Be Excellent To Each Other

Hello and welcome to the Ubuntu thread. For Ubuntu and branch specific posts. I'm no evangelist, nerd or fanboy, but I do use it on my netbook and like to have it to dual-boot into on desktops for when Windows gets idiosyncratic on me. I've started it because 9.04 Jaunty Jackelope is out in a fortnight http://tinyurl.com/c2w9dy and seems to boot like a motherfucker by all accounts, plus refinements to Gnome and X.Org should further reduce the scale upon which certain aspects are shit compared to Windows, which is the only problem this OS has ever had.

I wonder how many people on here use Ubuntu and whether you are fairly comfortable with the terminal window or like me are simply someone who likes this particular distribution of GNU/Linux and dabbles insufficiently to gain much momentum, but sees it as a perfect solution on all but my main machine, for most tasks, for free?

Also what have you got and why? I use 8.10 Ubuntu 'normal' on an Eee901 with Adam's Kernel which makes it go. Not sure if I still need to go down that route what wiht this new-fangled armel ixp4xx build. I should just fuck off to the Eeeuser forums really, shouldn't I?

I used Linux as my primary at-home OS from 99-06 or so, and only stopped then because I had a laptop from work (and with increasing use of webapps, found I cared less). I've had at least one Ubuntu install on something since the first release, and it became my favourite Linux distro pretty much instantly.

Ubuntu and linux in general makes me feel like I'm at where computing was going until the 16-bit era got fucked to death by Windows 95. It feels like Workbench or RiscOS at times, a really cool 'I'm using the computer' feeling as opposed to an 'I'm using Windows/MacOS' feeling. This buys it a lot of patience from me, including some it perhaps does not deserve. And this is what we've lost with computing. It was a hobby before, for most if not all of us above a certain age, and we were patient, and we learned more and we got more out of it.

Also, free - free helps much.

I've tried Ubuntu for numerous purposes and always found it to be very friendly and usuable. There are a number of reasons I'm stuck on windows for now:

Firstly, and mainly, my main TV comes through a Vista Media Center PC. If there was a free alternative that did everything that VMC did as easily as it does, I'd go for it.
Secondly, my 'upstairs' PC acts as a media server for the VMC and it's just simpler to have them both on the same OS. Also, I use logmein.com and it's a pain to get working in Linux
Thirdly, I don't reckon the missus could work Linux too well so my laptop (and hers) is stuck to XP for now. Once the degree is out of the way my laptop is 'spare' so I might have a play

That's the spirit - and I'd never advocate not using Windows as my main OS for priority everyday use, it's just too standard, let's admit it. Also, I've never had a moment's grief form Vista - everything 'just works' and it improves on XP for my varied use in many ways. But I like a dual-boot for Sunday mornings, I can read the news sites on Epiphany just to feel like computer hobbyist realising the aspirations of Amiga owners with dial-up accounts.

In the future on a decent system with a decent Linux you will be able to have a base OS and use VMs for any function you could conceive of today, such as media hubbage. Eventually it won;t be an issue and the free, entirely usable OS will be the one to go for, but only if the likes of us stick by it to some degree, it doesn't need to be your main OS, but I really don't need Windows on my netbook, I'd just try running things for fun and never really use them, so Ubuntu is perfect and full-featured and customisable in terms of how I use the limited screen real-estate. And learning how to update the kernel I might not recall in a fortnight, but I know that if I'm running an app which doesn't have permission to do whatever, I open terminal, type sudo <app_name> and kerpow. I can has powah.

If you bother to learn the lingo, you can tell it exactly what you want it to do. But pidgin Linux it a good platform to grow slowly as time and need allow, then when no-one needs Windows and a well-configured and secure Ubuntu tweaked for your missus/dad/nan/kids is entirely sufficient and reliable and low maintenance, here we all are to help out for beer and other benefits, and operating systems become to all intents and purposes free. MS alter their business model in that regard and probably come up with something decent in their own right.

Ubuntu is good because it is proof of concept, that a mainstream OS needn't cost a hundred quid or whatever. I like that we get to see that concept through, if we keep dipping in.

I was amazed at how Ubuntu made Linux so user-friendly. I like it, but haven't used Linux for a good three years now due to a change in jobs, so all my skills have pretty much disappeared.


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"Every time I learn something new it pushes some old stuff out of my brain!"

Since you mentioned screen real-estate GY, the last time I used Ubuntu (hardy heron) it seemed cramped especially in firefox.

I have a spare old PC, which I installed Mint on.

I might try the new Ubuntu when it comes out.

I've got Gibbon on my Laptop. It's fine.

9.04 final ISOs are live.

Cheers Doc... i will download that when I get home.

Waiting for some... um... intrepid soul to try 9.04 with and without Adam's kernel on the 901 (which Canonical haven't done their own tests on).

Which is the one that you can run from a CD and keep your normal Windows XP and stuff? I wouldn't mind trying it out to see what it's like but I'm not brave enough for a full install.

If you want to install stuff into Ubuntu, does it all have to be in a package repository and/or download the source and compile yourself?

They're generally just called 'Live CDs'. Most distros do them - here's the Ubuntu one:


https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD

I use Xubuntu on my 766mhz laptop which was too crap to run Windows XP + Firefox, resulting in it falling to an IE exploit.

I don't really use it all that much (the fact that the lid is held up by fluorescent twine which gets in the way is annoying) though.

It does some things very well. The firewall (firestarter? or is that the interface?) makes no sense to me though, so I'm never sure if I'm secure.

Don't forget the computer industry relies heavily on scare tactics to keep selling you new products. You can cope without a firewall.

You can't know that.

Why not?

Because you don't know how I'm using it and what I'm using it for.

true, but I was talking in the general sense, not your specific needs.

I might stick 9.04 on later.

Hi, I have Ubuntu running but I can't get a decent resolution. It loads in 'low graphics mode' I select a resolution, it restarts and offers me 640 x 480. Anyone know why?

Drivers/corrupt configuration file/no idea.

The Ubuntu forums usually have the solution already or will find one quicksmart.
http://ubuntuforums.org/search.php?searchid=59524624


In other news, 9.04 went on my machine this morning. It seems quite happy & I had less bother playing with Compiz this time round, then I removed it as I never use any of that fancy shite

Yup driver thing, that resolution business, there's often a solution to be found by going into the setting part, not sure exactly which bit and there's a green icon with something drivers on the label, try that.

I went dual-boot on this very machine with Ubuntu, er, 8.10, I think. It was an interesting experiment in installation - popped Windows and Linux on, and guess which one let me open up a Firefox window and connect to the internet within 30 seconds of installation? Windows (XP) needed all the network drivers and things to be installed before it would bother. That said, I do 'know' Windows better, and the freeware finances manager (Gnucash) I use, for instance, just refused to be installed on my Ubuntu - I'm sure I could get it to go with some work but why bother when it works on Windows.

So, I use both equal amounts at home, but then I only browse the web and do the odd bit of word processing, and for those things find Ubuntu slightly quicker to get into. I still hit Windows shortcuts, which occasionally does something odd to the screen that I have to fix but otherwise either is good as far as I'm concerned.

I'm tempted to try some sort of Linux thingy. XP just takes so long to start up on my home desktop and often I only really use it whilst I'm having my morning cuppa before I go to work.

the ability to fire up something like Ubuntu and get browsing on it in less time seems like a good idea.

Most of the time I use OS X on my MacBook Pro but that seems all a bit too shiny and a bit bloated. Nicer than XP but not ideal. I'd happily go for something sleaker and more efficient.

To be slightly more fair, compare the release date of Ubuntu 8.1 and whatever SP your XP CD is. It's not that much of a surprise that the Ubuntu disk would have more/newer NIC drivers builtin.

In fairness, Ubuntu is one of the more 'bloated' *nix versions you could choose, but you can give it a go by just downloading a file onto a CD and popping it into your computer at boot time. Nothing on the hard drive will be affected.
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

ta for the advice.

i'm running it off of a CD now. seems nice enough.

okay two questions:
1)I made theerror of istlling the 32 bit version rather than the 64 bit version, is there a significant ammount of difference>?
2) The resolution is okay now, but the font doesn't uite seem right, letters seem a little grainy/greyed out/thin on the horizontals, is this me, my pc, linux, or all 3?

Dunno about either of those, but it's fucked your keyboard.

yeah, all the keys are mapped wrong.

Right, there are a lot of applications to choose from with Linux, do any of you folks recommend any? Specifically a better media (video) player than the default one, but any others you use also would e nice.