Trying out Ubuntu

[chrishansenhome]

I have been having difficulties with Windows lately. The keyboard has become flaky; when I type, sometimes a letter does not appear, or a backspace doesn't happen. There is no rhyme nor reason (it happens with two different keyboards) and unpredictably (so it's not a dirty keyboard issue). I've tried everything, including checking for viruses and searching for other people who have had this difficulty. Nothing has helped.

So I have been trying to get my older computer to work for a while now. It had Vista on it, but that's buggered, in many different ways. So I decided to install Ubuntu on it. I got a PCI wireless card with a good external antenna, as I'm not satisfied with the Ethernet bridge I had upstairs. I installed Fedora 10 on it just so that I could get to the Internet and download Ubuntu. I had to un-RAID my hard drives as they didn't seem to play well with Ubuntu (and I didn't have time to make them do so), So I installed the card and switched the computer on, expecting to have to search for a driver.

No driver necessary: the PCI card was recognised instantly and all I had to provide was the password. Downloaded Ubuntu, burned a disk, and then installed it. It's v.12.04, and it installed quite easily.

I'm exploring what's available as far as software is concerned. I have a browser (Firefox), an IM program (Pidgin), a Twitter program (Turpial), and a journal editor (Drivel) so far. Drivel isn't very satisfactory as it doesn't seem to pick up my tags, so I'll have to type them in. Will continue searching.

Any suggestions for software I ought to have? Email will be Thunderbird, but I'm not ready to switch over entirely so I have to be careful about installing it just yet.

To be continued.

Comments

[lupinebear.livejournal.com]

My own personal favourites (your kilometreage may vary):

Finer control over software installation: Synaptic Package Manager
Graphical editor: Gimp
Picture manager: gThumb
Browser: Chrome
Weather gizmo: indicator-weather
Video player: VLC
Photo slideshows: Mirage
Sound file editor: Audacity
Fun stuff: gPeriodic, Stellarium

If you're going to be remotely logging in to other computers (command line): ssh

If you're going to be interacting with Windows computers: samba, system-config-samba

My text editor of choice is vim ("vim-gnome" in the package manager), but unless you already know it, you'll probably not like it.

Have fun!

[chrishansenhome.livejournal.com]

I'm very grateful. Is vim-gnome actually vi? I used to be a wiz at vi years ago.

The other thing I'm looking for and not finding is a spam-killer like the one I use on Windows, MailWasherPro. I can see the emails on the server and delete them even before they are downloaded. The graphics on Ubuntu are amazingly good. I already use gimp for graphics and find it good.

Forgot to ask: where did you get chrome. There is a browser called chromium in the apps list—is that it, or shall I search for another (channelling John the Baptist)?

I will continue to experiment. Thanks again.

[lupinebear.livejournal.com]

Aye, "vim-gnome" is the graphical version of vim which is the evolution of vi. I use it because I like being able to use the same text editor on every platform I use, regardless of operating system or user interface. If you were good with vi then you'll be able to use this with no problem.

Chrome is "chromium-browser" within Synaptic, so yes, that's it.

As for mail-related stuff, I can't advise. I use too many different computers to want my e-mail to physically reside on any one computer, so I just use G-Mail and only access it via web browsers. Sorry about that.

Cheers!
Bryon

[juzzywuzzy.livejournal.com]

ive grown accustomed to leaving my mail online instead of downloading everything to my pc. Have you considered this?

if you are'nt using a service that has web-based option, i can understand that.

otherwise, i think you've everything you need.

[chrishansenhome.livejournal.com]

I have a profound mistrust of cloud or web-based email. I have almost all my substantive emails back to 1997 on my computer and have successfully migrated it to 5 or 6 computers and two email programs (Eudora and Thunderbird). It's now somewhere close to 2GB.

My gmail account was hacked a year or so ago and I would prefer that my archive stay on my computer.

Will continue to consider alternatives, but thanks for your input. Much appreciated.

Keyboard Issues

[am0.livejournal.com]

I've had similar keyboard issues on several machines, both Windows and OS-X. It does seem like a virus at work but I think I simply had too little memory, forcing the system to clog up and slow down to the point that the keyboard buffer starts doing quirky things. I don't know how much memory your machines have but if you can't easily add more memory you may have to free up storage space some other way.

The time-honored way to handle an old Windows computer that has become flaky is to re-install the operating system. Save what's important to you first, of course, then just wipe everything and start over. Some people have removed the accumulated crud every year or two and have become very proficient at it.

Of course, every time you have a software upgrade you'll have more crap added to the system that will clog things up eventually.

Re: Keyboard Issues

[chrishansenhome.livejournal.com]

I've got 8GB of RAM. The kb also hesitates when inputting my login password. I doubt it's memory problems.

While I would be loth to wipe-and-restore, I back up the system every night so it would be possible. I would prefer to find out what's causing it so that I can prevent it in the future.

Reminds me of the old joke about the mountain man who came down to town every year to visit the doctor, with family in tow. Every year there was a new baby to examine. One year, after examining the children, the doctor saw that there was no new baby that year. He said to the mountain man, "I see that you've not had a child this year." and the man replied, "Yup. We found out what was causing it."

Re: Keyboard Issues

[juzzywuzzy.livejournal.com]

lolx :)

Re: Keyboard Issues

[am0.livejournal.com]

I, personally, have never done a wipe-and-restore; I just wait until the machine fails completely, then try to recover as much as I can. Despite faithfully doing backups, I was never able to recover much except on Macs. I've twice been able to restore a significant amount of my information saved on Time Machine.

Re: Keyboard Issues

[chrishansenhome.livejournal.com]

The last time I had a disaster, I was able to restore from a backup and lost virtually nothing. This being said, I'd rather not have to deal with disasters.

The kb thing is getting better today. I do not know why. I'll still keep after Ubuntu though.