# Ubuntu Review



## 8675309 (Jan 8, 2007)

This will be short to start with.

First of Ubuntu is a Free Linux based OS 
I have been running this on my daughters PC for about a week and for her needs it is perfect. It loads extremely fast, you don’t have to load any drivers and everything is free. I have had no problems with it including random hard shutdowns and multiple tasks running at the same time. 

I wanted to really put it to the test so I had a spare Dell Laptop at my shop that I loaded XP Pro on it about a month ago. I know where to get drivers and how to load without the restore disk and it still took 2 hours to get all of the drivers working correctly. I could not get the built in wireless to work on it at all. I put a 3com based wireless PCMCIA card in and still had to load the drivers to get it to work. What a pain in the ass. 

This weekend I took the laptop home with me and was going to play with it a little. I put the disk in and within 35 minutes the laptop was fully functional. I did not have to load any drivers and it works perfect. Out of the gate the ubuntu OS worked perfect on this pain in the ass laptop. Load and connect to the internet. "Outstanding"

Once I got it up I wanted to look into some emulators for some NES based games I had. I did a search and bam the emulator was in the add remove programs. I loaded it and bam my games worked. The only problem I had was with the controls and I did not have time to set them up properly.

Another feature I like is the Window emulator. I have not had the time to get in depth with this part yet but from what I can tell all you have to do is load the emulator and you can run windows based software. You can also run any version of windows you want directly on the desktop. 

I am sure as I get more time to work with this I will find myself liking this OS even more. There are a couple of versions for different types of systems.
You have Ubuntu, kubuntu, edubuntu, xubuntu, and gobuntu

It’s free and has an open code.

http://www.ubuntu.com/

I am sure someone else has used it so chime in if you have any other details.


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## slow2.2sonoma (Jul 9, 2006)

People can also try it on their computers without having to install it since you can boot the whole OS off the install cd


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## Abaddon (Aug 28, 2007)

slow2.2sonoma said:


> People can also try it on their computers without having to install it since you can boot the whole OS off the install cd


*DVD


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

Abaddon said:


> *DVD


at 790 and some-odd MB it fits right on a CD.

I have uBantu on a machine and I'm gonna load up Debian too and check it out. It's free WTFN?


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## jrouter76 (Dec 21, 2005)

chad said:


> at 790 and some-odd MB it fits right on a CD.
> 
> I have uBantu on a machine and I'm gonna load up Debian too and check it out. It's free WTFN?


I m` new to Linux and I have played with SUSE Linux 10.2.. my question is what is Debian?


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

Just a different distribution, there are several different ones and many recommend trying them till you find one that fits your groove.


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## dejo (Jan 3, 2006)

I think Ubuntu is built off Debian. so all the debian packages work with it too. should just be a look difference from ubuntu


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## MidnightCE (Mar 5, 2007)

I tried it, and it won't work with WPA despite my best efforts, rendering my laptop useless. Also the interface is much slower than windows XP on this machine. (700mhz, 256mb of ram.) And it seems to hang up a lot. Even on the second go round install.


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

MidnightCE said:


> I tried it, and it won't work with WPA despite my best efforts, rendering my laptop useless. Also the interface is much slower than windows XP on this machine. (700mhz, 256mb of ram.) And it seems to hang up a lot. Even on the second go round install.


Somthing seems weird to me (ther than WPA) it should slide right along  It takes a bit longer to load up and look pretty than XP does BUT when it's up, it's up, no waiting for it to establish a network connection, etc. This is in a 600MHz PIII 384MB, once it's rolling it hauls ass (for that machine) I did royally f*ck it up by playing with the screensaver feature and had to re-install it (only bcause I was too impatient to learn about a safe boot mode) It's obviousilly not for everybody but to me it's worth it to play with (wired connection) Just teaching an old dog new tricks for me and if gives me something to dick with when I drink beer.


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## MidnightCE (Mar 5, 2007)

Boot time is hard to compare since XP didnt have a start up password and my ubuntu install does, I'd say minus the driver check it's slightly faster to boot. I'd imagine there's some way to turn that off.

I made the mistake of checking an item in the add/remove programs without an internet connection. - That royally hoses it up. Instead of just going Ding! No Network! It just drags its heels indefinitely.

However there is one decent advantage,

XP runs about 1 hour on the battery, and Ubuntu runs about 90 minutes.


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

In searching around I have found out theat Debian has huge local support here on campus, I may toss a copy of that on and then look into WPA around here.

This place is fill of geeks AND nerds  

If I can get wpa support I'll let you know, it could be an ongoing project.


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## ogahyellow (Apr 16, 2007)

MidnightCE said:


> I tried it, and it won't work with WPA despite my best efforts, rendering my laptop useless. Also the interface is much slower than windows XP on this machine. (700mhz, 256mb of ram.) And it seems to hang up a lot. Even on the second go round install.


What version are you using?

the problem with WPA may be more with the network card than with ubuntu. Linux still isn't at the popularity where manufacturers write drivers for it, especially with laptops.

Also, you are probably running at about the bare minumum required to run a liveCD (if that's what you did). Right now, I'm wishing I was at my ubuntu machine to tell you exactly what to do, but under the administration settings you can adjust the display properties, which will considerably speed up the interface. 

If you were using the live CD, you also have to remember that everything is being cached from your CD to RAM which takes a lot longer than HDD to ram. And because the entire OS is in ram, it can be sluggish when the ram gets full. There is no way whatsoever the entire XP OS could fit in ram. I have 1gb on my laptop and the computer still wants to use a scratch disk.


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## MidnightCE (Mar 5, 2007)

its hardy heron, installed fresh to HD.

holy freaking crap this thing is slow, buggy, and hangs all the time.

I finally got WPA added (using a program to run windows drivers) and now the whole system runs like Vista on a 386.


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## jrouter76 (Dec 21, 2005)

Ok guys I downloaded ubuntu and burned it to a cd, I have a blank Harddrive, how do I get it to install? I tried to boot it up with the cd in and it will not load or boot from the cd...did I miss something?


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

jrouter76 said:


> Ok guys I downloaded ubuntu and burned it to a cd, I have a blank Harddrive, how do I get it to install? I tried to boot it up with the cd in and it will not load or boot from the cd...did I miss something?


Go to the Bios, for example on a dell hit F2 during boot, some are DEL, it will tell you, change your boot order to floppy, cd, HDD. Or if you don't have a floppy, CD, HDD It will boot from the CD first.. YOU DID burn the CD as a bootable ISO right, not just toss the ISO file on it in a data burner?

For a STUPID SIMPLE ISO burner the one that comes bundled with KillDisk is unbeatable, it has yet to burn a coaster.


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

Evening with a laptop. Wow, this fawker has no CDR and no floppy, I installed Standard Ubuntu on the laptop drive from another machine using the hosting machine's hardware profile (had to) Slapped that drive in the Laptop knowing it would not work, well it did, it updated to the laptop hardware config nicely. I do feel it may have some bugs that could be worked out but it screamed for a PIII500M with 256 in it. 

Then things went downhill when I tried to get my Netgear WPN511v2 wireless card to work, I need to do more studying and become more comfortable with terminal.

If they have one, I'm going to pick up another laptop at surplus today with a CDR in it and take this one back, this Latitude CSx is going to be the demise of my sanity....

Chad


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## Foglght (Aug 2, 2007)

I had a question about this stuff:

I recently deleted my entire hard drive from an old computer, as I didn't use it anymore and wanted to make a simple home audio computer. I didn't realize that I no longer had the code for the MS XP cd. So, I'm stuck with no OS. Can I just send away for the free Cd and away I go?

Can this OS work with the drivers I use...ie sound blaster, CD drivers, wireless stuff?

Can I use it on a laptop for RTA? Will it work with True RTA?


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

It is running fine with my soundbalster cards, CD is no issue, comes with a bundled media player and burning software, I'm having a had a heck of a time last night with wireless, as for RTA I don't know yet, it's down the road.

Here's the deal, there are a ****-ton of "stick it to the man" nerds out there working with this stuff nonstop and there are so many answers you will reach the end of the intrawebz and be told to go back before you find them all. As far as the free CD, download it and burn an ISO file, no waiting! It's recommeded by many to try different releases to see which fits your style best.

Would I swap it into my XP machine now and rely on it for PNP everything? no! An I having a blast learning it and playing around? You bet! 

Deal is, you have a computer that's a doorstop... what do you have to lose?

I installed a drive on a desktop computer and installed Ubuntu with the desktop's hardware profiles, then took that drive and put it in a laptop and it recognized everything and ran like a top, will that happen with other laptops? Dunno, but it proves to me that they have their **** together!


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## MidnightCE (Mar 5, 2007)

theres this "windows wireless driver" thing you can install in add/remove programs. It actually made my wireless work, (finds network) but there's no indication it actually attempts connection.

maybe it might work for your netgear card.


PS, I figured out why Linux is so friggin slow.

It never runs the system fan. So the CPU just gets hotter, and the system steps the power down. Might want to check that on your laptop.


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## jrouter76 (Dec 21, 2005)

chad said:


> Go to the Bios, for example on a dell hit F2 during boot, some are DEL, it will tell you, change your boot order to floppy, cd, HDD. Or if you don't have a floppy, CD, HDD It will boot from the CD first.. YOU DID burn the CD as a bootable ISO right, not just toss the ISO file on it in a data burner?
> 
> For a STUPID SIMPLE ISO burner the one that comes bundled with KillDisk is unbeatable, it has yet to burn a coaster.


yep that is what I did wrong burned it right to cd, not as an ISO...I don`t have the bundle withnkilldisk but I`ll try Alcohol 120.


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

MidnightCE said:


> theres this "windows wireless driver" thing you can install in add/remove programs. It actually made my wireless work, (finds network) but there's no indication it actually attempts connection.
> 
> maybe it might work for your netgear card.
> 
> ...


Thanks man, I'll try it! I scored a way better laptop for the applicationa and the one from last night's fiasco is going back to surplus, this should go much easier now.


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## jrouter76 (Dec 21, 2005)

ok got the iso burnede using alcohol 120 and it works.


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

sweet, play with it for a while, are you running Ubuntu or Xubuntu?


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## jrouter76 (Dec 21, 2005)

chad said:


> sweet, play with it for a while, are you running Ubuntu or Xubuntu?


ubuntu...I need to get me a router and hook it up to the internet along with my other computer.


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

Sure as hell the laptop needs a display inverter, it's coming but I can play with it.... with the lights off after it ****s out in 15 minutes


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## guisar (Nov 20, 2007)

It would be really, really nice if the Ubuntu or other distribution would package up a carputer which incorporated equalizers, room/car correction, etc so that it was easy to use.


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## ws6 beat (Jul 14, 2005)

i installed ubuntu 8.04 on my desktop. how do i install adobe flash layer etc. i can't watch you tube. plus i wanted to dual boot xpso i wanted to watch the how to video .


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

guisar said:


> It would be really, really nice if the Ubuntu or other distribution would package up a carputer which incorporated equalizers, room/car correction, etc so that it was easy to use.


Well see, that's the joy of open source, you don't have Bill Gates to ***** at, join a forum, contribute, and share YOUR knowledge and you may just see it happen  They are looking for anybody and everybody to help out, don't think that just because you may not be a programmer that your thoughts are not welcome, they may be working on it and need someone such as yourself to fill them in a to exactly what it needs to do and how, you just never know.



ws6 beat said:


> i installed ubuntu 8.04 on my desktop. how do i install adobe flash layer etc. i can't watch you tube. plus i wanted to dual boot xpso i wanted to watch the how to video .


www.adobe.com, they have linux versions, It has also been reported numerous times that even the "stick it to the man" people are using acrobat reader too...because it's just better than anyting open source out there.


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## durwood (Mar 7, 2007)

guisar said:


> It would be really, really nice if the Ubuntu or other distribution would package up a carputer which incorporated equalizers, room/car correction, etc so that it was easy to use.



There are linux packages to do this so it's a matter of DIY. BruteFIR and DRC were originally made in Linux, then are slowly being translated over to winblows.

Problem is, open source and commerical don't mix. You can't sell it. This is where the DIY'er must take ownership and learn it and implement it.

I plan on playing with this now. Thanks for giving me another project.   Creator of BruteFIR is pretty involved with ambiophonics too.


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## durwood (Mar 7, 2007)

http://patches.ubuntu.com/b/brutefir/


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## durwood (Mar 7, 2007)

and more...

http://www.ludd.luth.se/~torger/brutefir.html
http://www.duffroomcorrection.com/wiki/Brutefir
http://www.acourate.com/ConvolutionEngine.doc

not sure if this is finished (ambiophonics)

http://www.ludd.luth.se/~torger/almusvcu.html



> 2006-08-22
> AlmusVCU 0.87. Quick and dirty release. I was planning to hold this until I was complete packaging reverb programs and updating the documentation, which has been postponed in, well, two years. Now when people start to play around with 0.86 I thought I'd better release what I have now. I have not done much pre-testing of this, so if it does not work, let me know and/or try out 0.86 instead.
> What is still missing in this release apart from up to date documentation is reverb programs and some really good cross-talk cancellation programs. I have the raw material for this, but I need to take some time to test, make a package and apply a suitable license acceptable by the authors of the raw material and me. This time is extremely hard to find, so I cannot make any promises.
> 
> Even without this, AlmusVCU can be a very useful program, and the differences from 0.85 to 0.87 is mostly bug fixes, so the documentation is quite ok in its current state. If you want to do high quality Ambiophonics with reverb, you need to wait for the release of reverb programs and cross-talk cancellation programs (or make your own, the filter program format is documented).


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## ws6 beat (Jul 14, 2005)

I downloaded adobe flashplayer to my desktop and followed the instructions and in terminal it keeps saying no such file or directory. I copied it exactly as in the location under properties


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

ws6 beat said:


> I downloaded adobe flashplayer to my desktop and followed the instructions and in terminal it keeps saying no such file or directory. I copied it exactly as in the location under properties


Did you extract each file to the desktop after downloading the.tar file?

Did you change to the desktop directory?

from Terminal 

cd *D*esktop

Gotta have a cap there.and don't forget the perod and slash infront of the next command


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

Just tried it, works like a champ


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## Medicineman (Apr 9, 2007)

MidnightCE said:


> theres this "windows wireless driver" thing you can install in add/remove programs. It actually made my wireless work, (finds network) but there's no indication it actually attempts connection.
> 
> maybe it might work for your netgear card.
> 
> ...


You may have to recompile the kernel to enable thermal regulation. It is not a difficult process, but it is possible to make the entire system un-bootable if you screw up..... or worse


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## Medicineman (Apr 9, 2007)

dejo said:


> I think Ubuntu is built off Debian. so all the debian packages work with it too. should just be a look difference from ubuntu


Ubuntu is based on Debian but it has more differences than just a face-lift. Most .deb packages should work, but some may not. When I first looked into Ubuntu about 3 years ago, the Debian people were a little pissed that Ubuntu was taking so much from them but not sticking to the Debian way of doing things. 

Debian is typically very stable and has more software packages available than any other distro I can think of. The downside is that Debian is behind other distros when it comes to implementing new ideas. I made the change to Gentoo after I got fed up with Debian dragging ass on the switch to Xorg.

My Gentoo install starts faster and uses MUCH fewer resources than winsuck. I have implemented a script that loads a lot of system files and a few application files directly to ram on startup. This really helps startup times for some programs and system performance in general. Even with all the extra files loaded, the most ram I generally use is 38% of my 1gig available. I have created my own firewall scripts so that I know exactly what is being blocked and why it is being blocked. All of my favorite applications are accessible by keyboard shortcuts. The entire look and feel of my desktop has been customized to the way I want it. I love it.

I still have to use winsuck for a few apps though (Soundeasy and my math and cad software). One of these days I will set up Gentoo to run winsuck as a virtual client. For now, I still dual boot.


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## MidnightCE (Mar 5, 2007)

Medicineman said:


> You may have to recompile the kernel to enable thermal regulation. It is not a difficult process, but it is possible to make the entire system un-bootable if you screw up..... or worse


People give microsoft ****, but man, I've never had a Windows install give me grief like this.

It's like buying a somewhat assembled kit car with a note that says "Guess what parts are missing, or don't work. Good luck."

Awesome.


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

MidnightCE said:


> People give microsoft ****, but man, I've never had a Windows install give me grief like this.
> 
> It's like buying a somewhat assembled kit car with a note that says "Guess what parts are missing, or don't work. Good luck."
> 
> Awesome.


My fans (2 laptops) are running just fine, dunno what's up.

But I'm still fighting the wireless driver, word ont eh street is that MANY have had issues with this particular card, which is fine because the wifey came out and tore me a new ass for stealing the card out of MY other laptop that resides in the family room.


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## Hispls (Mar 12, 2008)

chad said:


> My fans (2 laptops) are running just fine, dunno what's up.
> 
> But I'm still fighting the wireless driver, word ont eh street is that MANY have had issues with this particular card, which is fine because the wifey came out and tore me a new ass for stealing the card out of MY other laptop that resides in the family room.


Have you played with the ndswrapper? Took me days to set up my wireless card. I also found a website that installs your wireless automatically (They charge for the license for the drivers after 30 days or something though).

I've also found that if one distro doesn't work out, another may do just fine. I've had decent luck with the Ubuntu, but I mostly run the Suse as they just have gobs of software bundled and the 64bit version has a breathtaking user interfact.


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

I took tonight off, I did download and instaled ndiswrapper but since the inverter is cashed I only have about 15minutes of working time before it ****s out. The parts should be in to repair it tomorrow. I need to get down and dirty witht he networking, it now doesnot recognize the 3com card int eh dock but has no issues witht eh PCMCIA wired card, 3com is a no-go regardless of the installation of the PCMCIA device. AND it gets an IP address and connects, it's just that the net is a no-go, I may have done something stupid, I'll get back into it soon, have a shop to clean up, it's gettin manly in there.


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## jrouter76 (Dec 21, 2005)

Hispls said:


> Have you played with the ndswrapper? Took me days to set up my wireless card. I also found a website that installs your wireless automatically (They charge for the license for the drivers after 30 days or something though).
> 
> I've also found that if one distro doesn't work out, another may do just fine. I've had decent luck with the Ubuntu, but I mostly run the Suse as they just have gobs of software bundled and the 64bit version has a breathtaking user interfact.


which version of suse are you using 10.2 or 10.3?


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## Hispls (Mar 12, 2008)

10.0 on my laptop, but recently downloaded the latest (will install when I get a minute). Really if it weren't for turbo-lister and chessmaster I doubt I'd run windoze at all.


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## Hispls (Mar 12, 2008)

chad said:


> I took tonight off, I did download and instaled ndiswrapper but since the inverter is cashed I only have about 15minutes of working time before it ****s out. The parts should be in to repair it tomorrow. I need to get down and dirty witht he networking, it now doesnot recognize the 3com card int eh dock but has no issues witht eh PCMCIA wired card, 3com is a no-go regardless of the installation of the PCMCIA device. AND it gets an IP address and connects, it's just that the net is a no-go, I may have done something stupid, I'll get back into it soon, have a shop to clean up, it's gettin manly in there.


Did you try the auto-loader here?
http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/

It may cost you 20-30$, but it worked very fast for me. As I said before, I day of googling and testing got mine installed just with the ndsiwrapper so I never paid for the license, but it was pretty fast and simple.

The linux forums are loaded with troubles and solutions with wireless cards. Seems to be the worst part of going linux on a laptop these days.


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

Total goal here is free and legal sans repair parts on the damn machine 

I'll make it work, it's in my blood


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## Hispls (Mar 12, 2008)

Well the auto-loader is legal, that's why you gotta pay for the driver's licenses. But keep plugging if you need to keep it free, if it's a common card, odds are SOMEONE has got it to work allready and has a writeup on one of the linux forums.


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## kimokalihi (May 27, 2007)

chad said:


> at 790 and some-odd MB it fits right on a CD.
> 
> I have uBantu on a machine and I'm gonna load up Debian too and check it out. It's free WTFN?


I thought CDs were 700mb.


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## jrouter76 (Dec 21, 2005)

ok you linux guys what is the solution to this problem:*No volume control GStreamer plugins and/or devices found.* I`m new at this so take it easy I might need step by step instructions. sorry I forgot to mention this has to do with the sound volume.


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## Spasticteapot (Mar 5, 2007)

I've been using Ubuntu exclusively for over a year now. Perhaps I could help with miscellaneous problems?

Another good choice for an OS is Mepis AntiX, which is (partially) based on Ubuntu. Although it's not quite as attractive and slightly less user friendly than Ubuntu due to its simplified GUI, it's also much more efficient - it runs quite nicely on a 300mhz machine with 96mb of RAM.


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

Hispls said:


> Have you played with the ndswrapper? Took me days to set up my wireless card. I also found a website that installs your wireless automatically (They charge for the license for the drivers after 30 days or something though).
> 
> I've also found that if one distro doesn't work out, another may do just fine. I've had decent luck with the Ubuntu, but I mostly run the Suse as they just have gobs of software bundled and the 64bit version has a breathtaking user interfact.


Installed ndswrapper then slid the driver over fromt he Netgear install CD, SHAZAM! on it wireless now!

I HAVE to start the machine with the car inserted, no starting it THEN inserting, it's a no-go.

Now, off to find out how to keep it from doing a disk scan at every startup and re-setting the display freq at startup.

Oh, and I got the damn display fixed


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## Hispls (Mar 12, 2008)

Nothing like LINUX for a guy with a DIY attitude that enjoys solving challenging problems. Feels good when you finally get things tweaked out and working huh?


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

Hispls said:


> Nothing like LINUX for a guy with a DIY attitude that enjoys solving challenging problems. Feels good when you finally get things tweaked out and working huh?


Yeah I'm really digging it, it's nice to have a Windows/ or even another machine on the net to look things up. in the shop I just have a KVM switch and toggle back/forth.


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