Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Usually synaptic has extra drivers in the multiverse section if it's enabled. I know I've gotten broadcom drivers from there for wifi stuff before.
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Linux Distro Noob thread of Linux noobs
- Thread starter Flying_Phoenix
- Start date
Following the evolving design of Gnome is quite fun. Here's a post about the future of Gnome 3 fullscreen apps: http://afaikblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/a-new-approach-to-gnome-application-design/
Choice quotes, which power users will disagree soooo much with :lol I think it's some great steps forward in accessibility which seems to be the focus these days (more so than touch which most people seem to assume these changes are for, I think the two just go together really nicely - with these new touch devices having forced UI designers to rethink their methods a bit):
Choice quotes, which power users will disagree soooo much with :lol I think it's some great steps forward in accessibility which seems to be the focus these days (more so than touch which most people seem to assume these changes are for, I think the two just go together really nicely - with these new touch devices having forced UI designers to rethink their methods a bit):
I don't know about "efficient" though I like design that focuses on the current task. I'm no fan of fullscreen apps though, screens are so wide these days that having text stretching the whole length just becomes a mess to read. I keep my browser half screen most often. (My next screen will be at least 2560px wide so I can just snap it to one side instead of manually resizing which always sucks)
Not having to learn keyboard shortcuts should be great for casual users. (Edit: Shit, I remember that thread about most users not knowing ctrl+f to search stuff and everyone being surprised about it instead of realising that it's a huge problem of interface design.)
Love it. Everything should be searchable.
ThatObviousUser
ὠαἴÏÏιÏÏÎ¿Ï Ïαá¿Ï εἶ
Yeah I read that too. Lovely stuff. Although I wish instead of saying fullscreen is the solution to users manually futzing with open windows to resize and place them, they'd consider the tiling approach like xmonad. Would be great to have it as an option at least.
Otherwise I love what I head. Gnome 3.4 and Fedora 17 can't get here fast enough.
Otherwise I love what I head. Gnome 3.4 and Fedora 17 can't get here fast enough.
The Arch installation program will install GRUB (or Lilo) for you, then when you boot up Arch, edit your /boot/grub/menu.lst file. You should create an entry somewhat like this, depending on where your Windows install is.
Code:
title Windows
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1Keep all these links handy at all times.
Grub (Dual booting with Windows)
Beginner's guide
Official installation guide
Okay thanks. I heard from somewhere that GRUB was involved.
Yeah, I saw that the other day. Looks like I will be switching distros and GUI's soon.
ThatObviousUser
ὠαἴÏÏιÏÏÎ¿Ï Ïαá¿Ï εἶ
Wow that looks great.
I'm now dual booting Fedora and Windows 7 on my work laptop btw! Soooo slick and smooth. The installer could use some work, take some cues from Ubuntu.
It's being implemented right now but I don't think it will be ready in time for the next release. Probably 3.6 at the end of the year.
They're redesigning the installer. This also is not coming until the end of the year in Fedora 18.
ThatObviousUser
ὠαἴÏÏιÏÏÎ¿Ï Ïαá¿Ï εἶ
Huh, so they read my mind. Sometimes I think I should join the Gnome or Fedora teams.
I really <3 GNOME 3. Such a beautiful workflow and layout.
ThatObviousUser
ὠαἴÏÏιÏÏÎ¿Ï Ïαá¿Ï εἶ
I haven't used lightdm, but I can recommend SLIM, Simple Login Manager.
Make sure your login_cmd in slim.conf looks something like this though:
Otherwise the password authentication for things like Network Manager won't work properly. It's the ck-launch-session part that is important.
I think it has a daemon to start it with, though I use /etc/inittab to boot into runlevel 5 and start slim. I don't know if Ubuntu uses an /etc/inittab though.
Make sure your login_cmd in slim.conf looks something like this though:
Code:
login_cmd exec ck-launch-session /bin/bash -login ~/.xinitrc %sessionI think it has a daemon to start it with, though I use /etc/inittab to boot into runlevel 5 and start slim. I don't know if Ubuntu uses an /etc/inittab though.
Thanks, that's great!
GameplayWhore
Member
Ugh.
Just sayin', but setting up a system so that the boot drive is sdb and the data drive is sda is a situation full of potential headaches.
I have to pop into a recovery environment to fix fstab, because grub is installed on sdb, but as soon as it starts up, the system swaps how it sees sda and sdb, so the installer (Arch) screwed up and used the wrong dev paths for the partitions, and I have to change all instances of sdb to sda now.
Can't change them physically, because the data drive is a RAID connected via one of the PCI-something slots, and the boot drive is already physically hooked into the lowest-numbered SATA port.
Ah well, it should be all fixed up soon.
Edit: I am using a rolling release distribution for a production server. Fear me.
Just sayin', but setting up a system so that the boot drive is sdb and the data drive is sda is a situation full of potential headaches.
I have to pop into a recovery environment to fix fstab, because grub is installed on sdb, but as soon as it starts up, the system swaps how it sees sda and sdb, so the installer (Arch) screwed up and used the wrong dev paths for the partitions, and I have to change all instances of sdb to sda now.
Can't change them physically, because the data drive is a RAID connected via one of the PCI-something slots, and the boot drive is already physically hooked into the lowest-numbered SATA port.
Ah well, it should be all fixed up soon.
Edit: I am using a rolling release distribution for a production server. Fear me.
^ That's why you should use UUID instead of sda/sdb names, they don't change randomly.
I think you can find some info on the new installer design on the wiki, you should look it up and give feedback!
I think you can find some info on the new installer design on the wiki, you should look it up and give feedback!
I have installed (the newest)Linux Mint on my Desktop with good specs.
Only the just specs doesn't seem to be doing much good. It's really slow with mininum processor/memory use and I have no idea what's causing it.
Does anyone know what I can do? Updating stuff doesn't seem to solve the problem. I'm running it on a second (7200 rpm)harddrive and my first one is a SSD with Windows 7 on it.
My specs are:
i5 2400 3.1 Ghz
Ati Radeon HD 6950
Only the just specs doesn't seem to be doing much good. It's really slow with mininum processor/memory use and I have no idea what's causing it.
Does anyone know what I can do? Updating stuff doesn't seem to solve the problem. I'm running it on a second (7200 rpm)harddrive and my first one is a SSD with Windows 7 on it.
My specs are:
i5 2400 3.1 Ghz
Ati Radeon HD 6950
tfur
Member
Pull up a terminal and type: glxinfo
If you do not see "direct rendering: Yes", then you need to either install a driver from the vendor or compile an accelerated one from xorg source if it doesn't exist already.
You will have to modify your conf file to load the appropriate driver.
Unfortunately I do see that line, I also would like to add that start up isnt as fast either. That might be because Windows 7 is on a SSD but still
edit: Windows get frozen ... and I have to force quit them.
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
If my coding knowledge wasn't basically at well 0 Is easily try and join some type of Linux team. I feel currently I'd be useless though.
tfur
Member
Should never really happen.
If something was acting odd, you would see something in the dmesg output. Type that in a terminal: dmesg.
Maybe your X driver is acting up, check the log in /var/log/Xorg... what is your fps when running glxgears? What do the first 3 GL_ lines of glxgears -info give you?
check the hdd:
Run a short self test: smartctl -t short /dev/sd[whatever]
Run smartctl -a /dev/sd[whatever] to see status output.
Install dstat and run dstat -v in a terminal while reproducing slowness.
I don't do Mint, so I cannot really comment on performance or drivers etc.
TheNatural
My Member!
I used Ubuntu a bit yesterday. It works well, except for a couple things. I have a cheap Radeon 4550 graphics card though and don't think it runs well on it. I'll sometimes play a little indie game called Altitude and downloaded the Linux version of it to play and it ran like crap. The game itself is about the least graphical intensive game ever as well.
I'll keep messing with it to see what I can do, but I would think my integrated motherboard graphics would almost have to run better than this.
I'll keep messing with it to see what I can do, but I would think my integrated motherboard graphics would almost have to run better than this.
Did you install AMD's drivers?
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Yeah you probably need to install the proprietary drivers from AMD.
Also were you running an installed version or a live version?
TheNatural
My Member!
Yeah I installed the proprietary drivers from AMD that popped up in Ubuntu. It wouldn't let me install the ones that said "updated" though.
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
You running a full install or are you running a live version off .iso on a disc or usb?
The Apache Software Foundation Celebrates the 17th Anniversary of the Apache HTTP Server with the release of v2.4
Apache 2.4 Takes Direct Aim At Nginx
about time, too. apache is pretty awful and slow compared to the lighter alternatives like nginx and lighttpd. RESURGENCE, GO!
Apache 2.4 Takes Direct Aim At Nginx
about time, too. apache is pretty awful and slow compared to the lighter alternatives like nginx and lighttpd. RESURGENCE, GO!
ThatObviousUser
ὠαἴÏÏιÏÏÎ¿Ï Ïαá¿Ï εἶ
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Except basically everyone who regularly posts in this thread also regularly shits on Unity, Canonical, and all things Ubuntu in general.
PS: Finally started working a new |OT| though I wonder if it would be best to release it in 2-3 months when we have the next LTS release of Ubuntu plus the latest release of Gnome 3 and Fedora.
ThatObviousUser
ὠαἴÏÏιÏÏÎ¿Ï Ïαá¿Ï εἶ
Well yeah I don't care it's Ubuntu, but it's a good step forward for computing in general.
GameplayWhore
Member
Are you kidding? Everybody here seems like an Ubuntu megafan. Reading this thread, you wouldn't realize that there were any other distributions, except maybe for that "Arch" thing, which only weirdos use. When people say they're moving to another distro because they don't like something about the current direction, they're usually talking about another flavour of Ubuntu. Drives me slightly nuts.
Anyway, I like this idea. Android can use more in the way of clever interfaces. As is, it sometimes feels almost like a step down from PalmOS in some ways, even when you add in third party home replacements.
I use kubuntu because I am a newb, and it was easy to install. Do you have any non-ubuntu distributions besides arch which you recommend?
realalbedo
Banned
I used Debian sometime ago, then i gone Ubuntu, and now Lubuntu.
GameplayWhore
Member
Opensuse has lately been, by far, the easiest distro to install and work with for me. Its main downside is that it doesn't have as many packages in its default repositories as other operating systems. But YaST is pretty freaking amazing to work with.
Mandriva was pretty good (that was my primary OS for half a decade), but it's been a while since I've used it. Looking now, it looks like they've been having financial troubles, which is a shame. Ten years ago, I was unaware that Linux had crippling sound backend issues or package management problems, because my distro worked fine in these respects. It helps a ton that the base install includes proprietary video drivers, so they work off the bat. Great centralized control app, much like suse's.
PCLinuxOS is sort of an offshoot of Mandriva, though it's so far removed to be . It also has the benefit of the install containing extra drivers. The only thing that turned me off is that they ditched Mandriva's amazing package installer and used Synaptic, which is a bit less intuitive, doesn't support multilevel categories and always locks the package manager, even when you just want to use it to browse. It looks like they're pretty healthy nowadays. I believe they kept Mandriva's control app, though.
Fedora hasn't always worked well with me, but I haven't given it a fair shake in a long while.
I haven't really tried any of the Slackware-based distributions. They used to have a reputation for being more for the hobbyists, like Arch is now. But the Slack derivations might be really easy to use.
Gentoo is probably in a situation similar to Slackware. It's pretty hardcore, but perhaps a distro based on it might be cool.
http://distrowatch.com/ ← this is a fun place to look for new distros
http://futurist.se/gldt/ ← this is a graphical tree view of how distros are related and how they sprang up over time
I've reached the point where my treatment of Linux distros are like my treatment of video games. I don't try them all out nowadays like I used to; I just like to complain about them on message boards while reading the blogs for info on new and upcoming stuff.
edit: In case I haven't made it obvious from how much I insult it, I'm pretty much settled on Arch.
IMO, Gentoo isn't that hardcore.
To set it up, you just have to really read the guide (which basically handholds you).
The only reason it would be hard is if you don't know the hardware your system has (not sure how you would do kernel configuration that way.)
The time has come LinuxGaf.
My laptop's HDD broke about 2 weeks ago, and I ordered a new one.
I came to the realization that I never actually owned a Windows 7 disc (came pre-installed) so I decided to download Ubuntu unto a CD in preparation.
It's weird that I'm going to be using a completely new, alien OS, with a new UI. No need for any anti virus makes me concerned, but everyone tells me that there's no use for it.
I'm curious to see where the future takes me.
My laptop's HDD broke about 2 weeks ago, and I ordered a new one.
I came to the realization that I never actually owned a Windows 7 disc (came pre-installed) so I decided to download Ubuntu unto a CD in preparation.
It's weird that I'm going to be using a completely new, alien OS, with a new UI. No need for any anti virus makes me concerned, but everyone tells me that there's no use for it.
I'm curious to see where the future takes me.
Both Gentoo and Slackware are extremely easy to install and use. It's shocking both them still have that reputation looming over them. If you can install Arch then you can install either of them.
Canonical regularly gets shit from nearly all upstream projects they use to build their distribution (Debian, GNOME, kernel, Xorg, etc). That's not a coincidence.
Sure, for an Arch user these are nothing. But for people who never used or installed Linux before any system that presents the concepts of root password, /dev/sda, Xorg, desktop environment, kernel... is going to feel completely alien. People who just want a quick, pretty and fast system to use on their computers should stick to the distributions that cater to them, i.e. Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE and the like.
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
The big two that have always gone sort of head to head have been Ubuntu and Fedora. Those two are basically the main to go to all in one already setup desktop distros outside of upstream and downstream Ubuntu stuff like Debian or Linux Mint.
Debian based distros are just easy to use because Ubuntu got popular, and so most every linux program has a prepacked software installer as a .deb file similar to say windows installers where you just download the file and double click to get to installing.
Honestly these days it's less about distro to distro and more about desktop user interfaces which is still distro to distro to an extent. I think it's more about finding the best desktop user interface that synergizes with your mind and the way you do things since most major distros all have the bare essentials need these days anyways. If you like stock Gnome 3 go with Fedora obviously. If you are still holding out with OG Gnome 2.3 then probably stick with Debian until they decide what they'll do when they update. If you like Unity stick with Ubuntu.
Most every distro is going to come with Firefox, some sort of audio player, some sort of video player, a terminal etc... that's all most people REALLY need for average use.
PS: Not to say that different distros don't have other versions featuring alternative desktop options or you couldn't use one of the more create your own distros and you could chose what you want. Just that the main line distro usually gets the most push and support and such.
This post more or less sums up my thoughts about linux. I simply can't put a ton of time into fiddling with an OS, but Linux is better than windows in some ways. Having a separate paritition for the HOME folder is a plus, having free home/office/media applications is a plus. The KDE GUI looks great on my HDTV.
Using the most popular distributions makes sense because if I have an issue, there is a decent chance that someone else has had it as well, and fixing it is a google search away.
No more flash on GNU/Linux after 11.02: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA2MDc
I'm guessing by the time they stop supporting it no one will be using it anymore since html5 is still on the rise.
I'm guessing by the time they stop supporting it no one will be using it anymore since html5 is still on the rise.
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
I say that too, but idk.... so many sites still hold on to flash...
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Oh yeah the day that many thought would never exist...
GIMP Google +
PS: Could be nice to have two big upgrades to open source software in the 1st 3 months of the year with VLC and now GIMP!!
GIMP Google +
"We started finishing release notes for 2.8, if that's all right with you ;-)"
PS: Could be nice to have two big upgrades to open source software in the 1st 3 months of the year with VLC and now GIMP!!