The switch to Ubuntu

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Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 3:15 am

Since this seems to be coming up a lot more, I found a site that has a bunch of how-tos on using many of the popular Linux distros. A quick glance and it seems to have step by step instructions for installation, what to think about before and after. Looks like a good place to start if you have thought about switching or trying Linux.

http://linuxmonitor.blogspot.com/2007/03/ultimate-ubuntu-performance-tweaking.html

http://www.howtoforge.com/the_perfect_desktop_ubuntu6.10

** SUSPENDED ** Joined: 26 Mar 2005 Posts: 1267

"on using many of the popular Linux distros."

*grinds teeth...*

Besides my joking around about Linux, I would not like it because of the command lines used. However, I do know quite a few linux command lines believe it or not.. go go msdos, chmod, etc.

If I run a REAL server, I'd go with linux, that's unstoppable when it comes to running a server.

sorry for the thread invasion Laughing

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 3:56 am

I don't know the first one. Chmod, very good. grep, chown, su are some others.

Don't you have some patches to install or some viruses to scan for? Oh wait, it isn't the third Tuesday of the month. We can wait until you are verified as the rightful owner and reboot. Sorry I couldn't resist since you where here anyway. Very Happy

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 4:38 am

I was thrown into using a Sun system at work.. Shocked

Now I have to learn how to use a computer all over again!! Laughing

** SUSPENDED ** Joined: 26 Mar 2005 Posts: 1267

Quote:

on't you have some patches to install or some viruses to scan for?

Nope, everything is up to date.. Thank you very much for asking. I had one virus on my computer in the last three years, thanks again for asking Smile

. The virus was my OWN mistake. Though you don't get viruses on Linux, that makes them perfectly legitimate to use of course, because every user will know how to use them from the start (like windows), correct? Wink

.

Linux, from what I heard.. Takes time to learn, windows is straight forward and can play games and a double click of the mouse button will bring up your game. While you have to have games that are specially for windows/Linux combined. Isn't it weird how they'd combine those two? Isn't it weird how they come out with the windows distro first? Wink

.

PS: I would VERIFY my system and not look like some stupid script kiddy that *thinks* that he cracked some software. I have authentic software, so I shouldn't be worried, should I?

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 571

Actually software piracy isn't just that... I work at a business who works hard to keep everything legally licensed, and just recently one of our computers started reporting it couldn't verify the legality of the install... turns out the people we purchased that computer from were using pirated XP codes on their computers and selling them Evil or Very Mad

Of course they're out of business now, so they don't have to buy a new license for it, we do Rolling Eyes

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 08 Aug 2006 Posts: 13

What on earth is wrong with Linux's command line? Bash and Tcsh are nicer than MS's CLI but really on either OS, you don't need to use the command line at all if you don't want to.

Depending on the Distro, it shouldn't take more than a day to learn Linux for general purposes.

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 11:15 am

I could never get on-line with Umbunto. But I am crap with things like that.
I only had a try to get away from Windows. In the end I got a mac loads less hassel

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

@Radden, Windows is easy to use from the start, simply because it is what you were brought up with. Try giving it to someone who's never even seen a mouse. Anyway, the KDE desktop is Windows near as makes no difference.

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 2:27 pm

OK, I've decided to bite the bullet and switch to Ubuntu. I've dowloaded the ISO and burnt that to a CD.

Trouble is, I will want to use it on my existing gaming machine and rather than backup everything (over 50 GB of music and about 10Gb of other stuff) and reinstall Windows, I would like to slap a second harddrive in my machine and install it on there.

Two questions:

1) Is it easy to do? Specifically, can someone point in the direction of a 'How to...'

2) Can I use (i.e. read/write, create folders, etc - No running programs or anything just file manipulation) an NTFS/FAT32 volume from within Linux?

The idea being I would like to use the PC bit for my games and (my primary slave HD) Linux for everything else.

Thanks for your help. Very Happy

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 08 Aug 2006 Posts: 13

GoldDalek wrote:

1) Is it easy to do? Specifically, can someone point in the direction of a 'How to...'

It is the tiniest bit trickier than installing Windows, but yes, it is easy to do and aren't those How Tos in the OP?

GoldDalek wrote:

2) Can I use (i.e. read/write, create folders, etc - No running programs or anything just file manipulation) an NTFS/FAT32 volume from within Linux?

Yes you can.

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 2:54 pm

^^^ Angel

Thanks for that. :slaps head:

Going to try it tonight! Very Happy

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 3:16 pm

Radden wrote:

The virus was my OWN mistake. Though you don't get viruses on Linux, that makes them perfectly legitimate to use of course, because every user will know how to use them from the start (like windows), correct? Wink

.

I knew how to use Linux from the start. I knew how to use Windows from the start before that. OS/2, RISC OS, you get the idea. I didn't know how to use Amiga from the start, since I'd never used a computer before, but anything with a Windows/Icons/Menus/Pointer interface, I can now get to grips with.

If you've only used one OS, sure you'll find it a bit tricky to use anything else. Took me about a week to understand the differences between Linux and others, which is probably about the same as it took me with Windows. On the other hand, I know people who've had Windows for years and still don't really know what it's doing.

@GoldDalek: You can definitly read/write FAT32, but you might find that you can only read NTFS by default on Ubuntu. However, there's a howto for enabling read/write support here.

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 4:14 pm

Ivor Grimey Colon wrote:

RISC OS

YAY RISC OS! I used it growing up, only started using Windows at 16/17. Never felt 'right'. Now I use Mac OS X, but I still miss a lot of the RISC OS features, not least the speed and built-in ROM apps and slightly different window handling system.

That and it all seemed a lot simpler to dig into the applications and see how they worked, design your own folder structures, etc.

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 5:12 pm

GoldDalek wrote:

1) Is it easy to do? Specifically, can someone point in the direction of a 'How to...'

It is quite easy. There should be a little graphic on your new hd that will show you where to put the jumper (tiny little plastic thing on the back of your hd) to make that your slave hd. That way your computer will start from your first hard disk.

There are two plugs to put in your hd. Just look at your first one and it should be obvious how to do that.

That's it!

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 5:16 pm

^^ In my experience, the hardest bit is keeping it in place while you try and screw it into the case Laughing

** SUSPENDED ** Joined: 26 Mar 2005 Posts: 1267

I might make a bootable disk of linux (ubuntu does sound interesting). Just to show everyone that I'll be fair.. I doubt I'll stick with it though. I can stand Macs, but I doubt I can stand linux, as most of the things need to be compiled.

PROOF

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 5:31 pm

Radden wrote:

I doubt I can stand linux, as most of the things need to be compiled.

*Raises FUD protectors*
If you're using Gentoo Linux, everything needs to be compiled, but even them it's mostly automatic.
With all other mainstream distros (Debian/Ubuntu, Redhat, SuSE, Mandriva, etc) there's repositories of most of the packages you'll ever need (especially in the case of Debian/Ubuntu, where the repositories are HUGE), all in precompiled binary format Smile

If you're installing an obscure kernel module or a very early version of a program, it's possible that you'll need to compile (even then it's just a case of entering "./configure && make && make install" at the command line), but to say that "most" things need to be compiled is incorrect.

If you're going to play with a bootable disk (or "Live CD"), K/Ubuntu is a good example of a typical distribution, but alternatively Knoppix has a wider range of applications, desktop environments, etc (although is much less polished than Ubuntu), and demonstrates some excellent hardware dectection.

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 5:40 pm

Radden wrote:

I can stand Macs, but I doubt I can stand linux, as most of the things need to be compiled.

Sounds like your experience with Linux is rather limited Wink

For example to install Thunderbird you just type "apt-get install mozilla-thunderbird" in a shell. A few minutes later Thunderbird is installed.

In my opinion that's even easier than in Windows.

Ivor Grimey Colon wrote:

In my experience, the hardest bit is keepIn my experience, the hardest bit is keeping it in place while you try and screw it into the case

Psst, let him find out a few things on his own Laughing

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 08 May 2006 Posts: 1

I can't believe that no one has mentioned openSUSE. I've been through quite a few distros in the past year and have found it to be my favorite. I much prefer it over Ubuntu.

Oh, by the way, this is my first post even though I've been a member for quite sometime.

** SUSPENDED ** Joined: 26 Mar 2005 Posts: 1267

okay i'm on linux right now, Ubuntu and I just downloaded skype.. Now to figure out how to install it Razz

and holy cow, this screen is TINY.. I can hardly see what i'm typing.. can anyone direct me to where I can change this?

Yep, I don't know how to install it Sad

and I don't see a skype package for Ubuntu Sad

.. ah well.

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 7:29 pm

@Radden

Try puppy linux runs entirely in ram, even supports my laptop wireless card.

Unlike many other livecd distros you can remove the cd if you want to use that drive for burning a cd.

http://www.puppylinux.org/user/viewpage.php?page_id=1

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:46 pm

I've just installed Kubutu on Parallels after hours of misery with Debian, and I am smitten after 5 mins, I can see why people like Linux Razz

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:46 pm

And Konqerer seems much faster then Firefox

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:47 pm

Im in love Laughing