Ubuntu 6.06

[John64]

yah, i agree, i now use it as my day to day os for everything but gaming, which i do on windows or my PS2, not to mention that my school almost requires me to use linux, but that doesnt upset me. Ubuntu is such a nice breath of fresh air!

[Fraoch]

The thing that always bothers me about Linux - looks and works great off a fresh install, but when you start installing stuff and making modifications it goes pear-shaped in a hurry.

I just can't get ANY modifications, however slight, to work.

For example, trying to install the Boot-Up Manager ("BUM"). I should have been able to apt-get it but for some reason it said I was missing a module which, when I apt-get that module, says I already have it.

Then I spent 5 hours banging away at it trying to install a program. It's installed, but when it tried to display text I'd get a cryptic error message - the gist of it seemed to be that it couldn't find the Times New Roman font.

But everything just clicked today - I just recently installed Automatix.

What a joy Automatix is! You just pick the programs you want and it installs them by brute force (literally, it tries up to 6 times apparently). Even though I saw some errors flash by during install, everything got installed:

- Boot-Up Manager
- Adobe Acrobat Reader
- Java
- Swiftfox (Firefox optimized for your processor)
- Mozilla Thunderbird
- TrueType fonts to resolve that error I had
- ClamAV + Firestarter firewall

etc. etc. At first the fonts didn't work but working fine now after a reboot. I thought BUM wasn't working either but you need to reboot for it to take effect - finally I'm not loading all sorts of stuff I don't need (PCMCIA support, Bluetooth, laptop battery power management, etc.)

And my last little bit - I was playing around with GNOME toolbars and lost my Firestarter tray icon, plus my running programs bar. I couldn't find any way of getting them back - even uninstalling/reinstalling Firestarter did nothing. I was considering reinstalling completely when I found the items in "Add to panel" - the running programs bar and the tray apps bar (or something like that). I then got everything the way I wanted it - kinda Windows-like because that's what I'm used to. :-)

Nice! Everything is the way I want it and everything is working.

[XJ.]

Can someone give me a link to the liveCD (the one you can boot into without changing your system) that downloads faster than 20kbps


Thanks!

[XJ.]

Oops, nevermind - one download that I tried (which seemed to stop) is now going along at 340KB/s

[wallijonn]

Originally Posted by Fraoch

The thing that always bothers me about Linux - looks and works great off a fresh install, but when you start installing stuff and making modifications it goes pear-shaped in a hurry.

What drove me crazy with 6.06 was the fact that there is no longer a root terminal window. Now you have to give it a "sudo" command when in a regular terminal window. Every command. Drives me nuts.

[John64]

sudo passwd will setup a normal root account. Personally, i prefer the sudo idea, you have to consciously sudo everything, with an su term, you might forget if your $PS1 env. var. isnt the default (like me) and do something you dont really want to do.

[Fraoch]

Originally Posted by John64

sudo passwd will setup a normal root account. Personally, i prefer the sudo idea, you have to consciously sudo everything, with an su term, you might forget if your $PS1 env. var. isnt the default (like me) and do something you dont really want to do.

Yes, it was a conscious decision on their part for security purposes. You can add a root account though as you state.

[XJ.]

At first glance, it is the best Desktop Linux OS I have used to date - so there is hope that Linux on the desktop can be made user friendly enough to become popular

[wallijonn]

Originally Posted by John64

sudo passwd will setup a normal root account. Personally, i prefer the sudo idea, you have to consciously sudo everything, with an su term, you might forget if your $PS1 env. var. isnt the default (like me) and do something you dont really want to do.

I am not adverse to using 'sudo,' since even SuSE 10 uses sudo. What I am complaining about is the removal of the root terminal. Well, that and you have to have a internet connection (or you have to be at least connected to a router) for it to boot up. That is definitely more disconcerting than the Ubuntu time synchronisation which has never worked.

I installed Ewido (WindowsXP anti-spyware) and it does the same thing - it will hang the OS unless there is a network connection. That may work for DRM (it'll be mandatory) but it is not what I want to do when I wish to work offline. So instead of having my DSL or cable router turned off (which I usually do when I use a Windows admin account) I now have to remove the telephone cord. I have my router on a switched outlet just so that I can minimise my exposure to the internet when I am using a priviledged account.

So, yeah, pull that NIC ethernet cable out from the back of your PC and see if you can boot into Ubuntu if all you want to do is burn some data, listen to some music or play a game. I wonder what happens to laptops?

I have been using Ubuntu since its first release.

[XJ.]

Well, I haven't installed 6.06, since I'm using the live cd version. But I didn't have any problems - I'm running wireless and didn't config the wireless connection. Maybe when installing it's a different situation.

Why do you want a root terminal? Just to watch all the console output?

[cedric_abx]

wireless hardware not supported by ubuntu native drivers are a *##* especially USB.

Been spending over 20 hours reading/tinkering with settings to try and get my wireless networking to work, still no luck

[XJ.]

I don't think I'll have a problem if I install ubuntu, because they have drivers for the wireless chipset my DLink uses and it was dectected straight away.

[wallijonn]

Originally Posted by XJ.

Why do you want a root terminal? Just to watch all the console output?

A root terminal has root user privs., as opposed to a regular terminal window which you have to issue a sudo command.

Re: Automatix: Once you install a program there is no way to know that you have installed it because everytime Automatix starts it always lists the same programs.

The Breezy to Dapper auto upgrade didn't work for me. I have just been hesitant to blow it away and install Dapper. At work I run Dapper, though.

[John64]

personally, i think that it is safer to only have sudo by default, those who really want a root terminal, or even know what one is can enable it in one simple command.

Upgrading installations is something i never do. What i do personally is have a seperate /home partition. When i do that, and i reinstall, all i do is run a little script i wrote and i have all my applications exactly as i like them!

[wallijonn]

Originally Posted by John64

wow, you and i are opposites. As much as i like Ubuntu, OSX is my favorite OS to date!

Wait until Leopard comes out. Oh, Mama! Mac finally came out with an real Linux type of OS: OSX can finally run 4 desktops! Heck, I run 4 desktops in WXP (MS powertoys download area).

Cactuar,

Thanks for the info. I finally have a root terminal, thanks to you. Yeah, it took me awhile to fine "alacarte" under the Applications -> Accessories menu after dropping Breezy and going with Dapper. Automatix does have some benefits, it at least made it a lot easier in the audio-visual area. I just miss some of the tools that are in Breezy; heck, even SuSE 10 has the gconf utility so that I can manually go in and muck around all I want. Eh, it's a learning process. Dapper still needs a little polish, though. (Like being able to have different desktop pictures for each different desktop.)

I'm still working on getting back my greenglass mouse theme, though.