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Linux Distro Noob thread of Linux noobs

Z

zoku88

Member
Flying_Phoenix said:
The thing is though is that some laptop act sketchier than others. For example my current one has a problem of not sleeping at times when I close the lid, or freezing after I close.
Click to expand...

Hmm, well, the two Asus laptops I used a while ago seemed to be fine.

Not sure, though, I'm not really into laptops.
 
V

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
I know it's out of fashion and everyone's moved onto Gnome Shell + Fedora/Gentoo/Arch etc... but I guess I'm still going to helm another official Ubuntu topic for the next release which also happens to be LTS.

Let me know if you all think it'll be a waste of time though as I'm not going to start the topic till probably next week.
 
C

ComputerMKII

Banned
Brettison said:
I know it's out of fashion and everyone's moved onto Gnome Shell + Fedora/Gentoo/Arch etc... but I guess I'm still going to helm another official Ubuntu topic for the next release which also happens to be LTS.

Let me know if you all think it'll be a waste of time though as I'm not going to start the topic till probably next week.
Click to expand...
I'll be following your thread.
 
V

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Anyone know why SSHing in to a remote server could be slow? Use to be fast. Now? Not so much. Just seems laggy, and I'm sure it's not my connection.
 
G

GameplayWhore

Member
Brettison said:
Anyone know why SSHing in to a remote server could be slow? Use to be fast. Now? Not so much. Just seems laggy, and I'm sure it's not my connection.
Click to expand...

Could be a bunch of things. For starters, do you have compression enabled (`ssh -C` or `rsync -z`)?

edit: Looking around the web, performance can be negatively affected if you have X11 forwarding enabled, or if your cpu is being heavily utilized on either side, or if you have different versions on client and server. Apparently setting "UseDNS" to "no" in sshd_config can stop slowness related to reverse DNS lookups.

http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/08/16/window/ ← erroneous routing table entries can cause lag issues in ssh
 
I

Izick

Member
So I'm still not exactly sure, is Flash terrible for everyone here?

I mean, I can't even watch videos in Youtube in HD, or go fullscreen no matter what the resolution. Because if I go HD or fullscreen the video slows down to a complete crawl whilst the audio keeps normal pace.

(Nice new avatar by the way, GameplayWhore! :p)
 
K

-KRS-

Member
Izick said:
So I'm still not exactly sure, is Flash terrible for everyone here?

I mean, I can't even watch videos in Youtube in HD, or go fullscreen no matter what the resolution. Because if I go HD or fullscreen the video slows down to a complete crawl whilst the audio keeps normal pace.
Click to expand...

Yeah it happens quite often for me too. Not all the time though. I can usually actually watch the video in fullscreen at a decent framerate, at the beginning. It will start out "fine" but when the CPU gets hotter it seems that videos start to stutter like crazy. Like, almost slide-show slow. Then it does this for a while and then all of a sudden it will jump back again and start playing smoothly for a minute, then back to the stuttering etc. I thought it was my old C2D 2.0Ghz CPU that just was not up to the task though. And yes I do have hardware accelleration turned on in the flash settings. The laptop only has an Intel X3100 GPU though. 64-bit Arch Linux on it.

This has been my experience with flash on Linux since I started using Linux though, so I'm not exactly surpriced.
 
P

peakish

Member
Between performance differing greatly between browsers, plugin versions, installations (IcedTea vs. vanilla, what should I get?!) and hardware acceleration, flash is a god damn mess for me on Linux. Right now I browse in Opera and watch Youtube in Chrome since that works all right.

This may all just be because both my desktop and notebook are quite slow, hardware wise but regardless I'm just incredibly tired of Flash these days. I don't really want to hate on it because it's meant so much for the web since, I don't know, a decade back?, but man.


Now for some OT, I'm seriously considering making the jump from Opera right now. It just feels sluggish on Linux which sucks, and as they no longer really seem to push new features (going by what I've seen of 12.00, except for this which is damn nifty if ever widely accepted. Not in 12.00 tho) there no longer seems to be any reason to stick to it. I like the idea of going more Gnome but as well as Epiphany should fit my parents browsing habits (tagging bookmarks? genius!) it's kind of too basic for me. So, Firefox or Chromium?
 
T

Tworak

Member
angelfly said:
I saw it earlier. I'm not really convinced on it's usefulness yet. Also found it funny they claim it's a ssh replacement and boast about not needing and daemons yet requires ssh to use it.
Click to expand...
yeh. secure shell is getting kind of old, but no reason to replace it until something actually better comes along. the telnet > ssh jump was fairly huge, by comparison.
 
G

GameplayWhore

Member
peakish said:
Between performance differing greatly between browsers, plugin versions, installations (IcedTea vs. vanilla, what should I get?!) and hardware acceleration, flash is a god damn mess for me on Linux. Right now I browse in Opera and watch Youtube in Chrome since that works all right.

This may all just be because both my desktop and notebook are quite slow, hardware wise but regardless I'm just incredibly tired of Flash these days. I don't really want to hate on it because it's meant so much for the web since, I don't know, a decade back?, but man.


Now for some OT, I'm seriously considering making the jump from Opera right now. It just feels sluggish on Linux which sucks, and as they no longer really seem to push new features (going by what I've seen of 12.00, except for this which is damn nifty if ever widely accepted. Not in 12.00 tho) there no longer seems to be any reason to stick to it. I like the idea of going more Gnome but as well as Epiphany should fit my parents browsing habits (tagging bookmarks? genius!) it's kind of too basic for me. So, Firefox or Chromium?
Click to expand...

It's pretty fine over here. Opera's not as stable as it used to be when Flash is concerned, but it's usually okay on my end, and I don't have performance issues at all. I really should have performance issues, since I typically have a couple hundred tabs open! :O

I'd say it could be a distro thing, but of the two distros I commonly used (opensuse and archlinux, both 64-bit), one is being problematic with syntfourx, so there's probably some other common element at work here.
 
C

CorrisD

badchoiceboobies
I don't know if this is the place to ask, or if there is another thread, but I figure I will ask here anyway.
I've got an old Laptop that is a bit run down and doesn't get along with XP anymore, old being about 6 years now, it was my girlfriends but she doesn't use it as she has a netbook and new laptop, anyway.

The TV downstairs has an old PS3 hooked up to it that we use to watch DVDs, movies, tv shows, etc., what I ideally want to do is set up the Laptop has some sort of media hub to stream stuff to the PS3 to watch on the TV.

So the question is, what is the best way to do this.

What would be the best distro to use on some old hardware that is just simply a streaming device, and does anyone know of a good application to use.
The last Linux setup I did have was Ubuntu and used PS3MediaServer, but that was a while ago and to not beat around the bush that was my only experience with Linux and I didn't really know what I was doing at the time.

Any help would be appreciated.
 
G

GameplayWhore

Member
CorrisD said:
The TV downstairs has an old PS3 hooked up to it that we use to watch DVDs, movies, tv shows, etc., what I ideally want to do is set up the Laptop has some sort of media hub to stream stuff to the PS3 to watch on the TV.

So the question is, what is the best way to do this.
Click to expand...

My home machine is set up with a samba server (same protocol as Windows Networking). I have my movies and such saved in regular folders, and I use a WD Live TV in my living room (as well as a modded Wii, usually down with the projector in the Media Room) to access them. The upside is that you can organize your videos the way you want to. Another upside is that if you rip your DVDs to ISO files, then some devices will open them up as if they were actual discs, with selections and everything -- media servers might not allow this. The most major downside is that while it all works smoothly, it doesn't convert formats on the fly, so your device has to be compatible with whatever the video file is that you're reading.

So, yeah, one answer is to use just regular file sharing. This'd work on any distro. Or, hell, in pretty much any PC-level operating system.
 
K

Krelian

Member
CorrisD said:
What would be the best distro to use on some old hardware that is just simply a streaming device, and does anyone know of a good application to use.
The last Linux setup I did have was Ubuntu and used PS3MediaServer, but that was a while ago and to not beat around the bush that was my only experience with Linux and I didn't really know what I was doing at the time.

Any help would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
Don't have a PS3 aynmore, but when I did I used Mediatomb to set up a streaming server. You'll have to read the manual to set it up but it wasn't that hard as far as I can remember.

I recommend a lightweight distro like Arch with Openbox. If you're new to Linux a distro like Xubuntu will do fine too.

Btw, anyone looking for a good game to play under Linux should check out Freespace 2. You can buy the GOG version for the data files and use Freespace Open to play it.
 
V

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
GF randomly called me at 8 o'clock saying she didn't have to go Volunteer at the Children's Hospital so she was coming over to study. Wellll I didn't plan on getting up early, but I did when she got her.

Ended up bored sitting on my comp with my coffee listening to spotify while she studied. That turned into me going funk it I'm bored lets download the Ubuntu Beta 2 + Linux Live USB Installer. Anyways I just got back from lunch (mmmm Zaxby's Kick'n Chicken Sandwich!), and here I am posting from Precise Pangolin!

It's also worth noting this is my 1st experience trying to Linux preview of Spotify as well! I got semi confused during the install, but I got it done rather easily. Works like a charm too! No reason to call it a preview IMO.
 
I

Izick

Member
Brettison said:
GF randomly called me at 8 o'clock saying she didn't have to go Volunteer at the Children's Hospital so she was coming over to study. Wellll I didn't plan on getting up early, but I did when she got her.

Ended up bored sitting on my comp with my coffee listening to spotify while she studied. That turned into me going funk it I'm bored lets download the Ubuntu Beta 2 + Linux Live USB Installer. Anyways I just got back from lunch (mmmm Zaxby's Kick'n Chicken Sandwich!), and here I am posting from Precise Pangolin!

It's also worth noting this is my 1st experience trying to Linux preview of Spotify as well! I got semi confused during the install, but I got it done rather easily. Works like a charm too! No reason to call it a preview IMO.
Click to expand...

Stealth brag post. Just kidding. :p

That's awesome to hear! How is Spotify on Linux? I really enjoyed it when I used it on Windows, and it was just one of those programs I never looked into once I migrated.

I'm also glad to hear that you're enjoying Precise as well! I'm getting sooooo excited for its release. I honestly haven't heard any bad things so far.
 
V

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Izick said:
Stealth brag post. Just kidding. :p

That's awesome to hear! How is Spotify on Linux? I really enjoyed it when I used it on Windows, and it was just one of those programs I never looked into once I migrated.

I'm also glad to hear that you're enjoying Precise as well! I'm getting sooooo excited for its release. I honestly haven't heard any bad things so far.
Click to expand...

Hardly a brag. Don't tell her this, but I wish I'd gotten sleep instead! LOLOLOL

Honestly Spotify on Linux seems to do all of the shit Spotify on Windows does. IDK about the Apps, but for regular playing + FB login/integration it works the same. I'd hardly call it a preview especially since Spotify is this rolling release montholith now anyways. Definitely worth the install!

PS: Playing music through it as I type this.
 
I

Izick

Member
Brettison said:
Hardly a brag. Don't tell her this, but I wish I'd gotten sleep instead! LOLOLOL

Honestly Spotify on Linux seems to do all of the shit Spotify on Windows does. IDK about the Apps, but for regular playing + FB login/integration it works the same. I'd hardly call it a preview especially since Spotify is this rolling release montholith now anyways. Definitely worth the install!

PS: Playing music through it as I type this.
Click to expand...

Cool! I never really messed with anything in Spotify besides actually just playing music. I made a profile when it was in beta, I think, and I never even had to link my FB to it. Never even messed with the Apps at all.

That's good to hear! I think I may install it now actually. Is it on the Software Center, or Terminal only?
 
V

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Izick said:
Cool! I never really messed with anything in Spotify besides actually just playing music. I made a profile when it was in beta, I think, and I never even had to link my FB to it. Never even messed with the Apps at all.

That's good to hear! I think I may install it now actually. Is it on the Software Center, or Terminal only?
Click to expand...

Terminal only since it's a "preview", but the Spotify website has like 4 steps to install. Just follow the steps, and boom you are good to go.
 
P

peakish

Member
All right folks, having tried FreeNAS I'm thinking about trying something else as a home server. I'm thinking about Ubuntu Server to start with, any better suggestions before I start tomorrow? :)
 
A

angelfly

Member
Flying_Phoenix said:
What's the best web browser for Linux?
Click to expand...
That's going to vary from person to person. Firefox is what I use and it works the best for me. I'm also quite fond of uzbl but stopped using it since I found myself tweaking more than browsing but that's mainly since I'd always get ideas on new things to try. I plan on coming back to it someday.
 
I

Izick

Member
Firefox and Chrome are still top dogs in my opinion.

What does Qupzilla bring to the table? I'm intrigued to try it out perhaps.
 
G

GameplayWhore

Member
Flying_Phoenix said:
Hey guys I found a badass little web browser called Qupzilla. Its fast and uses very little CPU resources.

Anyone else use this?

What's the best web browser for Linux?
Click to expand...

As an occasional Qt programmer, I highly, highly applaud this.

As a user, though, it's not exactly my qup of tea. It's incredibly lacking in customization options. You can't even move the tab bar to other locations! Still, it seems solid enough, and it's nice that it has rudimentary gesture support.
 
E

Elfforkusu

Member
I have to say, I am in the market (so to speak) for a new lightweight web browser. Chrome/ium and Firefox are the "correct" choices, but both of them are now too memory hungry to be useful on a machine with 512 MB of RAM.

Not an issue on my main laptop, but I have an old machine that used to be a lot more useful than it is now, because the browsers are freaking swapping all the time.
 
Z

zoku88

Member
angelfly said:
That's going to vary from person to person. Firefox is what I use and it works the best for me. I'm also quite fond of uzbl but stopped using it since I found myself tweaking more than browsing but that's mainly since I'd always get ideas on new things to try. I plan on coming back to it someday.
Click to expand...

I have to try that out sometime. I took a quick look at the wikipedia page and saw that you could click on links using your keyboard :)

I hate having to switch between typing on my keyboard and using my mouse. I wish that firefox or chromium would let me go keyboard only.
 
A

angelfly

Member
zoku88 said:
I have to try that out sometime. I took a quick look at the wikipedia page and saw that you could click on links using your keyboard :)

I hate having to switch between typing on my keyboard and using my mouse. I wish that firefox or chromium would let me go keyboard only.
Click to expand...

vimperater or pentadactyl are what you're looking for. The latter being a fork of the former. I personally use pentadactyl.
 
Z

zoku88

Member
angelfly said:
vimperater or pentadactyl are what you're looking for. The latter being a fork of the former. I personally use pentadactyl.
Click to expand...

Hmm, interesting. Tried them both. The former is more to my liking (or, at least, actually worked. Maybe the latter doesn't work with nightly?)

I think I will try this out a bit more to see if it's to my liking.

Thanks for the links.
 
P

peakish

Member
Is anyone else using the Save As Web Application feature of Epiphany? I started out a few days ago, saving my Gmail, Facebook and Twitter as them. They now reside on separate workspaces above my main browser (or one shared workspace on my desktop with it's larger screen) instead of in pinned tabs in my browser. Feels quite nice and fits with the workspace = task focus of Gnome 3. Will see if I stick with it or not.

Only problem: Each window takes between 100 and 200 MB of my RAM :S Geez, share resources or something.
 
V

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Elfforkusu said:
I have to say, I am in the market (so to speak) for a new lightweight web browser. Chrome/ium and Firefox are the "correct" choices, but both of them are now too memory hungry to be useful on a machine with 512 MB of RAM.

Not an issue on my main laptop, but I have an old machine that used to be a lot more useful than it is now, because the browsers are freaking swapping all the time.
Click to expand...

Biggest block is even if you get a lightweight browser all of the websites figure for anyone not on mobile you probably have a gig. So you get a ton of things like banners, pics, flash etc... that screw you even if you have a light weight browser.

You can try Midori if you haven't already. Not sure how much better than Chrome/Safari it is, but it's worth a shot.
 
E

Elfforkusu

Member
Brettison said:
Biggest block is even if you get a lightweight browser all of the websites figure for anyone not on mobile you probably have a gig. So you get a ton of things like banners, pics, flash etc... that screw you even if you have a light weight browser.

You can try Midori if you haven't already. Not sure how much better than Chrome/Safari it is, but it's worth a shot.
Click to expand...
Right, but I'm okay with no flash. Large image handling is an interesting conundrum that most of them also seem terrible at, but IIRC Opera used to be pretty good at. I wonder if they've kept their stuff as efficient, I think Opera 9.6 was the last one I used.

I'll give Midori a shot.
 
O

Oracle Dragon

Member
Ok so I have another noob question and I'm hoping you guys can provide maybe some real life experience with this vs ancient forum postings I can find.

I'm looking at switching my linux machine from Ubuntu to Mint (ok not a big change, I grant). However at the same time I want to upgrade the video card because it is pretty crappy performance in the Ubuntu UI (gnome, not Unity). The video currently is the built on AMD/ATI (Asus M4A785-M w/ 785G).

I'm not playing games so just looking for a solid fast card to accelerate the GUI, I can choose between an Nvidia 8800GT and a Radeon HD5750. If I was on Windows the Radeon is a bit better however for Linux I read (old) posts that say ATI/AMD driver support for Linux is quite poor while Nvidia is better. But the video drivers are use now are the AMD ones for Ubuntu and other than the slow performance (which I attribute to aging on-board video) they seemed pretty stable to me.

Which one should I go for? (Or will neither card make an appreciable difference from the 785G on board, and Gnome UI is just a dog, though I find that hard to believe).
 
A

angelfly

Member
Oracle Dragon said:
Ok so I have another noob question and I'm hoping you guys can provide maybe some real life experience with this vs ancient forum postings I can find.

I'm looking at switching my linux machine from Ubuntu to Mint (ok not a big change, I grant). However at the same time I want to upgrade the video card because it is pretty crappy performance in the Ubuntu UI (gnome, not Unity). The video currently is the built on AMD/ATI (Asus M4A785-M w/ 785G).

I'm not playing games so just looking for a solid fast card to accelerate the GUI, I can choose between an Nvidia 8800GT and a Radeon HD5750. If I was on Windows the Radeon is a bit better however for Linux I read (old) posts that say ATI/AMD driver support for Linux is quite poor while Nvidia is better. But the video drivers are use now are the AMD ones for Ubuntu and other than the slow performance (which I attribute to aging on-board video) they seemed pretty stable to me.

Which one should I go for? (Or will neither card make an appreciable difference from the 785G on board, and Gnome UI is just a dog, though I find that hard to believe).
Click to expand...

If you're not using the proprietary driver both the AMD and Nvidia cards should work fine. I'm currently using a 9600 and before that a 4770 and both worked great with the free drivers. In the case of the proprietary drivers Nvidia in the past has ben loads better. However I haven't used either of the proprietary ones in years so I don't know if it's still the case. I'd go with the 5750.
 
I

Izick

Member
So I had to install MSTCore Fonts again, so that Google Earth's cousin didn't look like a close cousin to wingdings, and I remembered how weird everything looks on web browsers with it back in.

Does anyone keep it? Do you just get used to it or what? I don't know what it is, but the text looks so smushed, and like too big at the same time. Weird stuff.
 
C

ComputerMKII

Banned
My Ubuntu install is weird and buggy since I installed lots of desktop environments so I'd like to do a clean install.

Is the new 12.04 Beta stable enough or should I install 11.10?
 
M

MrHicks

Banned
why can't linux distros do "seamless upgrades" between versions?

everyone on the ubuntu forums suggests backup up your files and doing a fresh install with every new release

thats so oldschool/assbackwards
i normally don't do a fresh install EVER...its not needed on windows
going from vista----->win7------>win8 is pretty seamless

know what i'm saying?
 
T

ThatObviousUser

ὁ αἴσχιστος παῖς εἶ
I'd sooner do a fresh install of a new version of Windows than Linux, Windows gets pretty cruddy over time with all the programs you install.
 
H

Hieberrr

Member
Sorry for bumping this thread.

This is an honest question: Why do you prefer Ubuntu or your linux distro over, say, Windows?

I've been meaning to try Ubuntu out, but I really need Office, dropbox, etc... and especially Google Talk :S
 
C

ComputerMKII

Banned
Installation of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Beta 2 went out smoothly, currently updating and installing programs . :)

This time I did bother making a separate partition for /home, since it was recommended to me.
 
P

peakish

Member
MrHicks said:
why can't linux distros do "seamless upgrades" between versions?

everyone on the ubuntu forums suggests backup up your files and doing a fresh install with every new release

thats so oldschool/assbackwards
i normally don't do a fresh install EVER...its not needed on windows
going from vista----->win7------>win8 is pretty seamless

know what i'm saying?
Click to expand...
So with this and your previous comment on media players in Linux, are you only in this thread to post nonsense? Distro upgrade isn't perfect, but it's worked fine for me the last times I've done it. Anyway I often start fresh because I distro switch a lot (on my "Ubuntu machine" at least), plus it's seriously no big deal to install Linux as compared to Windows.

Hieberrr said:
Sorry for bumping this thread.

This is an honest question: Why do you prefer Ubuntu or your linux distro over, say, Windows?

I've been meaning to try Ubuntu out, but I really need Office, dropbox, etc...
Click to expand...
Good question. There's a number of things I like about Linux, but off the top of my head I enjoy the window managers more (mainly scrolling in inactive windows by hovering the mouse over them which just about everything I've tried has), quite a few apps are nicer than counterparts I've tried in Windows, there are loads of experimenting going on with the user experience, and it's easy to change the experience to suit my particular needs.

On top of that I enjoy the fact that this (most of it at least) is built cooperatively by contributors from all over the world and is made available to everyone for free, it's really quite amazing the work that's put into it.

Finally, package managers has mostly moved the terrible software installation and upgrade procedure of windows into centralised apps, quite a nice bonus as compared to hunting .exe's and every program updating itself on it's own. There are of course things I enjoy about windows, it's an all right experience with 7 and looking even better with 8. But the only thing I really prefer in it is the driver support and loads of games, haha.

If you'd like to try Ubuntu without committing, you can actually install it as any other app in Windows and delete if you aren't pleased :) Dropbox is available, though not Office (for that you'll have to be satisfied with LibreOffice).
 
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