linux-ubuntu users.

[Patient zer0]

i just wiped out my xp box and put linux on there.
i've never used this OS before but im learning it in school as im taking Networking.

what tips can you give a newb to this OS?
how do i use the CUBE effect? i tried turning my preferences into the high graphical setting but it made stuff worse. i couldnt minimize windows and move windows around.

im not sure the specs on this machine, but im sure the graphics card is inadequit for those effects?

its the shared graphics card on the mother board.

any tips or stuff i should know about linux?

im running ubuntu 7.10 and just did an update for 180 or so things. so its up todate as far as that goes.

[thejives]

I have that OS now and I don't think it has the cube effect.

I think that's fedora core 7.

I could be wrong though. If you don't mind not having the cube thing, you're gonna dig ubuntu. It's really easy to update and modify.

[Patient zer0]

im not sure if ubunut has it, but i think i've seen images on google

most linux distro i think have that package. maybe its something i need to download.

i'll mess around with it more this weekenend to see what i can/cant do.

how do you network a linux machine to see a vista machine?

[oldladyfacepuncher]

how do you network a linux machine to see a vista machine?

Install linux on both.

Are you setting up a home network? I haven't used windows in years, so I can't help you on thaat end, but try here (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202605)

[Patient zer0]

im taking netoworking in school, so im just messing around really

i just installed Debian 4.0 over the ubunut to try this distro out..

im wondering if i really need to use windows anymore or should i wipe out my vista machine and have a nice linux one cause this one im on is dual core with a good video card etc..

but im not sure if linux can read windows viles and vice versa, for doing homework, office documents etc..

[DolaMight]

dual boot with XP or Vista. Or make smaller partitions and install as many different OS's as you like. That way you'll never do without. A good videocard is wasted if you're just using linux.

korn or bash, now that is the question.

[Patient zer0]

im using vista.

i think debian, ubuntu use the bash shell

so if i throw in the disc it will ask me to partition the drive or over write the whole thing right?

how much space should i make for linux? 10 gig?
i selected 10 gig, whatever i download and save with linux is limited to the size of the parition?

a good video is needed if you are going to use the beryl graphics.. which i plan to do, it looks crazy

[oldladyfacepuncher]

im using vista.

i think debian, ubuntu use the bash shell

Most distributions do, but alot of people prefer Korn, saying it's less bloated. The OpenBSD folks also don't like the bash liscence.

im using vista. so if i throw in the disc it will ask me to partition the drive or over write the whole thing right?

Yes. You can make your own partitons. You might have to defragment your HD in windows first. You did last time I duall booted anyway.

10GB is plenty to try it out.

im using vista. how much space should i make for linux? 10 gig?
i selected 10 gig, whatever i download and save with linux is limited to the size of the parition?

Yes. It will treat that partition as a sort of seperate hard disk. When you decide to get rid of windows, you can re-partition that part of your drive.

Ubuntu is based on Debian, by the way. Linux can read windows partitons, but windows cannot read the Linux partitions.

im using vista. a good video is needed if you are going to use the beryl graphics.. which i plan to do, it looks crazy

You can google your card to see if there are any issues with the linux driver.

[KnoxHarrington]

So I decided to carve out a partition on my laptop's hard drive and slap Ubuntu in there. And I'm actually posting this from Linux.

But here's my big complaint: I'm in Firefox now, and these fonds are just butt-ass ugly. They're crowded together, some letters (like the "g") look kind of distorted. In the OpenOffice word processor, it's better, but not much.

I know the TrueType fonts are proprietary to Windows, but how do I make text look a little bit better?

[thejives]

You can definitely get all the fonts you need.

The support forums are pretty good about that. Try putting this in the terminal:

$sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts

[Tall_James]

linux-ubuntu

Is that an African computer language?

[Liverspot]

dual boot with XP or Vista. Or make smaller partitions and install as many different OS's as you like. That way you'll never do without. A good videocard is wasted if you're just using linux.

I agree with Dola, I dual boot xp and Ubuntu on my dell laptop, both work great.
Also, rather than keep installing new systems try running off the install disk first to see if it will work on your computer and if you like it. I tried Ubuntu and Kubuntu on an old HP and neither one worked. A version called "pc linux os" (http://pclinuxos.org/) is working great, very thorough OS.

[oldladyfacepuncher]

So I decided to carve out a partition on my laptop's hard drive and slap Ubuntu in there. And I'm actually posting this from Linux.

But here's my big complaint: I'm in Firefox now, and these fonds are just butt-ass ugly. They're crowded together, some letters (like the "g") look kind of distorted. In the OpenOffice word processor, it's better, but not much.

I know the TrueType fonts are proprietary to Windows, but how do I make text look a little bit better?

Fonts have always been an issue for linux. System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Fonts -> Details

I use San Regular 10 for Apps, Docs, and Desktop. Monospace 10 for fixed width. I have Subpixel smoothing and full hinting on. I use an LCD monitor.
After you change your settings, you'll have to restart any open apps to see the changes.

Firefox also has some font settings you can play with.

[DolaMight]

Most distributions do, but alot of people prefer Korn, saying it's less bloated. The OpenBSD folks also don't like the bash liscence.



Yes. You can make your own partitons. You might have to defragment your HD in windows first. You did last time I duall booted anyway.

10GB is plenty to try it out.



Yes. It will treat that partition as a sort of seperate hard disk. When you decide to get rid of windows, you can re-partition that part of your drive.

Ubuntu is based on Debian, by the way. Linux can read windows partitons, but windows cannot read the Linux partitions.



You can google your card to see if there are any issues with the linux driver.


Windows can read/write EXT2&3 Linux partitions if you downloat an EXT2IFS or EST2FSD driver. Install, assign a drive letter, reboot and you're fine. I've had better experience with EST2FSD.

http://ext2fsd.sourceforge.net/projects/projects.htm#ext2fsd

http://www.fs-driver.org/

[KnoxHarrington]

I did install the TrueType core fonts, and that helped a lot. There's a few more fonts I need, such as Garamond. Where can I get those?

I'm going to try the other settings above, though I did play around with those.

[KnoxHarrington]

So I put Ubuntu 8.1 back on my laptop, and I can't get my Broadcom wireless card to work. The main way I've been told to do this is to copy the Windows driver into Linux (which I've done) and then run a command to get the fwcutter file, as follows:

sudo apt-get install bcm43xx-fwcutter

But when I try that, it doesn't work; I'm just told it can't find the package. So I found it on another site and downloaded it, and ran the package installer to try to put it in, but that didn't work either. I tried executing the bcm43xx command at that point to extract the firmware, and nothing happened.

So how, exactly, do I get wireless networking on this damn thing?

[Dan 'Hampton]

Is that an African computer language?

It worked for these guys:
http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2008/10/28/6bannerAP__1225239782_2906.jpg

[Fez4PrezN2008]

Is that an African computer language?
it is a Zulu word, but think "Volks-OS" just without all the Nazis.

[SatCam]

So I put Ubuntu 8.1 back on my laptop, and I can't get my Broadcom wireless card to work. The main way I've been told to do this is to copy the Windows driver into Linux (which I've done) and then run a command to get the fwcutter file, as follows:

sudo apt-get install bcm43xx-fwcutter

But when I try that, it doesn't work; I'm just told it can't find the package. So I found it on another site and downloaded it, and ran the package installer to try to put it in, but that didn't work either. I tried executing the bcm43xx command at that point to extract the firmware, and nothing happened.

So how, exactly, do I get wireless networking on this damn thing?

It looks like broadcom has linux drivers.........

http://www.broadcom.com/support/ethernet_nic/downloaddrivers.php


Thankfully Ubuntu automatically detected my wireless. I had to setup wireless on Vector linux and it was a pain in the ass.

[KnoxHarrington]

It looks like broadcom has linux drivers.........

http://www.broadcom.com/support/ethernet_nic/downloaddrivers.php


Thankfully Ubuntu automatically detected my wireless. I had to setup wireless on Vector linux and it was a pain in the ass.

It automatically detected mine as well, but wants to download this fwcutter thing to pull out the firmware, and it's not working. The download just freezes. I've read on some other forums (fora?) that the download location for that tool doesn't seem to be working anymore. I downloaded the package for it from elsewhere, but I can't seem to get the terminal to recognize it as a valid command.

It's shit like this why I cannot recommend Linux to anyone who's not an expert on computers. I saw a little Asus netbook on sale at Target for $299.95, with Linux, and I just wonder what a clusterfuck it's going to be for people who just buy one cause it's cheap.

[SatCam]

It automatically detected mine as well, but wants to download this fwcutter thing to pull out the firmware, and it's not working. The download just freezes. I've read on some other forums (fora?) that the download location for that tool doesn't seem to be working anymore. I downloaded the package for it from elsewhere, but I can't seem to get the terminal to recognize it as a valid command.

Try this (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=185174). I was able to download fwcutter using synaptic




It's shit like this why I cannot recommend Linux to anyone who's not an expert on computers. I saw a little Asus netbook on sale at Target for $299.95, with Linux, and I just wonder what a clusterfuck it's going to be for people who just buy one cause it's cheap.

Well................ they do make the machines with linux compatible hardware. if you are going from a machine that originally had windows, especially something like a laptop I imagine you'd see more problems. To be honest I don't do much but browse the web, but I use ubuntu exclusively and the only issue I have so far is that flash isn't that great in firefox.

Also, Ubuntu makes it very easy to install new software. I really don't use the terminal at all.

[KnoxHarrington]

Try this (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=185174). I was able to download fwcutter using synaptic




Well................ they do make the machines with linux compatible hardware. if you are going from a machine that originally had windows, especially something like a laptop I imagine you'd see more problems. To be honest I don't do much but browse the web, but I use ubuntu exclusively and the only issue I have so far is that flash isn't that great in firefox.

Also, Ubuntu makes it very easy to install new software. I really don't use the terminal at all.

The steps in that page you linked are exactly what I've been trying, but it just says "Couldn't find package" when I type in the command to download it. And like I said, I downloaded fwcutter from another source, but can't get the system to actually recognize or use it.

You're right that Linux-native computers will have Linux-compatible hardware, but, still, when you start having to go into a terminal and type in long, cryptic commands to fix problems, I can't imagine many people wanting to do that. And, in fact, the return rate on Linux netbooks has been far higher than on the ones that ship with XP.

[KnoxHarrington]

I finally found a fix for this, at this site:

http://penkin.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/ubuntu-804-broadcom-wireless/

Worked perfectly for me in 8.10

[oldladyfacepuncher]

The steps in that page you linked are exactly what I've been trying, but it just says "Couldn't find package" when I type in the command to download it. And like I said, I downloaded fwcutter from another source, but can't get the system to actually recognize or use it.


Apt-get looks at the repos and it's download cahce for the package. Apparently fwcutter is not in your repos or there's something wrong with the repo itself.

You need to move your downloaded copy to /var/cache/apt/archives/ before you run apt-get. Then it will be able to find it.

You did download a deb package, right? If you're new to this I wouldn't recommend compiling it yourself.

I had no problems downloading the package from here: http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/

Maybe you should add them to your sources.

[oldladyfacepuncher]

I finally found a fix for this, at this site:

http://penkin.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/ubuntu-804-broadcom-wireless/

Worked perfectly for me in 8.10

Glad to see you got it working. It looks like it wasn't apt-get that had issues, but the package itself. You could've done all that through pointing and clicking too. Then when you ran synaptic, you could've pointed the program to the firmware you downloaded.

wget is just a download tool, and tar is archiver utility (think .zip files). He could've made those commands simpler too. There's no need to be hoping around directories and defining a one time use variable.

About the cryptic commands thing, you don't have to be an expert to understand whats going on. It's also nice to have that option when things go wrong, so you can figure it out, versus just getting an error message.

My wife is a computer dummy, but she's been using Linux for years. Actually, she probably couldn't even tell you what OS we use. Granted, I'm around to administer the computer, but still, I couldn't tell you the last time I had to step in and help her with anything major.

[SatCam]

Glad you figured it out dude. To be honest, I use linux every day and I used to be into programming (albeit web programming more than anything), but if you asked me to compile a program from the source, I wouldnt be able to do it. I think this a true testament to how far linux has come, specifically ubuntu