ubuntu

[wishbone]

lol nerds.

so out of curiosity of hearing a lot about the latest ubuntu release, i decided to give it a try.

first off, since when did linux because so fucking easy to install? (mind you I haven't touched this stuff in 5+ years)

secondly, why would I want to go back? does anyone actually use this as their main os? it's impressive to no end so far.

[ebbomega]

Yup, big fan of it. Use it on both my main desktop and my dev box.

I haven't yet upgraded to Gutsy yet and haven't had a chance to test out the new ati drivers (very excited to see if my card can now do mad 3d beryl action). But I've been using Feisty since June and haven't looked back since.

Main selling point for me so far has been supreme ease-of-use out of the box, only minor adjustments needed for codecs and the fact that amarok is super-stable there (compared to say Fedora).

Also very much liking the fact that you can browse the internet and talk on messenger while it installs.

Also, like how the installer is smoother, quicker, and less complicated than the Vista install.

Also like how you don't need ridiculous system specs to get stuff like 3D desktop or to have it run smoothly and quickly. I'm running a 2GHz AMDx2 with a gig of RAM and it runs faster than a Vista machine with twice as much memory.

Linux has grown up A LOT in the last five years.

[cubed]

NERDS!!!o

[Leviathan]

I used ubuntu last year as a embedded system development platform, I was quite surprised at how easy it was to use and install. Linux has come along way but I still prefer OS X as my everyday operating system especially now with leopard. I've never really liked any of the linux GUI's I've used and beryl seems way too flashy for me and I'm a Mac user :)

[wishbone]

Originally Posted by ebbomega

Yup, big fan of it. Use it on both my main desktop and my dev box.

I haven't yet upgraded to Gutsy yet and haven't had a chance to test out the new ati drivers (very excited to see if my card can now do mad 3d beryl action). But I've been using Feisty since June and haven't looked back since.

Main selling point for me so far has been supreme ease-of-use out of the box, only minor adjustments needed for codecs and the fact that amarok is super-stable there (compared to say Fedora).

Also very much liking the fact that you can browse the internet and talk on messenger while it installs.

Also, like how the installer is smoother, quicker, and less complicated than the Vista install.

Also like how you don't need ridiculous system specs to get stuff like 3D desktop or to have it run smoothly and quickly. I'm running a 2GHz AMDx2 with a gig of RAM and it runs faster than a Vista machine with twice as much memory.

Linux has grown up A LOT in the last five years.

this is only a 1.8GHz AMD Tbird or something with a gig of ram, mind you i've got a 512mb geforce 7 series card in it, and its running the built in compfiz (beryl) perfectly as far as I can tell.

[ebbomega]

Originally Posted by Leviathan

I used ubuntu last year as a embedded system development platform, I was quite surprised at how easy it was to use and install. Linux has come along way but I still prefer OS X as my everyday operating system especially now with leopard. I've never really liked any of the linux GUI's I've used and beryl seems way too flashy for me and I'm a Mac user :)

Thing about Beryl is that it's only as flashy as you tell it to be. There's a billion different plugins, but you don't need to use them all. Personally, I use about 6 virtual desktops so I probably wouldn't use the cube (limits you to 4, give me a 6-sided cube and I'm happy). But the animations are cool and you can get plugins to have an OSX-type dock, Vista-style flip and flip-3d (not to mention Aero-type transparency and skins).

I still like my ctrl-alt-backspace to kill my X session too. As well as virtual consoles 1-6 (great for torrents if you switch GUIs a bunch like I do to send signal to my TV).

[wishbone]

^
that's the one thing i think i'll finally have to crack open the terminal for, getting the s-video on my card to be recognized so I can output to my tv

[ebbomega]

Try unplugging your monitor. Make the s-vid the only output that's hooked up, and then restart X (ctrl+alt+backspace to kill it, the GDM/KDM/XDM/whatever should reboot X)

[wishbone]

Originally Posted by ebbomega

Try unplugging your monitor. Make the s-vid the only output that's hooked up, and then restart X (ctrl+alt+backspace to kill it, the GDM/KDM/XDM/whatever should reboot X)

well that got me a step farther, it will output to s-video through that, but ideally what i'd want is to dual-display it since it's a hassle to unplug cables all the time.

i tried putting the monitor back in and restarting X, but under the screens and graphics window i only have "Screen 1", where i expect there should be a screen 1 and screen 2 so i can choose to clone/extend my desktop.

[ebbomega]

Yeah, I spent a while trying to figure that out... eventually I gave up on the ati card, but you might have better success with nvidia.... Usually it's something you've gotta change in the xorg.conf file...

There's this thread on the ubuntu forums that might help, otherwise I'd suggest looking around the forums and see if anybody else has a solution...

What driver are you using?

[rawb]

IVE BEEN AN UBUNTU USER FOR ABOUT 2 YEARS NOW (XUBUNTU ACTUALLY) AS MY MAIN WORK OS AT THE OFFICE, AND IM REALLY DISAPOINTED IN MY LATEST UPGRADE. PART OF THE REASON IM MOVING BACK TO WINDOWS.

MY LAPTOP VISTA INSTALL = PUTTING IN THE DVD, WAITED WHILE IT COPIED FILES, ANSWERING A FEW STUPID QUESTIONS, DONE IN < 1 HR

MY UBUNTU UPGRADE = RUNNING THE GRAPHICAL CLIENT AND CLICKING THE 'DISTRO UPGRADE' BUTTON (USUALLY USE APT GET IN A CONSOLE, BUT THIS IS THE 'RECOMMENDED UPGRADE METHOD'), CLICKING UPGRADE, WAITING ABOUT AN HOUR FOR EVERYTHING TO DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL, REBOOT, GET A BLACK SCREEN, THINK 'I HAVE AN ATI CARD, MAYBE THE NEW X/DRIVERS FUCKED UP, TRY TO SSH IN TO FIX IT, LOOKS LIKE IT HUNG MY WHOLE COMPUTER, REBOOT, BOOT INTO SINGLE USER MODE (WERE ALREADY OUTSIDE THE AVERAGE COMPUTER USERS KNOWLEDGE), GO BACK TO AN OLD XCONF, REBOOT, STILL NO DICE, TRY AGAIN, CHANGE BACK TO THE OLD ATI DRIVER, REBOOT, GET X IN 800x600, RECONSTRUCT AN NEW XCONF, RESTART X, REGRAB THE NEW ATI DRIVER, REBOOT, FINALLY GET A NORMAL DESKTOP

SO IN TOTAL TOOK ME ABOUT 2.5 HOURS DURING MY WORK DAY TO FUCK AROUND TO GET MY DESKTOP TO WORK, WHICH IS PRETTY SHITTY, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT WAS WORKING JUST FINE BEFORE. THAT BEING SAID, I LIKE HAVING A LINUX BOX TO DO DEV ON, AND THERE IS NOTHING BETTER TO USE WHEN YOU'RE WORKING WITH OTHER LINUX BOXES. NOW THAT I DONT DO THAT ANYMORE, I CANT REALLY SEE MUCH UPSIDE TO USING LINUX ANYMORE AS A MAIN DESKTOP OS.

[ebbomega]

Honestly though, you could install Ubuntu the exact same way you did with Windows if you really wanted to. Probably run into less X problems.

Granted, not the most desireable way of handling it, but if you partitioned off your /home directory all your prefs should be intact. Just a matter of reinstalling the software.

[rawb]

IF IT WAS A HOME BOX AND IM EATING COOKIES AND WATCHING TV AT THE SAME TIME I HAVE NO PROBLEM F'ING AROUND FOR A COUPLE OF HOURS, FUN AND YOU LEARN THINGS

BUT AT WORK -2 HOURS OF WORK MEANS 2 HOURS OF MAKEUP WORK THAT WEEK :/ o

[wishbone]

Originally Posted by ebbomega

Yeah, I spent a while trying to figure that out... eventually I gave up on the ati card, but you might have better success with nvidia.... Usually it's something you've gotta change in the xorg.conf file...

There's this thread on the ubuntu forums that might help, otherwise I'd suggest looking around the forums and see if anybody else has a solution...

What driver are you using?

here's a screenshot....because i don't know if i'm using an nvidia driver...or a "vesa generic driver" or what. there's an nvidia splash screen when it boots up so i'm thinking it's using an actual nvidia driver, although when i went further and said 'choose driver by model' and pointed it to a 7 series, i fucked up good and it when it booted the screen was completely corrupted, followed by it trying to output to my monitor at settings outside of its capacity. I spent some time figuring out how to fix that.

[ebbomega]

Originally Posted by rawb

IF IT WAS A HOME BOX AND IM EATING COOKIES AND WATCHING TV AT THE SAME TIME I HAVE NO PROBLEM F'ING AROUND FOR A COUPLE OF HOURS, FUN AND YOU LEARN THINGS

BUT AT WORK -2 HOURS OF WORK MEANS 2 HOURS OF MAKEUP WORK THAT WEEK :/ o

After about the first hour I would've just formatted the drive for simplicity's sake.

I guess you're right, I've never used linux in a professional environment. Most of my work so far has been windows and archaic cmdline *nix stuff.

I dunno. I'm still of the theory that you can never take any software immediately upon its release, even OSS. I'm probably not touching Gutsy for another few months since I've been hearing a lot of the transitions haven't been so smooth (your story included). But that's always been the way. I will say one thing, though. The community-driven OS's usually get their stability act together loooong before Microsoft ever does. New OS releases I don't trust from MS for at least a year. Linux I'm willing to just give it 3 or 4 months.

[wishbone]

so apparently enabling my s-video was as easy as realizing i could run "nvidia-settings" from the terminal and from there changing everything through a GUI.