Linux General Discussion

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Discuss Linux in here! Everything from flavours to updates and general help. We'll keep it all in one thread as best we can.

Starting off: I am using Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Hardy Heron, but am thinking of upgrading to 8.10 Intrepid Ibex. Although I really like the look of Linux Mint 6 Felicia (quite similar to Ubuntu).

Anybody got any thoughts? My PC isn't that good so I may be better off using Xubuntu 8.10 for something a bit lighter.

22/01/2009

Western Australia | /dev/null is already 98% full

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Luke4123

I just tried it and it came up with the language selection screen. It wouldn't let me go down and choose any language. Would it better with a USB keyboard?

25/01/2009

Brisbane

Kudos: 32,931

Doles

Luke4123 said: I just tried it and it came up with the language selection screen. It wouldn't let me go down and choose any language. Would it better with a USB keyboard?

You couldn't just hit enter and select USA qwerty? A USB keyboard should not be necessary.

25/01/2009

Western Australia | /dev/null is already 98% full

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schnappy

Luke, you mean as soon as it boots off of the disc? I've had this problem by using a USB keyboard. I enabled USB keyboard/mouse in bios and it works now.

Or I used a PS2 keyboard. You should be fine to just wait 30 seconds though, english is the default and it will automatically load the Live CD which you want to both try and you also use it to install.

mateo1 said: i think i gave up on ubuntu after it wouldnt recognise my wireless internet card. mebe theres some drivers i had to d/l ^o)

Setting up drivers is the hardest part of using Ubuntu, it runs out of the box with just about everything except for wireless cards. It can be a real pain to work which drivers to use as well...

@Server/Desktop editions: Use desktop, you will be lost with the server release as it is essentially the desktop version minus an actual desktop

Desktop edition comes with a lot of apps. You can do pretty much anything that you do in Windows, some things might be harder to setup but it can be done. Trickiest bit is games... some work well, others not at all. You'll want a decent system.

25/01/2009

melbourne, victoria

Kudos: 13,183

mateo1

Doles284 said:
What was your wireless card? Ubuntu is usually pretty good.

its like a netgear wg311 or somefin. its weird though coz backtrack recognised it straight away.

25/01/2009

brisbane

Kudos: 43,906

Luke4123

schnappy said: Luke, you mean as soon as it boots off of the disc? I've had this problem by using a USB keyboard. I enabled USB keyboard/mouse in bios and it works now.

Yeah I'm currently booting off a disc. Do I find that setting in Control Panel?

Doles284 said: You couldn't just hit enter and select USA qwerty? A USB keyboard should not be necessary.

I couldn't move anything.

25/01/2009

Brisbane

Kudos: 32,931

Doles

Luke4123 said:
schnappy said: Luke, you mean as soon as it boots off of the disc? I've had this problem by using a USB keyboard. I enabled USB keyboard/mouse in bios and it works now.

Yeah I'm currently booting off a disc. Do I find that setting in Control Panel?

You should find that setting in the BIOS when you boot up the PC. You will see whats called a "post screen" telling you which button to hit to access the BIOS. It is usually Tab or esc or f12 or something like that. When you are in there, just look around a bit and you will see the options for USB keyboard. Enable it.

Oh wait hang on, you don't have a USB keyboard do you? If you just wait 30 secs as schnappy said, it will select the highlighted option.

25/01/2009

Western Australia | /dev/null is already 98% full

Kudos: 43,906

Luke4123

Yeah my keyboard is all working now thanks.

I got into it and didn't really know what I was doing. lol I tried to partition to a resized disc and it said it was impossible.

25/01/2009

Brisbane

Kudos: 32,931

Doles

Luke4123 said: I tried to partition to a resized disc and it said it was impossible

Oh thats weird, well if you decide to pursue it again, let us know and we will try to trouble shoot the problem in more detail.

25/01/2009

Western Australia | /dev/null is already 98% full

Kudos: 420

schnappy

Were you using gparted or trying to install ubuntu? Do you actually know how to repartition? I'm assuming the partition you were trying was NTFS... open a terminal ('start' > Accessories > terminal).

To run gparted: (it's important you run with sudo (admin), otherwise you wont be allowed to do anything)
sudo gparted

The live cd by default seams to have NTFS available, but in case, run this then restart gparted:
sudo apt-get install ntfsprogs

That package will allow you to manipulate NTFS partitions.

25/01/2009

melbourne, victoria

Kudos: 43,906

Luke4123

Doles284 said:
Luke4123 said: I tried to partition to a resized disc and it said it was impossible

Oh thats weird, well if you decide to pursue it again, let us know and we will try to trouble shoot the problem in more detail.

I'm kinda new to partitioning. I'm using the family computer so I want to keep everything on the disc and I just wanna use the free space. Which option would I choose? Thanks.

25/01/2009

Brisbane

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Doles

Here I found this, I have to go out for a sec now,

apcmag.com/

Good luck

25/01/2009

Western Australia | /dev/null is already 98% full

Kudos: 43,906

Luke4123

Thanks for the link, I'll let you know how I go.

25/01/2009

Brisbane

Kudos: 420

schnappy

How much free space is there? Linux doesn't install as tidely as Windows. Doles will probably be able to explain why (I honestly don't know why it is like this).

Your main partition where everything is installed to must be mounted at root ("/"), and you must have a linux-swap partition (Forgot what the minimum size is. I think this is used like the page file in Windows?)

Careful with your family comp, mister. Can you afford an 80gb drive to use your self? If it's on a seperate physical drive you can just change the boot drive in your BIOS, rather than make your family use a boot loader. Ubuntu automatically sets one up to go along with Windows, BTW.

25/01/2009

melbourne, victoria

Kudos: 43,906

Luke4123

ATM I have 56.6GB left on my disc. Will that be enough room do you think?

25/01/2009

Brisbane

Kudos: 32,931

Doles

I always thought Ubuntu was way more compact and tidy than Windblows, but anyway...

Luke, you may be better off practicing with the live cd environment until you can get an old computer from somewhere to experiment with. Gparted can do dangerous things to your Hard drive(s) if used incorrectly. But the live cd on its own is very safe and quite fun.

25/01/2009

Western Australia | /dev/null is already 98% full

Kudos: 23,081

Pongo

ubuntu only takes up 4gb luke, but installs are a little bit on the big side. still unless you plan to download Tonnes. Then its plenty, i run my system on two 80gb partitions, but soon im getting another 160gb drive for linux,

26/01/2009

Pongo Archibald Wumbleteed III

Kudos: 43,906

Luke4123

Pongo said: ubuntu only takes up 4gb luke, but installs are a little bit on the big side. still unless you plan to download Tonnes. Then its plenty, i run my system on two 80gb partitions, but soon im getting another 160gb drive for linux,

Oh ok. I have tried making new partitions for Linux in a few different ways and none of them have worked. I am dertmined to get Linux so I am copying everything off my computer onto a disc/DVD. Then reformat my computer and install Vista then Ubuntu.

26/01/2009

Brisbane

Kudos: 23,081

Pongo

dont reformat. upon installation, there is a partition editor so it will fix all that for you

26/01/2009

Pongo Archibald Wumbleteed III

Kudos: 43,906

Luke4123

Pongo said: dont reformat. upon installation, there is a partition editor so it will fix all that for you

I think reformatting is my only option. I only want to use the free space on my hard drive. There seems to be some problem when I try to make a petition to put linux in.

26/01/2009

Brisbane

Kudos: 23,081

Pongo

have you tried the vista partition editor? or defraged your drive?

26/01/2009

Pongo Archibald Wumbleteed III

Kudos: 43,906

Luke4123

Pongo said: have you tried the vista partition editor? or defraged your drive?

Yeah, didn't work. Haven't tried to defrag my drive though.

26/01/2009

Brisbane

Kudos: 23,081

Pongo

that could be it. i know alot of things wont overwrite the files or seperate them in case they are corrupt, give that a try save you losing your files

26/01/2009

Pongo Archibald Wumbleteed III

Kudos: 32,931

Doles

Defrag... We'll see you in a few hours then

But yes Pongo is right, partitioning during installation of Ubuntu is the easiest way.

26/01/2009

Western Australia | /dev/null is already 98% full

Kudos: 420

schnappy

mateo1 said:
Doles284 said:
What was your wireless card? Ubuntu is usually pretty good.

its like a netgear wg311 or somefin. its weird though coz backtrack recognised it straight away.

Arr I missed your post mate. AFAIK, Backtrack comes packed with every network driver out there all ready to go. But this is good though, it means it is possible to get it going!

Ironically, I purchased a wireless pci nic a few months ago... a Netgear WG311

Mine is a V2.

First step to getting it working in Linux is finding out what chipset is uses. Wireless cards are tricky in that different models often have different revisions, which have different chipsets and therefor completely different drivers. You will have to look at the physical card, mine says "WG311v2" on the back of the PCB.

According to the madwifi wiki, v1 has Atheros (Use madwifi - awesome linux support for atheros chipsets. Best for doing things with backtrack

), v2 a TI chipset, and v3 a prism chipset. The latter 2 supposedly work with ndiswrapper.

26/01/2009

melbourne, victoria

Kudos: 23,081

Pongo

when i had my aspire, i put ubuntu on it for a while, i couldnt find the wireless driver, i found it in the end but madwifi got rid of it, and i had to start from scratch. That was an atheros card... its so incompatible... thing is, its was just that one card. no OS had support for it, well none that i tried.

Where can i get my hands on Backtrack?

26/01/2009

Pongo Archibald Wumbleteed III