How long will I last

zetec452 · 9 Mar 2006 at 22:16

Done something a little crazy tonight.

My pc has constantly been crashing recently and was due a format. I've been playing with Ubuntu for a couple of weeks and thought why not. Lets just do it and try it on my main rig.

Im not a big gamer so won't miss that. I do have a few windows networking programs that will require wine. The only main snag is that I can't see my documents and stuff on my NTFS drive. Im sure there is a way out for this.

So, how long do you give me? Couple of weeks? few days.

Place your bets now

LeperousDust · 9 Mar 2006 at 22:21

It took me about 6 hours to become frustrated with it, so good luck

(http://83.245.33.200/showthread.php?t=17546490)

zetec452 · 9 Mar 2006 at 22:22

I'll at least do 12 hours. Off to bed in a bit

I must say that my pc is pretty nifty at the moment.

Will download the 64 bit version over the weekend and probably pop that on my pc monday.

Just spotted a thread about accessing NTFS partitions so im happy

kiwi · 9 Mar 2006 at 23:44

if you get stuck, just ask here or the ubuntu forums. no matter how silly, chances are at least one person will have done the same thing. once you reach your comfort zone, linux is ace

zetec452 · 12 Mar 2006 at 23:00

So far so good.

Got a few gripes at the moment but looking good.

Need to take a look at the following:

MP3 support (have seen thread below)
AVI support
Can't seem to configure VNC at the moment but have been messing around and installed mulitple versions which probably isn't a good idea. Can SSH fine though.
Mozilla thunderbird is a bit gay with MS exchange so will probably look at a different mail client.
Can't fully use NTFS yet.

Other than that. All is good. Lasted a bit longer than I first expected but enjoying the challange.

riven · 12 Mar 2006 at 23:10

At least 12 hours!!! Lol, first time I installed Gentoo it took 3 days for me to complete the install.

Al Vallario · 13 Mar 2006 at 00:17

JonRohan said:
MP3 support (have seen thread below)

Have a look at XMMS and amaroK. My command line skills (if they even exist) are a bit rusty, but I believe the following will work:

Code:

sudo apt-get install xmms

Replace xmms with amarok if necessary

JonRohan said:
AVI support

MPlayer may support AVI files, but I'm not sure

kiwi · 13 Mar 2006 at 00:39

evolution plays nicely with exchange.

leezer3 · 13 Mar 2006 at 09:20

There is a far, far easier way to get MP3 support working than Automatix

What you want is the PLF repository for Ubuntu

This has all the stuff that has failed to make it into the main repositories for questionable legalities etc.
See this page:
http://wiki.ubuntu-fr.org/doc/plf

-Leezer-

anotherF · 13 Mar 2006 at 11:17

I started messing around with ubuntu and fedora over the last couple of weeks, i hardley use my windows box at the moment.

Should have done this a while ago

SKILL · 13 Mar 2006 at 12:17

JonRohan said:
MP3 support (have seen thread below)
AVI support
Can't seem to configure VNC at the moment but have been messing around and installed mulitple versions which probably isn't a good idea. Can SSH fine though.
Mozilla thunderbird is a bit gay with MS exchange so will probably look at a different mail client.
Can't fully use NTFS yet.

for MP3's as has been said xmms or AmaroK, xmms is my preference, it's basically a winamp 2 clone

AVI support I use mplayer (and xine for dvd's)

VNC as a client or a server?

not sure about email as i tend to use webmail...

NTFS is pretty much read only under linux, ms have never released details about the filesystem making the driver not very good really, it will read fine but writing is 'experimental' and will probably destroy the filesystem, best bet is to copy what you need and reformat it to a more linux friendly filesystem, however there is a program, can't remember the name. that takes the windows NTFS drivers and is meant to support both read and write to ntfs partitions, not sure how well it works though...

Dunky · 13 Mar 2006 at 13:12

For specific MP3 support, you will need to enable multiverse repository, have a search for enabling it. Amarok or XMMS are the only music players I'd bother with on Linux. Videos, you can't go wrong with Totem or g(Xine). Until recently, NTFS write support was still experiemental however read support is absolutely fine and the default kernel supports read at least. I'd still wouldn't trust write support and if you need to share files between Linux and Windows then use FAT32 (or there is a wrapper for Windows which allows you to read / write to ext2/ext3 partitions).

Also, if you want to learn about Ubuntu and Linux and how to use the system to it's full potential, then do as you have done and search forums (http://www.ubuntuforums.org are the official forums and FULL of info), how-tos, wikis - but don't use Automatix! If you just want an OS that works, then by all means use Automatix but you won't learn anything. PLF repository is alright, but most of the deb packages can be found elsewhere (and a bit more legally too).

Sorry about the rant, but I have a real gripe with people who praise Automatix as the be all and end all. At the end of the day, using it will mean a user will not learn about repositories, compiling, terminal, etc. The ONLY thing it's good for is getting a working system in as short a time as possible.

Have fun and any questions, please post away

Hades · 13 Mar 2006 at 19:54

Dunky said:
For specific MP3 support, you will need to enable multiverse repository, have a search for enabling it. Amarok or XMMS are the only music players I'd bother with on Linux. Videos, you can't go wrong with Totem or g(Xine). Until recently, NTFS write support was still experiemental however read support is absolutely fine and the default kernel supports read at least. I'd still wouldn't trust write support and if you need to share files between Linux and Windows then use FAT32 (or there is a wrapper for Windows which allows you to read / write to ext2/ext3 partitions).

Also, if you want to learn about Ubuntu and Linux and how to use the system to it's full potential, then do as you have done and search forums (http://www.ubuntuforums.org are the official forums and FULL of info), how-tos, wikis - but don't use Automatix! If you just want an OS that works, then by all means use Automatix but you won't learn anything. PLF repository is alright, but most of the deb packages can be found elsewhere (and a bit more legally too).

Sorry about the rant, but I have a real gripe with people who praise Automatix as the be all and end all. At the end of the day, using it will mean a user will not learn about repositories, compiling, terminal, etc. The ONLY thing it's good for is getting a working system in as short a time as possible.

Have fun and any questions, please post away

I do agree with you about the "not learning anything" when using tools such as Automatix. In fact, when I advise people on how to learn Java I suggest they use the plain command line and notepad for a few weeks before using an IDE such as Eclipse.

But, Linux can be complex to a new user and if the lack of multimedia (for example) would put someone off then I'd rather they use it to get them started.

zetec452 · 13 Mar 2006 at 22:47

Cheers for the help chaps.

I have tried a few different distro's in the past but pretty much given up due to the sheer amount of hard work to get a decent system. With Ubuntu I have managed to setup a decent (ish) Linux system replacing windows which wouldn't have happened without the Automatrix thingy.

I'd like to connect to my pc via vnc so am after the vnc server. However this morning I recieved the 64 bit version and have since formatted and popped that on

. Runs rather nicely.

I do have a spare hard disk so will probably pop it on fat32 or something and move some of my windows stuff over.