9 replies to this topic

[Xalor]

I just installed Ubuntu Jaunty about 3 hours ago. I had installed it about 3 months ago, used it for a month, and then tried to update to Karmic Release Candidate, but that point Karmic was pretty much what it was gonna be, since it was the last day of bug testing, and since it was a distro update the whole thing would come with all the bugs fixed, well up to that point anyway. Apparently Ubuntu Karmic breaks compatability with my Broadcom wifi card, and the SMART reading says my hard drive is failing, but its actually fine once I checked it through Speccy on windows. So I switched back to Jaunty, since Intrepid seems kind of old, and a lot of people have Jaunty still.

Well other than that, it seems just as snappy as before, and I did my own personal customizations, replacing Sans font with Rehan, and then using Docky instead of the bottom panel, and rolling Human and Clearlooks together, and tweaking some other settings to get the touchpad to work a bit better.

I'm running a Dell XPS m1530, if anyone has any software reccomendations or some tips in general when running Ubuntu?
I know jhaslip has got to have some tips, isn't he really good at linux?

[rvalkass]

Xalor, on Dec 29 2009, 10:07 PM, said:

I'm running a Dell XPS m1530, if anyone has any software reccomendations or some tips in general when running Ubuntu?

I've got loads of software recommendations, far too many to post What sort of software are you looking for, and I'll be able to offer my opinion (and so will everyone else)?

Xalor, on Dec 29 2009, 10:07 PM, said:

I know jhaslip has got to have some tips, isn't he really good at linux?

There's quite a few people on the forum that know about Linux and have at least a little bit of experience with it. Look out for us with Tux avatars and Linux-y stuff in our sigs

[bluedragon]

I am running Karmic release ..

I don't know if you will like this or not , but still you can give it a shot.

I installed screenlets for Ubuntu. It has this wallpaper clock thing where it sets a wallpaper that displays day , date and time on your wallpaper. Its quite good.

You can download additional wallpapers also from the authors website.

[rob86]

Yes, tell us what kind of software or recommendations you're looking for. Do you like command line apps? Linux is known for it's powerful CL programs. Or maybe you prefer GUIs. Maybe you just want to know about all the things that are already built in, you'd be surprised how powerful Ubuntu is out of the box.

For example, you can download an entire webpage for viewing offline with the built in wget command, no need for extra software.
You can convert images, pdfs, or anything simply with the 'convert' command.

You can try different desktop environments and window managers. There are a lot of window managers, most of them are more lightweight than the defaults which can be good for a slower computer.

[Xalor]

Screenlets and widgets wise, I really don't like installing, right now I'm using GNOME Do, with the Docky theme instead of Cairo-dock, never really like cairo-dock anyway, too single purposey, Docky seems to be very useful to me, and I do like it very much. Software wise, I was looking for some web development software, Aptana seems good but it seems sorta resource intensive, I'm looking for something a bit more standards complaint, since most of the stuff I do is in XHTML and CSS I want something equivalent to Expression Web 3 or Dreamweaver, other than Aptana, but it doesn't need to be that robust. Something that has syntax highlighting, and maybe a html checker, checks for errors, or a general purpose replacement for notepad++ or sublime text.

Other than that, 90% of my non-commercial windows apps are found on linux and are in the canonical repositories or can be found using multiverse. I'm not good with the command line, but I can install apps, know the wget command, how to add GPG keys via command line and how to navigate through directories using the command line and delete things it, love the Ubuntu Pocket Handbook, that guy is amazing.

Software reccomendations I listed in the beginning of the post, and I am not gonna update unless the next release works with my wireless driver, love the whole live CD thing, to test everything out. The new Karmic won't let me use my Graphics card neither my wireless card, and that just destroyed the usefulness of my laptop. I still have a dual-boot mostly because I need itunes and and I want a failsafe if something does go wrong.

[k_nitin_r]

Hi!

I seem to be the only one with good things to say about the Karmic Koala (Ubuntu Linux 9.10). It has much better power management than the older Jaunty Jackalope (Ubuntu Linux 9.04). I remember running Jaunty Jackalope on my Compaq Presario 2132EA and the CPU fan would by spinning all day with plenty of heat generation. Now, the same notebook runs Karmic Koala and does not have the processor and the CPU fan generating green house gases and destroying the environment.

I haven't been able to use either extensively on any other hardware though so although I think Karmic Koala is an improvement over the Jaunty Jackalope release for older hardware, I cannot comment about its performance on non-standard or newer hardware.

[Xalor]

Well Karmic's upgrade did not work with my laptop's wifi connectivity and also doesn't support the graphics card apparently. Its not my own problem though, since most people have had shoddy coverage with Karmic as well. Strange since, my laptop is one of the more popular ones, and since the standard size on it is usually 500GB, a lot of peopl ddo dual-boot with it aswell. I am planning on getting a new desktop and then I'll dual-boot with Karmic. I hope the next revision changes it, I could get wifi to work, but GRUB 2.0 does mess it up a lot and makes it not possible to change it so works. There are really difficult solutions, but sticking with Jaunty is fine. I really hate the fact that Jaunty doesn't support PPA though, I need to use the longer way, the new way is so much easier, two command and its done.

[knoppixusr]

I have used both Ubuntu Jaunty and the Kubuntu version on two diffrent laptops. My Laptop is an IBM T43 and the other laptop was a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo. With both laptop's the hardware was picked up automatically and everything seemed to work. But i have to admit that i was not happy with either of these distro's after using them each for about 4 months my opinion is that they are both slow, and crash far too often, at least on my hardware. The other day i tried a new version of PCLinux os and I was amazed at the snappiness of it. I also tried Knoppix and i have decided to stick to knoppix based on it's speed and stability. I decided to keep pclinuxos as a second boot option because it is just as good as knoppix.
My question to previous and current ubuntu users, did you also experience some system freezing/crashing while using ubuntu?

Edited by knoppixusr, 01 January 2010 - 06:58 AM.

[truefusion]

knoppixusr, on Jan 1 2010, 01:52 AM, said:

My question to previous and current ubuntu users, did you also experience some system freezing/crashing while using ubuntu?

I can't recall any system freezes, but any system failures were solely on my part messing around with kernel modules and other system configurations, mostly related to the X server. Thankfully, i can separate my personal files from the system files onto separate partitions. Reinstalling the system is not a problem for me (i do it often—not necessarily because i ruined anything ; sometimes i just want to try out the latest beta, or i just want a "cleaner" system). I will admit that Ubuntu used to be slower in some of its previous versions, but once 8.04 and higher came into the picture, it has been becoming faster. Before those versions, distros like Mandriva (and those based on it, like PCLinuxOS), Gentoo, Zenwalk, et cetera, were faster.

I stick with Ubuntu for its hardware support and because it is easier to maintain the system. Otherwise i'd probably be using Mandriva or Gentoo again (though, Zenwalk was a good distro too). Mandriva had something i would love to see something similar to in Ubuntu: Mandriva Control Center. It's not as necessary in Ubuntu as it is for Mandriva, but it would be nice to have.

[Xalor]

Only reason I like Ubuntu over other Linux Distros, although I find that Fedora is equivalent, if not better at some times. @knoppixusr, I would say the problem is probably the same as mine, I freeze up at times, because those apps are not installed properly. I would try updating yourself, and clear the cache once in a while, and update apps as well. Like truefusion said, I kinda like Ubuntu as well for the software resources. Its easier than compiling from source, I can use the aptitude packaging service, compared the less usable ones for mandriva and gentoo. Most are based on the debian system though, but Ubuntu organizes the best using launchpad and 90% of the apps work with KDE/GNOME Ubuntu instead of most of the other versions.