# Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy heron) review



## Solaris17 (Jun 17, 2008)

Today i bring you the review of Ubuntu 8.04 hardy heron in a hopes to open your eyes to some of the biggest open source operating systems in the world.

TEST SYSTEM
3.7Ghz E6400
4GB (2x2GB) 675mhz ram
100GB 7200RPM IDE seagate HDD
ubuntu 8.04 x64

Install Time:10-20min

So first we Get our distro the iso weights in at ~700mb more around 690ish

After we burn the iso we boot it and come to out boot screen. This screen has the basic linux options memtest, test source boot hdd and install  as well of course as running it as live to see what you like. 







After you select install ubuntu the first step in our relatively short install process is choosing your language. Of course like all good linux distros these days in their own language.






After we get your language picked out we start our default "load kernel state" that provides your system with basic drivers like windows and of course includes the meat of the installer.






After the kernel loads and the setup initiates we get your first happy little screen thats going to guide you through the set up process. As you can see im happy about this install because while others usually do give you a good feel ubuntu gives you that warn this is going to be fun color and look.






After you click next we pick your timezone and begin the basic info gather stage of the installation. given the short install time youll notice it gets complicated quickly. Instead of the other distros that bore you with page after page screen after screen the ubuntu staff seem to understand that people want their OS in a good time frame. Thank you ubuntu






After you tell ubuntu when you like your first cup of coffee we get to pick your KB layout...like any other install you can pick from a wide variety of types and locations in a wonderfull non text base manner unlike most gentoo installations or older versions of linux. Unlike most others though ubuntu other than just breaking it down by type gives you sub catagories because it knows you may want to type differently or because your weird and have a UK KB though the same can be said about the americas. That and seeing as how ubuntu originated in The isle of man smack dab in the middle of ireland and the UK i wont complain.





After that we jump right into the install process and select our HDD and partitioning. I had trouble at first as i have multiple HDD's and for some reason ubuntu wants to install on a drive other than root or "/" you can remedy this easy i found out by going to "manual" and telling it which drive to put the boot loader on.






Like so. remember to set the mount point to "/" or you get into all sorts of trouble. For the most part though especially for people with one hard drive you dont need to worry. If your scared of manual config but want ubuntu simply unplug your HDD's and that will work just as well as ubuntu will have no problem finding them after you plug them back in.






After that we jump past partitoning which if i might add is EXCELLENT in ubuntu and i find it personally better than Fedora and suse's approch to a "partitoning guide." It was extremely easy to use and understand and only took about 30sec for you guys who know what your doing . now however we input our user data a sure sighn that were almost done and on the home stretch easy those antsy hands were almost done 






After you enter in your info click next for the cup de gra and lets get on with it! Exciting huh?






You get like all other distros a verification screen wioth what you want whats going to be partitoned and a frienddly warning that if you did it wrong expect the worst. Not being one easy to fret i clicked install. If you are i suggest you click cancel 






Then we get a BEAUTIFUL install screen and even though ubuntu at this point is using universal vesa drivers apparently people that live on an expensive island in the middle of the ocean like to leave a good impression for us land folk. go ahead look how shiny it is!!






After install is complete we have 1 last step a simple reboot and in about 1min to 45sec later your at a pretty boot screen that loads in about the same amount of time.






the pretty boot screen i speak of 






After this boot screen your interoduced with some weird amazon congo drum start music that is a true ubuntu original and magically matches the dark burn orange theme quite well. go sound geeks.






here you can also go to "select session" to choose KDE Gnome etc..however you wont get very far at first because ubuntu comes with gnome default so youll need to install it more on that later.

Now that you've logged in using the usn and pass you provided during install your greated with more congo drums and a nice ancient type of gnome that makes you feel warm in fuzzy inside.






Ubuntu is about 700-750megs upon install and to my surprise unlike the big boy suse 11 picked up my wireless adapter immediately like fedora did ...go ubuntu.






setting it up was amazingly easy type in your personal stuff and connect. Youll be prompted by a flashing DL arrow next to your clock for updates it automatically checks for.

to my surprise ubuntu picked up all of my hardware which doesn't seem like an easy feat with these small distros these days. most of the time its the big guys that take up 4 GB that get the job done...some of the time. Not ubuntu though easy as cake and pleasant to look at.

the install process goes suprisingly quick after you tell it to update though it tells you it could take some time. though i bealive this is more for slower computers because anything over 2Ghz seems to take ~5min.






After you do that your on your way to installing all of your favorite things in my case that would be KDE.






Since ubuntu doesnt have KDE by default it needs to DL just about ever package and of course the core KDE components. these weigh in at about 835mb. However the sources come from multiple servers so the DL isnt that slow and it installs rather quickly being mostly binary files.

the easiest way to get what you want with ubuntu is to open your terminal and type in the following line. this technique is used for just about everything and given ubuntu's support you rarely run into problems.


```
Sudo apt-get install yourprog
```

for example when i got KDE i typed the following.


```
sudo apt-get install kde
```

or k3b my fav linux burning program


```
sudo apt-get install k3b
```

now to install updates for ubuntu if you miss an update period or simply want to check do the following

system>administration>update manager

it will check for updates and give you an install option.






easy as pi. now if you want to get creative or want your install to be a serious work station we can install secondary packages. 

this is fun and you do this like so.

System>Administration>Synaptic Package Manager

This breaks updates and packages down into catagory and program not to shabby and if you want o know what each little guy does if gives you a nice little discriptive pragraph on what exactly the program does. the packages range from kids games like worms in apples kind of stuff to programming code for the cell processor. Whats also amazing is how much ubuntu actually has access to in this screen shot its about 24,695 programs!!!!!






I rate ubuntu

Pro's:
Quick install
Short boot time
AMAZING compatability performance and style
Huge library of software
Ease of access for the linux noobie.
Extremely Stable

Cons:
not alot included though to be fair that isnt supposed to be a key feature
Could have atleast added KDE


RATING

9.5/10

AMAZING OS

i hope you guys found this guide usefull and i hope it may open your eyes to linux or give you a different perspective on ubuntu seasoned vet or explorer. I'll try to answer any questions you have if i can help but with more reviews on the way i dont know how long ill have this OS ENJOY!!!

Some of my other reveiws
Elive 1.6
Suse 11
Fedora core 9


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## Solaris17 (Jun 17, 2008)

can you see those pics? they were their a sec ago


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## dark2099 (Jun 17, 2008)

Yuppers, I should read this since I wanna try it out.


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## Fitseries3 (Jun 17, 2008)

i see them. 

love ubuntu man.

have you got compiz fuzion working yet? any idea on how to get crossfireX going?


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## Solaris17 (Jun 17, 2008)

dark2099 said:


> Yuppers, I should read this since I wanna try it out.



all of them? really?


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## dark2099 (Jun 17, 2008)

How many should there be, I see seven in total.


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## Solaris17 (Jun 18, 2008)

dark2099 said:


> How many should there be, I see seven in total.



no more than 7 ill fix it ina bit sorry guys

@fits not yet havent really played with it ill look into xfire ati drivers are harder to work with though as i remember


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## DrPepper (Jun 18, 2008)

Nice review solaris  I always have trouble when burning ubuntu to cd  anyway I installed it on my little bro's pc to stop him getting virus' and he hated it because he couldn't get windows live messenger plus addon. I'm angry because I spend all day installing and rebuilding his pc so it would work and he threw it in my face.


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## ShadowFold (Jun 18, 2008)

Is Ubuntu better for a HTPC or should I stick to WinXP?


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## Solaris17 (Jun 18, 2008)

personally it depends on what you use it for....if any OS linux diustro ubuntu i would personally find to be the best one. im going to edit the reveiws to include seperate scores such as

multimedia

server

desktop

scores however the only problem i forsee is the tv tuner if you tell me whcih one i can probably find drivers for you or walk you through an install


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## FatForester (Jun 18, 2008)

I agree, Ubuntu is by far the best Linux distro I've come across. It picked up the wireless N on my laptop like it was nothing! Other distros could barely handle getting my old Linksys Wireless G PCI card working. If you were bummed about Ubuntu not including KDE, you should check out Kubuntu. I've personally never tried it out because I'm lazy, but it's just Ubuntu with KDE. I don't know if it's review worthy since it's essentially the same thing though.


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## FatForester (Jun 18, 2008)

DrPepper said:


> Nice review solaris  I always have trouble when burning ubuntu to cd  anyway I installed it on my little bro's pc to stop him getting virus' and he hated it because he couldn't get windows live messenger plus addon. I'm angry because I spend all day installing and rebuilding his pc so it would work and he threw it in my face.



Are you using a CD-RW or CD-R? For me nearly every time I try to use a CD-RW something screws up. It usually boots up and tries to install, but then something hangs and it crashes. I've used DVD-R's or CD-R's since then and every burn has worked just fine. 

Regarding siblings, I hear ya. A few years ago I installed Knoppix (before Ubuntu really took off) onto my little sister's comp because she was constantly messing up XP somehow. After I spent most of the afternoon backing up and setting up her computer, she of course found a reason to complain. :shadedshu Eh, that's how it goes I guess.


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## Solaris17 (Jun 18, 2008)

fixed the pics  have fun guys


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Jun 18, 2008)

for kde there is kubuntu


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## Solaris17 (Jun 18, 2008)

ya ifugured that out after...i already installed KDE though



sudo apt-get install KDE



btw using the command line to randomely DL any program you want....best idea ever!!!


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## Skitzo (Jun 18, 2008)

thanks Sol, I tried to get ubuntu going on my last rig with no success.  I've been meaning to try it again, but I guess I forgot about it.  Thanks for the reminder


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## DrPepper (Jun 18, 2008)

FatForester said:


> Are you using a CD-RW or CD-R? For me nearly every time I try to use a CD-RW something screws up. It usually boots up and tries to install, but then something hangs and it crashes. I've used DVD-R's or CD-R's since then and every burn has worked just fine.



I tried using dvd-R's and RW's  and its picky about how its installed.


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Jun 18, 2008)

I'm still waiting for Ubuntu 7.3.31 (The Carnivorous Caterpillar)


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## Kraegos (Jun 18, 2008)

Great review Solaris! I downloaded ubuntu a couple days ago to get my new rig going. I messed up the first cd by not making an image, just copied the iso to disk.  So now I have a backup iso file if something happens to the first one. lol. I hope to try it out this afternoon and get this rig started. 

I know most programs will run under windows and linux, are there any popular programs you've found that wont run under ubuntu? i.e. some microsoft programs, burning software, games, photo/video editing, etc.


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## Solaris17 (Jun 18, 2008)

um it depends..

for games you can get them to work and actually quite well without emulation. However their is a stipulation


It needs to be an openGL game

and you need to have accelerated graphics on

alot of things are tricky ill admit ill also admit i havent tried very many windows apps..however most things can be delt with and wine can run some of the easier stuff.

however linux has an equivilent to almost everything thats propriatary

Open Office is the exact same thing as microsoft office imo...you can do everything power point spread sheets etc....and you can even save them in microsoft format so you can open them  with a windows based PC.

things like burners arent hard to come by either i reccomend what i had above i use K3B

```
sudo apt-get install k3b
```
 (you can copy and paste this code into your terminal)

its a mimic of nero and a very good one thats what i realeased some of utility DVD's on i burned them with that...imo its faster than the windows burning programs iv used.


though some things you absolutely will not be able to get to run..almost EVERYTHING has a linux substitute...if i didnt test hardware mod it or OC to see if it worked id go linux full time because honestly the only downside is games...but iv successfully got the original Unreal tournament to work and neverwinter nights.


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## v-zero (Jun 18, 2008)

Solaris17 said:


> Cons:
> not alot included though to be fair that isnt supposed to be a key feature
> Could have atleast added KDE


KDE is horrid (imho). Why get a GNU/Linux distro if you really want a Linux distro - it makes no sense. Anyway for those that want icky KDE loving you can pick up Kubuntu from the ubuntu homepage - so this isn't a valid complaint - now, get compiz running.

For those interested here is a screenshot of my custom ubuntu install as it stands:


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## Solaris17 (Jun 18, 2008)

v-zero said:


> KDE is horrid (imho). Why get a GNU/Linux distro if you really want a Linux distro - it makes no sense. Anyway for those that want icky KDE loving you can pick up Kubuntu from the ubuntu homepage - so this isn't a valid complaint - now, get compiz running.
> 
> For those interested here is a screenshot of my custom ubuntu install as it stands:



this guide is meant to help people or get help...or to inform them...as it is a review by me and i STATE i like KDE than its as valid as my remark because its obviously biased. If you dont like KDE dont take that con to heart and bump it to a 10 in your own mind...this thread or any other review by me isnt necessarily meant to bash what i like and dislike about any linux distro but moreover what i experience and notice.


o btw love your desktop i cant figure out how to get shiny black..


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## v-zero (Jun 18, 2008)

Solaris17 said:


> this guide is meant to help people or get help...or to inform them...as it is a review by me and i STATE i like KDE than its as valid as my remark because its obviously biased. If you dont like KDE dont take that con to heart and bump it to a 10 in your own mind...this thread or any other review by me isnt necessarily meant to bash what i like and dislike about any linux distro but moreover what i experience and notice.
> 
> 
> o btw love your desktop i cant figure out how to get shiny black..



I didn't mean to be obtuse, I was merely stating that if it was KDE you wanted then Kubuntu was what should have been downloaded, just like if you wanted the xfce environment then you would get Xubuntu - anyway it's not important and ubuntu isn't perfect, but it is better than my Windows setup and my Leopard setup, so...
Thanks for the compliments on my desktop (I'm working on a custom distro of my own so this is a prototype); as for shiny black, do you mean the background or my mac-style dock?


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## DIBL (Jun 18, 2008)

Nice review of Ubuntu installation -- thanks!

As previously noted, if you prefer KDE (like me) you can just go straight for the Kubuntu ISO.

Here's my Kubuntu 8.04 with KDE 4.1 Beta, Compiz and VMware Player/Win XP running:

http://www.kubuntuforums.net/index.php?ind=gallery&op=foto_show&ida=190

Kubuntu forum is a pretty friendly place for noobs, and has a ton of "problems already solved" in the searchable threads.


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## Solaris17 (Jun 18, 2008)

v-zero said:


> I didn't mean to be obtuse, I was merely stating that if it was KDE you wanted then Kubuntu was what should have been downloaded, just like if you wanted the xfce environment then you would get Xubuntu - anyway it's not important and ubuntu isn't perfect, but it is better than my Windows setup and my Leopard setup, so...
> Thanks for the compliments on my desktop (I'm working on a custom distro of my own so this is a prototype); as for shiny black, do you mean the background or my mac-style dock?



i meant the dock.....i know xubuntu kubuntu etc were their respective things with KDE and xfce i just used ubuntu because thats what people here about all the time...everyone says ubuntu alot more than kubuntu....and though i understand each version has a dif desktop..i just found it odd they didnt include the others and just change the default of another version is all...im using gnome right now and have been....i like KDE no doubt but its more for testing and stability at this popint because with these reveiws im also testing the stability and tweaks made to 4.0 by the various distros.


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## Gam'ster (Jun 18, 2008)

Nice ive been really thinking about in getting into linux and all, this will help a good deal. 
 to sol

Thanks 
Gam


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## v-zero (Jun 18, 2008)

Solaris17 said:


> i meant the dock.....i know xubuntu kubuntu etc were their respective things with KDE and xfce i just used ubuntu because thats what people here about all the time...everyone says ubuntu alot more than kubuntu....and though i understand each version has a dif desktop..i just found it odd they didnt include the others and just change the default of another version is all...im using gnome right now and have been....i like KDE no doubt but its more for testing and stability at this popint because with these reveiws im also testing the stability and tweaks made to 4.0 by the various distros.



Cool cool. In case you don't know/realise (no offense intended) that dock is not the normal ugly Gnome bar, it's a piece of software called Avant Window Navigator - it takes a bit of installing in Hardy but is well worth it: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Install-AWN-on-Hardy-Heron-82611.shtml .


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## Solaris17 (Jun 18, 2008)

v-zero said:


> Cool cool. In case you don't know/realise (no offense intended) that dock is not the normal ugly Gnome bar, it's a piece of software called Avant Window Navigator - it takes a bit of installing in Hardy but is well worth it: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Install-AWN-on-Hardy-Heron-82611.shtml .



cool than ks i was seeing those all over in ubuntu web sites and i was like WTF? how r u guys getting that? lol


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## Easy Rhino (Jun 18, 2008)

good job solaris! hopefully people will read through this and get motivated to give linux a try!


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## v-zero (Jun 18, 2008)

Solaris17 said:


> cool than ks i was seeing those all over in ubuntu web sites and i was like WTF? how r u guys getting that? lol



You do have to have compiz running for AWN to work btw.


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## Kraegos (Jun 19, 2008)

ok my install isnt running as smoothly as your's did.
the last line on my screen reads...
[  314.881667] Fixing recursive fault but reboot is needed!

what the heck is that all about??


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## Kraegos (Jun 19, 2008)

this one is even better. when i checked the cd for errors the last line reads...
[  319.941476] Kernel panic - not syncing: Aiee, killing interrupt handler!

if it weren't so aggrivating, that would be hilarious.


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## Solaris17 (Jun 19, 2008)

sounds like a bad disk....or an unstable rig....thats very odd

gimme a sec

damn i cant find anything id try a reburn something is fubar on that disk im guessing.


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## Solaris17 (Jun 19, 2008)

hey what are the specs of the rig your installing it on? the one in your specs?


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## PaulieG (Jun 19, 2008)

Nice review Solaris. OK, I'm a Linux distro noob. I've been thinking of trying Ubuntu. One question, whet exactly is KDE?


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## Solaris17 (Jun 19, 2008)

its a different desktop...environment....like in windows its called explorer...well their are various versions available for linux...KDE, Gnome , XFCE are the biggest ones.


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## scoutingwraith (Jun 19, 2008)

Nice review. I've been running 7.04 for a while and i was wondering if it is worth it to upgrade to the newest version.


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## Solaris17 (Jun 19, 2008)

cant say for sure but from early ubuntu versions i treid a year or so ago this one makes me bealive in it again  i was a suse fan


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## Mussels (Jun 19, 2008)

last time i used ubuntu, it was only good for basic web browsing.

Seriously... what do you guys do in it? I'm looking at reasons to convert, but just cant find anything not already done in windows (EG, media playback - i cant find any good linux for HD files)


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## Kraegos (Jun 19, 2008)

Solaris17 said:


> hey what are the specs of the rig your installing it on? the one in your specs?



yeah its the one in my specs. i've had other probs getting this thing going. i was trying to use ubuntu to test a couple theories on what might be fubar'd on my system. so far there are alot of things pointing to my ram. i ran the ubuntu memtest and sure enough my ram failed at nearly every point. so i've ordered some OCZ value ram from newegg to try and clear things up. i hope that is my "cure-all"

now that i know a little more about ubuntu, i may stick with it (once i get it running) and sell my vista disk. or i may dual boot. who knows


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## Solaris17 (Jun 19, 2008)

Kraegos said:


> yeah its the one in my specs. i've had other probs getting this thing going. i was trying to use ubuntu to test a couple theories on what might be fubar'd on my system. so far there are alot of things pointing to my ram. i ran the ubuntu memtest and sure enough my ram failed at nearly every point. so i've ordered some OCZ value ram from newegg to try and clear things up. i hope that is my "cure-all"
> 
> now that i know a little more about ubuntu, i may stick with it (once i get it running) and sell my vista disk. or i may dual boot. who knows



well deff let me know how it goes i did some reading i was able to find out a little bout the errors and sure enough 100% of the time hardware tweaking fixed it...if you need help with ubuntu or getting it installed etc..i can help but if your rams bad or unstable thats your end...well i could help with that to but still ;P at least you got some new stuff!


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## Solaris17 (Jun 19, 2008)

Mussels said:


> last time i used ubuntu, it was only good for basic web browsing.
> 
> Seriously... what do you guys do in it? I'm looking at reasons to convert, but just cant find anything not already done in windows (EG, media playback - i cant find any good linux for HD files)



browse the web program compile listen to music ...idk everything but gaming..


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## Mussels (Jun 19, 2008)

Solaris17 said:


> browse the web program compile listen to music ...idk everything but gaming..



i am a bit of a linux noob 

Know any media players that work in ubuntu, that can handle MKV files with x264 encoding? i'm trying to get my media PC that little bit faster as it chokes on 1080p files, but googling for linux stuff doesnt get me very far.


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## Solaris17 (Jun 19, 2008)

Mussels said:


> i am a bit of a linux noob
> 
> Know any media players that work in ubuntu, that can handle MKV files with x264 encoding? i'm trying to get my media PC that little bit faster as it chokes on 1080p files, but googling for linux stuff doesnt get me very far.



mplayer seems to be the one doing the best job atm

their are others that i could probably get to work for you but its hard unless you had ubuntu and were experiancing problems

the easiest way to install mplayer on ubuntu in my book is


```
sudo apt-get install mplayer
```

that should DL all the necessary packages and plugins for it to work


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## FatForester (Jun 19, 2008)

Ubuntu is very quick and efficient. If you want a reason to try it out, it's very simple to get TF2 running if you aren't that intimidated by command line. I've got it running great on my laptop, although the graphics had to be toned down to DX8.1 without AA. I've grown accustomed to using Ubuntu for my daily tasks except for dealing with my music and normal gaming. The only real downside I've come across is Ubuntu's atrocious battery life- I can get 5 - 5 1/2 hours on Vista but only have 2 - 2 1/2 hours on Ubuntu (if I'm lucky).

Edit: Comment was in regard to about an hour ago, so you can ignore it I guess. +1 on using mplayer though.


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## Solaris17 (Jun 19, 2008)

FatForester said:


> Ubuntu is very quick and efficient. If you want a reason to try it out, it's very simple to get TF2 running if you aren't that intimidated by command line. I've got it running great on my laptop, although the graphics had to be toned down to DX8.1 without AA. I've grown accustomed to using Ubuntu for my daily tasks except for dealing with my music and normal gaming. The only real downside I've come across is Ubuntu's atrocious battery life- I can get 5 - 5 1/2 hours on Vista but only have 2 - 2 1/2 hours on Ubuntu (if I'm lucky).



i think i can answeer that!....from my experiance its because linux hardware deamon  isnt like microsifts...you know in vista how you have peformance levels? that like shut off your net adapter after like 2 hourd and your hdd after 5 etc?...well from what iv seen even with speed step etc enabled..linux runs the systems at full speed all the time...kinda like the equivalent to vista's high performance mode.


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## NeotonicDragon3 (Jun 19, 2008)

Everyone makes fun of me for using Ubuntu xD lol


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## FatForester (Jun 19, 2008)

Solaris17 said:


> i think i can answeer that!....from my experiance its because linux hardware deamon  isnt like microsifts...you know in vista how you have peformance levels? that like shut off your net adapter after like 2 hourd and your hdd after 5 etc?...well from what iv seen even with speed step etc enabled..linux runs the systems at full speed all the time...kinda like the equivalent to vista's high performance mode.



That actually explains quite a bit. It definitely explains why in Vista it takes an hour for my fan to kick on, but on Ubuntu the laptop gets hot enough I could fry an egg in about 30 minutes. Do you know of any ways to tweak the power settings more than what the default options are? That is pretty much the only thing keeping me from going full-time Ubuntu on my laptop... you'd think they would have included more options by now.


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## Solaris17 (Jun 19, 2008)

```
sudo apt-get install kpowersave
```

that might help you out..

you can also try going to 

System -> Preferences -> Power Management

and adjusting the sliders and see what the options are...i dont have many options availible to me because im on a desktop


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## FatForester (Jun 19, 2008)

Solaris17 said:


> ```
> sudo apt-get install kpowersave
> ```
> 
> ...



I haven't tried KDE's variant to power management, hopefully it has more options. The only options different from the desktop are for when the battery gets low and when you close the lid. I'll give kpowersave a go though.


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## dannylill1981 (Jun 20, 2008)

i am currently using ubuntu studio, and i must say it is miles ahead of windows, i have all teh effects enabled and it runs like a dream, very responsive much more so than xp. good guide though great for newbies.


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## mlee49 (Jun 23, 2008)

Hey I was thinking of installing this for my 3 year old rig, not sure if this os is good for older spec computers or if I should look for a 'lite' version


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## Solaris17 (Jun 23, 2008)

mlee49 said:


> Hey I was thinking of installing this for my 3 year old rig, not sure if this os is good for older spec computers or if I should look for a 'lite' version



what are the specs im sure it will do absolutely fine


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## mlee49 (Jun 23, 2008)

1.8 Sempron
k8m 800
1 gig ram
10 gig hd

Sweet, I'll dl and test it for fun!


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## Solaris17 (Jun 23, 2008)

i have a laptop same specs only with an 80gig hd runs flawlessly


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## kyle2020 (Jun 23, 2008)

will a program such as bittorrent work on a linux installation? Im setting a downloader rig up tomorrow and would like to use linux as its lightweight. I installed it before on a dual boot system however i couldnt get my new wireless adapter to work, i guess i can try my old belkin and HOPE that it works.


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## Solaris17 (Jun 23, 2008)

kyle2020 said:


> will a program such as bittorrent work on a linux installation? Im setting a downloader rig up tomorrow and would like to use linux as its lightweight. I installed it before on a dual boot system however i couldnt get my new wireless adapter to work, i guess i can try my old belkin and HOPE that it works.



yup infact linux comes with 2 or 3 bittorrent programs on install...and you can always get others later  thats how i got suse 11 before its release...because novel didnt want beta traffic soaking up their bandwidth so they torrented it.


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## Easy Rhino (Jun 23, 2008)

solaris, ive been meaning to ask you how to got those screen shots of the install. did you grab them from the ubuntu website or do you have a nifty software proggy that does it??


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## Solaris17 (Jun 23, 2008)

i grabbed them from the ubuntu web site...but you can get them during install...it wont save to the hdd because it will be formatted...but if you plug in a thumb drive and hit prntscrn you can save it right to the thumb drive.


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## kyle2020 (Jun 23, 2008)

thanks solaris - sorry to be a pest, but for the bittorrent installer, which one should i download off this page? http://download.bittorrent.com/dl/


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## Solaris17 (Jun 23, 2008)

well a real.ly easy way if you in ubuntu...just do this

go to the terminal and type this


```
sudo apt-get install bittorrent
```

that should work and will do it all for you.


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## kyle2020 (Jun 23, 2008)

Solaris17 said:


> well a real.ly easy way if you in ubuntu...just do this
> 
> go to the terminal and type this
> 
> ...



and i take it for that to work ill need to be able to access the internet? i had a little trouble finding out but the older wireless device (the belkin one) is supported by Ndiswrapper so im covered there (hopefully!). We shal see tomorrow. If all else fails, i have XP media center on disc, so i havent got anything to lose really


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## Solaris17 (Jun 23, 2008)

ya youll need the net but im sure it will work np.


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## kyle2020 (Jun 23, 2008)

Solaris17 said:


> ya youll need the net but im sure it will work np.



Your like yoda haha - any problem, you know the answer 

thanks again!


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## Solaris17 (Jun 23, 2008)

kyle2020 said:


> Your like yoda haha - any problem, you know the answer
> 
> thanks again!



np man and your not a pest


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## xfire (Jun 24, 2008)

For people who don't know VLC player is available in linux. It'll play anything for you.
Also for the doc bar there is gdesklets. Gdesklets also has temprature sensor ram and cpu usage etc.


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## Mussels (Jun 24, 2008)

i think i'll give this a test later. i have a spare HDD right now (30GB IDE, though its noisy as hell) and i'll see how it fares on my new media rig.

I know this system can handle 1080p movies in windows, so i'll see how it does in linux.


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## xfire (Jun 24, 2008)

Just get vlc. It'll do the trick. http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
this might help too
http://sathyasays.com/2007/06/10/multimedia-support-in-linux/


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## Mussels (Jun 24, 2008)

xfire said:


> Just get vlc. It'll do the trick. http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
> this might help too
> http://sathyasays.com/2007/06/10/multimedia-support-in-linux/



is VLC better in linux? its problem in windows is total lack of hardware acceleration, meaning that for HD media its CPU usage is far too high.


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## xfire (Jun 24, 2008)

Its the best player available for linux. Gom player was supposed to com for linux but hasn't come yet. Havent tried HD content in linux.


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## xfire (Jun 25, 2008)

Mussels you could try Dreamlinux Its an multimedia oriented linux distro.


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## Wile E (Jun 25, 2008)

Mussels said:


> is VLC better in linux? its problem in windows is total lack of hardware acceleration, meaning that for HD media its CPU usage is far too high.



If cpu usage during playback is a concern, don't bother with linux right now. Not only that, if you are like me, and watch anime and have a ton of mkv's with nice styled subtitiles, nothing I've tried yet displays the subs correctly.


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## scoutingwraith (Jun 25, 2008)

Wile E said:


> If cpu usage during playback is a concern, don't bother with linux right now. Not only that, if you are like me, and watch anime and have a ton of mkv's with nice styled subtitiles, nothing I've tried yet displays the subs correctly.



Did you install the K-lite codec pack??? (cant remember if there was one for linux) I havent had any problems with the subs on .mkv files with it.


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## Mussels (Jun 25, 2008)

scoutingwraith said:


> Did you install the K-lite codec pack??? (cant remember if there was one for linux) I havent had any problems with the subs on .mkv files with it.



CCCP is better than K-lite, in windows.

K-lite is definately windows only.


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## mlee49 (Jun 25, 2008)

Woot!  First Post w/out Windows/Mac OS!  

I likey!


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## Solaris17 (Jun 25, 2008)

mlee49 said:


> Woot!  First Post w/out Windows/Mac OS!
> 
> I likey!



congrats dude!!! i think youll like it alot!!


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## mlee49 (Jun 25, 2008)

I'll definately be a little more open to the Linux world now.  I need to research drivers, util's, and programs I can play with.  Thanks for the guides and I'll be checking out the newer Distro's, when will we see Solunbuntu?


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## Solaris17 (Jun 25, 2008)

mlee49 said:


> I'll definately be a little more open to the Linux world now.  I need to research drivers, util's, and programs I can play with.  Thanks for the guides and I'll be checking out the newer Distro's, when will we see Solunbuntu?




hahaah  actually  soon enough  glad your getting into it ill keep the guides rolling out


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## xfire (Jun 26, 2008)

I'm downloading dream linux, it's at 63%. Going to do a review.
Edit- Solaris isnt bittorrent integrated into Ubuntu 8.04? The previous versions have it integrated. The best is to have run utorrent under wine. It runs well and saves everything in the home folder under downloads. Azureus is available for linux. Also ktorrent works on Gnome as well.
                             I tried mplayer yesterday, it couldnt even play avi files by default. Try the windows version of gom player. A port for linux is being planned. kaffenine is a descent player to.


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## Solaris17 (Jun 26, 2008)

xfire said:


> I'm downloading dream linux, it's at 63%. Going to do a review.



nice dude im going to work on mandirva next.....it used to be a pretty big distro like the big boys suse fedora etc. but its been out of the spot light for awhile time to see whats up.


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## xfire (Jun 26, 2008)

Mandriva's a pain. I have the cd version(somewhat old one) and the command line was the worst. Type the right or wrong command there was no reply from it. It was a five cd one and the installer was good but it didnt have a live cd. It couldnt detect my ntfs partition even though ntfs3g was installed. Only thing good was my serial port mouse worked by default. Lets see if there is any improvement but mandriva is the worst I've tested by far.


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## xfire (Jun 26, 2008)

Mussels I tried HD in Linux. Vlc couldnt play it but totem movie player(default in Ubuntu) played it after installing the codec(it'll automatically search ask if you want to install the codec). The cpu usage was at 70% but your result will vary as I use a VGA port. For .mkv files use VLC.


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## Wile E (Jun 26, 2008)

xfire said:


> Mussels I tried HD in Linux. Vlc couldnt play it but totem movie player(default in Ubuntu) played it after installing the codec(it'll automatically search ask if you want to install the codec). The cpu usage was at 70% but your result will vary as I use a VGA port. For .mkv files use VLC.



Yeah, but vlc doesn't display .ssa or .ass formatted subs properly. In fact, VLC is just plain terrible with almost all subs. lol.


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## xfire (Jun 26, 2008)

So did you try tottem player? Also kaffenine?


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## Wile E (Jun 26, 2008)

xfire said:


> So did you try tottem player? Also kaffenine?



All of them. None of them compare to the VSFilter (DirectVOBSub) filter available on Windows.


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## snuif09 (Jun 26, 2008)

i also have ubuntu installed now, i heard its awesome for programming perl.
but im a complete noob and i dont know hot to install adobe flash can someone help me?


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## xfire (Jun 26, 2008)

snuif09 said:


> i also have ubuntu installed now, i heard its awesome for programming perl.
> but im a complete noob and i dont know hot to install adobe flash can someone help me?


Is that flash plugin for veiwing webpages or flash for creating animation?
 The plugin is available(for websites) by adobe itself but the adobe suite isnt available for linux.
     Wile E mind PM's me a link to such a file so I can test?


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## mab1376 (Jun 27, 2008)

Solaris17 said:


> ```
> sudo apt-get install kde
> ```
> 
> ...



you can just do 


```
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop
```

that will install KDE as well as the software included in the kubuntu distro such as K3B, Kopete, Konqueror, Dolphin, Konsole, Amarok, Kaffenine etc....

also KDE4 is fun to play with.


```
sudo apt-get install kde4-core
```



scoutingwraith said:


> Did you install the K-lite codec pack??? (cant remember if there was one for linux) I havent had any problems with the subs on .mkv files with it.




```
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
```

also sol, try this bittorrent client

http://qbittorrent.sourceforge.net/

maybe ill post some stuff late on compiz-fusion config and emerald themes and avant window navigator.


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## xfire (Jun 27, 2008)

For torrents its best to run utorrent under wine.


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## mab1376 (Jun 27, 2008)

API emulation doesn't seem to work as well as it should. at least for me.

qBittorrent has no bandwidth restrictions whatsoever, and its built for Linux so its really really fast, def give it a shot before knocking it.


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## xfire (Jun 28, 2008)

utorrent works under wine as well as it works under windows.


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## Easy Rhino (Jun 28, 2008)

whenever i install ubuntu i install only the base os first. then i install the core of xfce and then i start to add programs and dependencies. it keeps things a lot cleaner that way.


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## Solaris17 (Jun 28, 2008)

Easy Rhino said:


> whenever i install ubuntu i install only the base os first. then i install the core of xfce and then i start to add programs and dependencies. it keeps things a lot cleaner that way.



i agree thats why i do it. than i have  a better sense of whats on my comp...than wondering if i have it already.


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## Easy Rhino (Jun 28, 2008)

Solaris17 said:


> i agree thats why i do it. than i have  a better sense of whats on my comp...than wondering if i have it already.



yea. i mean ubuntu does a pretty good job if you just want to get it all installed at once but for some reason i am anal and like to know exactly what is on it.   solaris if you like doing it that way then maybe if you are feeling adventurous you should try out freebsd. it is basically a more powerful version of linux (but dont tell the linux fanboys that!)  what i enjoy about freebsd is the amount of flexability it has. sure, there are somethings that it doesnt directly support which means you will have to find work arounds and even do a little bit of code editing but it is simply the most powerful server OS in the world with a very strong support group. the guys who work professionally with freebsd are considered some of the most talented coders in the world. unfortanately most of them know it and treat newbs like crap. freebsd also has the awesome 'ports' system for downloading new software and doing software updates. you can even install the whole core os from ports and then install xorg and then gnome. some people hate the process but i really like it. and the cool thing is you can choose to compile it all or just have it simply add the package.


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## Solaris17 (Jun 28, 2008)

dude awsome ya ill give it a shot for sure.


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## Easy Rhino (Jun 28, 2008)

Solaris17 said:


> dude awsome ya ill give it a shot for sure.



a couple of tips...make sure your lan/wifi card is supported. just about all are, but you may wanna check which chipset your card uses first. if you are using nvidia gpu then you shouldnt have a problem getting the advanced graphics stuff up and running. and configuring xorg can be a little tricky because you will have to go into some of the settings and change things to fit your monitor. it can be tricky but it is fun if you like that kind of stuff. eventually you can get this type of stuff running   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBYZ8uyaoEE


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