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noob thread

N

nobody_here

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Feb 1, 2006
Messages
8,877
have had pc's for years, got rid of mine, now wife wants/needs one to surf web, check email, and works with pictures and video from the cameras, no gaming, etc......

going to throw together an old system in the closet, Celeron 2Ghz CPU, 320MB of PC2100 memory, onboard audio and video (Asus P4GE-V mobo), very very budget basic system, but hey, it's mainly gonna surf the web

which brought me to my latest conclusion, XP (bloated, memory hog, resource hog, prone to viri and such, etc....), MCE 2005 (nice looking, some features i would like to play with as far as networking my PC with my Xbox 360, but.....$100....for what?...no), then there's Vista....(dont even get me started)

so!

Ubuntu looks really nice, as do several others, but here's the thing, i am looking for advice and input from the community as to which one they think would run the best on my system and serve the purpose intended with some room to play a little maybe, one thing it really needs to be able to do is support some sort of wireless b or g card or UsB adapter, other than that, i cannot think of much, the ability to plug in my cameras via USB of course

help me decide, i am doing this tonight, within the next few hours or so, thanks
 
Ubuntu is really user-friendly.
if you have wireless and want alot more "plug and play" hold off just a bit. The version of Ubuntu in final beta testing has a vastly improved wireless support (out of the box) and that should make your life alot easier
 
eeyrjmr said:
Ubuntu is really user-friendly.
if you have wireless and want alot more "plug and play" hold off just a bit. The version of Ubuntu in final beta testing has a vastly improved wireless support (out of the box) and that should make your life alot easier
Click to expand...

well, understood, but could i not update the OS to support wireless when released? i noticed Ubuntu supports regular online updates

Digital Cro-Magnon said:
I think that the latest Ubuntu will work out fine for you. It is easy to install and comes with a lot of nice programs. One draw back to it, and that goes for most linux distributions, is that is does not support MP3's "out of the box". It is not hard to set up folow these instructions:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats#head-99259e1841e1e1262f4f71e0c72d5a51b3fb69e9

If you could get a little more RAM I think it might run a little smoother as well.

Good Luck,
Click to expand...

i dont care anything about MP3's to be honest, but thanks for the heads up, and yes, i do plan to add more memory
 
I switched to Ubuntu from Windows 98, which I had on an old PC that I hadn't used in a few years.

I had 384meg of ram (3x128m which was quite adequate for the use you describe. Download the 32 bit version (Dapper Drake) and see if you can get your problem hardware (wireless) out of the way before you invest TOO much time.

I am told WEP is very easy to set up in Ubuntu (haven't had the courage to try yet, so the Linux box still has an umbillical cord.

No viruses or spyware, no big $ spent on software, and like I said, this PC that I am using with Linux was a boat anchor when it was loaded with Windoze. Low cost of ownership can be very endearing and make you quite willing to accept free software that, at worst, is 80% as good as the VERY BEST, VERY EXPENSIVE windoze counterpart (Photoshop vs. GIMP and OpenOffice vs. MS Office comes to mind). Just these two WINDOZE titles will set you back $1,000. Stick that money in your retirement account, Bubba.

My main reasons for switching to Ubuntu Linux:

1.) Cost of software/legal issues. Certainly, the cost of software would have been astonomical for me if not for the underground trading of popular titles on bootleg CDs which is common practice in art school. Eventually, I had to decide whether I was going to continue to be a scofflaw, dump my life savings into software and stay broke keeping up with the upgrades, or consider open source software as an option.

2.) I am a webmaster of a fairly complex website. Many tasks are more efficient when you are using the native platform of most of the internet. gFTP is more powerful (and albeit dangerous for newbies) than WSFTP, CuteFTP or Fetch.

3.) Desire to be different. There's things about me you don't know...I'm a loner, a rebel. If you ever weary of the Windoze power-user boasting or ranting about this or that, just tell him you gave up windows for Linux so you just can't relate to what he is saying anymore.

4.) It's my little way of sticking it to the man. I kind of resent an uber-corporation having uber control of the tool I use for creative expression, communication and infomation. I get real satisfaction of saying, "I don't need you M$"

5.) Shall you be one of a billion faceless customers of an uber-corporation or part of a community? Being part of a community involves a level of self-sacrifice, but happily, I have found that the self-sacrife I speak of stays well clear of my soul and my wallet.
 
Carloswill said:
Install Ubuntu = Happy
Click to expand...

indeed, seems to be running quite well, posting on it now, old 8.5Gb HDD i had planned to use keeps locking up at 10% during install, so i had to fall back to old trusty Maxtor 3.2Gb HDD :D

but hey, i still have HDD space left!!

now beta 7.04 is out with the final releaseto happen sometime this month with better wireless support and more, just found a wireless card on newegg that is supported by Linux according to past buyers so i snagged it up

one question, is the automatic updates enabled by default?
 
now i am beginning to not like this....

i can't download an installer like for instance, to install the JRE Java client i have to pick between a gz file or a rpm file......either one i download Sun's site gives me some install instructions that involve running terminal and entering all these weird commands, tells me to type su and then enter a password.....the root password...i never set one up, have no idea how to get something as simple as a Java plugin to work....

not liking this at all......if i have to deal with this regularly i will drop it and go back to XP:mad:

i mean, jesus, i went from being able to double click an icon to this...

http://www.java.com/en/download/help/5000010500.xml#install

not good
 
nobody_here said:
now i am beginning to not like this....

i can't download an installer like for instance, to install the JRE Java client i have to pick between a gz file or a rpm file......either one i download Sun's site gives me some install instructions that involve running terminal and entering all these weird commands, tells me to type su and then enter a password.....the root password...i never set one up, have no idea how to get something as simple as a Java plugin to work....

not liking this at all......if i have to deal with this regularly i will drop it and go back to XP:mad:

i mean, jesus, i went from being able to double click an icon to this...

http://www.java.com/en/download/help/5000010500.xml#install

not good
Click to expand...

the root password should just be your normal password to login.
 
THEnumber337 said:
the root password should just be your normal password to login.
Click to expand...

it's not

there was none set, found out how to set it

in terminal type
Code: 
sudo passwd root

then it asks you to set one.....jesus freaking christ, they could have made that an in your face kind of point to let you know about this to begin with during install or something........

ok, so now i am past the password thing, but if you read the JRE install instructions it tells me to change to the directory i want to install it in....i dont care, have no clue, so i go with the suggested directory /usr/java/

so i do cd /usr/java/

and get a "NO SUCH FILE OR DIRECTORY" message......BAH!

now i have to research how to create a friggin directory before i start the other 500 lines of directions to install a simple Java plugin.........

this sucks fat donkey balls
 
Or maybe you could just use the package manager...

Synaptic should have every JRE that you can think of in it.
 
ok, i found the add/remove programs under applications.......the dummy way, my way, awesome
 
I believe that when you do something like
Code: 
cd /usr/java
the usr part is your user name for the system.
 
i am just upset that they still havent gotten it as user friendly as windows, for all it's flaws, Windows is nearly idiot proof and it holds your hand every step of the way, no need to know how or why it does what it does, it just does it and it works, this is far from that.......gonna give it some more time

237 updates available it tells me, according to the System Monitor at this point i have 0 bytes available and 35.4 MiB free.....yet it continues to install all the updates.......interesting
 
nobody_here said:
i am just upset that they still havent gotten it as user friendly as windows, for all it's flaws, Windows is nearly idiot proof and it holds your hand every step of the way, no need to know how or why it does what it does, it just does it and it works, this is far from that.......gonna give it some more time

237 updates available it tells me, according to the System Monitor at this point i have 0 bytes available and 35.4 MiB free.....yet it continues to install all the updates.......interesting
Click to expand...

Its not Windows, and it never will be.... Get used to it. Your mistake was not using the applications provided.

You made a mistake, and then blamed the OS for it... I think it was lazy, and oversighted.
 
duby229 said:
Its not Windows, and it never will be.... Get used to it. Your mistake was not using the applications provided.

You made a mistake, and then blamed the OS for it... I think it was lazy, and oversighted.
Click to expand...

you are correct of course, but my point is, there should be some sort of explanation that is "in your face" during install, instead of having to do a bunch of research, i didn't blame the OS completely, it could be better, but i also admitted to needing the dummy way, the easy way
 
I just ran LINUXMINT off the CD. It is basically Ubuntu with all the java/wmv codecs already in place, which is a royal pain in the a@@, but this is not the OS's fault. Blame M$ and others for keeping their codecs propriatary to WINDOZE in the US.

The full version of LINUXMINT tecnically violates US copyright law because all these codecs are in place, but if you don't mind being a scofflaw, it sure makes things easy. Looks like windows too. You might be more comfortable with it.

http://www.linuxmint.com/download.html

  1. If you don't do LINUXMINT and stay with Ubuntu, there is going to be a learning curve, but once you learn a few terminal commands and get it setup, you'll be golden. Here is the best quick start guide I have found for installing just about anything from the command prompt.

    http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_dapper
  2. The sudo apt-get install command is amazing.
  3. Don't use the Java package on the java site. Just get it from the package manager. The latest version on the site was a little buggy, IMHO
  4. I got the book Beginning Ubuntu Linux by Keir Thomas and found it very helpful

Linux starts out difficult and gets easy. Windows starts out easy, but over time, the viruses and spyware come, the OS locks up, files corrupt, the system gets buggy, software is expensive and it bloats to the point that you wind up replacing your PC every few years.

So is avoiding all of this expense and grief worth the learning curve? As one who started in DOS and then Windows 3.1, I can tell you that there was a hell of a learning curve with those OS's too. Linux assumes that you have a modicum of knowledge, which is probably true 95% of the time, but babies are born everyday who don't know how to set the root password in the terminal.
 
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