UBUNTU Linux Hardy heron just installed it on my Laptop.

[Robbo]

Hi guys,

I have just decided to try out Linux in the form of the UBUNTU distribution. I thought I would just post a couple of my findings so far.

For anyone that wants to try it, it can be downloaded from here:-

_http://www.ubuntu.com/

When you download it it gives you an ISO file (approx 700M so it takes a while to download on a slowish 2Mb Broadband connection, this file needs to be converted so it can be used. I used Roxio, which created a bootable DVD, for some reason it would not fit on a CD.

Installation

1. You can try it out before installing by just sticking the CD/DVD into the drive and booting off it.

2. Otherwise thetre are two installation options:-

a. Alongside windows

b A new installation.

I booted up Windows (XP) and installed it from within windows. Installation was really easy and it created another boot option for UBUNTU in the text screen before Windows takes over, you have to be quick otherwise it boots into Windows. It does not muck up your Windows Insstallation, it can still be used.

What I ike so far

Multi- Desktop, it is possible to have more than one Desktop, just switch between them, without the need for an extra monitor.

Ease of adding new programs ( all free). Just go to the Synaptic Package manager search for the package you want, it then downloads and installs, easy!

It includes wordpressing, email, drawing, picture editing as standard, also Firefox, plus a few other standard useful programs.

It is quite difficult to break it, but if you do, fixing it is easy, just reinstall another image.
It won't let you delete any impotant system files unless you logon as a super user, by typing sudo su. Also some files need you to use sudo nautilus, not worked these out properly yet, but you have to go into a command prompt (Terminal it calls it) to do it.

Problems so far

With my Dell 1501, the wirelss card didn't work. After a lot of time messing with ndis wrappers, and the new Windows wireless Drivers utility I still couldn't get the thing to work, so I gave up. Instead I bought an Edimax EW-7318Ug 802.11g 54Mbps USB Network Adapter, which is compatible with Linux, and just plugged it in and it worked straight away, no messing about.

Printer:- I have not got a clue how to get my printer working, I'm using a HP Photosmart P1000 attached to a Belkin wireless print server, so if anyone knows how to do it, let me know, but hopefullu I'll figure it out sooner or later.
Other Points

Kubuntu- Part of UBUNTU , just a different version of it. The user interface is very similar to Windows, but I didn't go much on it. But you can either replace the UBUNTU image with KUBUNTU or just use the KUBUNTU Desktop with UBUNTU,although I have not worked out how to do that yet.

If anyone else is using UBUNTU/KUBUNTU, and would like to share their experience/comments I would be interested to hear, as long it doesn't get all computery jargony.

By the way, as already posted elsewhere on the forum, it is possible to build Dreambox images with it.

A screenshot below if anyone fancies a quick look.

Robbo

 

[compufunk]

Printer:- I have not got a clue how to get my printer working, I'm using a HP Photosmart P1000 attached to a Belkin wireless print server, so if anyone knows how to do it, let me know, but hopefullu I'll figure it out sooner or later.

_http://www.linuxprinting.org

This would be a good place to start.
Setting up printers on Linux boxes can be a bit messy.

Enjoy

 

[Robbo]

Cheers mate, I got it sorted and it was really easy, the printer Driver was already inluded in my image. It was easier than in Vista in fact as Vista doesn't support my HP Photosmart P1000.

I have a belkin wireless print server F1UP0001

All I did was:-

Go to System, Administration, Printing.
Click New Printer
Choose AppSocket/HP JetDirect
Hostname: IP address of the print server (mine is 192.168.1.3)
Port: 9100 for first printer, 9101 for second printer
Click Forward and then continue with the printer wizzard to select my printer model etc, as you do for a local printer.

All done in approx 2 mins

 

[Llew]

Took me a fair while to locate a driver for my HP Photosmart C5280, it wasn't included in the printer selection with my Linux Mint distro.

Happily with a quick check over at Sourceforge, I autoinstalled the driver OK.

I'm using the Mint KDE Daryna edition, based on Kubuntu. Some excellent applications come with this.

Llew

 

[Robbo]

Took me a fair while to locate a driver for my HP Photosmart C5280, it wasn't included in the printer selection with my Linux Mint distro.

Happily with a quick check over at Sourceforge, I autoinstalled the driver OK.

I'm using the Mint KDE Daryna edition, based on Kubuntu. Some excellent applications come with this.

Llew

That's right I can only see a driver for the C5200.on UBUNTU

I shall have to try out the Mint KDE, it looks like it runs with GNOME Desktop. I haven't sussed anything out properly yet, as I only installed it yesterday.. Downloading Mint KDE CE right now. just to check it out.

Any good applications in particular? I will see if there are any packages available.

 

[Llew]

Where to start? I suppose it depends on what you might find useful. No doubt a lot of stuff is included in the vanilla Ubuntu package. There's a host of apps for editing images, CD/DVD burning etc., but I mostly use things like VLC, ftping to my Triple Dragon, photo apps and the Kaffeine DVB tuner.

Here'a a screenshot of my Mint desktop and a typical menu.

 

[Robbo]

I like the look of the KDE Desktop, but unfortunately could not get my USB wireless dongle to work with the Mint distro.
So I put UBUNTU back on. But I had a look on the package manager and managed to install Inkscape and some kids educational games. The software list is endless, but the names of them are really stupid and it is difficult to find what you want.

Also can't get the DVD player in UBUNTU to play DVDs. I installed some ugly codec, but it didn't work.

 

[compufunk]

Cheers mate, I got it sorted and it was really easy,

It took me hours to get a Brother printer to work with a Debian box, Lots of messing around with drivers and CUPS to get it to work as a print server.

If you've got the time and you would like to really have some fun with Linux, Take a look at 'BackTrack'.

_http://www.remote-exploit.org/backtrack.html

You can run it off a live CD so no messing with your harddrive is required. It will leave your Windows/Linux or whatever you have on your disk untouched.

You'll quickly see how meaningless password protected directories are on your system, Load up a live CD and you can access any folder on the local machine.

_http://www.irongeek.com/

The guy at the above site is a mine of good info.

C;)

 

[Llew]

Yes, I've had Backtrack on a bootable USB stick for some time, but I'm a little overwhelmed by the facilities that the Backtrack applications provide.

I wanted to check the directories in my WinXP, but don't really know how to access them - which Backtrack app. should I use? (So many 2)

Llew

 

[compufunk]

You should be able to just browse to your HD using the default browser, (konqueror if your using KDE). On the left hand side of the open window click the system button (I think thats what its called, running XP at the minute).

From there go to storage media, If its been mounted you should see your local harddrive here.

alternatively check the /mnt/ or /media/ directories to see if the local disk has been mounted.

If not, do the following.

Make a directory to mount to.

mkdir /mnt/mountpoint

Find out what your drive is labled as. One way to do this is to use qtparted. just type 'qtparted' at the command line and it sould launch the app. This is a partition manager, you should be able to get the info you need there.

Your hard disk will usually be labled hda, hdb, sda or similar, any partitions on the drive are labled with a number, so partition one on your drive would be something like.

hda1

mount the disk at your chosen mount point.

mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/mountpoint

You might need to give some extra paramaters when mounting, like specifying the filetype.
For ntfs disks.

mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /mnt/mountpoint

Use 'man mount' at the command prompt for more help.

Are you using raid? If so you might have problems mounting the local drive with BackTrack, I did.

PS, Sorry for hijacking your thread Robbo

 

[Llew]

Ok compufunk, thanks for that. I'll give it that a try when I next boot it up.

Llew

 

[2cvbloke]

I had some similar hard drive mount problems in Kubuntu, and it turned out that I didn't have permission to use them, but after fiddling with the "Disk and filesystems" under the Advanced tab in the System Settings, I got the NTFS partitions on my Laptop's HDD to work in Kubuntu properly, I'd like to explain how, but my Laptop's HDD is in my laptop and no longer used in my Kubuntu PC, my mind's like a seive so I've forgotten how, but it's pretty simple once you work it out...

But I love Kubuntu, it works practically out of the box, just install it and use it, no faffing with drivers and software, it just works, even the WiFi on my laptop worked instantly (and that was just in the Live preview!!!), I have used Ubuntu and have a boxful of the older Breezy Badger version, but it's Kubuntu I like the best, so much infact I've got a hard drive for my laptop with it on..

I wanted to try BackTrack on my laptop, but the BIOS doesn't support booting off USB devices bar a USB Floppy drive so couldn't boot off my 1GB stick...

I did notice though that there's an ISO creator facility though, but as the image is on my Kub PC I can't access it at the moment...

 

[Llew]

I wanted to try BackTrack on my laptop, but the BIOS doesn't support booting off USB devices bar a USB Floppy drive so couldn't boot off my 1GB stick...

I had that problem with my other PC, no USBHDD shown in the BIOS. As it happens, was going to replace the motherboard anyway, OK now.

@compufunk

Directories accessible now with konqueror, no mounting needed. Cheers.

Llew

 

[Llew]

I like the look of the KDE Desktop, but unfortunately could not get my USB wireless dongle to work with the Mint distro.
So I put UBUNTU back on. But I had a look on the package manager and managed to install Inkscape and some kids educational games. The software list is endless, but the names of them are really stupid and it is difficult to find what you want.

Also can't get the DVD player in UBUNTU to play DVDs. I installed some ugly codec, but it didn't work.

Robbo, try Kaffeine. If it doesn't come with Ubuntu, see if Synaptic will download it. Kaffeine plays DVDs fine in Mint.

Llew

 

[Robbo]

Robbo, try Kaffeine. If it doesn't come with Ubuntu, see if Synaptic will download it. Kaffeine plays DVDs fine in Mint.

Llew

Thanks Llew it will give it a go.

Incidently when I installed Kubuntu, I couldn't get the wifi to work on my Laptop and kept getting errors when I tried to use an NDIS wrapper, so I went back to UBUNTU and used a USB wifi that is supported by it. Also I kind of got used to GNOME, and KDE looks too much like Windoze. I like the KDE Analogue Clock Widget though, but can't find it to put on GNOME.

I could see my XP files though in both of them, I just go to /filesystem/host in the File Browser.

 

[compufunk]

I wanted to try BackTrack on my laptop, but the BIOS doesn't support booting off USB devices bar a USB Floppy drive so couldn't boot off my 1GB stick...

I did notice though that there's an ISO creator facility though, but as the image is on my Kub PC I can't access it at the moment...

You could just download the ISO image and burn it to CD/DVD, then boot from that.