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Help with linux (installing now)
me ^ | today | me

Posted on 03/04/2007 7:56:51 AM PST by Rodney King

OK, sorry for vanity. I have been posting on a few threads about help with linux and have gotten great advice. Here is where I am, on my older laptop which was XP, I have run Ubuntu off of the CD. Looks cool, OK, I am ready to go forth and intall it on the hard drive.

Of course, no matter how hard linux people claim to be consumer friendly, they all have crap web pages, etc. because they feel the need to prove how smart/superior they are. So, I could use some advice:

I want to do the whole partition bit, so I still have the old XP availalbe. This is not wholly neccessary though. I guess, am I creating the partition myself? Or when I do through the whole install bit will linux set that up for me? When I partition, how much should be partitioned for linux and how much for XP? Assume that XP will just be maintenace mode, and I wont be expanding what it on there. Should I defrag my drive before I do anything? 2. People have been talking about something called Wine, which runs MS stuff. What is that and how do I get it?

I am running Ubuntu. Everyone had a different reccomendation what to run, and I went with this one because it was a major name with ongoing support and it was totally free (unlike, for example, Xandros).


TOPICS: Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: callmemrtactful; cantwejustbefriends; dorksaddingkeywords; fartinginthehottub; linux; n00b; notloggedin; sharpasabowlingball; socialskillsneedwork; soundofcrickets
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To: goldstategop

Going from the Ubuntu live CD I had no problem jumping on my wireless network.


21 posted on 03/04/2007 12:54:27 PM PST by Rodney King (No, we can't all just get along.)
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To: ShadowAce
Also, VMware Server is free.

With VMWare, don't you have to have a licensed copy of the Windows OS to load onto the your virtual machine that will be running MS apps?
Not an issue for RKing...just curious.

22 posted on 03/04/2007 1:24:00 PM PST by Bloody Sam Roberts (Don't question faith. Don't answer lies.)
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To: ShadowAce

OK, here is what I have done. My XP has been suffering from the microsoft sickness where after a few years stuff just slows down unless your religiously delete, defrag, etc. So, I decided to forget the dual partition. I emailed what few files I needed off of the computer and just went for the wipe out the whole disk option.

So, that's all fine. Here is the issue, Ubuntu comes with certain open office programs, but not draw or math. I want both.

But the question is, what do I do? In windows you download a program to your desktop and click on it. Here I have two problems:

First, if I download the whole open office I risk it conflicting with what it already there. Openoffice website suggests that might be a problem. Also, it doesn't look like I can download just the math and draw.

Anwyay, here is the big problem: Linux is supposed to be user friendly. The install instructions are to unpack it in some directory and to execute some complicated line of code. Why can't I just clik on an icon? The masses will never convert to linux if you can't just click on an icon to install.


23 posted on 03/04/2007 1:25:09 PM PST by Rodney King (No, we can't all just get along.)
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To: Rodney King

Everything about Linux

http://www.linuxquestions.org/

I've been using it since "Slackware 8". Great site.

and also:

http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz


24 posted on 03/04/2007 1:42:32 PM PST by WTSand
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To: Rodney King
Do you have good backups of anything you value on your Windows system?

If not, I'd tend to that first. If you're not familiar with changing the partitions on your disk, it's an easy way to destroy all your data.

25 posted on 03/04/2007 4:37:18 PM PST by ThePythonicCow (The Greens steal in fear of pollution, The Reds in fear of greed; Fear arising from a lack of Faith.)
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To: ThePythonicCow

I had a few excel and word files, I emailed them to myself, otherwise its no big deal if I lose everything.


26 posted on 03/04/2007 4:43:28 PM PST by Rodney King (No, we can't all just get along.)
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To: Rodney King
Ah - good - I see you gave up on the dual boot.

As for installing stuff on Ubuntu, I'd go with the "Add/Remove Programs" selection on the menu that comes up when you click on the biggish button, bottom left, where the Windows Start button would be.

There -are- multiple ways of installing things on Linux - that's one place where Linux falls behind Windows or Mac. Ubuntu has worked through much of that chaos and provided one good way; but if you go looking for individual packages, such as at the OpenOffice website, you will be led down the path of the other ways that are harder on an Ubuntu system.

27 posted on 03/04/2007 4:51:39 PM PST by ThePythonicCow (The Greens steal in fear of pollution, The Reds in fear of greed; Fear arising from a lack of Faith.)
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To: ThePythonicCow

The add/remove programs would seem to be great. Here is the problem, in my applications I don't have open office Math or the drawing one. But, in add/remove it says I have them already, so I can't download them.


28 posted on 03/04/2007 4:53:24 PM PST by Rodney King (No, we can't all just get along.)
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To: Rodney King

Hit next several times then press the start button.


29 posted on 03/04/2007 4:54:31 PM PST by Porterville (Bullies love Peace and the Peaceful fight Wars.)
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To: Bloody Sam Roberts
With VMWare, don't you have to have a licensed copy of the Windows OS to load onto the your virtual machine that will be running MS apps?

That is correct. VMware virtualizes the hardware, rather than the API calls. As a result, you end up running the OS within a process.

30 posted on 03/04/2007 5:04:50 PM PST by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: Rodney King
Here is the problem, in my applications I don't have open office Math or the drawing one. But, in add/remove it says I have them already, so I can't download them.

< grin > Another issue I've never run into. :)

If it were me, I'd go into "Add/Remove Programs" and remove Open Office, then go back in and add them in. It should install the entire suite that way.

31 posted on 03/04/2007 5:09:18 PM PST by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: ThePythonicCow; Rodney King
Good advice. I haven't done a disk partition since back in my Windows days, but IIRC, partitioning meant "BACK UP EVERYTHING AND DO A CLEAN INSTALL!!!!!" Lots of surprises can happen when partitioning a disk. OTOH, if he's going to do a clean install, is there any reason not to partition and reinstall Windows, if he thinks he might want to use it? It might also be easier to install XP first, since he's more familiar with it, let it do the partition, and then install Ubuntu.

This suggestion is made by a guy that knows nothing about Linux, flame away at will, Gridley.

32 posted on 03/04/2007 5:20:03 PM PST by Richard Kimball (Why yes, I do have a stupid picture for any occasion)
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To: Rodney King

I can't emphasize this enough, make sure you have defragmented your Windows hard drive first, you will not be able to install Ubuntu properly until you do that.


33 posted on 03/04/2007 5:22:32 PM PST by dfwgator (The University of Florida - Championship U)
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To: dfwgator

Folks, I am up and running on ubuntu. thanks so much for all of your help. I had decided to just wipe out XP and start fresh on this computer.

A few annoying hiccups, like the music player not being able to play mp3's. But by and large everything works just fine.

Now, what I am going to do over the next two years as I conduct business on my XP machine is to constantly ask myself if I can do the same task on Linux/open office.

Hopefully by the time my XP machines are near dead I will be able to make a full transition to Linux, as I refuse to have anything to do with Vista.


34 posted on 03/04/2007 5:43:59 PM PST by Rodney King (No, we can't all just get along.)
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To: Rodney King
Hmmmm ... I don't know. I've only used Ubuntu about two hours in my life, so am easily confused.

I'm getting leaving for a plane in an hour -- be gone for several days.

Good luck ;).

35 posted on 03/04/2007 7:31:37 PM PST by ThePythonicCow (The Greens steal in fear of pollution, The Reds in fear of greed; Fear arising from a lack of Faith.)
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To: Richard Kimball
Not necessarily. There are several tools and packages available that will shrink, expand and move about disk partitions, without data loss (unless the Gods are aligned against you.)

The market leader is Symantec's Partition Magic (formerly a Powerquest product, before Symantec bought them out.) My favorite is either of 7Tools Partition Manager (it looks like a Partition Magic knock off, but underneath the covers, it is more solid) or GNU's parted.

Typical installers for major distributions, likely including Ubuntu (though I don't know for sure) include a variation of parted that you can bring up during the install, if you choose the Advanced Partitioning or some such option at the point it comes to decide where to lay down the installation on your disk(s).

36 posted on 03/04/2007 7:42:21 PM PST by ThePythonicCow (The Greens steal in fear of pollution, The Reds in fear of greed; Fear arising from a lack of Faith.)
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To: ShadowAce

How about this: Firefox doesn't display FR correctly. I have to scroll from right to left sometimes to read the text.

thanks.


37 posted on 03/04/2007 8:07:28 PM PST by Rodney King (No, we can't all just get along.)
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To: ThePythonicCow

That's why I put my caveat at the end. Partitioning always made me nervous, so I always did a complete backup and just formated and partitioned. That was a few years ago, and the disk utilities then seemed to be more like hatchets than scalpels. They also worked from a dos prompt and had warnings with exclamation points.


38 posted on 03/04/2007 8:08:55 PM PST by Richard Kimball (Why yes, I do have a stupid picture for any occasion)
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To: Rodney King
Sorry it's been so long since your question. I'm in Salt Lake for the week on business.

Firefox doesn't display FR correctly. I have to scroll from right to left sometimes to read the text.

Can you post the thread? I'd like to see if it happens on my system as well. The only time I've noticed it was when someone posted a really long line/URL without spaces.

39 posted on 03/06/2007 7:50:47 PM PST by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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^


40 posted on 03/11/2007 7:15:05 AM PDT by cgk (I am emboldened by my looks to say things Republican men wouldn’t. - Ann Coulter)
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