Give Ubuntu another chance
Posted by: Don Phillips on 02 January 2010
Hi guys,
I read through again the previous thread on Ubuntu (a free Linux based operating and software system) which is now closed and views seemed divided between those who wanted to give it a go and those who want to chuck it.
My plea is... give it a go. You have nothing to lose.
It started for me a few weeks ago when I set about upgrading the family computers from the dreaded Vista to Windows 7 (much better in every way).
I had intended to get the three registration family pack. Found that Microsoft had stopped doing this. Presumably too popular!
So I reluctantly bought one upgrade kit and installed it on my main PC.
I had a further read about Ubuntu, downloaded the disk and gave it a good airing on my wife's old laptop. Looked good. Within the hour I had it installed and was acquainted with all the supplied software, including equivalents of Office, Outlook, Photoshop, iTunes, &c. I am not a computer expert but it was simple.
Since then I have it on my laptop. And most recently I have partitioned my hard drive on my main PC, and can choose to boot between Windows 7 and Ubuntu. Could not be simpler. (I am not in their pay - it is, err, free software!).
This morning I installed their audio recorder/editor, Audacity. Was able to record a track from the rerun of Sound of the Sixties which had always elluded me into Flac format, within minutes.
I stress, I am not a computer guru, and have no formal training in computers.
So what is wrong with Ubuntu? It looks nice, is quick, is versatile, you don't need to have Antivirus software. And it does not hold up proceedings, threatening to reboot every five minutes to download yet another fix.
So if you have a spare or an old computer stick it on, get used to it. You need never spend any more money on software.
Happy new year
don, snowy downtown York
Posted on: 02 January 2010 by Howlinhounddog
Hi Don,
How right you are. I have a collegue who swears by Ubuntu and after a little while whatching just what it does I was a convert (in theory). I've just not got around to doing it! My track record with all things computer (e.g. 10,000 lost tracks from my ipod) keeps me from raising my head above the parapet.
I believe that the greatest advantage is that the hackers in general just leave it alone. Oh and Bill Gates gets none of it
Posted on: 02 January 2010 by Stephen B
I intend to give it go soon. I don't feel like giving Microsoft any more money for W7 after experiencing Vista. (It's Vista that prompted me to buy a Macbook!).
The only problem my brother is having with Ubuntu is the internet is very slow. It will be interesting to see if that's the case with my PC.
Posted on: 02 January 2010 by Don Phillips
quote:
The only problem my brother is having with Ubuntu is the internet is very slow. It will be interesting to see if that's the case with my PC.
Hi,
I am on Virgin Broadband. I find internet access (and firefox loading) almost instant. Seems quicker than Windows if anything (ought to me - no antivirus to get in the way of all the traffic).
Not that I have had to configure anything in Ubuntu - it just found it, and immediately I was on line. (Also like using my Canon printer - instantly found the linux driver, and I was away.)
Also, while I am ranting on, I find the Ubuntu equivalent of iTunes very similar, less commercial, and it is possible to immediately import all one's collection of mp3 and read all the metadata. Now who makes a decent DAC to play it through my hifi???
Don, still snowing in downtown York
PS, I stress I am not a computer expert, but if somebody wants to email me about venturing into Ubuntu, do e mail me (in profile). There are also a lot of good books and online help about it.
Posted on: 02 January 2010 by Roy T
Posted on: 02 January 2010 by garyi
Lets face it these iterations of LInux are no easier than anything else. Plus ibunto or what ever it is called looks like someone took a crap on your screen.
That being said I am about to hack the arse out of my AppleTV with a Linux install and CrystalHD chip. Luckily I don't have to look at linux at all.
Posted on: 02 January 2010 by Peter Dinh
Ubuntu (or Linux in general) is very good OS. It is very fast, very light weight, much less demanding on system resources than MacOS and Windows. It is definitely my choice for mission-critical backend servers. However, I do not think that it is fully ready for the general home users because:
o The user interface is not as refined as Windows or MacOs
o The Office suite is Microsoft Office look-alike but it is not as good as the Microsoft one. Lots of times, it does not work as expected
o Not backup/restore facilities. It means that if you update your system software and it goes wrong (it does happen), you are in deep trouble because there is no easy way to back track
o Configuring some important system components such as X11, Samba, ssh, printing, etc. are not easy
o etc.
Posted on: 03 January 2010 by Don Phillips
Hi Peter,
I think that is a reasonably fair description of Ubuntu, tending slightly on the hard side. The points I would make are:
1) The user interface seems fine to me - as you are aware you can customise it. And I have not had to type in any Linux commands yet.
2) Things have been known to go wrong with Windows and Mac system upgrades. I take the point about not easy to reinstall part of Ubuntu.
3) Some things don't work so well - I have not found any web-building software that comes close to Frontpage or Expression 3.
4) I agree some of the more specialised Office-like functions need more work.
But on the other hand I have a great sound recorder / editor in Audacity for free. Works a dream.
However where I would recommend Ubuntu is for
Anybody who is going only to surf the net and write letters &c.
Anybody with an old computer which does not perhaps perform so well with the latest Windows who wants to see it fly again. (Those cheap HP laptops seem to get slower with age whatever you do to them).
Anybody with a spare computer and a teenager who just might be persuaded not to constantly download pirated software and viruses, who wants to try a different programme every week.
Anybody who has a sense of adventure who wants to break free from the current cynical corporate hegemony.
Gosh, I am sounding young again.
Don
sunny downtown York
Posted on: 03 January 2010 by Roy T
Don,
If you can reach the package manager via
System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager > Edit > Fix Broken Packages is often worth a try as is to remove and then reinstall the offending packages using Synaptic.
Another idea is to have separate partitions for user created or amended data as this allows you to install a fresh system without loosing these fruits of your labour. It is also an idea to have a good working backup process that you have have tested before you do install a new system but then this applies to all operating systems.
Installing a system is a breeze using the alt install cd as the lack of DRM, registration or authorization codes and other assorted restrictions does help the process to fairly zip along although you may wish to practise this process a few times so as not to start bricking it when you need to do it for real either over the phone for friends, family members or on your own machine.
One of the often under appreciated processes within the Ubuntu software is that most of the applications you require after an install can be reached at a click of a button via the Update Manager. No more hunting about for long lost or forgotten drivers and application disks and the Update mechanism delivers the goods! Any third party code you require could well be stored in on of your data partitions and so is just a click away from being installed on your fresh, new machine.
Don, do lots of backups, check that they work and reinstall your system as many times as needed until you can do it in your sleep. I did mine last night, the base install took less than half an hour with the Update manager adding another twenty mins at the most.
Any question? Then post them on the Ubuntu forums where you will be offered a million useful ideas and hints, some may even be from me.
Posted on: 03 January 2010 by El Guapo
I would not use Ubuntu on a pc unless it was a dual-boot PC that also ran Windows. The reason being, whatever you think of Ubuntu as an OS, device drivers are often non-existant. There's no point in having all the software you need but not being able to connect your printer, MP3 player, phone, etc.
Posted on: 03 January 2010 by Peter Dinh
quote:
System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager > Edit > Fix Broken Packages is often worth a try as is to remove and then reinstall the offending packages using Synaptic.
This only works in theory (probably on some simple cases).
Btw, I agreed with Don on some of his points.
Posted on: 03 January 2010 by Roy T
quote:
Originally posted by El Guapo:
I would not use Ubuntu on a pc unless it was a dual-boot PC that also ran Windows. The reason being, whatever you think of Ubuntu as an OS, device drivers are often non-existant. There's no point in having all the software you need but not being able to connect your printer, MP3 player, phone, etc.
El Guapo,
you might wish to burn the latest live cd, boot with live cd (does not change pc at all), accept updates and then see if you are missing any drivers. If you find drivers are missing then you could always ask a question via the forums and see if anyone can help. If the community can offer you no help at least you have contributed to the general level of knowledge with your findings.
Posted on: 03 January 2010 by Don Phillips
Thanks guys for your inputs. Nice to see that the Ubuntu spirit shines forth on the Naim site (there are similarities of course).
On my main PC I do have Ubuntu and Windows 7 installed. (This was reasonably staightforward to do, but there was one issue which I will share - the Windows pagefile seemed to have positioned itself well down the disk so that I could not partition it to produce anything of a worthwhile size. It is not easily movable. So I tinkered with the system setup in Windows and ran it without a page file, as I have 2Gb of RAM. Then used EASEUS Partition master, free software. Then recreated a pagefile on the new smaller Windows partition. As the man says it is a good idea to back up your data files before doing this!)
I also have two large hard disks - one = systems, two = data. Two is accessible by both OS. I do regular USB hard disk backups.
At least we have given Ubuntu another outing on this forum, and hopefully tempted any Naimites with second de-commissioned computers to give them a new, totally free and exciting life.
Don
dark downtown York
Posted on: 03 January 2010 by Roy T
Don, So glad to see that you are enjoying things.
I use a few third party applications and all work right out of the box.
Data encryption
Truecrypt Fiddling with partitions
Parted Magic Global voyeurism
Google Earth From the repositories I can not live without
Email + Encryption via Mozilla Thunderbird,
Enigmail & Gmail.
Pick and mix at it's very best
Posted on: 04 January 2010 by BigH47
I have an old and now slow XP machine, would this be suitable for an Ubuntu surfing machine? ie what is the minimum requirements?
If so is it possible to give a laymans(idiots) guide to achieving this?
How to cleanse the machine and what is needed to fix up the Ubuntu version.
Thanks.
H
Posted on: 04 January 2010 by Roy T
Mr H,
The system requirements are
quote:
Ubuntu is available for PC, 64-Bit PC and Intel-based Mac architectures. At least 256 MB of RAM is required to run the alternate install CD (384MB of RAM is required to use the live CD based installer). Install requires at least 4 GB of disk space.
Your first port of call is the
Ubuntu home page and
download followed by burning the live cd / desktop cd and then take a test drive
quote:
When the CD is ready, simply put it in your CD drive, restart your computer and follow the instructions that will appear on your screen. Don't forget that you can create more copies and pass the CD to as many people as you like.
This will not change your pc at all and when finished just eject the cd and on reboot your machine is back to XP.
If you wish to install Ubuntu 9.10 for real then let me know and I'll offer a few more pointers.
Posted on: 04 January 2010 by BigH47
Thanks for that Roy I'll have a play on Wednesday after a suitable amount of reading from those links.
Posted on: 06 January 2010 by Roy T
So, how did it go?
Posted on: 07 January 2010 by BigH47
Too many people in the house for me to concentrate. I usually have Wednesday and Thursdays to my self.
It looks like I need to tidy my PC up and move some stuff to the supplementary drive, to make some operating space.
I'll report in due course.
Posted on: 07 January 2010 by HIghfid3l_IT
Typing this in Mint 8: an Ubuntu-variant.
Other laptops have Mint too (4 total)
Getting some things to work is sometimes an adventure, but these are the first versions I am willing to spend more time with
Posted on: 07 January 2010 by Roy T
Append yours
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-GB; rv:1.9.1.6) Gecko/20091215 Ubuntu/9.10 (karmic) Firefox/3.5.6
Posted on: 07 January 2010 by BigH47
Not going well ATM instructions don't appear to gibe.
I'll continue tomorrow as there's a possibility of on my own time.
Posted on: 07 January 2010 by Roy T
Let me know what the sticking point is and I'll have a think first thing tomorrow morning and see if I can be of help.
Posted on: 08 January 2010 by BigH47
OK 3 attempts to burn the ISO file have failed. It says it has done it but there is nothing on the CD-r, my external drive won't even try to burn it.
A question can I burn an XP version ISO on an iMAC?
I might hi-jack my misses laptop and see if that works but again if I can't choose the version, that one will be for Vista.
Posted on: 08 January 2010 by Roy T
quote:
Originally posted by BigH47:
OK 3 attempts to burn the ISO file have failed. It says it has done it but there is nothing on the CD-r, my external drive won't even try to burn it.
A question can I burn an XP version ISO on an iMAC?
I might hi-jack my misses laptop and see if that works but again if I can't choose the version, that one will be for Vista.
I have almost run out of ideas as it looks like your software / hardware has trouble burning an iso disk and I have no workaround for that other than try on as many machines / burner combinations as possible. Once you have managed to burn an iso disk then it should boot without any problems at all. Iso file
software ideas that might be of use.
It looks like
http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net/ and
http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm are well thought of, see the
windows section.
Posted on: 08 January 2010 by Peter Dinh
quote:
Originally posted by BigH47:
A question can I burn an XP version ISO on an iMAC?
An ISO file is an ISO file. You can burn it on a DVD on whatever platform you have.
