Greetings through ubuntu

[Van]

I just installed ubuntu on my hp pavy and it went flawless. What made it easy was first using a program called Wubi which made the whole installation very painless and also from what Ive read makes it equally painless to remove and wont cause any problems. Wubi is designed for computers with windows already on them and it will work on most flavors of the OS.

Set up went really well and I had no problems getting online which I thought I would have with the wireless set up I have.

 

[boomerang]

I just read up on Wubi a little bit. I had never heard of it until I read your post. I'm dual booting Vista and XP now, so I'm guessing there would be a third entry to choose from?

Still, I'd hate to mess up what I've got going now. I've tried several flavors of Linux over the years and always went back to Windows. It's fun to try and learn new things, but I never found Linux to be practical for me. I'll have to research this some more as this does sound interesting.

 

[Van]

So far its cool and the first problem I ran into was with the sleep mode as it wouldnt automaticly rouse from it with any keyboard action or mouse action so it looks like it has to have a key set for bringing it out of sleep.

I would go to the website for wubi and do some more research there to see if there will be any conflicts with wubi setting up the additional boot option. Theres a forum section that is blended in with Ubuntu though I will say that the forum site is exceptionaly large so be prepared to use a gps to navigate it and pack enough food for a week.

 

[14karat]

The way I have the main PC at home setup, I installed Linux first and use Grub to handle the OS switch.
Initially I was using a single drive with 3 partitions, one Ext3 (solely for Linux), one NTFS (solely for Windows), and a second NTFS shared between the two.
I've since changed and added a second drive - One drive is Ext3 and the other NTFS.
From Linux I can access both drives, while Windows can only access the NTFS drive.
---
That being said, on one of our test installations at work, I'm currently running Oracle VM (basically Xen - just with a easier to use GUI... it still needs work, BTW) on a quad-core HP Proliant server. On top of it, I have 3 Linux virtual servers, 1 Windows XP, and 1 Windows 2003 Server. All are running with no issues - and amazingly fast.
One of the Linux Virtual servers is actually connected outside our firewall and we use it for testing connectivity with our mobile employees as well as our trading partners.
The others are connected to our internal network.
After my previous experiences with Xen, I was really expecting it to be crap, but it really surprised me at how much progress they've made.

 

[Van]

So far the only problem Im having is Im loosing online connectivity while using ubuntu even after using usb cord to move the wireless dongle. The connection loss would come while trying to do a download but only after ubuntu took all of its updates. The really wierd thing is that when it first happened it took out the router as well and required a complete shut down of the whole system. After getting my network back up the homepage for the vista side was changed back to the default hp-aol page.

 

[SatinKzo]

What's the specs on your laptop Van? I routinely use linux flavors to get more life out of my older equipment, just curious what you are running on.

 

[Van]

System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 10/29/2008, 19:52:29
Machine name:
Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1 (6001.vistasp1_gdr.080917-1612)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: HP-Pavilion
System Model: GC672AA-ABA a6152n
BIOS: BIOS Date: 06/01/07 11:25:23 Ver: 08.00.14
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
Memory: 3070MB RAM
Page File: 1270MB used, 5089MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 10

Display Devices
---------------
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce 8600 GT
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0402&SUBSYS_C7563842&REV_A1
Display Memory: 1777 MB
Dedicated Memory: 497 MB
Shared Memory: 1279 MB
Current Mode: 1024 x 768 (32 bit) (85Hz)
Monitor: Generic PnP Monitor
Driver Name: nvd3dum.dll,nvwgf2um.dll
Driver Version: 7.15.0011.7813 (English)
DDI Version: 10
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 9/17/2008 23:55:00, 5963776 bytes

Some stuff from dxdiag, the comps a desktop

 

[iwc5893]

I've been running Ubuntu for about 6 months now, and have made it my exclusive OS for about 2 months now. It has it quirks, and a little bit of a learning curve, but overall I find it to be much less trouble than any Windows system.

 

[Van]

Well so far what I don't like is that I cant find any programs for this version of ubuntu ( hardy) that I can install and use and the same goes for leisure activities as well. From what I see this could be what hurts the linux camp because of it having so many different variations out there.

 

[cparker]

Van what kind of programs are you looking for? I have Hardy at home. (and a previous version as well).

I use Ubuntu exclusively at home so maybe I can help you find something.

 

[iwc5893]

Van what kind of programs are you looking for? I have Hardy at home. (and a previous version as well).

I use Ubuntu exclusively at home so maybe I can help you find something.

Same here...

 

[Van]

Well after I tried to install a game to see how well they fair on linux I found that I needed an agent such as winrar to unpack programs though I would rather have something other than winrar to do it. I started out googling linux utilities then went to ubuntu utilities then to ubuntu hardy utilities then hit the last brick wall there. Given that this is my first successful install of a linux os any help would be appreciated.

 

[Van]

User friendly is not a trait of ubuntu nor is reliability it seems. I can post here but not on the ubuntu forums for some reason and Ive found that I can extract a program for installation but thats as far as it goes because I don't know if Ive either successfully installed the program or if it just wont run. I'm beginning to think that I need to go to school just to learn how to use this os and thats pretty damn sad.

 

[TRG]

User friendly is not a trait of ubuntu nor is reliability it seems. I can post here but not on the ubuntu forums for some reason and Ive found that I can extract a program for installation but thats as far as it goes because I don't know if Ive either successfully installed the program or if it just wont run. I'm beginning to think that I need to go to school just to learn how to use this os and thats pretty damn sad.

The easiest way to install programs in UBUNTU is with the "add/remove applications" feature. Click applications on the upper left toolbar then click add/remove applications. If you don't find what you want there click System/administration/Synaptic Package Manager.

Let us know how you make out.

 

[TRG]

What's the specs on your laptop Van? I routinely use linux flavors to get more life out of my older equipment, just curious what you are running on.

UBUNTU uses the Gnome desktop. Gnome requires a lot of CPU and runs best on a modern computer. There are lighter versions such as XUBUNTU that uses the Xfce desktop and will run better on older hardware. For real old computers I'll use Puppy Linux or Damn Small Linux. Puppy is fast, powerful, runs in a RAMDisk and is easy to use. I recently installed Puppy Linux on an old Pentium II and it performs like new.

 

[cparker]

Van,

If you go into the add/remove programs from the Applications menu (usually top, left in a default install) you can search for a program. You won't find winrar as that's a windows program. So you look for rar or unrar.

Alternatively you can go into the Synaptic package manager from System -> Administration and search for programs. If you're googling things and finding stuff you have to uncompress and compile and all that junk, then you're making this really hard on yourself.

The various ways of getting into the package manager will be your friend and the packages are tested and approved for use on whatever version of Ubuntu you've installed. Select package, click "Apply", done deal. When you're in the package manager, look for which repositories are enabled (repositories are just like big libraries of packages). If you make sure that the universe and multiverse libraries are enabled you may have access to more programs. Also... Ubuntu does not, by default, install proprietary software (like.... the best drivers for my nVidia card!) so if you see something that says restricted, enable that too.

It *is* different, to be sure... it ain't windows, but it's like anything else and once you learn your way around a little bit, it really does make sense.

 

[Van]

I'll look into that further but right now I have to figure out why Im having connectivity issues with posting to the ubuntu forums and now here. Once I send the submit reply request it just sits waiting for reply.

 

[cparker]

I'll look into that further but right now I have to figure out why Im having connectivity issues with posting to the ubuntu forums and now here. Once I send the submit reply request it just sits waiting for reply.

The ubuntuforums.org are having database issues. It started yesterday I believe.

 

[iwc5893]

User friendly is not a trait of ubuntu nor is reliability it seems. I can post here but not on the ubuntu forums for some reason and Ive found that I can extract a program for installation but thats as far as it goes because I don't know if Ive either successfully installed the program or if it just wont run. I'm beginning to think that I need to go to school just to learn how to use this os and thats pretty damn sad.

There are several ways to install programs, depending upon how they're packaged. The Add/Remove(synaptics) is the easiest method, but you may have to select "All available applications" to find what you're looking for.

Some programs must be installed by the CLI, so you would type

sudo ./[I]filename[/I]

where filename is the exact name of the file. Please note that capitalization makes a difference. File is different than file which different than FILE.

 

[Van]

Ah well I gave up on it and will stick with microsoft, atleast with microsoft I can work with it instead of having to jump through hoops to try and figure out what will work with it.