I just sold my mac laptop and am now fully committed to using Ubuntu Linux as my desktop. I've used Suse and Mandrake linux as desktops in the past but eventually went back to mac cause it was so darn easy

I'm using Ubuntu (Hardy Heron) for numerous reasons.. One important reason is that EMC2 (Lumenla's CNC controller of choice) offers a custom live CD based on Ubuntu.

Using linux again has been fun. Many advances have been made. I figured I'd post some of the things I've learned along the way for anyone else who wants to try Ubuntu or EMC2.

First, when installing linux I like to keep a separate partition for my home directory. This way if I want to reinstall linux or try a different distro I can easily keep all of my personal files and settings. I use the manual partitioning option during install. A pretty standard partiton setup would be something like

-Partition1: swap
-Partition2: fs: ext3 mountpoint: / (this is the OS)
-Partition3: fs: ext3 mountpoint: /home (this is where all of the user directories exist)

The rest of the install is pretty self-explanatory. Ubuntu has gotten really good at detecting hardware such as displays, USB keyboards, mice etc. Hopefully, everything is working right for you at the end of the installation.

If you are using this machine as a desktop you'll probably want to be able to play multimedia files such as DVDs, mp3s and more. You'll need to install Ubuntu multimedia support following the tutorial here:

http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Hardy#H..._on_Hardy_Heron

If you've never used linux before those commands are to be run in your terminal. You can find the application under Applications-->Accessories-->Terminal

Just copy/paste from the commands in the tutorial. (You have to right-click and select paste when using the terminal.)

Now you should have all your mulitmedia files playing properly. Hardy Heron is using a new audio server called Pulse Audio. I was having problems with sharing. When one application used the sound it didn't want to play nice and let other applications use it. I fixed this by changing all of my audio settings to ALSA (which is older and more stable). You can do this in System-->Preferences-->Sound.

Ubuntu makes a new release every 6 months. Maybe on the next one the kinks in Pulse Audio will be worked out.

Anyway, that sums up my experience so far. I'm by no means an expert. I hope that as I post my problems and solutions it will help others from having to go through the same problems. I also invite anyone else using linux (especially ubuntu or emc2) to join in the discussion.

All good info.
I'm posting this from my openSuse desktop now.
I prefer openSuse to Ubuntu myself. I don't agree with those who say you should never do anything as the root user.
I actually started using Linux off and on way back when Linus Torvalds was still a student in college, and gave a demonstration of what it could do for a large client back before 1995.
I moved my wife to Linux a while back, and my Media server also runs linux, as does my firewall.
I'm a geek, I can't help myself.

Ubuntu is probably the friendliest version of Linux out there. For those who are curious about the actual mission behind Ubuntu go to www.ubuntu.com.
There is some serious work being done here. I am particulary impressed by the EduBuntu concept and its ability to take even a non computer inclined teacher and make them the master of an entire classroom of computers.

I was a beta tester for Microsoft for several years and quite frankly if Linux ever develops better game support I will drop it like a plague ridden rodent.
What could be better than an OS that is always being worked on by hundreds of thousands of people each day?

If you want to do just some word processing and internet and a little office work but dont want to pay big bucks for the "Ultra Deluxe Special Edition Home Business Suite" from M$...then I urge you to try it.

Gimp and Open-office are both great apps (they run on windows as well). I've been using Bluefish for coding with no complaints so far. I still have to run windows to use quickbooks and print postage. Quickbooks has an online version but it currently only works with ie6. I expect that soon many apps will be online and not limited to ie (like google docs)... making linux even more accessible.

One thing I'm experimenting with is filesystems. I have a media partition at /home/media where BC and I share our media (and use jinzora to stream throughout the house.. but that's a different thread ). I'd like to be able to read/write to it in windows or linux. I understand that you can get very good support for ext2 in windows... and therefore ext3 (without journaling). But I also read that Ubuntu has native rw support for ntfs. I might try a small partition of each format in both sytstems to compare. I'm leaning toward ntfs just cause of journaling though it seems kind of wrong somehow. (Anti-MS bias?) Any suggestions?

Most of this goes over my head !

But I have tried Ubuntu and found it user friendly

I'd advise anyone to try the "live" CD version (No install needed,runs from the CD)

M$ your days are numbered .........

I installed LinuxMCE last year and found it to be the worst piece of software I've used in quite a while. (the GUI was just horrible, they can say all they want that you don't need the super duper remote, that a mouse will do, but they're smoking crack. that GUI was impossible to navigate with a standard mouse) Really turned me off of Linux. I then installed XP and Media Portal but found MP to be too buggy. I'm trying to put together a simple Media PC. nothing too fancy, just something I can use as a jukebox as well as use to watch youtube or surfthechannel on my PJ.

I think I'm going to give Ubuntu a try.

Yep, I'm late to the party, that's what I get for sticking to the robotics subforum...

There is ntfs support, but I still find it rather dodgy. I'd say the best choice for a community partition for a dual boot system is FAT32. Yeah, yeah, Windows restricts it to 32 GB if you create it on that side. On Linux mkfs.vfat will essentially stretch the cluster size beyond the 4KB Windows default. I haven't had any issue with this with getting Windows to read or write to it. And for a media partition, most files aren't small enough that you'd have too much wasted space.



OKFlyBoy - Haven't used LinuxMCE, but it is based on Kubuntu, the KDE derivative of Ubuntu (Gnome). Anytime you replace a mouse and keyboard interface with a remote control one, it's not going to be nice to use the other method. I used Freevo for a while and it wasn't bad, but I also did have a remote control setup using Lirc http://freevo.sourceforge.net/ there is also the XBox media center project that I believe was ported to Linux and Mac recently, http://xbmc.org/ it seems to be a favorite amongst many.


I've been using Linux for the last 6 or 7 years almost entirely at home (ok, I had dual boot for Counter Strike). Currently I have an Ubuntu file and web server, a netbook running linux, and a beefy desktop running Vista with a bunch of virtual machines on it, ranging from Windows 2000 to Solaris 10. I've used Redhat (then when Fedora came out), Slackware, Gentoo, and Ubuntu. Ubuntu by far has the best off the shelf hardware support and overall, ease of use. I loved Gentoo for it's optimization, but compiling every bit of software took it's toll on my patience as I could have a fully functioning Ubuntu install in under 20 minutes.

Okay, so I'm installing Ubuntu on what, I hope, will become my media PC. Its an old PIII with sucky onboard graphics. It seems to run ubuntu OK, but it craps out when trying to watch moving video, youtube, etc. I have a NVidia GForce FX5200, I've downloaded the linux driver from Nvidia, but now, what do I do with it? I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to install said driver... Help?!

Video is actually a pain. Decoding takes a bit of CPU, so big AVI files will probably bring you some bad playback. Likewise on WMV files as if I recall correctly, it has to do a process that uses the windows DLL files. I can't remember for sure. But typically with video you're going to want a P4/AMD Socket A.

As for the video card. Ubuntu will actually keeps those proprietary drivers in a repository and if you go the system menu you should see something like "Restricted Drivers" this is also shown up in the system tray as a small green circuit board. Click on that and it should have Nvidia graphics driver listed and choosing install on that will get things going. It used to be a lot more difficult when I was using Gentoo, you would have to download, compile, and do a lot of config changes to get things working right.


What kind of speed does that CPU have? It may just not have the throughput to handle DVD res videos. I know on my 1800+ AMD it ran fine w/ my gf2 on free drivers, but I can't think of how video ran on my Celeron 700mhz with Red Hat 8 and onboard graphics.

I did have the restricted driver installed and on, I thought the driver I got from NVIDIA was a different driver (it was not). Anyway, you were right, my old PC just couldn't handle what I was asking it to do. I ended up leaving Ubuntu on that PC and setting it up for our kids/spare PC (I'm typing on it right now, in fact). The PC that we previously had setup as the spare may become the Media PC. But now I'm back to work and that will have to wait.

I do enjoy Ubuntu, and while I need to keep XP for some XP-only apps and devices, I think I will install Ubuntu on my other PCs as well.

Anyway, Thanks for the help, you were spot-on!

A little under a year later and I'm still using Linux on that 2nd PC. Well, kinda. Its not quite the same PC as I swapped out the motherboard, I'm now on an old AMD XP1700 instead of the old(er) PIII. One cool thing about Ubuntu is I just swapped the MB into the same PC, HD and all. Hit the power and Ubuntu fired right up, as though nothing had changed, narry a problem the major change in hardware. Try doing that with Windows!

Anyway, new problem to solve:

I've got a Toshiba 2535cds laptop that my mom gave me.

Here's the specs:

Pentium MMX 300 MHz
Hard Drive 4.3 GB
Display 13 in.
Processor Type Pentium MMX
Processor Speed 300 MHz
Installed RAM 32 MB
Max Supported RAM 160 MB
Hard Drive Capacity 4.3 GB
Display Max. Resolution 800 x 600
Expansion Ports 1 x USB 1.1
Fax / Modem Card

Its got W98 on it currently, and I want to turn it into a basic netbook to use on my trip to CA. Mainly I just want to be able to use wi-fi, check my email, and use skype. I figure I stand a better chance of getting some version of linux to run then try to make W98 do the things I want it to do but admit that this thing looks a bit weak even for linux.

I'm downloading the "alternate install" of xubuntu 9.04 now, I'm going to give it a try, just for the hell of it. If I can't get it to work, I have the original Toshiba recovery CD here somewhere, and I'll just give it a fresh install of W98..

What do you think, assuming the only money I can stand to put into it is the $20 or so for a wifi card (so, no upgrading anything) can I make xubuntu achieve my 3 objectives (wifi, skype, web-browsing)? If not, how about W98?

OK,

You may want to take a look at puppy linux. It's a very lightweight version of linux that gives you a standard windows like gui with a word editing program, internet browsing, wireless support..etc.

Well last night I tried both the standard and "alternate" (command line) installs of xubuntu but they would not load, just kept getting critical memory errors.

The laptop only has 32mb of (non-removable) ram, which is the absolute minimum listed for every version of ubuntu I've found but even though it says it should work, it just isn't. Anyway, it only has 1 upgrade slot upgradeable to a max of 160 mb, so I bought a 128mb stick off ebay. I'll try again once I've received and installed the new ram...

Ubuntu is one of the "noob" include everything distrobutions. I bring this up because with a 4.3 GB hard drive you will likely encounter some space issues. I can't remember if by default which flavors of Ubuntu install what, but locales will eat a lot of disk space. So will a lot of unneeded applications.

I would agree with Puppy linux as being a wise choice. Some another one is DSL (Damn Small Linux). The problem with either of these are they are small and optimized. So, unlike Ubuntu, not every driver known to man is installed into the kernel by default. So, it's possible you'll have to spend some time `lspci`ing your box to figure out what it's packing chip wise and what modules you will need to use. All said and done though...you'll probably have a better experience, although not learn near as much as figuring out how to make that laptop working in a usable (and enjoyable) state...if you just break down and find yourself something like the Asus Eee PC 700 series (I have the 2g surf, I would recommend the 4 or 8 G though) these can be found used for around $100.

Tried puppy linux but it seems to crash about 1/2 way through boot (I thought it was just taking a while, so I let it sit, came back several minutes later and nothing had changed).

DSL, however, seems to boot through the LiveCD okay. I'm going to go ahead and try a full install. I'll report back when I know more.

And I appreciate the suggestion, but thats a negative on the Asus Eee PC, either I'll make this laptop work or I won't, but I won't be buying anything new. Like I said, about $20 is all I'm willing to spend (I paid $6.50 for the memory, so I've only got a little bit left for the wireless card )

Woo! DSL worked! Now I just have to get the wireless card and try it all again!

I am just installed ubuntu yesterday, I am trying to move a file from Desktop to /home or anywhere else

I use

mv filename /destination

error Permission Denied

any ideas?

to be honest I do not know anything about linux. I was able to move a file from Desktop to and external drive but i can not move anything know.

By default I think the ONLY path that will be writable by the user account is /home/<user>/ With this said, if you are trying to write to let's say /etc/ then you will get a permissions problem.

Try `ls -l ` will give you the listings the the directory and what user and group own the files.

If you do need to write to a config file owned by `root` try `sudo <command>`

There are a lot of gui utilities you can use for file management. That might be the best route to take while you learn the permissions structure and the file system layout.

I completely agree with you on the game support for linux and dropping windows. I've used linux for about 6 years now and I would never have used windows again if it weren't for some windows only games. With that being said, here are some linux gaming sites. http://www.linuxgames.com/ http://www.tuxgames.com/ http://www.linuxgamepublishing.com/ http://www.happypenguin.org/ Enjoy

On another note, if you are installing or reinstalling your linux OS, consider formatting it with the Reiser3 filesystem. Its supposed to be 10 to 15 times faster than ext3 for small files.