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Linux Distro Noob thread of Linux noobs
- Thread starter Flying_Phoenix
- Start date
I only have a Steam account already because I created it to gift the Orange Box (or something like that) to a friend back in 2010. It did not exist prior to that, and I only today used it for the second time.
Short Arch Linux review: I installed ArchLinux about a month (changing from Xubuntu), and I have managed to get most things working correctly. Screen brightness keys work well, the wi-fi card drivers too (though I had to change them manually), and the system in general feels very snappy. I chose Xfce as DE and downloaded Manjaro Linux' theme (mostly green, looks quite good), so in terms of usability I'd say it is similar to what I had with Xubuntu. The package manager (pacman) works quite well, possibly better than apt-get (which I don't think is bad anyways). If you manage to install it correctly (which isn't that hard using the wiki guide), Arch is a great distribution.
Is it optional? Entering in a full name is an option in 'useradd', which I guess Fedora uses when you first install it (to create the non-root user.)
Maybe I should go with my plans to install Arch and get rid of Ubuntu. My general worry after watching some of the tutorials is not getting the wireless connection to work properly or somehow screwing up the graphical display.
No, but you can always just make it the same as your username.
Looking through some screenshots, it seems to be the name displayed in the top right of the desktop menu bar (where you would go to log off/shut down).
Yep. While they have removed the old arch setup (I wonder why, now everything is much harder for new people) the wifi setup has seen a nice face clean and its easier than ever.
The only problem I find with arch is that being a rolling realease, you better update the system as many times as you can, unless you want to find problem with packages changin names or referencing packages with other names which can't be installed because the depend package has changed name and refers to the new package that has a new name and....(ad infinitum)
like this: https://www.archlinux.org/news/binaries-move-to-usrbin-requiring-update-intervention/
Only sometimes, there is no indication on the page that there is a conflicting package wich means you gotta search for it.
Anyways, it's a great distro. The only one I ever install into my netbook, any others don't give me the freedom to pick as minimal shit as I can so it works correctly.
charlemagne
Member
I've run into the problem where updating completely broke Arch running as a VM. Now I'm scared to update...
I think it was just because no one was actively maintaining it.
Fortunately I haven't run into that problem yet, the only problem I've had is that the Broadcom driver module (brcmsmac) was causing kernel panics every couple of hours, so I had to change to broadcom-wl (which is not libre, I think). Every time pacman updates the kernel image I have to re-set my preferred module.
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Yo Linux-GAF,
I'm in the tinkering mood and sort of want to buy a Raspberry Pi. Am I crazy? I got questions!
1) What comes in the B model box?
2) What stuff will I need to buy beyond the $35 bones on the B model?
3) I got Ethernet in my casa so I'm good to go right?
4) All the B models being sold now have the 512 RAM right?
5) Any rumors of a new model that I should wait for?
6) Where should I buy this thing?
7) How is Rasbian?
I'm in the tinkering mood and sort of want to buy a Raspberry Pi. Am I crazy? I got questions!
1) What comes in the B model box?
2) What stuff will I need to buy beyond the $35 bones on the B model?
3) I got Ethernet in my casa so I'm good to go right?
4) All the B models being sold now have the 512 RAM right?
5) Any rumors of a new model that I should wait for?
6) Where should I buy this thing?
7) How is Rasbian?
1) The B model Pi. That's it.
2) USB charger (700mA at least IIRC). Powered usb hub if you want to attach anything that uses a lot of power. Case If you want one. I printed one on cardboard and folded it. I'll try to find the link.
[EDIT]http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1310
3) Yup
4) Normally yes, but check
5) Not that I'm aware of
6) Depends on where you live.
7) Raspbian is great. I use it as a tiny web server to host the small sites I work on rather than have them on my computer, so I can work on them from anywhere.
1) Raspberry pi, nothing else, nothing more
2) Any android charger would works if it provides 700ma. 1000ma recommended if you want to use ethernet + the 2 usb at the same time. That ethernet sucks quite a lot of power! An SD of 2Gb minimun for storing the system. Or a small SD + USB stick to boot from. I would only recommend this if you need some fast IO operations as the USB is faster than the SD but the downside is that you just have one USB port always used.
3) Yes
4) Yes. You can find model A(256Mb) for around 15$ in a few shops
5) Nope.
6) US? or UK?
US: http://www.alliedelec.com/lp/120626raso/
UK: http://www.element14.com/community/groups/raspberry-pi
http://uk.rs-online.com/web/generalDisplay.html?id=raspberrypi
7) Like Debian but for ARM. Thousands of packages, good old apt-get.
Now some recommendations.
Get a case. You can use the box the pi comes with to store it inside making some cuts on it, depending on what you do and the room temp it can get pretty hot inside so watch out for it. If not, a simlpe clear case works. Or my favourite, the RAINBOW PIBOW! So good.
Pictured: Box the raspberry pi comes on (can vary between retailers, this is from RS-Online) and the magnificent RAIBOW PIBOW! (warning, the case is a bit expensive)
Pictured: Clear case (around 3 bucks) and Raibow Pibow case (20 bucks)
For the software. I use Berryboot. Why only have one system on your Pi if the SD card can hold several of them? This way you can have raspbian, raspxbmc/openelec and a few more (Berrywebserver for example, which is a minimal web server)
What else what else....Oh yes, if you are into electronics, buy a shitton of them. Best place is Adafruit Industries. From a simple wifi dongle guaranteed to work with the Pi, to LCD screens, GPS, reat time clocks, expansion ports, etc...Awesome site, I got several pieces from them and their tutorials are great.
Can't think of anything else. Enjoy your Pi
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Thanks for the info Linux-GAF!
Looks like I might order some stuff this weekend. I'll probably cop the pi plus a case and a power cable. I don't think my old charger is rated high enough. I know I have ethernet cables lying around, and I'm pretty sure I have an extra hdmi cable somewhere.
How big of an SD card did you guys go with? I know I have extra, but I might just order one cause my extra SD cards aren't that big.
It takes regular SD cards not Micro SD right??
Looks like I might order some stuff this weekend. I'll probably cop the pi plus a case and a power cable. I don't think my old charger is rated high enough. I know I have ethernet cables lying around, and I'm pretty sure I have an extra hdmi cable somewhere.
How big of an SD card did you guys go with? I know I have extra, but I might just order one cause my extra SD cards aren't that big.
It takes regular SD cards not Micro SD right??
I got a couple of 16Gb, they were like 15€ each, 12€ if I bougth 2 so...got plenty of space. You got enough with a 4Gb anyway.
Yes SD cards. There is a low profile micro SD card adapter which looks great.
Young Magus
Junior Member
Nice pic...what is you desktop/toolbar configuration?Also, what's a good program to rip dvd set videos?
Wait, since when do Raspberry Pi's come in a plastic case? I got one of the first batches and it only came in a cardboard box
Desktop Environment: Cinnamon
Cinnamon Theme: Baldr
Dock: Docky
Docky Theme: elementary
Icons: Default (Mint-X)
I also removed the active windows tiles (or w/e they are called) in the top panel, so all active windows are shown and reflected in the dock).
Expose is on the bottom left corner and Scale on the bottom right (hot corners).
As for a DVD ripping tool, I'm afraid I don't know too much about that as I don't do any ripping. Sorry.
Can the pi (on Raspbian) handle flash streams (TV shows, sports, etc...) at a perfect speed? I ask, because I stream a lot of international sports (for channels I can never get) and would love to be able to stream my sporting events (or stuff like Veetle).1) Raspberry pi, nothing else, nothing more
2) Any android charger would works if it provides 700ma. 1000ma recommended if you want to use ethernet + the 2 usb at the same time. That ethernet sucks quite a lot of power! An SD of 2Gb minimun for storing the system. Or a small SD + USB stick to boot from. I would only recommend this if you need some fast IO operations as the USB is faster than the SD but the downside is that you just have one USB port always used.
3) Yes
4) Yes. You can find model A(256Mb) for around 15$ in a few shops
5) Nope.
6) US? or UK?
US: http://www.alliedelec.com/lp/120626raso/
UK: http://www.element14.com/community/groups/raspberry-pi
http://uk.rs-online.com/web/generalDisplay.html?id=raspberrypi
7) Like Debian but for ARM. Thousands of packages, good old apt-get.
Now some recommendations.
Get a case. You can use the box the pi comes with to store it inside making some cuts on it, depending on what you do and the room temp it can get pretty hot inside so watch out for it. If not, a simlpe clear case works. Or my favourite, the RAINBOW PIBOW! So good.
Pictured: Box the raspberry pi comes on (can vary between retailers, this is from RS-Online) and the magnificent RAIBOW PIBOW! (warning, the case is a bit expensive)
Pictured: Clear case (around 3 bucks) and Raibow Pibow case (20 bucks)
For the software. I use Berryboot. Why only have one system on your Pi if the SD card can hold several of them? This way you can have raspbian, raspxbmc/openelec and a few more (Berrywebserver for example, which is a minimal web server)
What else what else....Oh yes, if you are into electronics, buy a shitton of them. Best place is Adafruit Industries. From a simple wifi dongle guaranteed to work with the Pi, to LCD screens, GPS, reat time clocks, expansion ports, etc...Awesome site, I got several pieces from them and their tutorials are great.
Can't think of anything else. Enjoy your Pi
Definitely not. Flash is unsupported and will most likely never be supported. I think most people who only buy a Pi to get a cheap XBMC machine will be disappointed.
Also I found out that the box I didn't get for my Pi was due to the different shop I ordered mine from. RS sell their Pi's in that box, element14 only ship them in cardboard boxes.
Which video card do you have, and are you using the free or proprietary drivers?
AMD has finally incorporated their power management features for Linux, but that won't be in a stable release until kernel 3.11 in a couple months.
systemfehler
Member
Does anyone know a better solution to detect a task/process that uses too much CPU/GPU time than the Gnome System Monitor or "ps"? I sometimes have a serious increase in CPU (GPU not so much) temperature even though both methods show that CPU load is 0 for every other task other than the system monitor.
If I reboot the system the temperature goes back to the normal "work" temperature of 50°C (from 70+). However I can't pin point the problem and this drives me crazy.
Sounds a bit like this problem:
I use Linux Mint Debian Edition with a Nvidia Card and Powermizer working. Happens also when I close any visibly open programm (eg. Chrome)
If I reboot the system the temperature goes back to the normal "work" temperature of 50°C (from 70+). However I can't pin point the problem and this drives me crazy.
Sounds a bit like this problem:
I use Linux Mint Debian Edition with a Nvidia Card and Powermizer working. Happens also when I close any visibly open programm (eg. Chrome)
htop is worth a try.
systemfehler
Member
Thanks I especially prefer console based applications. Will try it out when the next temperature spike hits me and report back.
Hm, I'm using the Integrated graphics card (HD 3000?) on my i3. I went back and used Windows 7 and it's hovering around 59-60/61 while browsing and streaming shows, running Word, and using Google Talk.
:S
ummm. If you got the stream url it should be easy for ffmpeg to play it I think.
Do you have any stream/url of those things? I can try them and report back.
Wait, since when do Raspberry Pi's come in a plastic case? I got one of the first batches and it only came in a cardboard box
first one came with a cardboard box, second one with a plastic box so I guess they all come with it.
ThatObviousUser
ὠαἴÏÏιÏÏÎ¿Ï Ïαá¿Ï εἶ
What game is that?
Never tried that. Didn't know it supports flash. How well will it run though?
I think the difference then is that Windows uses acceleration for video playback while Linux is using your CPU. Do you see any notable differences while *not* playing a video?
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
On a side note I know this might be a crazy idea, but I feel like we kind of need a new updated thread. We haven't hit our thread cap by any means, but the OP is old. Plus Flying has been banned for years now.
On a side note I might post a quick Brettison Linux-GAF survey for the weekend a little later.
On a side note I might post a quick Brettison Linux-GAF survey for the weekend a little later.
Treechopper
Member
Hmmm....yeah, maybe just Linux l OT l or something since people just ask or promote any Linux related stuff here. It would be easier to search for and more of a catch all for Linux related questions since this is it outside of more popular distro specific threads. Plus, the broader scope might ironically make it more suitable to a community based thread.
The question is are the rest of the people here up for it and could we convince the mods this would be worthwhile?
The question is are the rest of the people here up for it and could we convince the mods this would be worthwhile?
I am a proud owner of a Raspberry Pi now. At the moment it's only a little fileserver but I am planning to set it up as a VPN Server. Does anyone have experience with this?
When I searched for a Linux thread I was surprised that this is pretty much the only one and there's no OT!
GameplayWhore
Member
Disguising an official thread as a howto thread does a pretty good job of keeping trolls at bay.
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Plus this basically is an OT thread. It just was created before the current style and guidelines.
Treechopper
Member
But being discrete doesn't advance adoption. We're subscribed to this thread because we love Linux and we like having a place to go to help and be helped in time of need. Even though I only started using Linux a couple months back I wish more people knew about it, used it and discussed it.
The idea of "If you want it bad enough you'll find it" only goes so far.
systemfehler
Member
I found the cause of my heat problems:
colord-sane process locked a core of my CPU to 100%
This seems to be a (known) bug - since I did not find a proper solution yet I marked it for complete removal because it is the safer way for now.
colord-sane process locked a core of my CPU to 100%
This seems to be a (known) bug - since I did not find a proper solution yet I marked it for complete removal because it is the safer way for now.
Karsticles
Member
I'm trying to install Ubuntu on my wife's new laptop that has Windows 8. I put the Ubuntu install iso on a USB flash drive, set the laptop to legacy boot mode, and turned off secure boot, but it's still saying there's nothing there. Does anyone have any ideas? Hopefully there's a simple solution I'm overlooking. I'm glad to provide any necessary information.
When you say "it's still saying nothing is there" when is it saying this and what exactly is it saying?
Is this after you tried to install and reboot?
Also if I recall correctly Windows 8 is installed using UEFI mode by default which is what allows secure boot in the first place. So you would need to install Ubuntu in EFI mode as well.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI
Karsticles
Member
I can't even get it to the install screen. These are my boot settings:
This is the message I get when I try to boot through the USB flash drive:
Edit: If I have the computer set to book in UEFI instead of legacy, it doesn't even try to boot from anything.
Ok but that second pic clearly shows Windows is booting from UEFI boot mode which means you need to run Ubuntu from UEFI boot as well according to that page I linked which is the official Ubuntu Wiki.
Two things I can think of.
Are you sure the Ubuntu iso you downloaded is 64 bit? UEFI wont recognise the 32 bit Ubuntu iso.
What method did you use to make the bootable iso on USB? You need to use a special program to make the USB drive a bootable option. A program like Unetbootin will do that.
Sorry if the questions seem basic.
Two things I can think of.
Are you sure the Ubuntu iso you downloaded is 64 bit? UEFI wont recognise the 32 bit Ubuntu iso.
What method did you use to make the bootable iso on USB? You need to use a special program to make the USB drive a bootable option. A program like Unetbootin will do that.
Sorry if the questions seem basic.
systemfehler
Member
Thanks for the information. Mint LMDE has 0.1.21-1 as standard in "stable" guess I have to get some testing (incoming) packages to fix that or wait until the next upgrade pack is released.
No idea to be honest, I don't see too many streams.
What I know thougth is, there is a plugin for XBMC to see south park, and it gets the stream from southparkstudio.com which is a flash stream. I have it and it looks good, even in HD it runs smoothly.
The worst parts of flash streams is noth the stream but flash. In my eepc I can't see youtube, flash kills my computer, but using somthing like minitube lets me see whatever videos I want in the resolution I want. Who knows :S
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
BTW someone asked earlier in this thread about how my Crunchbang setup looked.
Well here it is. I didn't really do any customization, but I tend to prefer the cleaner look of the desktop with Conky off. Conky is cool at 1st, but I never really use it for anything. So I just edited the auto start. Outside of that everything is stock. Crunchbang and Openbox keep it minimal as it is for me anyways.
I use to have a technics record player, but I got rid of it a few years ago. Wish I hadn't honestly now.
PS: Also it's nice and you can really tell Waldorf is based on Debian stable. You get virtual no issues and no updates because the Debian crew is so anal about the stable channel being well actually stable.
Well here it is. I didn't really do any customization, but I tend to prefer the cleaner look of the desktop with Conky off. Conky is cool at 1st, but I never really use it for anything. So I just edited the auto start. Outside of that everything is stock. Crunchbang and Openbox keep it minimal as it is for me anyways.
I use to have a technics record player, but I got rid of it a few years ago. Wish I hadn't honestly now.
PS: Also it's nice and you can really tell Waldorf is based on Debian stable. You get virtual no issues and no updates because the Debian crew is so anal about the stable channel being well actually stable.