The Key to Ubuntu?

[blackbelt_jones]

So anyway, install Ubuntu Feisty, read this (http://www.cs.cornell.edu/~djm/ubuntu/), and quit your whining!

Tell you what, from now on, when Psych Major tells me to do something, I'm just going to do it, no matter how condescending and obnoxious he is about it, no questions asked.

(Well, maybe not. It's not a hard and fast rule. )

The above link may be the missing piece to Ubuntu, and I want to call attention to it. People who are new to Linux and considering Ubuntu need to check out this page. People who are experienced with Linux and considering Ubuntu need to check it out twice as much.

Here's the deal with Ubuntu: it's got it's own way of doing things, which is why the usual way of doing things kept getting me into trouble. God help the poor son of ***** (sorry, Mom!) who tried to install flashplayer by downloading the file and then reading the file named (README) DON'T DO IT! :eek: Read THIS PAGE instead!

I wiped my SUSE system and installed Ubuntu as my "guest" OS, because I subscribe to safari books online, and safari books doesn't have any books on Debian more recent than Potato, so I added a couple of Ubuntu books to my bookshelf, and thought I might as well have access to them while I'm reading them. Also, psych-major told me to install Ubuntu. This site solved a couple of big problems right out of the box. Ubuntu is starting to make sense to me. All Ubuntu users must be aware.

I'm not saying that Ubuntu is my new favorite distro, but now, I have some comprehension of how and why Ubuntu works, and I have something to say to Ubuntu newbies who are having problems:

I'll just quote my bff, psych-major: Read this (http://www.cs.cornell.edu/~djm/ubuntu/), and quit your whining!

[je_fro]

I'll bet they make that one a sticky over at the Dell support forums...
I think I'm gonna archive it just in case something happens to it...

[infiniphunk]

One thing I have found with the last two ubuntu releases is that the regular liveCD kinda sucks as an installer. For whatever reason, it just doesn't like my partition scheme. Most of my filesystems are xfs, a couple are reiserfs. The install script on the liveCD doesn't want to play nice with xfs and always complains that it won't be able to install grub (where's the option to install lilo???) I got around this headache by downloading the ubuntu alternate install disc, which uses the classic debian installer.
Great distro otherwise!

[blackbelt_jones]

Okay, I may be starting to really like Ubuntu. It just installed my nVidia driver with one click. I can hardly believe it.

Clicked on System>Preference, and then I saw a button for "Desktop effects", and I clicked on it, just out of curiosity. What I got was a dialog asking me if I would like my nvidia driver installed so I clicked on yes. Oh and I have the Fox News-Beryl Desktop. It's goofy, but it'll be nice to impress the Rubes.

To hell with the rubes; I'm impressed!:)

One thing I have found with the last two ubuntu releases is that the regular liveCD kinda sucks as an installer. For whatever reason, it just doesn't like my partition scheme. Most of my filesystems are xfs, a couple are reiserfs. The install script on the liveCD doesn't want to play nice with xfs and always complains that it won't be able to install grub (where's the option to install lilo???) I got around this headache by downloading the ubuntu alternate install disc, which uses the classic debian installer.
Great distro otherwise!

I agree with Ubuntu. Your partition scheme sucks.

Okay, I'm kidding. I've heard vague warnings about Reiser, but I've heard similar things about RPM, and I'm convinced that they were greatly exaggerated. As far as XFS is concerned, I barely know how to spell that.

I will say this: it's not the situation that the average new user finds himself in, and I'm more favorably impressed that Ubuntu provided an alternative installer as a solution than I am unfavorably impressed that you had a problem with installing from the live CD onto your Hollywood liberal filesystems.;)

At this point, I'm beginning to worry. What if Ubuntu isn't overrated?:eek:

[infiniphunk]

Don't worry, ubuntu probably isn't overrated.
But you're right, the whole thing with the nvidia driver is pretty cool, its sure going to make things a lot more attractive for the noobs who have nvidia as part of their kit.

[blackbelt_jones]

You know, I'd probably reccomend that text-based installer disk to anyone who isn't a newbie planning a conventional partition scheme. If the Ubuntu live CD doesn't detect a windows partition while installing, it will automatically reset your hardware clock to UTC, without asking. I just used Ubuntu to wipe an XP install, and the Debian partition that was left untouched had been configured to coexist with windows, with a hardware clock set to local time. So now, every time I boot back into Debian, I have to reset the clock.

The live cd is an automated, dumbed-down install, and there's nothing wrong with that, as long as there's an alternative... but if you know what you're doing, and you're planning on doing anything even slightly unusual, the alternative disk is probably best.

[psych-major]

Most of my filesystems are xfs, a couple are reiserfs. The install script on the liveCD doesn't want to play nice with xfs and always complains that it won't be able to install grub (where's the option to install lilo???) I got around this headache by downloading the ubuntu alternate install disc, which uses the classic debian installer.
Great distro otherwise!I've had no issue with pre-existing reiser, ntfs or FAT file systems at install, but I don't think they have xfs in the base release cd, that's probably why the alternate install cd worked for you.

[psych-major]

Clicked on System>Preference, and then I saw a button for "Desktop effects", and I clicked on it, just out of curiosity. What I got was a dialog asking me if I would like my nvidia driver installed so I clicked on yes. Oh and I have the Fox News-Beryl Desktop. It's goofy, but it'll be nice to impress the Rubes.While you're at it...install the package 3ddesktop. Go into gconf-editor and make a keyboard shortcut to it, and then you can really impress yourself and the rubes! I've wowed most of my co-workers with it so far, with the best response being, "Hey, is that Vista!"

[infiniphunk]

While you're at it...install the package 3ddesktop. Go into gconf-editor and make a keyboard shortcut to it, and then you can really impress yourself and the rubes! I've wowed most of my co-workers with it so far, with the best response being, "Hey, is that Vista!"

Is that the same thing as 'Desktop Effects' under System>Preferences which enables beryl. I tried it that way myself but found it didn't work as well as just installing the necessary beryl packages (including beryl-manager) from apt.
You need beryl-manager to customize beryl and really make stuff look good.

[psych-major]

no, I don't believe it's related to Beryl. Frankly I had no luck with beryl, and don't currently have the time to read up on it.

3ddesktop is a standalone package. If you run multiple desktops, when you run it it pulls them back, lets you rotate them to the one you want, then brings them back to the front. Not as efficient or useful as ctl+alt+<left arrow> or <right arrow>, but it sure is interesting!

Incidentally, I removed the default value for ctl+alt+<up arrow> and assigned it to 3ddesktop.

[cylent77]

Originally Posted by psych-major
So anyway, install Ubuntu Feisty, read this (http://www.cs.cornell.edu/%7Edjm/ubuntu/), and quit your whining!
someone should make a script for all that BASIC junk.
and yet you've given me another reason to wanna throw up when i hear the word Ubuntu!

the point is; if you like aboondoo go brag about its greatnes on the ubuntu forums.

i doubt the justlinux.com forum admins wanna see another post about a specific distro.

thats all for now.

[cylent77]

Don't worry, ubuntu probably isn't overrated.
But you're right, the whole thing with the nvidia driver is pretty cool, its sure going to make things a lot more attractive for the noobs who have nvidia as part of their kit.
you guys are too silly

i have one for you

instead of the whole 1 click nvidia install wow omg ftmfw i installed the nvidia drivers with one click oh wow i cant stop jumping its so amazing this distro really roX and i am so cool like all the other 15 year old hackers out there. arghhhH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
why not just download a distro that has the nvidia drivers already?

and in the meantime i'll stick with windows cause the linuxdesktop just aint ready ...

[je_fro]

The linux desktop is ready, but you apparently aren't...you're banned for 24 hours cylent77, so you can calm down :D

[crow2icedearth]

instead of the whole 1 click nvidia install wow omg ftmfw i installed the nvidia drivers with one click oh wow i cant stop jumping its so amazing this distro really roX and i am so cool like all the other 15 year old hackers out there. arghhhH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
why not just download a distro that has the nvidia drivers already?

and in the meantime i'll stick with windows cause the linuxdesktop just aint ready ...

linux desktop has been ready for a long time..... its just that you don't want to take the time to learn it. . its a shame because x windows offers alot to users that what to user it and master it....... start by learning

xorg.conf ............ha ha ha

[betamaxman]

I find it difficult to understand what anyone can find hard about installing the nvidia driver manually. well I guess typimg sudo init 3, then cd /to the driver, then sudo sh NVIDIA (press tab, enter) and follow the easy prompts pressing yes to each question might frighten some I guess.

[psych-major]

On a fairly new desktop, this would be true. However, on a machine using an older nVidia card requiring the legacy chipset, you have to know to download the latest legacy driver, and it's really hard to find on the nVidia site.

Also, on a laptop running an ipw3945 wireless card, installing the nvidia driver as described will work just fine, but will remove the kernel headers needed to run the wireless card. In this case, you're stuck with the latest driver compiled in the Ubuntu repositories.

This is all fixed in 7.04 Feisty. It now appears under the restricted drivers section and is a simple checkbox choice.

[retsaw]

On a fairly new desktop, this would be true. However, on a machine using an older nVidia card requiring the legacy chipset, you have to know to download the latest legacy driver, and it's really hard to find on the nVidia site.How is it at all hard? You go to the nVidia site click the "download drivers" link, then you select "graphics drivers" select the appropriate series for your card, then select which platform you are running and click "Go". nVidia really couldn't make it any easier than that.

The restricted drivers manager in Ubuntu is a good idea, it's a shame that it wouldn't let me enable the nVidia drivers when I tried it, so I had to install the nVidia driver myself. After discovering that the machine locks up when I try to use the "switch user" feature with the nVidia drivers, I then try the restricted drivers manager to disable the driver and it did do that and for good measure it thought it would completely uninstall the driver aswell, which wasn't what I wanted (and not how I interpret "disable"). I reinstalled the driver and tested it and it still worked until after I rebooted when it inexplicably stopped working.

Ubuntu is improving with every release, but still not quite there to satisfy me. If Ubuntu are going to automate things that I'm used to doing myself I want it to work flawlessly and it doesn't yet, which is disappointing. I'm going to go with Arch Linux on that computer for now since for all Ubuntu's extra polish it doesn't really work any better.

[blackbelt_jones]

:rolleyes: I find it difficult to understand what anyone can find hard about installing the nvidia driver manually. well I guess typimg sudo init 3, then cd /to the driver, then sudo sh NVIDIA (press tab, enter) and follow the easy prompts pressing yes to each question might frighten some I guess.

Well, (with Debian) it was a major problem for me for a long time. I had to learn how to disable X for the installation, and I had to learn how to get the kernel headers. Easy things to do when you know how, but I can remember asking for help with them in here and not getting what I needed. I think I may have not known enough to frame my question. This was the biggest reason why I switched from Debian to SUSE for a couple of years. SUSE was easier to work with, for a couple of reasons, but I love being back with Debian.

Ubuntu makes disabling X unnecessary for installing innecessary, and that's got to make life easier for some beginners.

[JSimmons]

I just used Ubuntu to wipe an XP install, and the Debian partition that was left untouched had been configured to coexist with windows, with a hardware clock set to local time. So now, every time I boot back into Debian, I have to reset the clock.

How do I stop it from doing that? I installed onto a new virgin HDD, and when I put the Windows HDD back in, the clock was 5 hours fast (UTC). That also happened with Fedore Core 6.