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Yeah if the distro fits, use it. I have gone from one to the other over the years and I have settled on Linux Mint for the moment. The quality of the distro is good and the toys are even nicer. You can get the GNOME or KDE versions and I've been getting friends to use it instead of Windows. I don't get nearly as many calls for help using Linux Mint as I did when they were running Windows. Stable and performs better too!
Oh yes and the driver support is brilliant, on a machine that I had Windows 7 on (for work) I battled for ages to get the display to work properly. Live CD of linux Mint..no worries, it worked first off.
Hi everyone - Ubuntu 9.04 is working just fine on the Asus - EM up and going via Eudora. Installing the MPC 465C Multifunction Printer comes next.
Sbackup doing what it says on the tin. The biggest improvement that I'm seeking, is disk performance; over the dual boot senario.
Battery life is about the same as XP. (its one of the small battery types - 1and 3/4 Hours working time.). application performance again slightly better. Flash Add in installed, to watch BBC etc.
Firefox 3.5 loads very quickly. Complex web sites like the Guardian or the Telegraph (No advert intended - No connection in any way with either other than as a user) load very quickly - Boot time 15-20 seconds or so - The same as XP.
Network connectivity - room for improvement here; but still completely usable. Download speeds (With MK1 BT HH) about 620 Kbs. So far so good.
The user interface is simple to use. Anyone could use this. Open Office comes as part of the install - Also there's a very good dictionary. Finally Help does help.
CAT III
Last edited by CATIII-NDB : 4th November 2009 at 12:55.
Reason: MBs wrong. KBs
A few weeks ago I gave a neighbour a PC with Ubuntu 9.04 installed which he has since upgraded to 9.10.
Said gent is an Internet radio fiend and runs two web radios via Reciva and Frontier Silicon portals. Both radios work fine but sometimes he likes to listen via the PC. Stations selected via the Reciva website play fine but those selected via Frontier Silicon don't play at all.
FWIW, CDs, BBC iPlayer and the likes of Youtube all produce audio OK. He says that I managed to get 9.04 set up to work on the Frontier Silicon site but I honestly don't remember how I did that. I've recently had a bereavement and the neighbour's Ubuntu configuration hasn't been at the top of my list of things to commit to memory.
I think I had a vision of hell the other day, being stuck on a flight next to a colleague who was having problems trying to get Ubuntu up & running. I must admit my own experiences have been mixed with it as well.
Having seen your post, SoundBarrier, I've just tried Linux Mint & on first sight I'm very impressed. Even when Ubuntu has worked reasonably well, it's still been a chore to get the multimedia up & running, but LinuxMint just worked straight out of the box, especially a Flash application. It installed quicker too, and with the system monitor swicthed on it's using less memory & sharing the workload across the CPUs far more efficiently than Ubuntu was doing.
I've always had a beef that Linux would always have a problem competing with Windows until you could get Linux straight of the box & it works as well as Windows. So far, Linux Mint has been it so thank you for the recommendation.
Now, dare I offer the install CD to my colleague....?
Reading the posts re 9.04 makes interesting reading. I hope that my account of the difficulties that I have had might help others.
Here goes.
The Acer Aspire was updated from 9.04 to 9.10 this afternoon. Remember I did not have any previous sound or internet access probs (Wired and Wireless).
The Very good:
General speed is greatly improved its about 20% quicker. Fire fox 3.5.5 Included too. There's support for SMART analysis of the hard disk drive too. Nice ! and useful too.
Update keeps you settings and installed progs where possible.
The not so good:
Wireless access although a lot quicker (56 Mb/s from 5-6 at most) - seems to be intermittent. More on this when I get a better picture.
The login screen is less than beautiful, but that's a minor point.
Update is a good move if you do not have an exsisting problem. (1MB Ram, Atom, 160 GB HD )
I've been working with Linux for about 8 years now. (15 years if you consider it's mother - Unix).
With all the distros I've used - some more difficult than others to get to work out of the box - I can unequivocally state that Mandriva Linux is by far the most prone to doing so. Most, if not all, codecs are loaded by default, most hardware is correctly identified on load, etc.
If anyone out there is in the process of considering a Linux distro to use, definitely give Mandriva Linux a test ride.
No, I do not work for Mandriva!!!! Just a happy user.
Have just upgraded to Ubuntu 9.10. I dont have any of the flash-player / DVD playback problems I experienced with 9.04. I presume all the required codecs came bundled with it. A definite improvement from my point of view - but I'm only a "lite" user though and somebody more Linux savvy may find it a total different experience.
I'm going to post this problem I have with my Package Manager in Ubuntu in the hope that someone can point me towards resolving it.
Although I've been using Ubuntu- in its various versions- for a couple of years- I'm pretty clueless about it as an operating system but as it's been very tolerant of me, and reliable, that hasn't been a problem.
A few days ago the icon that relates to the Package Manager turned a nasty shade of red and when I hover my mouse over it I get the following error message :
“Error Opening the cache (E=Encountered a section with no Package: header, E:Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/ gb.archive.ubuntu.com_dists_jaunty_universe_binary-i386_Packages, E the lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.)” This usually means that your installed packages have unmet dependencies
I looked on the Ubuntu forums and found the same problem with some instructions to follow. For example in the Terminal try:
1)sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
2)Change the software source and enter sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -f
With the result I've ended up with virtually the same snag.
Reading package lists... Error! E: Encountered a section with no Package: header E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.canonical.com_ubuntu_dists_jaunty_partner_ binary-i386_Packages E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
As things stand I can't keep my system up to date so if I can't fix it I will execute plan B (to reinstall Ubuntu usingJaunty Jackelope as opposed to the one previous).
If someone has any ideas to help me – and of course simple enough for me to understand - I would be grateful.
Re: Your last..do you actually have a reference file for these sort of command line inputs or are they "fluent" to you? Did you learn from study, experience or from error? What is the best way to "get" Linux?
Well, with any command, you have a basic reference right in the terminal: you just say "man <whatever>" e.g. "man apt-get". You pick up various things over time, and the Internet is a great help here. Otherwise, just get your hands dirty - but make backups before changing files.
It might help to remember that "Linux" really only refers to the kernel, the "engine" under the hood. Applications like apt-get, or X-Windows and anything running under are not core and can be changed. Even the shell where you enter commands (usually "bash") is optional, though Ubuntu installs a lot of these applications to make the system usable by mere mortals.
The various "package managers" - systems for installing and deleting applications - are among the major differences between competing Linux systems. Red Hat, Mandriva & some others use the Red Hat system (RPM), SuSE has its own system, while Debian-based systems such as Ubuntu use the DPKG system. The "apt" commands are a friendlier layer on top of the "dpkg" commands", and there are also X-Windows applications that make it even easier, such as Synaptic or the new Ubuntu Software Centre.
I admit to having been a little confused by "sudo" at first: put it in front of any command, and that command runs with root privileges, just by entering your own password. Isn't that a security risk? Yes, it is, but it's not automatically enabled for all users, just the first user you create during installation. The alternative to that is logging in as root, which could be seen as an even greater risk, since the root user really can do anything, including things that can kill the installation stone dead - and you can get blasé and careless about it. You can use "sudo" to enable the root account if you want, but I wouldn't, since "sudo" does the same job, one command at a time.
edit: I should add that the location of those files is not the kind of thing you'd figure out by yourself - except for the general idea that they'd be in the place generally recommended for an application's working files i.e. under /var. I don't think /var/lib/apt is ideal, though - I'd say /var/cache/apt would be better, alongside the downloaded packages. In other words, while there are guidelines, the exact location is set by the developer, not dictated by Linux itself.
Thank you very much bnt,the little red Package Manager icon has disappeared and I assume everything is now ok.
Well perhaps not everything as this was tacked on to the end.
W: Failed to fetch cdrom://Ubuntu 9.10 iso Image/dists/karmic/main/binary-i386/Packages Please use apt-cdrom to make this CD-ROM recognized by APT. apt-get update cannot be used to add new CD-ROMs
W: Failed to fetch cdrom://Ubuntu 9.10 iso Image/dists/karmic/restricted/binary-i386/Packages Please use apt-cdrom to make this CD-ROM recognized by APT. apt-get update cannot be used to add new CD-ROMs
E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
So flushed with success I entered apt-cdrom and got the following(I thought in for a penny in for a pound) even if I didn't really know what it all meant.
~$ apt-cdrom apt 0.7.20.2ubuntu6 for i386 compiled on Apr 17 2009 04:25:38 Usage: apt-cdrom [options] command
apt-cdrom is a tool to add CDROM's to APT's source list. The CDROM mount point and device information is taken from apt.conf and /etc/fstab.
Commands:
add - Add a CDROM
ident - Report the identity of a CDROM
Options:
-h This help text
-d CD-ROM mount point
-r Rename a recognized CD-ROM
-m No mounting
-f Fast mode, don't check package files
-a Thorough scan mode
-c=? Read this configuration file
-o=? Set an arbitrary configuration option, eg -o dir::cache=/tmp See fstab(5)
I think it's referring to the download I had of Ubuntu ISO Image 9.10 on my desktop- in anticipation of having to reinstall Ubuntu if I was unable to get help for my problem.
As far as I can see - because I put a cd in my player - the player is recognised, and plays.
Thanks again for your help, although I did try the Ubuntu forums I think I might have tried in the wrong forum.
Linear Mode
