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Linux Distro Noob thread of Linux noobs

zoku88

Member
It's not been decided yet, but yeah that's a shame.

Given their options, all of which sucked, I can see why they went with that one. As far as I can tell from that post, it was the least sucky option they had (from a user perspective.)
 
I've had Ubuntu installed for a while now on my laptop that runs Windows 7. What are some of the benefits of using Ubuntu over Windows 7? Also,

- what is the best app for twitter/facebook?
- is there a way to access my Windows files while on Ubuntu?

I had more questions but I forgot.... lol
 

Izick

Member
Am I the only one who thought that the minimize effect at the 12 second mark was the page sticking to the screen over and over again as a glitch (instead of a pseudo rendition of the Sydney Opera House)?

Hahaha I thought that too at first. I thought Youtube glitched or something.
 

TheFatOne

Member
So GAF I installed Ubuntu on my mom's computer, but the wireless internet keeps dropping. It connects at first drops, and then the only way I can reconnect is if I plug in the wireless adapter again. Any ideas on what might be causing this issue?
 

Tworak

Member
So GAF I installed Ubuntu on my mom's computer, but the wireless internet keeps dropping. It connects at first drops, and then the only way I can reconnect is if I plug in the wireless adapter again. Any ideas on what might be causing this issue?
which version of ubuntu?
which adapter?

I'm going to go ahead and assume it's a device with questionable or worse linux drivers. that's how it goes usually, unfortunately.
 

TheFatOne

Member
which version of ubuntu?
which adapter?

I'm going to go ahead and assume it's a device with questionable or worse linux drivers. that's how it goes usually, unfortunately.

Ubuntu 12.04. Yea that was my guess as well. Can anyone recommend a solid wireless adapter that works well with Ubuntu.
 

Turok_TTZ

Member
hm... would like to use linux but not sure where to start... Ubuntu or Linux Mint? Would appreciate an easy intro but would also like to become more familiar in the future to the point where I can use more advanced linux without trouble.
 

-KRS-

Member
I'd say that you can't go wrong with either of those choices if you're just starting out. Get familiar with the GUI and how to install packages using the GUI and where files are located in the filesystem and stuff like that before you start to learn about things like the terminal. There are for example specific directories in the filesystem for specific things, like /etc for settings files and /usr/bin for application binaries and /home for your personal files. That's not crucial to know in the beginning though, so just start to use the GUI and figure things out from there. But such things are crucial to know if you want to use a more advanced distro. So that's why you start with a more beginner friendly distro and then start to learn more advanced stuff inside that.

So I say start with Ubuntu and just use it with the GUI and get familiar with that. Or if you want a more Windows-like UI you can try Kubuntu which uses the KDE desktop. KDE has more settings in the GUI with something a bit like the Control Panel in Windows. Then when you feel ready you can start to read about more advanced things and understand how that works.

And bookmark this page for when you start learning the command line. It's a very good intro. It also has a tour of the most important directories in the filesystem. There will be some differences though, like they talk about the directory /usr/X11R6/ which is not really used anymore, and /etc/init.d which is /etc/rcX.d, where X is a number, on Ubuntu/Kubuntu.
http://linuxcommand.org/learning_the_shell.php
 

Turok_TTZ

Member
Installed Ubuntu though it took me awhile. was not prepared to shrink my partition. 300+gb of free storage and win7's VDM says i can only get 60gb free... used perfect disk and got the remaining 40gb i needed.

Certainly a different experience on a linux OS. why is there no task manager?! definitely liking the workspace switcher. Do I need firewall for linux? I understand it that I dont need antivirus but not sure about firewall.

On windows 7 I used Media Player Classic HomeCinema with a combo of lav/ffdshow filters and madvr. is there any equilavent of that on linux?
 

-KRS-

Member
For task manager there's Gnome System Monitor (I think... I don't know if Ubuntu includes it but I'd assume so. There should be some sort of System Monitor though.)

As for firewall, don't you have one in your router? That's all you need really. If you don't there's Firestarter and a bunch of other ones. What they do is give you a GUI for iptables which is what you use to control the firewall that's built into the kernel. I've never used a local firewall on Linux though.

And as far as media players go, MPlayer (or Gnome MPlayer/GMPlayer which is the GTK GUI for MPlayer) is really good. And of course there's VLC as well.
 

IISANDERII

Member
Certainly a different experience on a linux OS. why is there no task manager?! definitely liking the workspace switcher. Do I need firewall for linux?
There is a task manager but it's called System Monitor.
I don't know about firewalling, I haven't needed one at least.
 

nan0

Member
If you want to use a taskmanager primarily for monitoring/killing programs, there is htop. You can use the PIDs with kill to force quit a faulty programm.
 

-KRS-

Member
There is, but he doesn't know much about using a CLI yet since it's the first(?) time he uses Linux. So a GUI application is better suited for him for now.

But yes, if all else fails there's the top (is htop included as a standard in most distros?) ps, and kill commands.

Edit: htop was not included in arch linux as I had to install it just now. I've heard about htop before but I don't think I've ever tried it. I see now that it's clearly superior to regular top, so thanks for bringing it up! :>
 
If you want to use a taskmanager primarily for monitoring/killing programs, there is htop. You can use the PIDs with kill to force quit a faulty programm.

htop is great. But if you're already running it, why use "kill"? Just highlight the bad processes and type k9<enter>


Also,

Code:
pgrep -fl firefox

Code:
pkill -f firefox
 
I use 'killall' for killing by process name.

I used to use that a long time ago. I think I stopped using it because it wasn't available on FreeBSD, which I ran for a time. In fact I didn't even realize that it was available on Linux, and am suddenly surprised that it's built into archlinux.
 

tfur

Member
I used to use that a long time ago. I think I stopped using it because it wasn't available on FreeBSD, which I ran for a time. In fact I didn't even realize that it was available on Linux, and am suddenly surprised that it's built into archlinux.

A command not worth spreading. It does drastically different things between Solaris and Linux.
 

Turok_TTZ

Member
thanks for the responses so far. as to cli well Im a total noob at it. barely familiar with it in windows even. I will try to learn cli soon. I need it as I have a tendency to encode something every now and then. I nearly forgot that link ye posted earlier synt4x. I appreciate that ye posted it, will check later. atm still getting used to Ubuntu linux but im getting there.

My current disappointment with ubuntu atm is Opera, that browser be faulty in this OS but I feel thats more fault on Opera's side than Ubuntu. Not a fan of Firefox or chromium but I'll stick with Firefox for the time being.

Edit: nearly forgot about this... when ye first install a linux os, first account ye create is the root account? if so, I should create another account? was wondering why there was a admin account and a standard one in user accounts.
 
Edit: nearly forgot about this... when ye first install a linux os, first account ye create is the root account? if so, I should create another account? was wondering why there was a admin account and a standard one in user accounts.

A regular user account should never be an admin. It's just too easy to accidentally do something catastrophic. Or, if your account is somehow taken control of by someone or something malicious, they'd be able to mess with the system instead of with your individual files and settings.

All operating systems pretty much work this way, with you generally having just regular user permissions and having to do something additional to do admin-level stuff to the computer.


killall5 is the equivalent

This does not appear to exist by default in all Linux distros, though.
edit: wait, maybe I'm wrong. It's in /sbin for some reason on this machine, so it wasn't in my user's $PATH
 

-KRS-

Member
Edit: nearly forgot about this... when ye first install a linux os, first account ye create is the root account? if so, I should create another account? was wondering why there was a admin account and a standard one in user accounts.

The account you create in the Ubuntu install is a regular user account. There is no traditional root user in Ubuntu if I remember correctly. You just enter your regular password to do administrative things like install applications. So there's no need to create another account.
 

tfur

Member
killall5 is the equivalent

I guess the point is that someone who has been using the Linux killall command, will end up screwing things up by mistake if they jump on Solaris. I have seen it happen for people who have killall in their muscle memory.
 

Turok_TTZ

Member
currently pleased with my linux experience so far. atm just installed my vorbis encoder after failing with nero aac. not sure how to use nero aac in ubuntu (keep getting permission denied...) but ogg vorbis works just as fine if not better (though I ended up wasting 5 mins recompiling and reinstalling latest aotuv build thinking I messed up as i cudnt encode vorbis files only to find out i didnt even have oggenc installed). having ogginfo and mediainfo telling me that my test files were encoded by aotuv made it worthwhile though.

now to figure out x264 and avxsynth.... always used a gui for avisynth and x264. totally not used to this yet but I'll get there...
 

-KRS-

Member
Well I'm not very familiar with codecs and encoding video etc, but remember that most commands have a manual page or at the very least a help flag that gives you a quick overview of all options (flags) you can use with the command.

x264 only has a help flag, which you use like this in a terminal:
Code:
x264 --help

For most commands there's a manual for it which you can read by typing "man <command>", eg:
Code:
man ls
Then you press 'q' to exit the manual when you're done. Remember these two methods of getting help because every command worth a damn has any of those two. Sometimes both.

What exactly is it you're trying to do btw?
 
For most commands there's a manual for it which you can read by typing "man <command>", eg:
Code:
man ls
Then you press 'q' to exit the manual when you're done. Remember these two methods of getting help because every command worth a damn has any of those two. Sometimes both.

Other than that its interface seemed pretty terrible, whatever happened to the "info" command?

Also, man pages rock. But keep in mind, earlier post, that most command-line apps support a "--help" parameter, which will give you less concise but simpler listings of what the program does. And if you're in man, typing a forward slash ("/") lets you search for a term (like in most web browsers worth their weight in code), and then 'n' and 'N' will allow you to continue searching for the same term forward and backward, respectively.



Also, I just want to say that I just used ssh and wine to connect to my home computer to install a Windows game from the late '90s onto my box using its CD installer. It feels good whenever I do something like that. :D
 

Turok_TTZ

Member
Well I'm not very familiar with codecs and encoding video etc, but remember that most commands have a manual page or at the very least a help flag that gives you a quick overview of all options (flags) you can use with the command.

x264 only has a help flag, which you use like this in a terminal:
Code:
x264 --help

For most commands there's a manual for it which you can read by typing "man <command>", eg:
Code:
man ls
Then you press 'q' to exit the manual when you're done. Remember these two methods of getting help because every command worth a damn has any of those two. Sometimes both.

What exactly is it you're trying to do btw?

oh I'm just setting up my encoding stuff. I have a tendency to encode and backup every dvd I have. Truthfully I don't think I'll have to worry about x264 (I'm more concerned with using avxsynth and nero aac atm) since the gui i used to encode x264 always showed me the cli version of my settings. My main concern atm is Nero aac.
I keep getting permission denied with the linux binary. can't use it at all. truly baffling.
 
oh I'm just setting up my encoding stuff. I have a tendency to encode and backup every dvd I have. Truthfully I don't think I'll have to worry about x264 (I'm more concerned with using avxsynth and nero aac atm) since the gui i used to encode x264 always showed me the cli version of my settings. My main concern atm is Nero aac.
I keep getting permission denied with the linux binary. can't use it at all. truly baffling.

Ripping DVDs? I assumed you were doing something more advanced. Have you looked at Handbrake? It has both a gui and a cli, and while its options are rather limited it seems to do a good job at this task.

edit: I don't know what Nero AAC is specifically, though. edit: I see its in my repositories, but is it substantially different from regular AAC?
 

tuffy

Member
edit: I don't know what Nero AAC is specifically, though. edit: I see its in my repositories, but is it substantially different from regular AAC?
The faac encoder is no longer maintained and of dubious quality. Its developers moved on to neroAacEnc, which is better, actively developed, but closed-source.
 

-KRS-

Member
oh I'm just setting up my encoding stuff. I have a tendency to encode and backup every dvd I have. Truthfully I don't think I'll have to worry about x264 (I'm more concerned with using avxsynth and nero aac atm) since the gui i used to encode x264 always showed me the cli version of my settings. My main concern atm is Nero aac.
I keep getting permission denied with the linux binary. can't use it at all. truly baffling.

I guess you could try putting "sudo" before the command if you haven't tried that already. But be aware that the file that's produced then will be owned by root, so you'll likely have to change ownership with chown like this afterwards to use it as your user:
Code:
sudo chown <username>:users <filename>
i.e.: sudo chown synt4x:users filename

The "users" part after the colon is the group that will have access to the file. users is a standard group in most (all?) distros that every regular user is put into. It doesn't really matter what group you write though, as long as it exists. Another group that exists in Ubuntu is named after your user, so in my case that would be synt4x:synt4x. The only one in that group is your user.

Actually, thinking about it, maybe that's the problem with nero aac? Your user might not be allowed to run the binary. Try changing the owner and group of the binary as well and try to run it without sudo. It might also be that the binary is not executable. You can change that by right clicking the file in the file manager and going into Properties and finding the permissions. Or with chmod in a terminal:
Code:
sudo chmod +x filename

This might seem like a bit much to take in right now so I understand if you feel confused. (and I have also not explained it very well) :p
File permissions is an important part of unix though so I recommend getting used to it. That linuxcommand.com link I posted has an explanation of file permissions in linux.
 
just installed my vorbis encoder after failing with nero aac. not sure how to use nero aac in ubuntu (keep getting permission denied...) but ogg vorbis works just as fine if not better

I'm suddenly curious… did you install that aac encoder using a graphical program or with apt-get/aptitude, or by some other means?
 

Turok_TTZ

Member
I'm suddenly curious&#8230; did you install that aac encoder using a graphical program or with apt-get/aptitude, or by some other means?

nope. could only get it from nero's site. was in a zip file.
meanwhile changed permissions only for terminal to tell me it does not exist!
perhaps i shud just get wine, run foobar, and use it there? the zip files came with windows and linux binaries of the encoder.

Edit: Took me 10 minutes but I can now encode x264 with cli. similar to vorbis just a hell lot more options to add. so pleased, now I can encode 10bit h264 in linux. now its just that aac issue and avxsynth...
 
nope. could only get it from nero's site. was in a zip file.
meanwhile changed permissions only for terminal to tell me it does not exist!
perhaps i shud just get wine, run foobar, and use it there? the zip files came with windows and linux binaries of the encoder.

Unfortunately, I can't download the zip file to look, as it requires me to subscribe to their newsletter, which is annoying.

However, if you are in the same directory as the program file, do it like this:

./programname

instead of

programname

Doing it the second way will only try try to run programs with that name in the system path. (edit: which would be a good reason why it'd claim the program does not exist)

You could also use the full path of the file, like

/home/turok_ttz/neroaac/linux/bin/programname

(or whatever the actual location of it is)
 

-KRS-

Member
zip files doesn't preserve file permissions. So they should be set to whatever user was unzipping the files, which I think also applies to all archive types. But with zip files I think that also means the files are set to non-executable so that's probably the issue.

So you only have to use the chmod +x command. And if it says the file doesn't exist you're probably not in the same directory as the files are in. When you open a terminal you start out in your home dir, /home/username. You change directory with cd, like "cd <directory>", and you list the contents of a directory with ls. There's also tab-completion so you don't have to type in the whole name of something. Just type in the first few letters and press tab. And you can press tab twice to list contents of a dir when you're typing in a path.
 

Turok_TTZ

Member
yeah I know. first thing i learned that was real important was the cd. i made sure i was in the same directory as the files were at in terminal.

I tried to invoke it with the following in the terminal (should have posted this to begin with)
Code:
./neroAacEnc
neroAacEnc (when at directory in terminal)
/home/turok/neroAacEnc

I also did that chmod +x thing. still no. also did that sudo chown thing as well. claims file did not exist. its always either no such file or directory or permission denied. the thing is trolling me.
GW ye say ya dont want to subscribe to newsletter? well then, ye ask i cud provide ye with a link for it.
 

-KRS-

Member
Alright I think I know what the problem is now. I feel pretty stupid for not asking this earlier, but are you using 64-bit Ubuntu? Nero AAC is apparently only compiled for 32-bit architectures because I looked at the Arch Linux User Repository package for neroaacenc, and it says there that if you use a 64-bit OS, you need to have the 32-bit version of gcc-libs installed. In Ubuntu what this means is that you need to install the "ia32-libs" package. That will make it possible to run 32-bit apps.

And in the future you should post the whole error message that it gives you, because I think that the file not found in this case was something to do with that and it would have been apparent from the error message what it was you were missing. Error messages in linux are very helpful so you should always post the complete message when asking for help. :)

Though you did say that it gave you file not found when you used chown which is weird...
 

Turok_TTZ

Member
Alright I think I know what the problem is now. I feel pretty stupid for not asking this earlier, but are you using 64-bit Ubuntu? Nero AAC is apparently only compiled for 32-bit architectures because I looked at the Arch Linux User Repository package for neroaacenc, and it says there that if you use a 64-bit OS, you need to have the 32-bit version of gcc-libs installed. In Ubuntu what this means is that you need to install the "ia32-libs" package. That will make it possible to run 32-bit apps.

And in the future you should post the whole error message that it gives you, because I think that the file not found in this case was something to do with that and it would have been apparent from the error message what it was you were missing. Error messages in linux are very helpful so you should always post the complete message when asking for help. :)

Though you did say that it gave you file not found when you used chown which is weird...

Copy and paste the errors from terminal? will keep in mind.
Yes I am using 64bit Ubuntu. Thought it was natural since my Win7 is 64bit. Also, it seems the underlined is exactly what the issue was. though i ended up installing lib32gcc1 after ia32-libs didnt do anything. now works like magic. now if only i could make it support flac for input... meh ill just convert mah flac files to wav, not an problem at all.
 

-KRS-

Member
Some terminal emulators doesn't let you use ctrl+c/v. It's better to use highlight and middle click. Any text you highlight in linux gets pasted into the text field you're middle clicking in. That's what I use for everything mostly. Though it has some quirks. For example, you can't highlight something and then close that window and THEN paste. The window with the highlighted text has to be open.

Anyway, glad that it works now. I knew it had to be something simple like that. In a distro like Ubuntu they should really just install ia32-libs and such on the 64-bit version as standard, though obviously it takes much more space then because you get a ton of 32-bit versions of libraries and such. But for improving ease of use for beginners it would be a good move. It's not a problem if you stick to the software center, but sometimes you just have to get binaries from somewhere else and then it's an issue.

Does NeroAacEnc support flac for input on Windows? If so I don't see why it wouldn't on linux as well. Does it give you any errors? ;)
 

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Hey Linux people. Andrex needs to learn how to do SSH because he wants to access some native files on his server via SSH on a chromebook so he can pull the files and use them with cloud 9 for development purposes.
 

itxaka

Defeatist
Hey Linux people. Andrex needs to learn how to do SSH because he wants to access some native files on his server via SSH on a chromebook so he can pull the files and use them with cloud 9 for development purposes.

Andrex doesn't know ssh? But he is a programmer, he should know!


ssh username@host


The rest is just bash commands :D
 

Izick

Member
Hey, so what's everyone's take on Linux Mint, more specifically Cinnamon?

I was a big Ubuntu user, and I was a fan of it. I'm trying out the Windows 8 release preview right now, but obviously it is going to eventually run out, and I'm going to have to go back to Linux. Is Mint/Cinnamon less intensive than Unity/Ubuntu? What's the general consensus on it? Do you think it's Mint's best GUI?
 
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