I got the disks today. WooHoo....a new toy...to bad i have finals this week...hmmm play with Ubuntu or .... study. (Actually doing both...when i need a break I play with the new toy.)

First thing I did was put the live CD in...

At first it seemed to work well.....but it started getting really choppy and started to slow down...then it just froze. So thats a question for you Andrew. Is it because it was the live version running off the CD, or do you think it is related to my system.

I did find it easy to do the network settings. The internet connection shared even without telling it to. Simply had to put the IP numbers in.

Also I'm going to probably need some help on how to share my windows files...if you could recommend or assist me in that process.

While loading the live version all went well but it had one error...I'm going to run it again and see if i can catch what it was. I was doing something else while it was loading and onlyl saw the red failure. Everything else was okay.

As far as I know it didn't have any hardware trouble. It actually recognized my hard drive as 250 gb...windows only reconizes it as 150...hmmm....could be the dell bios but i updated that and it did nothing.

Alright fire away....

Live cd's have always been slow and choppy for me, but I've never spent a long time logged in on one. Usually just log in, do what I needed to and shut down.

Sharring windows files depends on your file system.

If it's fat32 then no problem

If it's NTFS you can read it from Linux, but not write

I tend to have my windows parition, my Linux partitions and a fat32 shared drive that both can read and write too.

I'd reccomend going over to http://ubuntuguide.org it gives step by step instructions on setting up things most people need, including mounting windows drives. I might be wrong on this, but I think I remember the latest Ubuntu autodetecting and setting up my other drives.

I am installing right now....I could remember which partition i wanted linux to be on but that wasn't a problem because it found the hard drive for the actual size it was unlike windows. .. so i just partioned it in this free area. I was a bit confused as to where to mount things. So i did a root area and a swap area. That should be fine right?

Well it is installing things now....and it seems to be going without a hitch. I am thinking that i am going to like this and i am going to try to make myself use it more than windows. only going to use windows for my gaming....

Well i'm going to go get a drink and let it install the rest of the way and then set up things on it...well if i don't get to tired. It is 2 a.m....

Those are the only two you need, generally you can just let the installer auto-partition if you are unsure.

Swap should be at least as big as your RAM, not more then double.

root everything else in that set up.

I have had a few glitches...but nothing major. I am still trying to figure out sharing files for my laptop. It recognizes the network but says something about a x-directory/smb-share. It does have the shared folder but it is not a under the network it should be..it is there in a seperate category. I don't know how it got there but i'm not going complain. Anyway i am going to start looking through the links you gave because I think i have done all the tinkering i can do by myself.

Where do you get themes and wallpaper? The ones they have are okay but not something i want to look at everyday. Kind of dark too.

I have to get used to the desktop switching too. I'm not used to it and don't utilize it like i should.

I set out on a different kind of journey the other day. The extra cd's i had i was going to try to get rid of them and get people to use them. Well i got rid of 9 cd's in 10 minutes. These people were computer oriented. So i have a feeling anyone who works with computers and deals with them often will be willing to look at or work with Ubuntu. Now when i get my next shipment i have to see if i can get the "normal user" to use it.....hmmmmm.

Wallpaper - Google ;)

There are a few themes you can get easily with apt-get or synaptic (GUI for apt) I tend to like the clear looks, and I think it is becoming standard on a lot of distros. They are very customizable, you can mix and match colors, controls, window borders and icons as you like.

Sharring files to a different computer requires Samba.

Simplest way is you set up the config file telling it what you want to share, set up accounts on both, add a samba user on the Linux box and from the lap top go to "My Computer" and "Map Network Drive" give it the username and password, best keep them the same in all 3 instances for simplicity. When you turn on the laptop it will give you your home folder on the Linux as a network drive (probably z: unless you switch it)

If you can't find it I can post a simple walkthrough when I get a little bit of time.

How do you get out of it if it freezes...lol..don't know the ctrl + alt + del equalvilent. Also you might need to do that walk through well you get time. Sorry?!

A few problems. I'm working on this system with virtually no knowledge of linux. You may want to let me know file extensions, how and where to install things and the ins and outs of apt - get.

I like the system but it is causing some major "bogging" down of the network. Specially when using the internet. It seems to suck up all the speed. Are there any network tweaks. Sorry i'm such a novice...i just don't learn if i read things....have to try them.

If something freezes it is generally not a complete system lock up like in windows, so you don't need to restart (I don't think I ever have had too) the Kernel is very stable, but some apps aren't as stable, especially if you use developmental versions.

Anyways, ctrl+alt+backspace will restart X, and get you going again. It's not a restart, more of a log out and back in.

Not sure why your network would be getting bogged down, have a look at the system monitor under system tools to see what is going on.

If you are brand new, it might be easier to play with Synaptic before apt-get, it is basically a gui for it.

that said "apt-get install productname" installs something.

Do you have a good resource on file extensions and navagating around the folders. I know its not that hard but knowing the extensions can explain some things.

Andrew do you have the root file enabled on Ubuntu. I know how to do a few things with the root file but apparently it doesn't use it by default. I have fallowed all the instructions on how to install a few things but none have worked. I switched my repository and found an older version of the jre that i am trying to install. However i would like to know how to install items with the terminal. I want to learn some of the terminal commands and such just in case i need to use them.

I am bookmarking the pages i use to get my instructions but if you have any other good links that you haven't supplied already maybe you can post them. Sorry I'm such a novice but i have to work it from the basics. I use the graphical user interface repository tool synaptic too...but i want to learn how to do it through the terminal and such. I understand what apt-get does but without knowing other parameters i am wondering with only a candle.

So far i like it though even though I am going through a major learning curve. Getting used to it I think is the biggest thing. Where everything is and having the patience to find out how to install things and where they go is another part of the learning curve. I am getting used to switching between each desktop though.

One thing i noticed is when it is downloading something from the repository it blocks access to any other pages. It even stops progress on my other computer. So when downloads are going i can't surf the web. Do you know what might cause that? It might be the fact that i have to use crappy dial-up. Also the modem i have doesn't seem to have what it needs to run. Is there i a quick search type thing i can do for a driver (they still call it a driver in linux right?...lol)

I did reinstall it and created a small mount point for temporary files. It seems to be running much faster now. So I have the root, a home, swap, and tmp. I know that is a lot but it seems to have made it perform better. It actually is slow when i turn it on but the longer it runs it seems to run faster...weird huh....very unlike windows.

Thanks for any help you can give me....hopefully someday my struggles will help someone else...lol.

I know use this on my desktop for the internet and email. Of course i have been using my laptop a lot too because Guild Wars is not made for linux. :bawling:

Soon i'm hoping to get the sharing figured out to where i don't have any trouble. Then i will start using open office and working on documents and such for school. I'm going to try to go through my web based class entirely on Ubuntu.

Anyone working with computers i would recommend working with this distro and other linux distros. It is most helpful, and you learn the basics quickly. The advanced stuff is up to you.

After a long delay from this I have gotten back into it. One thing that helped me was my own stupidity. When installing the newer Fiesty Fawn version I was not paying any attention and accidently formatted my windows partition. Oops. Although I would really was mad about some of the things I lost such as pics and documents it was kind of a blessing in disquise. It forced me to use Ubuntu now because I could not find my windows software (recently moved... in a box somewhere buried. .. all that good stuff) Now I pretty much use it for most of what I do. Except gaming of course. I will however be looking for ways to play my games on here also. I also have a few things to figure out with the sound card and video card drivers. (not going to put to much into it though because I want to get a new video card put in this machine .... well not brand new but better than whats in it.)

So far so good. Have not run into much trouble. If I can't get something to load in Firefox I use Opera. I still have yet to install shockwave and flash but I will get around to that soon. As for gaming I decided I will eventually put windows back on this sometime all the software out there is either subscription or doesn't work with a very large amount of games. Funny thing is almost all the software has no problem running games by Blizzard. There code seems to be able to be used without problem because I believe they know what they are doing and they make a game right the first time. (that is why they take 7 years to make 1 game...lol)

I still primarily use Ubuntu. I got the printer to work and I am processing my documents on here along with other things. I am using bluefish for my web sites and gimp for images. So far the learning curve has not been to bad. GIMP looks more confusing than it really is. It is very good for a free tool. It is not confusing if you understand image editing as a whole... like what blur is, distort filters like emboss, etc. Bluefish so far has been pretty cool. Does things a little different than what I'm used to but is not all that different in many respects to Dreamweaver. At least the version I use. (now i don't know what its like because of the fact that Adobe has changed some things and I don't have any of the new versions) I like the features it has to build the css from a screen that allows you to select options and values. I usually end up using that then tweaking it a little to my liking.

Like I said before I use FireFox and Opera. I really don't have any trouble with the two. I have used Konquer and the Gnome browser called Empathy (i think that is what it was) They are decent browsers its jut that FireFox and Opera do the same thing and display pages better generally.

I have used the GUI of Gnome, Xubuntu, and KDE. I do want to find a way to switch the log on screen. It is defaulting to the Xubuntu log on screen and I don't know where to go to change it. I also have a few glitches with the KDE that tend to annoy me. I don't know how to fix this one. I will try to write down the error so that someone can attempt to help me with it.

So far gaming and getting images from my digital camera have been the only things that have given me trouble. One other thing is I can access my shared folder on my laptop which is Windows XP but I can't access files on the Linux machine from my laptop. It asks for a password etc... and I am not sure why it is doing that and I'm not sure why what i put in is not working. Sharing information between the two is what I am having some trouble with. Any help on that is most welcome.

This journey is on hold until I figure out why the computer I built won't boot. (all the items are suppose to be compatible.... stupid motherboard or power supply is my guess). Once I get it to boot I am going to tri-boot it with Ubuntu, Win XP, and gOS.

I also have a inclination to try other linux versions... any suggestions.