[makecoldplayhistory]

Having asked a while ago if a diary of my Linux experience, from the perspective of a n00b, be of interest, many said yes.

So here goes...

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part VII

 

[makecoldplayhistory]

Day 1:

Which Linux?

If you thought it was tricky trying to decide upon which Microsoft OS, you don’t even know the meaning of the word ‘tricky’. It’s not simply looking at if your wallet can take the cost of 64bit Ultimate (or which version has the best seeders/leechers ratio). Oh no. The sheer number of Linux OS’s is enormous.

Ninety-nine per cent of my computer use is Dreamweaver, Photoshop, MS Office, browsing, gaming, music, videos, surfing and OC’ing (obviously). For that reason I settled on UbuntuStudio.
Before you chose though, have a look around and ask questions.
Ubuntu is a popular distro and, importantly for a n00b like me, has an active, friendly and helpful community with gazillions of sites dedicated to helping and solving issues with masses of FAQ type sections.

I like their website and blurb. No beardy-types posting on a white background, black text and 1995 type website for this distro.et Your Creativity Fly...
“Ubuntu Studio. A multimedia creation flavour of Ubuntu.
Ubuntu Studio is aimed at the GNU/Linux audio, video and graphic enthusiast as well as professional.
We provide a suite of the best open-source applications available for multimedia creation. Completely free to use, modify and redistribute. Your only limitation is your imagination.â€
So, http://ubuntustudio.org/[url] has n...g is a priority â€" before my wife gets home!

 

[archangelabove]

I wish I could help you with the Dual boot issue.. but I've only ever installed Ubuntu on an XP machine, after XP was already there.

I've heard it always works better when you put your linux install AFTER your Windows install. Which you've done, so hopefully someone more enlightened than myself has a solution for you.

I too get confused about what file types to use, and how to install just about anything, I'm lost.

Thanks goodness for the software center helping me get things moving. I'm still learning how to navigate my Ubuntu install too. And learning all the basic commands in terminal that are equivalent to Windows CMD.

But I think your journal is a great idea, and I love it. Keep it coming!

With any luck you'll convince some others to take the dive as well.

 

[TFB]

Grub should have picked up the Windows install and it will dual boot for you.

A handy tip is kill X-server. Check out the link in my sig. I'm about to add it.

 

[esocid]

Quote:

Originally Posted by makecoldplayhistory At this point, I’ve found it very difficult to find out how to dual boot when Win7 is installed first. If you have Linux and want to add Win7 then there’s a wealth of information available. However, I have a spare hard disc that will be used only for the Linux install. So, unplug all but the empty SATA drive and begin...

That's actually the easier of the two. During the installation it will ask you where you want to install, and give you an option to format your unformatted disk, or to format the NTFS disk, which you obviously don't want to do. It should also prompt you during the installation if you want a bootloader, and if you want it to automanage your OSs. It will ask which you want as default, and what to name them. When it's done, you boot up to your boot manager, select which OS, and done.

I'm describing this from a Fedora installation, and using grub, but I would venture to say it's similar with Ubuntu.

 

[thenailedone]

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766683

Will make your stay in Ubuntu so much more rewarding

Also, installing Ubuntu on a partition that has Windows on it is normally very straight forward with the installation media detecting Windows and giving you the option to set aside space for Ubuntu... it then installs Grub and sets it up to boot into Linux and Windows (not had any issues with Ubuntu in this regard yet) (Ubuntu first then Windows tends to be problematic)...

 

[makecoldplayhistory]

Day 2

I realised I didn't have a word processor. Googled 'how to install Open Office Ubuntu' and got pages and pages of jargon.

Hmmm... Being a man, I don't often bother reading instructions. I far prefer 'giving it a go'

Went to add/remove applications. Searched 'Open', selected the various OpenOffice apps (no need for a database app for me). And clicked okay.

Big Win for Linux. Why can't Microsoft be this easy? I know that besides Media players and Office they don't really produce a lot of software. Surely a compilation of approved freeware / shareware isn't too much to ask.

As I'm not yet writing for a PC magazine and have other commitments, Ubuntu use went on hold for a few days. I was unable to find a method for dual booting using two hard drives without going into the BIOS and changing the boot order of the hard discs. Too much effort for me. Searching the internet only told me that others seem to have the same issue. I don't want to have to go through the BIOS at each boot. Instead, I decided to reinstall Ubuntu.

While reading on the Ubuntu forums, I came to the conclusion that I hadn't chosen the right OS for me. Although I do do plenty of Dreamweaver, listen to music, watching videos, Photoshopping etc, I think that UbuntuStudio is too much aimed at video encoding, rendering and other such tasks. Even at the expense of slowing down other apps and general usage. I understood some of the reasons and explanations, but they were too involved to warrant reproducing here.
Therefore, I'm downloading a regular Ubuntu 9.10. It seems that there really is a Linux distro for everyone. I guess though, as with everything else in life, being excellent at one thing usually involves a trade-off with others.

My super-slow internet connection means that downloading Ubuntu 9.10 will take approximately 4 hours.
Whilst it was downloading, I ran Prime95 for an hour or so. I bought a CoolerMaster 690 yesterday. A cavernous, but beautiful new PC case. It's quiet, sleek and fits everything in it with masses of room to spare. Prime95 showed a 10c drop of load temps. Idle temps are now 33c with load temps in the high 40s. Having seen that there's another hour and a half to go I cleaned the cheapy thermal compound off the heatsink and CPU and reapplied some Artic Silver 5. 1 deg temp drops for both idle and load. I don't know if there's a burn-in period, or if I'd applied the original better than I thought i had.

But I digress. I made myself a new partition (NTFS - 80GB. Allowing the rest of the 250GB disc for Win7), inserted the Ubuntu disc and felt expectant... then I got stuck at the partitioning part of the setup.

It said;

"This is an overview of your currently configured partitions and mount points. Seect a partition to modify it's settings (file system, mount points etc.), a free space to create partitions, or a device to initialise its partition table."

Below that, there was a list of drives;

SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda)
#1 primary 166.9 GB ntfs
#2 primary 83.1 GB ntfs

and then the other 4 SATA drives were listed.

I wanted to use the #2 partition here. The 83.1 GB one.

If I hit enter with '#2' selected, I get different options.

It says,

"Use as: ntfs

Mount point: none

Botable flag: off"

Then there were options;

"Resize partition
copy data from another partition
erase data on this partition
delete the partition
done setting up the partition"

If I selected "done setting up the partition" (the logical choice) it took me back to the list of drives. I believe it's called a cycle of frustration.

Thanks to SZayat I was pointed towards http://wubi-installer.org/. " No need to burn a CD. Just run the installer, enter a password for the new account, and click "Install", go grab a coffee, and when you are back, Ubuntu will be ready for you."
Very promising!!!

I think perhaps that Wubi is the find of the year. Simply awesome. I downloaded the very small executable and popped the Ubuntu ISO onto a flash drive and put in into my PC.

Ran the .exe and it did everything. It found the ISO on the flash drive without me even having to browse. It set the time, date, updated itself, created a dual boot POST menu, with Win7 being the default OS - set to auto load after 15 seconds - and installed all the software you might need to get started.

AMAZING!

I've a few free hours today, so number one on my list is beautifying. I don't massively dislike the Ubuntu theme, but coming from Win7, it is a bit fugly.

Having had a quick play with Ubuntu, I can't see any software that appears to be missing. It's nippy, well laid out and, to be honest, really doesn't feel so different to a Windows OS so far.

Yet again, I love the simplicity of adding software. I feel like a child in a sweetshop. The music player (RhythmBox) reminds me a lot of WinAmp. Not the prettiest, but it gets the job done. Sound quality is the same as iTunes / MediaMonkey and all plug-ins for playing different formats were found and downloaded quickly by Ubuntu. It only took me saying 'yes'.

I've seen some lovely Mac-like docks used - time to check those out. Maybe Compiz

Day 3 to come later today (I suspect).

 

[Xapoc]

Very interesting read so far. Definitely subscribed.

 

[W4LNUT5]

Interesting. Subbed.

Any questions feel free to ask as I'm usually checking up on OCN all day long.

BTW, Cairo Dock is a pretty solid dock for linux

, and if you are looking for a music player a bit closer to the itunes look and feel, songbird is a great choice as well.

 

[makecoldplayhistory]

Quote:

Originally Posted by W4LNUT5 Interesting. Subbed. Any questions feel free to ask as I'm usually checking up on OCN all day long. BTW, Cairo Dock is a pretty solid dock for linux , and if you are looking for a music player a bit closer to the itunes look and feel, songbird is a great choice as well.

Thanks. I tried Cairodock but had a problem. I'll post some screenshots.

 

[thenailedone]

9.10 is pretty solid now, but seeing as 10.04 is beta currently and pretty stable you could have spared yourself a re-download and install

(Changing back to 10.04 tonight... it is currently that good...)

 

[esocid]

I hope someone reads this and is convinced to try it out

. Nice writeup.

For your installation, you didn't need to format the partition you wanted to install on, for future reference. It'll format it to ext* and add a swap when you install, so it can be unformatted to save you time.

Win7 as default

? Next diary entry needs to change that

.

 

[makecoldplayhistory]

Change Ubuntu into a Mac.

I hate to say it, but I've always kind-of admired Macs from afar.

When I was using XP, I used a Mac OS theme and liked it. I like the dock (and am glad that Win7 copied/improved it) and I like the chromeness of it all. Don't like Macs though!

When I saw a screenshot of an Ubuntu Mac-like theme, I decided to give it a go. I don't suspect that my PC will slow down with a dock etc running in Linux

Not as simple as installing Stardock and Windows Blinds though... oh no! You didn't think it would, did you?

Using this guide, I followed the instructions and am over the moon with the results.

1.dowload

http://maketecheasier.com/a/Mac4Lin_modified_theme/
http://maketecheasier.com/a/Mac4Lin_Icons_modified/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mac4...Lin_Wallpapers
http://gnome-look.org/CONTENT/conten...gant_glass.tgz

2.With Archive Manager extract Modified Mac4Lin theme and Mac4Lin wallpaper to a new folder home/main called “Mac_files“ (no quotations).

3.Go to System->Preferences->Appearance. Select Install and select the Mac4Lin GTK theme (/home/username/Mac_files/Mac4Lin_v0.4/GTK MetacityTheme/Mac4Lin_GTK_v0.4.tar.gz).

4.Next, click Install again and select the Mac4Lin icon theme. (/home/username/Mac_files/Mac4Lin_Icons_Part2_v0.4.tar.gz /home/username/Mac_files/Mac4Lin_Icons_modified.tar.gz). When prompted, select “Apply new themes“.

5.Next, click Install again and select the Mac4Lin icon theme. (/home/username/Mac_files/Mac4Lin_Icons_modified.tar.gz)
Again, click “Apply new themesâ€

6.Click Install again and select the Mac4Lin mouse cursor theme. (/home/username/Mac_files/Mac4Lin_v0.4/GTK Cursor Theme/Mac4Lin_Cursors_v0.4.tar.gz). Select “Apply new themes†when prompted.

7.Click ‘customize’ and choose Mac4Lin_GTK_v0.4. Go to the “Window border†tab, choose Mac4Lin_GTK_v0.4. Click Close.

8.On the top, go to the Background tab. Click Add and select the Leopard wallpaper. (/home/username/Mac_files/Wallpapers/Leopard.jpg). Click Close to terminate the Appearance window

9.Open a terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal) and type
gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
and add the following lines to the end of the file:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/awn-testing/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/awn-testing/ubuntu hardy main
Save and close the file. In your terminal, type
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator-trunk awn-manager-trunk awn-extras-applets-trunk
Go to System->Preferences->AWN manager. On the left, click on the Theme. On the right, click Add and navigate to the Mac_files folder. Select the Elegant_glass.tgz file. Check the bullet beside the Elegant glass theme and click Apply.

10.Enjoy...

There were steps to move the “traffic lights†to the left. That would just annoy me though. Also, the log-in screen can be changed to something more apple-like. I don’t see the point. Black DOS-type screen is fine for me.

http://maketecheasier.com/turn-your-...ard/2008/07/23

I LOVE the new interface. As I said, I've always been a fan of the Mac's layout and was over the moon when Microsoft headed in the same direction with Win7.

Changing the interface was a great learning task. I was typing lines of code into the terminal and finding my way around the system. Although, for the most part, I really didn't know what code I was typing, some things such as “sudo apt-get†started to reappear time and time again. Although I couldn't tell you what they mean, I could tell you in what circumstance they're likely to appear.

As a spritely 27 year old, I don't really remember using computers when typing code was necessary. I do know one thing though, I feel like one of the tecchies on CSI Miami when I do it. There's something so rewarding about typing in apparent nonsense and having things transform before your eyes. Far more satisfying than the simplicity of Windows... and that got me thinking. If Apple users are knuckle dragging morons who don’t care if they’re controlled by their OS, and Windows users have some freedom â€" but not too much, where does that leave Linux?

So far, I’ve enjoyed using it. It still feels a little sterile. Not too welcoming and although fun isn’t the right word, to kill 30 minutes, Win7 is still far more appealing. I can see the niche that Linux fits, and it fits very well. But maybe that’s all it is. A niche brand for a niche market.

With Linux I feel as though I’m there to do work. Word processing, the OpenOffice equivalent of Powerpoint and other dull tasks.

There are still some aspects that I’d like to change and the exciting thing about Ubuntu is that I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to. As far as customisability [sic] goes, it’s a big Win for Linux.

Things I'd like to do (assuming they're possible).

1. have uTorrent running all of the time, whichever OS I'm using. I'm an ex-pat who misses British TV. I have a bollocks-slow internet connection and don't want to stop downloading. I know that there's a torrent client in Linux (and it works), I'd love ot be able to add a torrent in one OS and if I boot into the other, for the download to still be running.

I've a feeling that this will be impossible... perhaps using a separate drive as the target folder, and adding the torrent to both OSs.

2. With Win7, I've had an empty desktop. Much better than the 10+ shortcuts I had with XP. I need a good think about what I want and where with Linux.

3. Tomorrow's a super-busy work day, but I want to change the default OS to Linux. I want to try using it for the every-day email checking, OCN browsing type tasks. If I'm just using my PC for 15 minutes after work, why not use Linux?

4. Have a go with GIMP. At some point tomorrow I need to make a simple flier. I could do it in 30-45 minutes with PS CS4.

5. After selecting Ubuntu in the boot menu, I'm faced with more options. Something like

9.10.10.4 PAE
9.10.10.4 PAE (safemode)
um... and another.

I'm never, ever going to need safemode for Ubuntu. I'll just reinstall it if it's really neccessary. I want to skip that nonsense. I suspect that the words 'GRUB' and 'bootloader' will be in any tutorial I find to alter these settings...

6. Download a "Dummies guide to Linux / Ubuntu" for bedtime reading.

 

[makecoldplayhistory]

Thanks for the comments.

I'm not going near a Beta (however stable it is) when I'm still finding my way around...

As for not having to format, I'll know next time lol

 

[Krusher33]

Sub'd.

I have an interest too.

 

[TFB]

Do you think at some point you will try a real Ubuntu install (Letting Ubuntu set up your partitions for you?) instead of using Wubi? While I realize you're new to Linux, and I'm sure I made the same mistake, your journal makes it sound more complicated than it really is.

 

[thenailedone]

Oh noes, the linux she looks like the mac :/

 

[esocid]

Quote:

Originally Posted by makecoldplayhistory Thanks for the comments. I'm not going near a Beta (however stable it is) when I'm still finding my way around... As for not having to format, I'll know next time lol

I didn't know what wubi was, so you were correct with the way you went.

However, after finding out what it is, I'd also recommend doing the full install since you're already making a partition for Ubuntu, rather than whatever it is that Wubi does to accomplish running it on NTFS.

 

[makecoldplayhistory]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TFB Do you think at some point you will try a real Ubuntu install (Letting Ubuntu set up your partitions for you?) instead of using Wubi? While I realize you're new to Linux, and I'm sure I made the same mistake, your journal makes it sound more complicated than it really is.

I don't think I've made it sound more complicated than it is.

See this thread

http://www.overclock.net/linux-unix/...ml#post8850733

I'm going to give a clean install a go now. See what happens

 

[TFB]

I don't think you did it on purpose, you just went a round about way that could be off-putting to some.

Easiest way to install Ubuntu as a dual boot starting with just a windows install:

Pop in the disk and click install. Fill out some basic information, choose side by side, move the slider, install, set up accounts. DONE.