaning "can't install Gentoo". =)

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[Colonel Angus]

Those two managers are supreme assholes if that's the sole basis for such a decision.

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[Curmudgeonlyoldbloke]

...and it's also worth mentioning that many of the "African" (i.e. not European or European-derived) national languages are related, just as many European languages are. For example, the words for "centre" and "central" are similar to the latin original even as far as Denmark and Norwegian Danish ("Senter" in Norwegian if I remember correctly). And the Romans didn't get much further North than the Rhine...

To describe a word as "Western European" isn't necessarily prejorative, and "South African" or "African" isn't either.

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[John Hurliman]

I recently switched over to Ubuntu for my desktop machine for the same reason I take my car to a mechanic if it breaks down. I've used Debian/Gentoo/RedHat/Caldera and several other flavors of Linux, but in Ubuntu it feels like I get that perfect balance of power and ease of use. Run the installer, and you have a fully functional desktop, office suite, and other desktop apps in a few minutes. A few apt-get commands and you have a dev environment and tool-chain. Nothing prevents you from getting the latest cvs checkout of the new xgl server and compiz and installing it, but you aren't forced to dig through config files or huge arcane command line menu systems.

For reference, I used to do all the work on my own car until I found better ways to use my time. Configuring Debian might be a good use of your time if you are learning to become a network admin or linux dev, but there's a whole world of people out there that have better things to do than learn about apt-get or devfs.

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[Simon Garlick]

OK then, maybe in the US we should refer to Ubuntu as... PATRIOTFreedomOS© ?

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[Woldry]

"a person is a person through other persons"

... no matter how small.

(With apologies to Dr. Seuss)

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[i_should_be_working]

...the reality is that there are concepts that are fairly ubiquitous across most of Africa, so it's not unreasonable to describe a particular word or concept as "African"

Maybe, but Ubuntu is not one of those concepts. Calling the word "African" sounds ignorant, if not condescending. In Swahili it has a more literal meaning of "centre"; The buses in Dar es Salaam that go downtown were labled "Ubuntu". I've been told that in Rwanda it means "free" as in beer, not as in freedom.

And these are in places where a Bantu language is spoken. In northern Africa the word does not even exist. It's insulting to the populations of many countries in the north when they are not considered to be "real" Africans.

The other condescending thing is calling it "ancient", trying to give it some kind of air of native mysticism. There are old words in western languages too, but we don't go around calling them "ancient".
Person A: "what's communism?"
Person B: "Well, it's an ancient European word meaning "sharing".

Ubuntu Linux should have just stuck to Desmond Tutu's definition, which I believe they used to quote. It's sad to me for my favourite distro to misrepresent people in some of my favourite places.

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[chiskop]

What is my keyboard? My finger comes down and intersects a peice of plastic... there is an edge where the keyboard ends and the free space begins...

D00d, easy on those funny looking cigarettes.

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[Anonymous Coward]

> ("Senter" in Norwegian if I remember correctly)
I think "Sentrum" might be the word you're looking for. "Senter" is an newer import from English

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[kwoff]

Or "have more important things to do with my limited time on Earth".

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[uglyduckling]

Interesting... (and I'm aware we're getting OT here). What I was thinking of is the idea that if I trip over a loose paving slab and injure my foot, somebody somewhere ought to be paying me some money to make up for my injury. I think that's a very "Western" concept and so I was using it as an example (and clearly I wasn't specific enough!).

Here's another interesting one - I was talking with a doctor who works in one of the African nations who had another doctor who was due to be speaking at a conference that had been planned for months cancel the day before because his mother-in-law had come to visit. Note that she wasn't sick or in any kind of trouble, there were no family problems - she had just come to visit unexpectedly. The idea that family should come before other committments - even when there is no kind of emergency or pressing need - is quite "African" (and I'm sure other groups of cultures too). Just an example - not very well developed - but I find this kind of stuff very interesting.

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[Hognoxious]

But if it's open source you could just rename & recompile (coucgh CentOS cough). Et contrebass - Adam Smith Linux!

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[BeanThere]

My favorite meaning comes from Wikipedia:

"a person is a person through other persons"

This translation is also much closer to the full original expression, "Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu", in fact that's probably the closest literal translation you can get.

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[Anonymous Coward]

in Ubuntu it feels like I get that perfect balance of power and ease of use

Funny, I've found my interest in Linux waning somewhat of late, and it occurred to me that part of the "problem" is that Linux has become 'too easy to use': It's too easy to set up these days for it to be interesting to real 'geeks', but it's still too complex for joe public. It used to be fun and challenging tinkering with it to try get things to work (e.g. I fondly remember the days of recompiling the kernel to e.g. get a sound card to work), but nowadays you basically just install it and it runs. I boot up and everything works and I wonder "OK what now". Without much to actually do on Linux I just don't get quite the same kick out of it anymore.

Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.

[TheCarp]

I don't see it as a debate so much as a statement of fact about how things work. Its not a denial of an external world, its a denial of objective experience.

All experience of the objective world is subjective. Sure, there are many times when that distinction is unimportant, however, our thoughts and ideas are products of the internal subjective world. Sometimes, it is useful to remember that.

-Steve

Re:WOW

[Anonymous Coward]

i smell jealousy in the air.

Re:WOW

[Anonymous Coward]

You should feel really cool...I mean, really. You complain about a five character post when you yourself couldn't even manage to put six together properly (Abuntu? Might want to read that fucking title again, genius...and there's no such thing as an "aswell" either). Not only that you also managed to post a masturbatory ego-boosting reply in the nick of time, thus ensuring yourself of your own supposed intelligence.

Stop posting on Slashdot and go back to school for a while, it might help with your spelling. Your personality, well, I'll leave that mess for you to figure out.

Free CD's

[torpor]

... far as i can remember, Yggdrasil were the first to do the 'heres a free bootable Linux CD so you can try it out' promotional trick, as early as 1994.

sure, Ubuntu is a wonderful project, and the purpose of making Linux easier for humans is an admirable and honorable effort. But, these 'new-generation Linux distros' getting all the credit for what has been a 'traditional activity' among the Linux crowd rankles a little ire ..

Re:Free CD's

[eldacan]

The article is not quite clear, but the point is, Ubuntu will *ship* you CDs free of charge, in any quantity you desire. I don't think Yggdrasil did this...

Re:Free CD's

[02bunced]

... far as i can remember, Yggdrasil were the first to do the 'heres a free bootable Linux CD so you can try it out' promotional trick, as early as 1994.

sure, Ubuntu is a wonderful project, and the purpose of making Linux easier for humans is an admirable and honorable effort. But, these 'new-generation Linux distros' getting all the credit for what has been a 'traditional activity' among the Linux crowd rankles a little ire ..

Maybe it suggests that something went wrong with the marketing of Yggdrasil and Ubuntu's "effort" seems to be competently led.

Re:Free CD's

[fooslacker]

Yes it's not completely accurate...yes it's happening more and more often that these new distros get credit for stuff others did years ago...so what? Get over it. The reason they're getting credit is because they're doing it on a broad scale and successfully. It happens in every industry, it's the people who commercialize and consolidate that get the credit. Not the first person out there but the first successful person out there.

Re:Free CD's

[advocate_one]

Yggdrasil only gave out free CDs to those who had actually contributed parts of the software on the disc... everybody else had to pay.

Re:Free CD's

[torpor]

well .. its at least interesting that there are now 'generation gaps', or rather 'distro gaps' between the old-school and the new-school distro builders .. its like, things change the more they stay the same ..

Re:Free CD's

[grcumb]

We were doing this for the SME Server (http://www.contribs.org/) back in 2000, when it was still owned by e-smith, inc. We shipped one CD free of charge to anyone who filled out a request form on our site.

The effect was quite positive. It helped to build awareness of the software at a critical point in its life, and we went from a few hundred servers installed in the wild to a few thousand. Not huge, but still enough to build a really dynamic community. The server's onto version 7 now, and the community is stronger than ever.

I think the biggest reason why Ubuntu ships their software anywhere for free is that most people who live in the developing world (including me) simply couldn't get it otherwise. It's very smart, but more importantly it shows that Ubuntu is willing to put its money where its mouth is when it comes to creating an operating system 'for everyone else.'

Re:Free CD's

[Bastard of Subhumani]

I think the biggest reason why Ubuntu ships their software anywhere for free is that most people who live in the developing world (including me) simply couldn't get it otherwise.

Ummm, like, run that by me again:

You can afford a computer - but not the postage on a what - 100g - package?

There is electricty available where you are. But no postal service?

If not, then what on $deity's green earth do you mean by "most people who live in the developing world (including me) simply couldn't get it otherwise"?

Re:Free CD's

[grcumb]

"You can afford a computer - but not the postage on a what - 100g - package?"

Who said I could afford a computer? Most people here can't, which is why I work at obtaining computers donated by people more open-minded than you, and setting them up in public places so that people can use them.

"There is electricty available where you are. But no postal service?"

Yes, exactly.

Surprised? You shouldn't be. Life's like that for a lot of people. I regularly receive packages of books and disks from very generous friends in North America. It typically takes between 2 and 4 months for them to arrive and the cost of postage is often in excess of USD 100.

Even a small package of 100 grams or so is expensive. For someone living on the local minimum wage of USD 200 per month[*], even a few dollars is often more than they can spare. But if they can get their hands on a live CD, they can come to a friend's work place or to one of the community-based computer centres we run here, pop the thing into the drive, and... explore.

... And that, really is what Ubuntu is all about.

[*] Most people earn a great deal less than that, being un- or only partially-employed.

Why are COBOL programmers so sad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cobol programmers are down in the dumps.

???

Seems nobody can capitalize COBOL correctly anyway. Morons.

Re:Why are COBOL programmers so sad?

[Tezkah]

???

Seems nobody can capitalize COBOL correctly anyway. Morons.

I think CoBoL Programmers are so sad because people cant capitalize their title properly.

Manager: "Hi Rob, this is the CEO"
CEO: "Nice to meet you Rob!"
Rob: "Hi!"
Manager: "Rob here is one of our top Cobol Programmers!"
Rob: ":( YOU DIDNT CAPITALIZE IT PROPERLY"
CEO: "YOU CANT SEE CAPITALIZATIONS IN SPOKEN WORD, YOU'RE FIRED!!!"
Rob: ":("

No wonder they are so sad. :(

Re:Why are COBOL programmers so sad?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I think CoBoL Programmers are so sad because people cant capitalize their title properly.

You may be right, but shouldn't it really be "CoBOL": Co-mmon B-usiness O-riented L-anguage.

Re:Why are COBOL programmers so sad?

[crosstalk]

They are so sad because it is COBOL, i mean come on, LE/370 release was a step up but damn, it does some things well but it is COBOL, staring at that syntax all day made me sad too.

Former COBOL programmer, 5 years dry

Re:Why are COBOL programmers so sad?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Seems nobody can capitalize COBOL correctly anyway. Morons.

There, there. I know it's hard. Kids can be so case insensitivite at times.

Re:Why are COBOL programmers so sad?

[Bloke down the pub]

I always write it as CO807 or something similar. I fear that uttering its true name could cause me to have to do it again, for a living.

P.S.I think it's short for Complete Bollocks. It ought to be. Really, if I could travel back in time and eliminate one person, Hitler & Stalin would have a lot less to fear than that Hopper bitch.

Need something more general

[cabinetsoft]

I still have the feeling that an IT specialist writing a book about Ubuntu or Debian or Gentoo is just like a sexologist writing a book about making love with his wife Jenny...

Beside that, can someone recommend a good book about Linux / Unix in general? People ask me for this and frankly I don't know a printed book to recommend to them. For some time I recommended Tannenbaum's "Operating Systems" series.

And I'm still planning to write a book on Gentoo tho - I'll just send all the logs from stage 1 install 'till OpenOffice compile to my publisher.

Re:Need something more general

[Anonymous Coward]

I've found Jenny to be an amazing lover. If you've never tried Jenny before, I suggest you get a hold of the live version, slip it in, and turn her on.

Re:Need something more general

[v0lrath]

"an IT specialist writing a book about Ubuntu or Debian or Gentoo is just like a sexologist writing a book about making love with his wife Jenny..."

As long as Jenny is available to anyone who wants to try her out, placed on the open market, and comes free of charge, you're absolutely right. Well, provided Jenny has some unique features none of the other girls on the street corner have.

Re:Need something more general

[zez]

"Linux in a Nutshell" is about as general as you can get, but I wouldn't recommend it to a beginner!

Re:Need something more general

[robin.shepheard]

While I have not actually read the book, some of the people I have suggested 'Moving to Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye!' (mainly as it was the only book I have found aimed at the beginner and that i was impressed by the quick flick in the bookstore) as a good place to start have been very impressed

Moving to Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye!
By Marcel Gagne
ISBN 0321159985
Publisher Addison-Wesley Professional

It even comes with a version of knoppix so people can try before they completely commit to linux which I have to say I think is very important.

I was surprised to find recently when I friend of mine (complete technophobe) was given a knackered laptop that when I put ubuntu on it he was very pleased and gave less trouble than a lot of people found when changing between windows versions

Re:Need something more general

[LordOfTheNoobs]

JENNY@STREETCORNER:~$ sudo apt-get install herpes-4.11

Re:Need something more general

[cabinetsoft]

"an IT specialist writing a book about Ubuntu or Debian or Gentoo is just like a sexologist writing a book about making love with his wife Jenny..." As long as Jenny is available to anyone who wants to try her out, placed on the open market, and comes free of charge, you're absolutely right. Well, provided Jenny has some unique features none of the other girls on the street corner have.

That would stand true for Mary, Alice, Gina, Debbie and so on also... It just seems silly to me to have like 10-20 printed books on each Linux distro... I mean c'mon one can write this kind of books one per day...

And btw... what's so different about Ubuntu? Which are the unique features you're referring to? I bet there are several others distros having them.

I was just pointing out to the marketing scheme behind all these titles... Are ps, ls, cp, mv, less, bash so different on Ubuntu that one needs to write a book about it?

Re:Need something more general

[Quino]

Something more general would be of almost no value to a beginner.

A book that tells you how to edit menus on Gnome won't be of any use if you're using Fedora Core 2 for instance - in fact I bet there's little else more frustrating than following directions that mysteriously don't work for you.

That's one great thing about Ubuntu also, the forums contain pertanent information. It's been 100 times easier to find fixes, software, explanations, walkthroughs that work on Ubuntu than it's been for Fedora Core. I do wonder what's going to happen when Ubuntu has many flavors floating around -- if they'll end up with online documentation of greatly reduced value (like Red Hat).

Re:Need something more general

[LordOfTheNoobs]

This post is silly. Of course the simple little utility apps you mentioned do not change. What changes is the interconnection and layout of the larger software packages, like windowing utilities, update frameworks, and automagical configurations of installed utilities like apache etc.

The books aren't about a minimalist linux install with bash running. They are about a large preconfigured distrobution of many automatically installed applications. They all include the basics because they try to be effective for the novice that doesn't know those shared basics.

Tired of it? Write a basics book with distro-specific appendums released regularly.

Re:Need something more general

[MrCanard]

This http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz helps me.

Re:Need something more general

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, thank god you're at least running the stable version.

Re:Need something more general

[dalroth5]

Though of course they might also be there to effect their affectation...

Using Ubuntu

[wren337]

I've been a fedora core user for some time and I decided to try Ubuntu on a recently donated dell 933. I have been pleased with the ease of setup and install and the intuitive package tools so far. Most amazing to me was that my old MA101 USB wireless adapter "Just Worked(tm)". No ndiswrapper install, no kernel stack size recompile, no headache. I was just on the network. Amazing. Core seems to go out of it's way to make ndiswrapper hard to use. I may switch all my boxes to Ubuntu.

Re:Using Ubuntu

[databyss]

I'm in the same boat. I just Ubuntu on yesterday after switching over my girlfriend a week ago. I used her as my guinnea pig.

She isn't incredibly computer literate and she enjoys it so far.

I enjoy it too. Very easy to use sets up nicely off the bat.

ubuntuforums.org and ubuntuguide.org are mandatory references.

Also, on the coincidence side of things, I just bought this book today for my girlfriend. She prefers the dead tree stuff to online references.

Re:Using Ubuntu

[MAXOMENOS]

I was also very impressed with Kubuntu until it started freezing on me randomly, and in ways from which I could not recover without rebooting. Based on my reading in the forums it looks like the problem isn't resolved yet (sorry, can't find the thread now), and so I switched back (somewhat reluctantly) to Fedora Core. Hopefully they'll iron out more of the bugs in Kubuntu in the next couple of releases. I really like that Kubuntu does everything I would ever want in a Linux distribution, but I should never ever have to reboot my Linux box to recover from a freeze.

Re:Using Ubuntu

[Rimbo]

Kubuntu isn't supposed to be the ugly step-child of Ubuntu, but it really feels like it. Package updating and printer configuration in particular were horrible experiences for me. I switched back to FC5 because although FC is Gnome-based, the KDE components at least work like they're supposed to (although i admit I used redhat's printer config utility, not KDE's this time around).

Re:Using Ubuntu

[MAXOMENOS]

And frankly, that makes me think that maybe Ubuntu has no business branching out any further (into, say, embeddable distributions for cell phones or the like). We've already seen one low-quality offshoot. Why dilute the product with another low-quality offshoot? Why risk possibly hurting the quality of your core product in the process?

Re:Using Ubuntu

[matthewchen]

Have you tried on AMD dual core, 64bit, I couldn't make it work on on SMP. Any suggestion? Other than that, I love ubuntu.

Re:Using Ubuntu

[stinerman]

I've made the move to a GNU/Linux system a few months ago using FC4 (and now FC5) as my distro of choice. I'm really hooked on the GUI tools that are coded for Fedora Core (redhat-config-$SERVICE). I tried Ubuntu and tried to configure Samba. On FC4/5 it took about 2 minutes and a few more to mount a few shares using CIFS in /etc/fstab. I had a hell of a time doing it in Dapper. I gave up after about 10 minutes of 'man samba' and related docs.

Had it not been for that bad experience (and perhaps I missed something that would have made it much easier), I probably would have stuck with it. Unfortunately, I did and decided to stick with Fedora.

Re:Using Ubuntu

[cpm8080]

Ubuntu is for linux what Windows 2000 was for NT 4.0. In both cases the kernel was about the same but the configuration management became much more graphical. If you have a lot of time to screw around with the command line it makes no difference but you can't beat graphical interface for system settings. I don't want to remember that my add-on NIC is eth0 and the built in eth1. I want to call them "built-in" and "add-on"; it's easier to figure it out by just looking at the box ! I tried red-hat many times and most recently fedora-2, 3 & 4. I moved to Ubuntu recently and I'm not coming back. Thanks Ubuntu team.

Re:Using Ubuntu

[h00pla]

Maybe it's just the mood I'm in this morning, but if you read your post quickly, it almost sounds pr0nographic

Re:Using Ubuntu

[pAnkRat]

Then you tried it "the wrong way." (tm)
I tried it like you descibed too, and it was hard.

Then I found the "ubuntu way":

The Ubuntu way of sharing a folder with samba is:
- 1 open Nautilus
- 2 navigate to the folder you want to share with other users
- 3 right-click the folder
- 4 choose "share folder" ("ordner teilen" in the german translation (which reads "split folder", but thats another story))
- 5 ...
- 6 done

There might be a step 5:
If this is the first time you try to share a folder, Ubuntu prompts you how you would like to share it : NFS or SAMBA.
You choose from a dropdown, ubuntu installs the needed packages, presto!

A collegue and I switched from sarge to ubuntu 2 weeks ago.
We really liked changing configs and "hackin" in sarge, but now with ubuntu we commonly say "too easy" or "boring", because it "just works" (well, most of the time..)

If you try to do something in ubuntu, the most simple and idiotic way you can think of how to accomplish your task, will work most of the time.

I don't blame you if you like to go back to editing config files and reading man pages, I'm still indecisive myself if I really like it this way.

Re:Using Ubuntu

[BugZRevengE]

No problems here... Kubuntu AMD64 smp kernel, no problems...

I am going to downgrade to the i386 version however, because a few applications are not available yet in 64bit.

What about Security?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny that there isn't a chapter on security!

Re:What about Security?

[popeguilty]

If you're after Windows users, simply making the switch constitutes a fairly high improvement in security in and of itself.

Re:What about Security?

[Technopundit]

Given time, and in the unlikely event Linux ever reaches desktops in great numbers, Linux will be compromised regarding security as much or more than Windows has.

Re:What about Security?

[popeguilty]

Which sounds great, except that it ignores the fact at at this time and in this place, switching to Linux provides a boost to security. I mean, seriously, when someone uses the phrase "lifesaving" do you immediately jump in and note that given enough time and exposure to enough diseases, eventually everyone dies?

Ubuntu just rocks

[TheCarp]

Not related except as my ubuntu experience.

I had an old laptop that i recently fixed (it just needed to be taken apart and have some connectors reseated). I had been running Debian on it, but I have a new job, and a new work issued laptop...so I didn't need it.

So my sister, who is one of those people who "knows how to use word". Thats right, she could type up a report for school, and browse the web, but that was about it. Complete novice.

So I didn't have a copy of windows to install (though since there was a product key attached to the laptop I technically could have, if I had install media)... anyway... so I installed Ubuntu and said "If you want windows, you have to have it put on, but heres this" (she lives too far away for me to get media and drive out to her). I showed her how to log in and pointed at open office and said "that works like word" then pointed her at firefox and said "heres your web browser".... litterally all of 2 minutes.

She called me 3 days later to tell me how great it was working and ask why she was able to get on the internet last night, but not today... turns out she just randomly had picked up someone elses wireless and got on, never even realised it... whoever it was must turn off their access point when they are not home, she never saw the signal again.

Point is... she never even needed to ask a question beyond that. I have had less problems giving her an ubuntu box, than giving people with similar experience levels windows boxes...she has been usign it and happy with it (I talked to her the other day) for several weeks now.

Man... who ever would have thought Linux on the desktop would really get there for us non-geeks? I always said it would, but I have to admit, I always had some doubt in my mind.

Hell as it is I have completely switched over to ubuntu myself. Its a fresh debian! Yay! Its what i have wanted for years now... a debian stable thats less than 6 months old! (and more often than for 6 months out of every 3 years)

-Steve

Re:Ubuntu just rocks

[Uzik2]

Does it handle CD's better than what I'm used to?
Having to goto a shell and umount the drive to get the cd out is awful.

Re:Ubuntu just rocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, 1999. It's 2006 calling. I'd like to introduce you to my friends udev and pmount.

Re:Ubuntu just rocks

[burner]

Yes.

1) stick in CD
2) see icon appear on desktop
3) right click on icon, select Eject
4) CD pops out.

Re:Ubuntu just rocks

[Anonymous Coward]

See, that's great the Ubuntu distro works for you.

I have to admit I sick of these kind of comments. It 'Rocks' has no value to anyone else except fanboy gratification. Ubuntu is a great distro, it's strength is in the UI layout and auto-hardware detection, BUT it's still a distro. I mean, I just tried installing 5.10 (which is a bit out of date) and Fedora Core 5 and guess what? The Ubuntu install failed and Fedora worked (due to enhancements via X11R7).

In the end, it's about who can crank out a hard-stable distro using the latest packages and offer best support tools. Bling and fan base need not apply.

Re:Ubuntu just rocks

[Uzik2]

Still have this issue in all the other distros I tried.
Maybe they don't have it, or it doesn't work.

Pop in your DVD. Run the video player of choice.
Hit the eject button on the dvd player.
I know why it doesn't work, but it seems a reasonable action
that should be supported gracefully.

If your dvd player crashes you have to umount the disk.
To be fair windoze is really awful about CD's with bad sectors too.

Re:Ubuntu just rocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Compaq notebook, Turion ML-32 (AMD64), ATI Radeon Express 200, Broadcom wifi == no love.

What? You expect me to run 32-bit like I was in Windows?!!

Re:Ubuntu just rocks

[mjake]

I mostly agree with your comment about Ubuntu being ready for the desktop, and I installed/support an Ubuntu desktop for my father-in-law (a complete computer newbie). It is great not having to worry about anti-virus software, anti-spyware software, worms, trojans, viruses, etc. (He was on Windows 98SE). Overall it is a better desktop than Windows for him. But it does have it's disadvantages.

Most of what he does is email and web browsing. Unfortunately a lot of what his friends send him are videos, powerpoint presentations (with background music), sometimes even *.exe files. Despite a lot of work to try to get it working, many of the videos don't play properly or at all (Windows media format) - the sound is out of sync or missing, the video plays very slow/choppy, corrupted image, etc. The sound for powerpoint files doesn't play.

He wants to play the free downloadable World Poker Tour program/client, but it is Windows only. People tell him about this really cool "GoogleEarth" program, but he can't run it because it's Windows only. Flash web sites basically work, but often some links in flash sites seem to be dead (but they work in Firefox or IE on Windows). You get the idea.

I know I could probably use Wine to work around some of the problems, but he could never handle the added complexity.

So unfortunately I find that he still has lots to complain to me about, problems that didn't exist under Windows. I do believe the benefits of Ubuntu outweigh the drawbacks (VS. Windows), but I look forward to the day when these issues are gone.

Re:Ubuntu just rocks

[MichaelSmith]

Complete novice.

Similar situation with my sister in law. She was running fine on Linux, then she wanted an iPod. I put GTKPod on but keeping it working is a major integration exercise.

People with the skills will do fine, people with no skills will do fine as well. People in between are the problem.

The other problem is than skills improve over time, but usually in the direction of "can I run this?". And often the answer is no with Linux.

Re:Ubuntu just rocks

[renoX]

> she has been usign it and happy with it (I talked to her the other day) for several weeks now.

Wait until she has to go to an IE only website, or make a resume: you'd better explain her to use PDF and not to send an OOo document, otherwise..

I hope you have explained this to her otherwise you're irresponsible.

Sure it's less work to maintain a Linux than Windows, but we're living in a Windows world you know so using Linux creates some problems sometimes, if she's a beginner, she'll have a hard time working around those problems.

Oh? You want a book?

[irimi_00]

This book is great and if you can't install Unbuntu yourself; go and buy the book. But here is what I did:

I wanted to migrate away from Windows.
I am sorta tech savvy - I know the different parts of a computer, I can trouble shoot some basic problems, and I can type "getting your printer to work in ubuntu' into google.

My point is, instead of paying 40 dollars for a book, here is what you do:

1.Go download the Ubuntu ISO
http://mirror.mcs.anl.gov/pub/ubuntu-iso/CDs/5.10/ ubuntu-5.10-install-i386.iso

2.Go get some burning software, I had to download a few free ones off downloads.com to find that actually worked burning isos as they claimed to, but you probably have some installed, I'm sure.
http://www.download.com/Click-N-Burn-CD-DVD/3000-2 646_4-10461707.html?tag=lst-0-5
http://www.download.com/3120-20_4-0-2-0.html?qt=bu rning&author=&titlename=&desc=&li=49&os=&swlink=&g filetype=
I installed slackware a few years ago and my friend spent like 5 hours helping me configure it to get everything to work and it still gave me problems.
It was a pain, or else one of us just overcomplicated it.

Once Ubuntu was installed... it just worked wonderfully. I sometimes forget I'm not using windows and any non GPL software. The install went like this: insert CD, boot off cd, go through install process, Ubuntu won't start up, switch to boot of IDE-0 in bios - Everything is perfect

I also installed automatix, and Auto Packages
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=13840 5
http://autopackage.org/docs/howto-install/index.ht ml

I don't like computers particularly, I'm not a poweruser or a nerd, and I don't really game. Ubuntu provides me near full functionality for what I need - more than windows ever did.

CentOS provides other options too, but why use Windows if you don't have to?
I feel like such a subversive.
So do what works for you.

Re:Oh? You want a book?

[Anonymous Coward]

>I don't like computers particularly, I'm not a poweruser or a nerd, and I don't really game.

what are you doing an /. ???????????

Re:Oh? You want a book?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Once Ubuntu was installed... it just worked wonderfully.

Did it play mp3s?

Re:Oh? You want a book?

[databyss]

First thing my girlfriend said too...

Well first was "Where are all my files?" since we setup dual boot. But the web was good and helped her map her ntfs drives in a couple minutes. Then xmms was installed and all was well.

She thinks apt-get is the hottest thing alive right now.

Re:Oh? You want a book?

[djrosen]

Of course? Why wouldnt it?

Re:Oh? You want a book?

[labratuk]

I warn you that if you use autopackage, you will sooner or later run into severe dependency problems and probably hose your system. Or at least create an unmaintainable system. Use the supplied package management system ( apt / ubuntu updater ), not one that just ignores the complexities of package management.

I feel very sorry for novice users who get lured in by the premise and familiarity of autopackage and other installshield-like programs and end up having to reinstall.

Re:WOW

[fufubag]

Yup, this is what it's all about. Why would I need cable TV, when I can get all my laughs right here?

Biggest Complaint

[XanC]

That's my biggest complaint about Ubuntu: the name is so stupid. What a load of touchy-feely crap! At least other Free Software names are either random, or named for somebody, or are just there to sound cool. People understand that.

But try to tell people that they don't mean anything individually, and inundate them with flower-smelling, pot-smoking hippy crap, right in the title of the OS, and they don't go for it.

How similar is Kubuntu?

[SydShamino]

I built my first Linux machine with Xandros a few years ago, and I've used it as my home server ever since.

Now, I'm looking to upgrade, and I was planning to use the next version of Kubuntu when it released next month. I have used KDE for some time and I think I prefer its interface to that of Gnome.

My question is, if I choose Kubuntu, would I get anything at all out of this book? Or is it so different as to be not worth the purchase?

I'm an electrical engineer, but I do hardware design. I have little interest in being an expert in operating system configuration. I like the concept of Linux, but I want easy-to-follow instructions to set up what I need, with a minimal amount of fiddling in .conf files and other settings.

Re:How similar is Kubuntu?

[wolfemi1]

AFAIK, Ubuntu and Kubuntu are exactly the same project, with slightly tweaked default settings and, of course, the different desktop environment.

As a matter of fact, you can change an Ubuntu install to a Kubuntu install with one command:

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

I think you can even change back by using the above and "ubuntu-desktop" instead.

Re:How similar is Kubuntu?

[teklob]

The short answer is yes.

Although I haven't read the book in question, I have used Ubuntu and Kubuntu, and the only part that wouldn't apply to you would be (going on the review info) section 3 (6 chapters) on the actual gnome interface, and the replacement windows apps. Installation, command line, advanced administration etc. are all exactly the same.

Ubuntu and Kubuntu are very similar, and you can even turn one into another with a single bash command.

Re:How similar is Kubuntu?

[shiznatix]

Kubuntu is simply ubuntu with KDE. Thats it, nothing more. Everything works just the same on the 2. My friend uses Kubuntu and I use Ubuntu and we have yet to spot a difference other than the KDE vs Gnome interface.

Although I have not read the book I would bet money that there would be no difference.

Re:How similar is Kubuntu?

[tpgp]

My question is, if I choose Kubuntu, would I get anything at all out of this book?

Judging from the review:

1st Section: Linux History
2nd Section: Installing Ubuntu
3rd Section: Ubuntu Desktop / app comparison to windows
4th Section: Linux Command Line.

Of these sections, the 3rd is almost useless to you, 2nd should be reasonably useful, the 1st & 4th useful - but available from any book describing a linux distro.

In short - the book will be useful, but not alot more then a book describing any other debian based distro.

I know a book is a lovely reference to have - but I think one describing a particular iteration of any particular distro to be overkill. Grab yourself a general linux (or even unix) book, and use the helpful ubuntu wiki (and less helpful ubuntu forums) for kubuntu specific deviations.

Check out the Kubuntu Quick guide for starters...

Re:How similar is Kubuntu?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you do that, (apt-get install kubuntu-desktop), you haven't removed the old Ubuntu desktop; it's still installed. So you now have a choice between KDE (Kubuntu) and GNOME (Ubuntu) when you log in. I use it this way, and it's *very* nice for people who want to try both. You can set one to be the default, too, so it's not confusing to new users. Doesn't use too much hard drive space, either.

It's easy to keep your Kubuntu fresh by going to kubuntu.org and following the simple directions every time a new KDE or KOffice version is released (that is, if you want to try 'em out when they're new).

Re:How similar is Kubuntu?

[eddeye]

I think you can even change back [from kubuntu] by using the above and "ubuntu-desktop" instead.

Well... I suppose, theoretically... if you wanted to see... uh... no, sorry, you lost me.

Re:How similar is Kubuntu?

[jimrz]

True, but not entirely accurate. In ubuntu "sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop" does indeed give you the KDE wm, or rather the choice of either Gnome or KDE and you pick which from the "sessions" when you log-in to ubuntu. Additionally, since the choice only effects which wm you have for a session and the underlying sytem remains the same, you can use both Gnome and KDE apps under either wm.

Re:How similar is Kubuntu?

[giorgosts]

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that the package is simply not installable and a bug report against that package should be filed. The following information may help to resolve the situation: The following packages have unmet dependencies: kubuntu-desktop: Depends: adept but it is not going to be installed E: Broken packages Everything in Ubuntu Just Works!!

Re:How similar is Kubuntu?

[SydShamino]

Much thanks! This was the reply I was seeking.

(To most of the other replies, yes I know Kubuntu = Ubuntu - Gnome + KDE. That wasn't my question.)

Save $6.80!

[Anonymous Coward]

Save yourself $6.80 by buying the book here: Beginning Ubuntu Linux. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

Why so easy?

[CrunchyMunchy]

After typing this comment I realized it could come off as criticizing ubuntu for targetting "easy", which is not my intent. I'm using Ubuntu right now to type this, and love it, not as a user friendly Linux, but as a nice barebones start for a Debian GNU/Linux desktop after a bit of customization. It's not cluttered with tons of things by default that just get in your way, but still has many useful programs either installed already or easily installable. This comment is more of a gripe about why more people aren't willing to "try" Linux, by which I mean, install, and LEARN it, rather than just failing to set a few things up for a couple minutes and then giving up. As Yoda said, "Do, or do not. There is no try".

Does anyone have an opinion on why people seem to demand that an operating system be so incredibly simple that they could almost use it without thinking before they'll look at it? Computers are complex but extremely powerful machines, and it's not as if a modern GUI based *NIX system is so much harder to use than Windows, with powerful tools available to you if you choose to use them. These systems were created by people who needed to use them to get things done, so it's not as if you can't use them that way if you're willing to apply a little thought to how you use a powerful tool.

People who don't want to learn to use a computer are cheating themselves out of the most amazing tool mankind has yet invented for the transmission and manipulation of knowledge. Why should the target for interface design be someone who doesn't know how to use a computer and never will?

Re:Why so easy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone bitch that you don't drive your car to its full potential? Go to racing school then give me a call.

For most people a car is a way to get from point A to point B.

For most people a computer is a way to do thing A or thing B.

To some, a car is something to be utilized to its full potential (or even modified to perform beyond its intended potential) and thus a certain level of knowledge regarding the technology and operation thereof is necessary.

To some, a computer is something to be utilized to its full potential (even modified to perform beyond its intended potential) and thus a certain level of knowledge regarding the technology and operation thereof is necessary.

Re:Why so easy?

[CrunchyMunchy]

My point isn't that everyone should use a computer to its "full potential". To do that everyone would have to know tons of CS and a programming language (the equivalent of your racing school). But the same way that using a car even half decently requires certain knowledge (signage, map reading, gear shifting), so does using a computer (understanding the tree structure of filesystems, or what a shortcut/link is, or the difference between hard disk space and "memory", or how email works). Nobody refuses to drive just because our cars require more than stating our destination in order to operate them. Some day cars may not need so much user intervention, but humans are intelligent tool-users and are fully capable of picking up the slack for now. All humans, not just techno-geeks.

Refusing to learn even the basics of a tool is not the right approach. And worse is when the tools start being designed exclusively for such people. Don't get me wrong, interfaces should be designed to make common or easy tasks painless, but this isn't a license to use a computer without even trying to understand what you're doing. You don't have to know everything, but most people know nothing about what they're doing.

Re:Why so easy?

[slackartist]

"...rather than just failing to set things up for a couple of minutes and then giving up."

If one is a hobbyist or curious about how computers function, the experience you describe in this phrase might be satisying or even an enjoyable interlude. There are folks out there blessed with time, discipline and a curious disposition. The world is full of people who are not like this. The question is, what role can computers play in their lives?

Indeed, even though I have time, discipline and a curious disposition, I frequently am not in the mood to "mess around" with my boxes-- I want to play a game or write software, not think about my filesystem. That's the whole POINT of computers, to me, being able to manipulate data using motifs and simplifying respresentations. Not everyone is curious 100% of the time and technical details always distract from the task at hand (unless, of course, the details ARE the task).

The power and potential of computers, which you mention, obviously give rise to many applications-- they can function as telephones, televisions, cameras, recipe books, game consoles, etc. etc. I believe that when a computer fulfills the analogs of these functions, the user should not be aware of the computer or even the operating system, just the application. An application should present the user with a motif that is both essential and minimal to its current function.

When a computer first starts, it isn't really doing anything *I* care about, so I shouldn't have to know anything. No tinkering. No setting things up.

Anyway, you asked for opinions-- that's mine. :)

Re:Why so easy?

[Anonymous Coward]

My point was that, aside from the curious hobbyist or a professional, there is no reason for them to learn how email works. They _need_ to know how to send and receive email, that's it.

Many of them don't know how television works, but they certainly use them all the time. They don't know how a speaker works. Hell, many people don't know how cd players work. Should they really have to know all of the different CD standards or how a laser works before the play a cd? Does it negatively affect the average music listener if they don't know how the cd player or a speaker does its job? No. I'd go so far as to venture a guessthat most people don't even know what SOUND IS.

If you asked 10 people, "What is sound?" - how many do you think would answer, "Sound is a transmission of energy via a series vibrations of a given medium"? My guess is that 9 out of 10 would not answer and that way. Nor do I think they need to know what sound is in order to use it to their desired effect.

Re:Why so easy?

[gcatullus]

It is a time issue. Back when I was a student, I had free time to devote to projects. Now, with wife, kids, job, etc. I want things to work mostly out of the box. I would still love to muck around and get things right, and I still enjoy that, but what is more likely now is that my attention would get diverted and the project would be put on a back burner.

It is also a little difficult to unlearn old habits. Do I type ipconfig or ifconfig, ls or dir, etc. A nice gui makes it easier. Once everytyhing is basically set up I can play with things and learn about them.

I do agree that people who don't want to learn how to use a computer are cheating themselves, but what about the people who want it to "work" first and then learn about it.

Take me to the Mountain

[digitaldc]

Throughout Keir's career, his aim has been to explain advanced and confusing technology in ways that the average person can understand. Keir works as a freelance editor and writer. He lives on the side of a mountain in England, and his pastimes include hiking and playing musical instruments.

Keir is the one you seek...a sage, a traveler, adventurer, musician, writer and master of all things technical. He has the amazing ability to explain even the most complex of things in a manner we can all understand. Now has come the time to implement the Ubuntu Linux - it is your destiny.
Seek out Keir, he lives on the side of the Mountain in England. He is the one who shall give you the knowledge you will need to carry on amongst the confusion and delusion.
Fear not, there are many dark naysayers ahead, but your unabashed determination and great skills will carry you forward in your quest for the Golden Operating System!
Go Forth and God Speed!

Re:Take me to the Mountain

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey man... You gonna pass that joint or what?

What a name..

[swordfish666]

Ubuntu will never make it on to desktops simply because of it name.

RedHat - now that's a Linux distro name. But at $150 a seat they can shove the hat...
Mandrake - another good name but it's gone
Mandriva - border line bad oh the the company is going down like a whore at the prom
Debian - solid name too bad it's maintaind by relinux zealots
SuSe - kind of lame, kind of free, Yast is very hand for lazy people
Fedora - border line good name, just don't install it on any hardwars older that last week
CRUX - CRAP
blag - all I can think of Barf-Bag
SLAX - Trousers (Pants! Pants! Pants! to you limey's)
Slackware - Old Navy's new clothing like for the unemployed
Gentoo - more junk but the name's ok
Xrandos - cool name it's too bad this distro costs money and sucks donkey snot
MEPIS - Me Piss
Damn Small Linux - That's not a name that's an in-complete sentence
KNOPPIX - good name now if it were only a real distrobution
PCLinuxOS - just in-case you don't know Linux is an OS that runs on PC's
Kubuntu - really?
Frugalware - again really?
Puppy Linux - hahahahahaha when it becomes v2.0 will it be renamed to Dog
Linux XP - Sure I'm running XP.
Turbolinux - now that's a name. Too bad this distro sucks and it's not FREE

Re:What a name..

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody else find it funny that the name elitist goes by swordfish666?

Re:What a name..

[Anonymous Coward]

swordfish666 will never make it to heaven simply because of it name.

Microsoft Windows - Sounds like double glazing salesmen that give you free toilet paper
Mac OS X - See PCLinuxOS

Re:What a name..

[nowhere.elysium]

Hah. perversely enough, this is a conversation that i had with a colleague a couple of years back, circa FC1. we decided that we'd quite like to (if we ever got the time) build a new distro of linux, and keep with the tradition of silly names. because we were both RedHat fans at the time, it was going to be BlueCondom. Never was quite sure why...
anhways, ubuntu is now my favourite distro; it behaves itself, it installs really, really easily, and it's based on the ever-stable debian, with a workable update cycle. i am most pleased.

Re:What a name..

[swordfish666]

Anonymous Coward.

Re:What a name..

[dbcad7]

I am not sure what your critera for being considered a "distro" is.. but Knoppix can install to your hard-drive. You basicly end up with a Debian based system.

Been awhile since I tried Xandros, but it didn't cost me anything to try (I know if you want to keep Crossover it costs) It was fairly slick looking, but I am a stock Debian/Gnome/Xfce user and the Xandros system repository constraints are what sent me back to stock Debian.

nice distro

[slackaddict]

I'm partial to Slackware, but I've tried Ubuntu and I have to admit that it's a very nice distro. I would recommend it for newbies or those who want a nice LiveCD with good hardware detection "out of the box".

Re:nice distro

[tarball_tinkerbell]

It isn't just for newbies -- I've been using various versions of Linux for 4 years now, & I currently use Kubuntu, simply because I'm not an IT professional & I have work to do. It's nice to have an operating system that "just works," because all the time saved in configuration & on a learning curve allows me to actually get stuff done.

Re:nice distro

[v3xt0r]

how convenient... your 5th year of linux, and you're using a Kindergarden Distro.

Congrats! lol

Re:nice distro

[Anonymous Coward]

And people wonder why the Linux community has a reputation for elitist pricks.

Re:nice distro

[v3xt0r]

I think you're confused w/ the Java/Oracle Snob community. =p

At the risk of "me-too"-ing...

[Captain Sarcastic]

... let me "me-too" the parent post.

I have a laptop (IBM 1200i series), and XP was running into problems. Also, the laptop was mostly being used in conjunction with our stereo (playing MP3's and Shoutcast) with very limited browsing. I had a PCMCIA card with 2 USB 2.0 slots, and both of them were filled - one with a portable hard drive, the other with a Zydas 1211-based wireless .11g card.

I got a new blank hard drive for the laptop, and after trying other systems, installed Ubuntu 5.04 (it was the CD I had available, and the laptop's CD-ROM seems to be getting a bit dodgy). Upon install I had instant access to the portable hard drive. I found documentation that explained why my system hung when the wireless USB was connected, as well as how to change the check order for hotplug, and next thing I know, the wireless no longer hangs the system. I then found out what I needed to download on a land-line system to be able to compile the driver for the Zydas dongle, got it, compiled it, re-booted, and voila! The wireless is up.

Ubuntu maintains Linux's tradition of "What do you mean, obsolete equipment?" quite nicely, and adds the ability to do some pretty sophisticated things without dumbing things down to the point of uselessness.

Ubuntu just plain rocks.

(Now, feel free to mod me down for Linux cheerleading, or something like that.)

I have a followup question for you...

[Thud457]

"What distro should I use?"

BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Re:I have a followup question for you...

[swordfish666]

"What distro should I use?"
You should build you own from the Linux Source.
That's what it's there for isn't it?

But seriously I am leaning towards CentOS because it's based on RedHat.
I've been a fan of RedHat since 1998 when you could go over to Quantum Books in Kendal Square and buy the packaged software for $29.99 which came with 3 CD's, free technical support for 90 days and best of all "Powered by RedHat" stickers!!

Re:I have a followup question for you...

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet you have a six-digit Slashdot ID...

I call poser!

Re:I have a followup question for you...

[swordfish666]

Anonymous Coward

Ubuntu is Open

[kangpeh]

I really have a discrepency with the fact that an author is attempting to profit off sales of an Ubuntu book. That is why there is an Ubuntu Forum, Ubuntu Wikipedia, and Ubuntu tutorials. In fact, Ubuntu isn't just great because it features a 6 month release cycle, a large community of contributing users, but more importantly, because its community has users who are willing to share and help you get your Ubuntu system running. You don't need to waste money on an Ubuntu book. Just head on over to IRC.FreeNode.Net and come to the Ubuntu IRC Channel, or visit the Ubuntu Forums at www.ubuntuforums.org and you can find lots of tutorials, HOW-TO's, and so forth. There are even in-depth tutorials on the installation of XGL and the compiz composite manager. I hope this helps save you guys some money. Now, if you really are "hell-bent" on purchasing an Ubuntu book, then, of course, some people do like to have paper in hand. However, if you are ready to join the new millenium, save paper, save trees, and get FREE community supported information, that is more than plenty to get an Ubuntu system up and running, then just look on the web.

Re:Ubuntu is Open

[EzInKy]

I really have a discrepency with the fact that an author is attempting to profit off sales of an Ubuntu book..


I've never really understood why there are some who have a problem with this.

I, like the majority of people in the world, grew up being both educated and entertained by books and personally still find them much more convenient, enjoyable, and easier to read than electronic texts despite having used computers for over thirty years now.

Besides, trees are renewable resource unlike the petroleum products that are used to build many computer parts, plus paper manufacturing and book publishing create employment and can even provide a source of revenue for open source projects.

Re:Ubuntu is Open

[Anonymous Coward]

I can go out on the Web and look up ANYTHING I need to learn. Linux, Windows, Mac, A+, cooking, cleaning, auto repair. I can go to IRC channels, forums, wikis, websites. I KNOW I can do these things (in fact I have), and I can do them for free, and without "wasting paper". Not that there's a paper shortage in the world anyway.

But I still want the book. Why? Because sometimes paper is just easier to read. Sometimes it's nice to get some consistency rather than filtering through a dozen people's opinions on how to install JRE (and there are a LOT of opinions on installing JRE!). Sometimes it's nice to just sit back on the couch and not stare at a computer screen for hours on end.

There are a good number of people out there just like me. There are probably a good deal more that don't even want to bother sifting through opinions and wikis. And I know there are a HUGE number of average PC users for whom reading a book is the natural path to learning something.

I've ordered my copy ten minutes ago, and I eagerly anticipate its arrival.

Re:Ubuntu is Open

[nomadic]

I use ubuntu primarily, and I've used the forums and the wiki, but honestly both of them aren't especially helpful. I've found the wiki especially to have fairly large gaps when I'm trying to look up stuff I need to know.

Re:Ubuntu is Open

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe in your 'posting to slashdot in your underwear' free time world of unemployment it's ok to hop on IRC and ask some nerd how to use 'teh computer machine'...

but in the real world people's time is expensive and valuable, especially on the weekends which is why a single book is useful.

Sure Linux is free ... like a puppy.

Re:Ubuntu is Open

[Wylfing]

I really have a discrepency with the fact that an author is attempting to profit off sales of an Ubuntu book. That is why there is an Ubuntu Forum, Ubuntu Wikipedia, and Ubuntu tutorials.

I see you got modded Flamebait, which is unfortunate. I am conflicted about this, but on balance I agree with you. The author of this book should've posted a PDF of it online for free. That is what Ubuntu is really about, and charging people money for your Ubuntu knowledge is hijacking what we've given freely. It's entirely possible -- likely, even -- that help I (and many others) provided on the Ubuntu Forums was transplanted into this book.

I definitely believe in the basic functionality of capitalistic incentives, and I'm gratified to see that there is any kind of incentive growing up around Ubuntu. But what bothers me about this arrangement is, sadly, this content is now locked down by a publisher (Apress) and will never be released into the public domain. It's someone's private property now, stolen from the commons, and we are now thieves who keep sharing it for free.

Re:Ubuntu is Open

[rapidweather]

I needed a book when I first got started with Linux, using Redhat 6.1.
Needed help getting it installed, but did not get it to connect to the web for a while. Here's a page I put up after I figured out how to do that. Book I used was Redhat Linux Secrets, by Naba Barkakati. I was able to put Redhat 6.1 on many small boxes, one with only 32 mb ram.
I can imagine how helpful a book on Ubuntu would be, don't know if any available are as good as those written by Naba Barkakati. He has several books out on Fedora Core, according to Google.
Also used a book to get me started on Debian 2.2. That is a hard one to install, so I used Powerquest's Drive Copy to spread it around on other PC's once I got it up and running. Another was SuSE Linux, very nice, and different from the others to be sure.

For Knoppix, I used Knoppix Hacks by Kyle Rankin. Just had to remaster it, however, see my screenshots, link in signature. Knoppix always needs remastering.
Since he fills up the CD, only those able to chroot need try. Mine runs 495 MB now, still can toss out some items.

        I cannot live without books.
        Thomas Jefferson
        3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)

I have this question

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are WE, the Open Source Community, being charged for this tripe?

I thought WE were supposed to Work TOGETHER on documentation not create some
Closed Source book.

There are many advantages to open source development model which make it Far Superior to the
shit turned out by Greedy Profiteering swine such as Apress and Oreilley.

Don't buy this book and support open source!

Or make a living spamming /.

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent is spam

BLATANT ADVERTISING DRIVEL - Re:Save $6.80!

[Anonymous Coward]

- thanks for posting this shill for amazon...

- amazon is EVIL!

Tried them all, this is the best....

[Anonymous Coward]

I started off with a version of Caldera OpenLinux that came free with a "dummies" type book waaaay back. The installer was broken, but after a fair bit of work I still got a bootable system c/w KDE, etc.

Since then I think I've tried just about every distro out there - I've bought every SuSE boxed set from 7.2 to 9.3, dabbled with Red Hat, flirted with Fedora, and even briefly toyed with Mandrake.

Bored one afternoon I backed up my data to another drive, and booted into an Ubuntu Hoary install disk.

That'll do for me, thank you very much.

Deb had previously failed to install correctly on this same very system - networking was just not there. Ubuntu has delivered where all the other distros have merely promised.

Horrible Writing

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else disturbed by how badly written this review is?

Re:Horrible Writing

[Anonymous Coward]

I certainly were. The, apparently random use of, commas, along with blatant subject/verb disagreement are enough to drive any one who's read that review too tears.

Not me too

[fprintf]

I learned about the free CDs about 5 weeks ago. Not having had a Linux install for a few years I went onto their shipit website and ordered a set.

Three weeks later they arrive and I tried the live CD. No joy - it turns out my nVidia onboard graphics are not supported. DAmn.

So I tried to load the no graphics server on my old dual 400 mhz computer that used to run SuSE 6.4. No joy there either - somehow the install mucked up my MBR and now I get nothing to install on that computer except Windows 95!

Until I can figure out either the MBR issue or the nVidia graphics issue there will be no ubuntu for me. I wish I was a happy user.

Re:Not me too

[misleb]

The simplest way to fix a broken MBR is to boot a DOS disk (assume you have one for Win95) and run "fdisk /mbr". But if you can boot Win95, I don't know how the MBR could be currupt. To get Linux to rewrite the MBR, make sure the installer puts the boot loader (GRUB or LILO) in /dev/hda and not /dev/hda1. Although I am not sure if that is an option with Ubuntu.

-matthew

Need a book to install Ubuntu?

[Enrique1218]

That explains alot! I have try Ubuntu again in recent weeks. Though it has improved greatly since my first experiments, it does have a longs ways to go in the way of usabililty. Granted, the installation went flawlessly however, it does require you to have a functioning network connection which is a problem if you use wireless. Post installation is another matter. You have everything needed to basic computing tasks but when you want to do something a little more intense like run Doom3, you have more problems. The ubuntu forums are a help but all the how to involve hacking away at config files using the cli for hours (who wants to do that). But, I guess that is what free gets you.

oo-boon-too

[chocolatetrumpet]

Remember that Ubuntu is pronounced "oo-boon-too" (all the u's rhyme with "too").

Now, say Ubuntu using the lowest range of your voice.

That was fun, wasn't it?

Contents page

[hentaidan]

There's a pdf of the contents pages @ apress.com

What makes Ubuntu so popular?

[Hellboy0101]

Early on in Ubuntu's beginings, I ran it as my primary desktop mainly because it was described as a better Debian than Debian. So I ran it, and was genuinely impressed, but not overly thrilled. Yes, it has many of the pluses that Debian has namely in APT, and embraces Debian social contract, and then some. But I still don't get why people are losing their minds over this. After about seven or eight months, I tried it again. Better, but still not amazing. In the meantime, I had used Xandros, and eventually moved (and settled on) PCLinuxOS. Wireless worked, the browser had every plug-in I needed, Java was pre-installed, etc. In my opinion, it's clearly a better Ubuntu than Ubuntu. What permanently turned me off, is when Ubuntu refused to include KDE based apps with their distro (this is prior to Kubuntu and Breezy Badger), and when problems started cropping up regarding Ubuntu seemingly splitting off with Debian. Regardless of what Mark Shuttleworth has to say, I agree with Ian's comments that they are not respecting the fact they are riding on the backs of Debian's work. Just my .02.

Re:What makes Ubuntu so popular?

[pradeep1]

I am admittedly an old-school Windows/DOS power user since the days of DOS 2.1 back in the 80's. I've always wanted to get into Linux mainly because of my Unix background from my college days. However, for a busy nerd, Linux can be a bit intimidating. A lot to learn and not enough time. I tried RedHat, Debian, Suse, Knoppix, etc. installs on various machines, but I could not get productive quickly enough for my interest to be kept up. I put up Ubuntu 5.10 on an old busted out laptop the other night, and in a space of four hours, I was up and running with a base level of productivity. I found automatix and that solved a lot of my stupid "where's this and that" Linux problems. I can browse the internet, do office tasks, burn and copy CD/DVDs, get on my Windows network, and edit photographs. Ubuntu is has a simple paradigm that is easy for Windows users to pick up. Now only if Linux guys could get installation of package software through an Installshield type of setup going. That would solve so many problems for new users like me. I mean, just upgrading from Firefox 1.0.7 to 1.5 would be an annoying and daunting task if it had not been for automatix. Why don't we have an InstallShield type of system for Linux - and don't quip back that we do with package managers. Downloading .deb, .rpm, etc files is annoying, especially if you don't know what you are looking for. A simple standard installation system for all Linux distros is needed. But I see Ubuntu as being a serious replacement for Windows if it keeps heading in the right direction. Since their stated purpose it to bring computing to the people (and not only to nerds), I see this as an encouraging trend. Pradeep

Re:What makes Ubuntu so popular?

[Hellboy0101]

Good comments. You bring up some valid points regarding a consistent installation/upgrade mechanism for Linux apps. DPKG for Debian is probably the most reliable, and versatile of the bunch. As a user that's concerned with this, I'd like to know what your thoughts are on something like PBI that the folks over at PCBSD are developing. I think what they are on to is potentially better than what Linux/Unix/Windows are doing. Their installer actually releases the user from dependency (or in Windows' case, dll) hell by providing all the files that the user needs to run the application in it's own "container". Apps no longer have to share files with other apps (or the operating system), so you may upgrade the OS, and never have your apps break. It's an interesting concept that I think Linux could do well from.

Re:What makes Ubuntu so popular?

[pradeep1]

I like the idea of PC-BSD as you mentioned. Placing a layer of abstraction between the OS and the applications that run on an OS seem like a good idea. That is somewhat the beauty of Linux with its GUI, apps, clients all running as non-OS integrated programs. I don't know enough to comment on that, but being able to change your GUI between KDE and Gnome itself is a selling point for me when it comes to Linux.

Another major problem I am running into as a new user of Linux is finding replacment for the hundreds of programs that I use regularly and infrequently on my current Win2KPro machine. I read in the heading of this thread that the new Ubuntu book lists the differenet software options availables for Windows upgraders, but why isn't this information more easily dessimenated? What Linux guys need to realize that aside from the early adopter/nerd types, Linux does not provide that much of an incentive to switch. It's not like a Mac where switching will be viewed as easier.

Until this hurdle is passed, I still see Windows dominating the OS sphere. When MS Word replaced Wordperfect 5.1, I still remember Word providing so many ways to make it easier for Wordperfect (with all of its keyboard macros) users to switch. There was a clear and definite incentive. I hope Linux provides that in the future.

Re:What makes Ubuntu so popular?

[ElleyKitten]

Now only if Linux guys could get installation of package software through an Installshield type of setup going.

Now see, what really made me fall for Ubuntu is apt-get. It makes installation so much eaiser. I just just type "apt-get install *program*" and then it's there. No hunting down my application and manualling downloading it and then clicking it and then clicking next 80 times and going through stupid options when I could be doing something else. Maybe installing deb and rpms are hard, but I wouldn't know, since everything I've ever wanted to download I've found in apt-get or synaptic. I'ld really hate it if linux started to go in the direction of windows-like installations.

Re:What makes Ubuntu so popular?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, PCLinuxOS includes Java? You know, you need license for that from Sun? And it includes Flash and other plugins for Firefox? So, what you trying to tell me is that PCLinuxOS is illegal Linux distribution?

AFAIK, only one company can distribute Java and that's Sun. Same thing is with Flash.

And Ian... Well, if you think Ubuntu rides on Debian backs, start reading Debian changelogs! And then, go to http://www.dccalliance.org/ and check out again who is riding on whos backs.

Principles of Ubuntu

[Errandboy of Doom]

Key to Ubuntu's philosophy is making "the tools you need available free of charge"

Thomas should respect the principles of Ubuntu and release this book for free and license it under Creative Commons to allow mashups and external improvements so the book can become more helpful over time.

Re:Principles of Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people like to have a bound paper book to read and refer to even when they aren't online or the computer has crashed or they have eaten at Red Lobster and expect to have an extended stay in the bathroom.

Other people like to figure out neat ways of explaining things, write books containing those explanations, and then (horrors!) publish the book so that they can afford to feed their families and continue figuring out neat ways of explaining other things.

This is a symbiotic relationship, and I can't see how you could hold it against someone that they will (hopefully) make money by selling their product.

Jim

Re:Principles of Ubuntu

[Errandboy of Doom]

1) Cory Doctorow showed that selling a tangible book isn't incompatible with releasing it online and opening it to modifications. Books don't need to be closed to let people make a living.

2) Many individuals are working on free support. Those that desparately need to feed their families are probably better off getting a day job. We don't need closed books to get the information out.

3) I'm not against people for wanting to sell something they've made. But the Ubuntu philosophy is about contributing free resources to the community. If you aren't into the philosophy, that's fine, but trying to profit off something you don't believe in is kinda disgusting.

MOD Parent Down!

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent is a Known Troll and an _Enemy_ of the Open Source REVOLUTION!

He is only here to spread FUD and Disease amongst us!

Wrong Book Format

[Anonymous Coward]

This book should have been a 200 page paperback, cost $5-$10, and come with an install CD.

Shuttleworth?

[Illbay]

...space tourist Mark Shuttleworth

I've always wondered:

Shouldn't he change his name to "Soyuzworth?"

Quick and Easy

[Temujin_12]

I used to use Gentoo on my box at work. I started to notice that I would spend more time tweaking/compiling/fixing/troubleshooting my distribution than I would coding. I switched to Ubuntu and I have since been able to focus more on my job (writing code).

This is not a jab at Gentoo. All I'm trying to say is that you need to pick your distribution based on what you are going to use it for. If you need complete flexibility all the way down to the kernel, then Gentoo or similar distributions will work. If all you need is just a working desktop with standard functionality (network, editors, email, music etc.) then packaged based distributions are best.

Don't pick a distribution just because it lets you do everything unless you NEED to do everything.

Damn so hard!

[jc87]

A )Print/Read thisWiki(wiki.ubuntu)

B) Download the .ISO from the site

C) Install

D) Add the necessary repositories to your sources.list,
install/configure all the stuff you need , search tutorials about this
subjectshere
(ubuntuforums)

E) Put some nice themes/windows borders/icons at your Gnome (see Gnome Look) ,
the default art at Ubuntu sucks!

F) After a while help give back to the community , write
howtos , donate money , help other noobs , tell people how Gnu/Linux is
great , ...

G ) Bash M$ at /. (they deserve it)

H) World domination

The last two ARE NOT
optional.

MOD AC PARENT UP (and then some)

[ZachPruckowski]

That's not spam. Amazon is a valid bookseller. Yes there's the patent issue, but if money's an issue, then $6-7 is a decent difference, especially since it's no extra work to get it from one or the other. Personally, the first thing I did when I saw the B&N price was check the Amazon price. I may check the Borders price too, since there's one near me. Unfortunately, a few dollars is important if you're in college or not making a lot of money.

Yes, I concede the A9 thing was annoying, but let's try some good-faith here.

Re:MOD AC PARENT UP (and then some)

[Bill Hayden]

Actually, it is spam, because the it's a referal link which gives a kickback to the AC.

Re:MOD AC PARENT UP (and then some)

[ZachPruckowski]

Oh, my mistake. I thought it was the straight link to the page. Sorry about that. Mod me (and him) down then.

Re:MOD AC PARENT UP (and then some)

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF? So an affiliate tag establishes the difference between a spam link and a non-spam link? That's an absurd criterion. If he were to post the non-affiliate link 50 times in this article versus posting one affiliate link, which would be spam? You people need to calm down. A guy is a tiny amount of money by providing you with some information. If you don't like it, then don't buy it from there. It's at absolutely no cost to you. You just can't stand the idea of someone else making money. Loser.

License of the book

[massysett]

This discussion is a bit muddled because it misses the fact that a book is not a bunch of paper sheets bound with glue or wires. A book is a bundle of ideas. Books can be electronic, or they can be bound.

I think the grandparent poster's real beef is not that the author of the book has published something that's printed on dead trees. Instead, GP's problem is that the book has a restrictive license. There are dead-tree books out there, such as Dive into Python, that are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. Full text is available online as well.

There are also books at the Linux Documentation Project that are not available on dead trees, unless you print them yourself.

All that said, I don't understand GP's beef either. Ubuntu is not a community based distro. Sure, it benefits Shuttleworth to cultivate this community myth, but Ubuntu's from a for-profit company. Even if Ubuntu truly were community-based, I'd have no problem with people trying to make money off it with restrictively-licensed books.

If we want more free documentation, we'll have to write it. This I am doing now (see sig.)

Installing Ubuntu 5.10 vs. FreeBSD 6.0

[aquatone282]

I recently installed Ubuntu 5.10 and FreeBSD 6.0 for use as a simple C development platform for a networking class I'm taking.

I was pleasantly suprised at how easy the Ubuntu installation went. Still not quite as simple as a Windows XP install, but a damn sight easier than FreeBSD 6.0 (I have also installed FreeBSD 4.x in the past), and (are you listening FreeBSDer's?) Xorg configured itself CORRECTLY the FIRST TIME without requiring any hand-editing of .confg files. The Ubuntu Gnome desktop looks fantastic right out of the box.

FreeBSD is still a great product for servers and CLI warriors, but setting up an acceptable Gnome or KDE desktop is still beyond the capabilities of semi-literate geek-wannabes like me.

Thanks Ubuntu - if anybody knocks off Windows, it will be you guys, because you understand the secret to reaching more users is to make the experience as painless as possible.

Re:Installing Ubuntu 5.10 vs. FreeBSD 6.0

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a user of FreeBSD so forgive me if I say something wrong. I have the impression that FreeBSD is more like Slackware and that DesktopBSD (which has an article, at the time of this writting, in the front page) is more like Ubuntu. So you may want to have a look on DesktopBSD. You cannot simply compare FreeBSD to Ubuntu in the same way that you should not compare Ubuntu with Slackware.

Re:Installing Ubuntu 5.10 vs. FreeBSD 6.0

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Xp install was easy? It has been a big improvement over earlier versions but easy it is not. You need to include all those patches as part of the install because without them you are toast!

Great...

[Anonymous Coward]

Another distro that won't have working sound on a Thinkpad 600e.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=14828 1&highlight=600e

Poor guy, he explains fully what he did - and a user simply says to do the exact thing he already stated did NOT work. Great support.

Why can a dead OS like BEOS find the soundcard and just work(TM), but not linux?

You forgot one: CentOS

[Anonymous Coward]

CentOS - the linux distribution of choice for clueless small town city managers everywhere.

"CentOS is the one on my websites!!!~~!! Get it off, or I'll call the FBI!!~!!~1"

fedora - ubuntu

[houseofmore]

I did up a bit on switching from Fedora / Susu to Ubuntu, and why I thought it was a good idea.

http://www.onisland.ca/geek/linux/sonyvaio-fs640w

Slackware

[DexterF]

I installed Slackware about 4 or 5 years ago - I am *still* configuring it ;)

On 3 machines so far :)

Evolution & how to get rid of it

[tqft]

I wish I knew.

I want to remove Evolution from my Ubuntu install but still haven't found a good guide to doing so.

Did I miss it in my searching. I did look at the Ubuntu forums a month or so back have things changed since then? There were some instructions but it didn't seem complete.

Re:Evolution & how to get rid of it

[Anonymous Coward]

Open Synaptic right-click on "evolution" and choose "Mark for Removal" or "Mark for complete removal" - repeat process for any evolution packages you want to remove (except for evolution-data-server as a lot of other apps depend on it).

Once that's done, click on the "apply" button.

I don't see how it could be ANY easier.

Re:Evolution & how to get rid of it

[tqft]

Apparently it also takes out other "Desktop" stuff when you do this, and some of that needs to be added back when you do for a functional desktop, exactly what it takes out is unclear as it part of the base package.

The documentation I have found is not clear on this.

Ubuntu....

[scenestar]

fucking sucks.

the founders of the project are freeloading on the Debian project.

Free software isn't about dancing in a multicultural circle, it's about providing quality code.

unbuntu hosed me

[crazybilly]

I tried to do a dualboot install w/ unbuntu and xp on my work laptop. this was a mistake. Thank God (in the most literal sense of the phrase) that I had my data on third partition. Chalk it up to operator error. Still, nobody told me it was a 5 hour install. Gave me an excuse to reformat and reinstall xp, though....

Lack of native WPA support = sad.

[sir_montag]

I'd always tell people about linux as an alternative to windows or OSX until I ran into the simple problem of getting it (numerous distros - red hat, SuSE, Debian, Knoppix, Ubuntu, etc.) to handle WPA wireless support. I'm fairly handy with linux and trying to get WPA support setup was a complete nightmare. I gave up on it for now as a matter of fact. How can I give a good recomendation of linux as an alternative OS when it doesn't even have good (or any) native WPA support? WEP is better than nothing, but not by much. What entry level user would want to spend time hacking on getting Ndiswrapper or another third party app. to be able to hook up to their own WPA enabled wireless network? Turning off WPA encryption isn't a sensible solution either. No normal user should have to go to this much time and trouble for such a simple and basic feature as WPA wireless support. Any OS that claims to be a reliable alternative desktop OS for your average or slightly above average user that doesn't have native WPA support is just... Sad. (*the wireless setup that I was using and trying to get WPA support on was in Ubuntu with a USB based wireless adapter from Airlink 101, the AWLL3026. Native linux driver set is Zydas1211. Ndiswrapper also seems to be workable with the native XP drivers. Yet I've still been unable to get working WPA support and I've spent more than 20 hours total on it. WPA supplicant with the Zydas1211 drivers have been the closest thing to working so far. I love the command line and all, but the complete lack of a good GUI based tool for WPA support is just sad. If any of you have had success with Ubuntu and the AWLL3026 adapter on getting working WPA support, please let me know.)

Ubuntu succes

[laplace_man]

I installed Ubuntu on many computers lately.It was very easy...except some minor dirver isues. They surf, send mail write watch movies...And many times I encounter same "post configuration" problems.My CD transfer is so slow...how can I install latest drivers for my nVidia card...nso. Sometimes I tnx god for Synaptic and Automatix...but sometimes you just can't use that. Ususaly this is when you have to modify scripts nso. I usualy write a bash script to install all those goodies to other people...I don't want to hang on the phone and tell them what to write in their bash shells. Then I was thinking ...Automatix was very succesful, Synaptic is also great for beginners...Why there isn't such thing as SCRIPT CREATION AND SHEARING ENVIRONMENT ? I mean ...instead of all those long forum talks and instructions...you could just paste a (*.sh) file and things done...for a certain distro.Then if I evolve my idea further...it should be something like synaptic...so you could download templates for configuration..(something like html with forms nso..) with full help support on the same page to make all your women totaly satisfied :)

I still have the feeling that an IT specialist writing a book about Ubuntu or Debian or Gentoo is just like a sexologist writing a book about making love with his wife Jenny...

...after config simple generation of scripts... I think this is a bit of topic...but maybe a good idea :) So this thing I'm taking about could replace Atuomatix and much more ? I don't have time to create such thing...The Idea came from Automatix and someone who posted a wlanconfig instructions which had automatic *.conf configuration. * template distribution (maybe even pool about usability) * simple composition of templates...to get text on a right place and help * shell script generation Why it should be like that ? Cause we all love shell and I realy don't want it to lose all the power like it happens sometimes in Suse Yast. Hope someone likes the Idea....and have time to realize it ...till then I'll just have to use my vi editor and man pages.

have lots of phun

re: no one should profit

[freezin fat guy]

One of the primary arguments open source is being forced to prove in the face of criticism is that it can generate revenue. As you have pointed out, for people concerned about free alternatives there are numerous help avenues already.

But if the ideology of open source software were ever to stipulate that no one should profit in the IT industry it would necessarily become the domain of hobbyists alone. Ubuntu would become a force for destruction, causing massive lay-offs in the IT industry the more popular it became. I suspect that is not their goal.

From a business perspective a free product or service can only generate revenue if it is used to sell a complimentary product or service. So for IBM open source is great because it allows them to sell support services. Novell has their network and domain tools. Hardware vendors can use it to reduce prices while maintaining profits. Custom programmers profit greatly from open source because it supplies them with tools for their trade. So too with network and system admins, etc. If every one of us were asked to work for free we would, of course, have to move to other lines of employment.

So for someone to publish a book is proof of concept for what we open source fans have been arguing against Bill and all the other nay-sayers, namely that open source software can generate business. If we do not allow for business in our model then he and all our other detractors will have been proven right.