Oliath Posted October 20, 2008 Share Posted October 20, 2008 In an attempt to become more familiar under the hood of Linux i have decided to torture myself by installing Ubuntu on my laptop. Anyone on here done something equally as stupid? I already know it's going to involve major tweaks to get everything working the way it should, but think that the best way to learn is by throwing myself in at the deep end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimboxy Posted October 20, 2008 Share Posted October 20, 2008 As an IT Technician my opinion on Ubuntu and anything Linux based is... Fuck it, i'm going no where near it.. Sorry i can't be more help, but good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oliath Posted October 20, 2008 Author Share Posted October 20, 2008 Aaaahhhh crap Well that's not very reassuring for me from someone in IT lol. Is there any reason? Could it be because everything seems so damned fiddly.... like to just get my wifi card to work i am having to work out the model, find some drivers for it... but even then its not just a case of download and install!! I have to compile them THEN install them and THEN edit shit in a text editor!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimboxy Posted October 20, 2008 Share Posted October 20, 2008 you've pretty much got it in one there! Its to much like hard work. There is a reason it is free and you have to pay for Windows/OSX. We have some Linux servers at work, i don't touch them as there completely line command driven, they don't even have a GUI. And it isn't obvious line commands like DOS, its obscure and doesn't make sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pickled Posted October 20, 2008 Share Posted October 20, 2008 i use linux,but only coz it comes already installed on my eee.it is a bit of a headache to use,no way near as simple as windows,and having to install everything from the console is a bit much...having said that though,it's very satisfying when everything eventually works,but maybe that's the geek in me speaking Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hendo Posted October 20, 2008 Share Posted October 20, 2008 Tried it, didn't like it. I'm with Jimbo - there's a reason that Windows is really popular and that's because you don't need to fiddle to get it to work. I have got mates that are like picks in that once you've got it set up it runs like a dream and it's very powerful, but it's not for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spatular Posted October 20, 2008 Share Posted October 20, 2008 tried one of the "easy to use" versions a whie back, mandrake i think, and it proved to be far from easy to use, did come with a free version of sokoban, which was good. occasionally used red hat at uni and that was much better but that was only because someone had already set it up! not for me either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oliath Posted October 23, 2008 Author Share Posted October 23, 2008 Well i got ubuntu up and running and spent fucking ages trying to get usb to work and stupid things like fan drivers etc. Luckily the internet helped loads and there was a guide that took me through it all for my specific machine which was handy. Its very nuts and bolts though. I can't ever imagine being able to do anything in it if the internet didn't exist to help out! There are some great things on it though. Good mp3 players, video players, office suite... pretty much all the tools you would expect and the support is WAY better than on a paid OS! Also i noticed that there are updates pretty much twice a day! Anything that has a bug one day will most likely be fixed up very quickly as its all open source so thats kind of impressive too. Bottom line though... i agree with you guys.... paid for OS's are WAY more usable. I rekon i would come unstuck if i relied on this as my only computer, but as a way to revive some life back into a crappy old machine its actually not that bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hendo Posted October 23, 2008 Share Posted October 23, 2008 I keep meaning to get myself a whole new PC and strip this heap of shit out and build one from scratch to get up on that side of things, and then install some Linux/Free BSD OS's just to have a play around with, but no, wouldn't use it as a main rig at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimboxy Posted October 23, 2008 Share Posted October 23, 2008 you've kind of inspired me to give this a bash. I dug out an old admin machine at work today and i'm gonna have a go at putting ubuntu on it tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oliath Posted October 24, 2008 Author Share Posted October 24, 2008 In six days a new version is released which is supposed to be even more user friendly so might be worth waiting till then! In the mean time... FUCKED up my install by trying to install windows on another partition...DOH. Any one have a clue how to install windows from a USB stick?? I can boot the machine from a correctly formatted USB stick fine and i have a windows install CD, but its the part about getting the windows installer onto the stick that is stumping me. Its all good though as before today i was a simple OSX boy... but now i have taked this machine to bits... put in new RAM following a youtube video, installed Ubuntu about fifty times ha ha. If you get stuck at any point Jimbo give me a shout and i'll try and help. Might have come unstuck in the same bits..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pickled Posted October 24, 2008 Share Posted October 24, 2008 i've installed windows from a usb stick, it's a bit fiddly though use this i used that to install it on my eee (no cd rom drive on an eee)....though i did take it off again as it doesn't run well on it!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oliath Posted October 24, 2008 Author Share Posted October 24, 2008 Pickled you fucking legend!!! That worked a treat. Messed it up a few times but now... windows is installed.. YAY. HOWEVER!! I can't connect to the internets :-( Guess i need to find some drivers or whatever ya? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pickled Posted October 24, 2008 Share Posted October 24, 2008 can't connect with windows or ubuntu? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oliath Posted October 25, 2008 Author Share Posted October 25, 2008 It was with windows. I sorted it though. Just had to download some drivers from the laptop manufacturers website and now its all good. Also finally managed to get a dual boot of XP and Ubuntu up and runnin. Made a third... larger partition on the HD in Fat32 which i am hoping i can use as a shared media drive between the systems so it sources music and movies from that.... works in windows, but cant get it to auto mount in desktop in Umbungo... only through the command line..... Time for some more googling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oliath Posted October 27, 2008 Author Share Posted October 27, 2008 Ok new question... this time about windows.... but ill keep it in the same thread as its on the same computer. What is a good... non intrusive... anti virus package (free) to use on windows? Is there any other security stuff i should install? I am used to OSX which is pretty secure at the moment so have never had to worry about spyware and all that stuff so could use some advice from seasoned windows users. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DANGERMAN Posted October 27, 2008 Share Posted October 27, 2008 I use avast, its free and has very regular updates. The only intrusion you'll notice is a slight stutter when it's updating (depending on your computer you might not even notice it) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spatular Posted October 27, 2008 Share Posted October 27, 2008 yeah what ben said, i use avast too, seems good for free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retroed Posted October 27, 2008 Share Posted October 27, 2008 Ok new question... this time about windows.... but ill keep it in the same thread as its on the same computer.What is a good... non intrusive... anti virus package (free) to use on windows? Is there any other security stuff i should install? Anti-Virus: Avira AntiVir Personal Firewall: Comodo Firewall Pro Anti-Spyware: Malwarebytes Anti-Malware | Ad-Aware 2008 | Spybot Search & Destroy My setup. I also use CCleaner to keep things tip-top, and Spyware Doctor runs in the background. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pickled Posted October 27, 2008 Share Posted October 27, 2008 google tools has spyware doctor in it for free, top quality free spyware action, iused to use zonealarm as a firewall, til i realised how much of a resource hog it it, if you connect through a router then there should be a firewall built into it, other than that everything that ed's said. Also registry mechanic is a useful program to have Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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