Got my new Ubuntu 7.10 CD yesterday

Discussion in 'all things UNIX' started by Chuck57, Jan 5, 2008.

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  1. Chuck57

    Chuck57 Registered Member

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    all I can say is WOW!!! I spent all day yesterday playing with it, trying out printing, sound, and some things I have no idea what they are.

    Every single thing works flawlessly on this box. I won't go as far as to say Linux has arrived, but if Windows folks want an OS that needs no command line, or very minimal command line interfacing, this Ubuntu seems to be it. I never once had to open the command line for any reason.

    And, to add a little eye candy, the default desktop is beautiful, in my opinion.
     
  2. Kerodo

    Kerodo Registered Member

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    Yep, Ubuntu 7.10 is very nice overall, it's one of the few distros that I had absolutely zero issues with. In Linux, the command line is there if you need it, which you will eventually, but for the most part, you can do without it till you want to tweak something. Linux has certainly come a long way in recent times.
     
  3. Chuck57

    Chuck57 Registered Member

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    Until this past year, my last linux distros were Calders 2.x and Red Hat 6. Don't recall all the numbers. they drove me nuts and turned me off to Linux for a long, long time.

    Really, even with WinXP there are times when you need to bring up their command line to check or do something. Based on a couple of days only, I'd say Ubuntu is very near being ready for prime time.
     
  4. Mr. Y

    Mr. Y Registered Member

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    Firefox appears to come "built" into Ubuntu.

    Options submenu is missing if I go to Firefox Tools menu- Y?
     
  5. cortez

    cortez Registered Member

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    Is that to say that only Ubuntu 7.10 is the only Linux distro that is "very near" ready for prime time?

    I'm a XP user and am not too keen on Vista, so I was hoping that some Linux distro can be an alternative when the time comes. Am I being too optimistic?
     
  6. Kerodo

    Kerodo Registered Member

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    There are many Linux distros that are now quite good and easy to use out of the box. Ubuntu is one, PCLinuxOS is another one, even Fedora 8 is pretty good now. SuSE 10.3 is quite nice as well. There are many to choose from. Have a look at the top 10 on Distrowatch.com and try a few of the live cd's and see which ones look best to you. It takes some time to wade thru all the choices, but there are many good ones nowadays.
     
  7. Chuck57

    Chuck57 Registered Member

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    Actually, I think kerodo is right. I've tried a lot of them in the past few months, and some are better now than the live cd's I have from a few months ago.

    the only disappointment I've had is Freespire which came with almost nothing installed and I couldn't make their installer work to add more programs.

    PClinuxOS, SimplyMEPIS and Knoppix, along with Ubuntu, are my favorites. The latest Ubuntu just has that tiny edge in my opinion.

    The others may have made up the difference since all were downloaded a few months ago.

    The only real issue I had with any of them was configuring my printer, since I absolutely must have it daily. Ubuntu 7.10 found it instantly and it worked. There are little things, programs this or that one has that I prefer, but those can all be downloaded easily - meaning even I can download and I'll tell ya, if I can figure it out anybody can.

    The main thing to overcome, I think, is the fear of trying something different. It's a different operating system, and that scares some people who get comfortable with 'the Windows Way of Doing Things.' Linux is faster, more stable in most distros, and has developed into a great OS. One can only imagine where it will go this year. MS better be watching its back. Something might be gaining.
     
  8. zapjb

    zapjb Registered Member

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    Glad you like Linux.

    Pssst check out my sig. ;)
     
  9. cortez

    cortez Registered Member

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    Kerodo and Chuck57:

    Thanks for the much needed shot in the arm. I am looking forward to checking your suggestions out--cortez
     
  10. Chuck57

    Chuck57 Registered Member

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    cortez, remember, you can download and run the live cd without having to install onto your HD. It'll be slower than the installed version but you can spend days and days checking things out and getting a feel for it before installing. Plus, at least on my pc, you'll notice that even live CD, linux is fast.
     
  11. iceni60

    iceni60 ( ^o^)

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    it's in a different menu. maybe Edit>Perferences
     
  12. Riverrun

    Riverrun Registered Member

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    I've become really interested in Linux in the past few months. I have a stack of distros and yes, I have been distro hopping but I keep coming back to Ubuntu because I think that it's a little bit more usable than the others that I've played with.

    When I tried Zenwalk in VirtualBox it ran flawlessly, but once installed, the screen resolution was all wrong and it seems that there isn't a lot I can do about it except wait for the next version and that's such a pity because it's a snappy little OS with a simple but attractive interface.

    Virtual technology is a good way of trying various distributions but beware, because once installed the results may not be what you expect.

    The really great thing about Linux, apart from the stability and security (funny how I've begun to take those for granted) that it provides is that it makes computing fun. If you like to play with your OS, give Linux a go.
     
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2008
  13. poirot

    poirot Registered Member

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    Having recently used a Vista notebook,i had the same thoughts Cortez wrote about,and i thank Chuck for the great encouragement to try Ubuntu..i will do that as soon as i finish this damned Vista machine which provoked repulsion for MS after two reinstalls in two weeks!
     
  14. Chuck57

    Chuck57 Registered Member

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    All thanks ought to go to Mrkvonic and the other Linux fans here. I began reading their posts and finally started downloading or ordering linux CD's a few months ago.

    I have Ubuntu 7.04 and now 7.10 and the little improvements are surprising.

    Whether it's Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS (I have 2007) or any of those I mentioned, I don't think you can go wrong. I also tried Kill Bill and loved it (Slackware based) but printer and sound never worked. Wolvix is another I liked.

    I'll also admit that there were a couple I downloaded that just wouldn't load.
     
  15. Kerodo

    Kerodo Registered Member

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    Yeah, I got that a few times too, it's not uncommon..

    After distro hopping for a little more than a year now, I have found maybe a half dozen distros that I feel I could use on a daily basis with little to no issues. Just recently I decided the current Ubuntu was the best overall. PCLinuxOS runs a close 2nd for me too.

    Fortunately for us, and for those considering trying Linux, there is a trend nowadays toward making the distros do it all out of the box with little or no tweaking. This is what it will take, in my opinion, for Linux to become more accepted and popular in the home user and desktop market.

    I still like Win too, in fact I'm running XP right now, but Linux has come a long way. I enjoy using it too.
     
  16. tlu

    tlu Guest

    Yes, although I think the KDE version, Kubuntu, is probably more suitable for most users switching from Windows - it's simply more "Windows-like". But everyone to his/her taste.
     
  17. Chuck57

    Chuck57 Registered Member

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    I've considered keeping XP on my machine and loading Linux on another partition. In fact, I started to a couple of weeks ago but looking at the info presented concerning partition stopped me cold. I wasn't sure whether to say yes to this, no to that, or what I was doing, so quit.

    I'm glad I did now, since Ubuntu 7.10 came along a couple of days ago. I'll have to do some reading on partitioning before I try it again. This goes back to the old days (10 yrs ago) when I tried it and wiped out Win98 in the process.
     
  18. Kerodo

    Kerodo Registered Member

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    Some of the distros will actually offer to "shrink" your Win partition and make room for Linux in a pretty automated fashion. When I dual boot, I just use 2 drives. I install XP in the first drive and then install Linux and let it use the 2nd HD. Linux then sets up the boot loader/menus etc. Easiest thing to do is try to plan it ahead of time and wipe everything clean and start fresh. Partitioning is pretty simple. Most of the time in Linux you just need a root partition (/) and a swap partition, I usually use 1 gig for that, and a /home partition. That's about it.

    If your distro will do it all automatically for you, then that's the easiest way, but if you want more control over the details, then a manual partitioning/install is needed.
     
  19. Chuck57

    Chuck57 Registered Member

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    Use Linux on my second drive?? I've asked about that on two linux boards and was told it shouldn't be done. No reason why it shouldn't, and I couldn't understand why it wouldn't work. Nobody bothered to explain. I guess they knew they were talking to a linux newbie and didn't want to be bothered.

    I have quite a few saved programs on my second drive, but think the more important and the novels and stories I'm working on could be put on one of my sandisk flash drives, saved, and put away in a drawer.

    I haven't investigated whether Ubuntu will do an automatic install. If so, that will be the way to go. Me trying would be a ticket to disaster.
     
  20. steve161

    steve161 Registered Member

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    I installed Ubuntu 7.10 on my comp that already had PCLinuxOS. The resize and install were automatic and, so far, no problems whatsoever. Ubuntu did install its bootloader, but if you download startup manager from the repo, it is very easy to customize the grub menu and choose the default OS.
     
  21. Kerodo

    Kerodo Registered Member

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    Ubuntu will try to handle things automatically like most of them, but I'm not sure if Ubuntu can shrink a Win partition to get more space. I usually do manual partitioning, so I'm not sure on that. There is no reason why you can't put Win on 1 drive and Linux on a 2nd. I have done it many times. Best bet is to save any important data, and then give things a try when you're ready, but always be prepared for the worst in case you run into problems. ;)
     
  22. Chuck57

    Chuck57 Registered Member

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    Okay, gang, question. Off topic, but I started the thread so.......

    I use OpenOffice 2.3 in XP for my writing. I've noticed that when running linux live CD, the OO in linux won't open my writing files. They're all saved in OO's standard format. Any reason for this, or has anybody else run into it? I'd think OpenOffice files saved in OpenOffice should be available regardless of which OS is running, even if saved in Word, since OO will save in Word format.

    Might just be a live CD thing and nothing to worry about.
     
  23. tlu

    tlu Guest

    I also have Kubuntu installed on my second drive without any problems, and I don't see any reason why there should be any. I guess the responses you got are nothing but a myth.
     
  24. Riverrun

    Riverrun Registered Member

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    Don't know about that Chuck, I've found the Ubuntu community at Ubuntu Forums and Launchpad to be really friendly and willing to help Noobs like myself.
     
  25. Kerodo

    Kerodo Registered Member

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    Yes, the Ubuntu Forums are quite good actually.... usually very helpful.
     
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