Tried Ubuntu live

[Neofight]

Okay, after perusing the threads here and getting loads of useful info from you guys (special nod to linux_0 who seems to be the final word on every thread) I gave Ubuntu a try last night. Took a while to figure out that I had no idea how to get an iso image onto a CD ( I have only ever burned music CD's or backed up data files), but even that part was explained by the Ubuntu wiki.
Finally got it going. Very impressive OS and obviously pretty mature at this point. The GNOME gui actually reminded mne a bit of MacOS with which I have very little experience, but it was pretty intuitive.

Only one gripe about the live experience, and that was that I couldn't access my hard drives (or couldn't figure out how to) to try things like playing a music file on the included music player. Did I miss something? Messed around with GIMP a bit, but had to grab an image from the web as, again, I couldn't seem to access any hd data.

Also is there a viable movie editing suite to make DVD's from DV home movies? Haven't seen anything about such a program.

Thanks for providing enough info here to take a dip in the linux pool.

 

[linux_0]

Okay, after perusing the threads here and getting loads of useful info from you guys (special nod to linux_0 who seems to be the final word on every thread) I gave Ubuntu a try last night. Took a while to figure out that I had no idea how to get an iso image onto a CD ( I have only ever burned music CD's or backed up data files), but even that part was explained by the Ubuntu wiki.
Finally got it going. Very impressive OS and obviously pretty mature at this point. The GNOME gui actually reminded mne a bit of MacOS with which I have very little experience, but it was pretty intuitive.

Only one gripe about the live experience, and that was that I couldn't access my hard drives (or couldn't figure out how to) to try things like playing a music file on the included music player. Did I miss something? Messed around with GIMP a bit, but had to grab an image from the web as, again, I couldn't seem to access any hd data.

Also is there a viable movie editing suite to make DVD's from DV home movies? Haven't seen anything about such a program.

Thanks for providing enough info here to take a dip in the linux pool.

:-D


I believe Ubuntu doesn't come with the NTFS driver already in place but Knoppix does :-D

I suppose you could try to aptget it but I'm not sure if that would work.

You can download the Knoppix CD and DVD here:

http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/knoppix/KNOPPIX_V4.0.2CD-2005-09-23-EN.iso

http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/knoppix/knoppix-dvd/KNOPPIX_V4.0.2DVD-2005-09-23-EN.iso


For legal reasons some distributions do not come with MP3 players or video players for certain formats but that's easily fixable on an installable distribution I fact I have installed mplayer ( http://mplayerhq.hu ) and madplay for several people this week and I'd be happy to do it for you too if you opt to install Linux on your HDD.


As far as video editing goes GIMP has some video functionality and there's http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3 http://sourceforge.net/projects/lvempeg/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/openmovieeditor/ and several others

I hope to have a better list for ya in the next couple of days :-D

 

[Neofight]

WOW. Replying via Knoppix live and the included browser. Initial impression is that I like this better than Ubuntu, but they are both very impressive. I guess the difference is KDE vs GNOME although Knoppix also did a better job with picking my monitor's resolution and refresh rate (Ubuntu went to 60 Hz and I couldn't find way to change it.). Definitely will be considering this stuff as at least a dual-boot option on a new build this summer.

 

[linux_0]

WOW. Replying via Knoppix live and the included browser. Initial impression is that I like this better than Ubuntu, but they are both very impressive. I guess the difference is KDE vs GNOME although Knoppix also did a better job with picking my monitor's resolution and refresh rate (Ubuntu went to 60 Hz and I couldn't find way to change it.). Definitely will be considering this stuff as at least a dual-boot option on a new build this summer.

I would say Knoppix a better Live CD/DVD and Ubuntu is better installed on a hard drive :-D

Ubuntu also has a KDE version appropriately called Kubuntu.

There is also Fedora Core ( currently FC5 ) which allows you use Gnome or KDE or whatever else you want.

Most good Linux distributions like FC5, default to one desktop ( usually Gnome ) but allow you to use whatever you want ( KDE, XFCE, BlackBox, Enlightenment, etc ).

http://xwinman.org/

:-D

 

[Neofight]

Thanks for all the info. While messing with Firefox in Knoppix, couldn't figure out how to get Flash installed. Suspect operations like that are still not quite as user friendly as in 'doze, but I don't mind some learning curve.

The video editing software list is a good start. It is hard to tell how newbie proof those projects are. Not sure I could just hook up the old Canon miniDV to a firewire port and get going. Might be worth poking around a bit.

Thanks again.

 

[linux_0]

Thanks for all the info. While messing with Firefox in Knoppix, couldn't figure out how to get Flash installed. Suspect operations like that are still not quite as user friendly as in 'doze, but I don't mind some learning curve.

The video editing software list is a good start. It is hard to tell how newbie proof those projects are. Not sure I could just hook up the old Canon miniDV to a firewire port and get going. Might be worth poking around a bit.

Thanks again.

It's a lot easier to install the flash player on an installable distribution.

You just have to download the flashplayer installer from adobe / marcromedia and run it as root.

Video editing should also work fine as long as the hardware works.

:-D

 

[Neofight]

It's a lot easier to install the flash player on an installable distribution.

You just have to download the flashplayer installer from adobe / marcromedia and run it as root.

Video editing should also work fine as long as the hardware works.

:-D

Just remembered we had an old Gateway laptop sitting with cobwebs on it. It still works so I am going to use it as the linux lab.
First question: Will it be able to run Ubuntu - Celeron 500Mhz, 64Mb Ram, 6 gig hd, unknown video controller.

Second: I would like it to be the only OS on the hd (Windows ME is just too painful, and I want all the room I can get for apps (?Packages?)). Will it just overwrite the hd or reformat or what?

 

[linux_0]

It's a lot easier to install the flash player on an installable distribution.

You just have to download the flashplayer installer from adobe / marcromedia and run it as root.

Video editing should also work fine as long as the hardware works.

:-D

Just remembered we had an old Gateway laptop sitting with cobwebs on it. It still works so I am going to use it as the linux lab.
First question: Will it be able to run Ubuntu - Celeron 500Mhz, 64Mb Ram, 6 gig hd, unknown video controller.

Second: I would like it to be the only OS on the hd (Windows ME is just too painful, and I want all the room I can get for apps (?Packages?)). Will it just overwrite the hd or reformat or what?


A Celeron 500 will be slow but it should work.

64MB of RAM is not very much though... It would work a lot better with 256 or 512MB.

6GB is not very much storage either but it will work with a modest install, the RAM is key tho, the more RAM you have the better!

You would have to repartition and format the drive during the Ubuntu install -- the installer will walk you through it, it's quite simple.

You would delete the partitions create a new primary partition /dev/hda1 for / - ext3 and one for swap /dev/hda2 and you'd be good to go.

:-D

 

[Neofight]

A Celeron 500 will be slow but it should work.

64MB of RAM is not very much though... It would work a lot better with 256 or 512MB.

6GB is not very much storage either but it will work with a modest install, the RAM is key tho, the more RAM you have the better!

You would have to repartition and format the drive during the Ubuntu install -- the installer will walk you through it, it's quite simple.

You would delete the partitions create a new primary partition /dev/hda1 for / - ext3 and one for swap /dev/hda2 and you'd be good to go.

:-D

Thanks for the advice. The laptop maxes at 160 mb so i guess I can get it up to that and just live with slowness? As far as the hd is concerned I am not too concerned as I will use the box just to mess around and learn. Won't really be adding a lot of data.

Current problem is that I can't get the laptop to boot from CD and it doesn't have a floppy drive. Am checking with Gateway about that.

ADD: Figured out how to boot from CD (wasn't in the usual BIOS menu) and tried booting with live Ubuntu. Got almost all the way through the setup then hung with following message:

cardmgr[13682]: exiting
exec of '/sbin/init' failed: input/output error
[429507.550000] system halted



Have ordered new ram to get up to the 160 max so maybe that will help.

 

[linux_0]

A Celeron 500 will be slow but it should work.

64MB of RAM is not very much though... It would work a lot better with 256 or 512MB.

6GB is not very much storage either but it will work with a modest install, the RAM is key tho, the more RAM you have the better!

You would have to repartition and format the drive during the Ubuntu install -- the installer will walk you through it, it's quite simple.

You would delete the partitions create a new primary partition /dev/hda1 for / - ext3 and one for swap /dev/hda2 and you'd be good to go.

:-D

Thanks for the advice. The laptop maxes at 160 mb so i guess I can get it up to that and just live with slowness? As far as the hd is concerned I am not too concerned as I will use the box just to mess around and learn. Won't really be adding a lot of data.

Current problem is that I can't get the laptop to boot from CD and it doesn't have a floppy drive. Am checking with Gateway about that.

ADD: Figured out how to boot from CD (wasn't in the usual BIOS menu) and tried booting with live Ubuntu. Got almost all the way through the setup then hung with following message:

cardmgr[13682]: exiting
exec of '/sbin/init' failed: input/output error
[429507.550000] system halted



Have ordered new ram to get up to the 160 max so maybe that will help.



I believe most live CDs require at least 128MB of RAM.

You could try DSL and see if it works.

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/download.html

Good luck :-D

 

[MU_Engineer]

You really want 128MB of RAM to run a graphical desktop and OpenOffice. You can do a very lightweight distribution like Damn Small Linux (DSL) or Puppy Linux or just run any distribution in text mode with that little RAM, but 64MB of probably PC66 or PC100 RAM isn't that expensive as you can find some at garage sales, dumpster diving, eBay, etc.

Live CDs generally demand at least 128MB RAM and really don't perform that hot unless there is 384 or 512MB in the box, especially if there is no swap partition on the computer's hard drive. The swap partition makes a big difference if the computer is low on RAM- I can tell if I run a live CD on an older machine that does have one versus one that doesn't. However, only computers that have had Linux on them will have a swap partition, so you'd have to make on with Linux fdisk or something on that Gateway.

 

[linux_0]

You really want 128MB of RAM to run a graphical desktop and OpenOffice. You can do a very lightweight distribution like Damn Small Linux (DSL) or Puppy Linux or just run any distribution in text mode with that little RAM, but 64MB of probably PC66 or PC100 RAM isn't that expensive as you can find some at garage sales, dumpster diving, eBay, etc.

Live CDs generally demand at least 128MB RAM and really don't perform that hot unless there is 384 or 512MB in the box, especially if there is no swap partition on the computer's hard drive. The swap partition makes a big difference if the computer is low on RAM- I can tell if I run a live CD on an older machine that does have one versus one that doesn't. However, only computers that have had Linux on them will have a swap partition, so you'd have to make on with Linux fdisk or something on that Gateway.

LiveCDs require more RAM because they have to use some of the physical RAM as RAM and the rest as a RAMDisk to store things.

Installable Linux distributions require less RAM, however adding RAM will always improve performance under Linux.

 

[Neofight]

Okay, got the laptop up to 160 mb RAM. Runs live CD of DSL without a problem. Even runs live Knoppix but trying to start OpenOffice resulted in about two minutes of waiting/swapping.
I am going to get all of the data I want off the hd and just install Knoppix and see how it goes. I am, however, waiting for Moving to Linux by Gagne to arrive before starting. WADR to the posters here, having to mess around in shell and command lines just isn't much fun for average users like myself. I am doing it out of curiosity, but I can see it being a hindrance to widespread Linux acceptance.

 

[linux_0]

Okay, got the laptop up to 160 mb RAM. Runs live CD of DSL without a problem. Even runs live Knoppix but trying to start OpenOffice resulted in about two minutes of waiting/swapping.
I am going to get all of the data I want off the hd and just install Knoppix and see how it goes. I am, however, waiting for Moving to Linux by Gagne to arrive before starting. WADR to the posters here, having to mess around in shell and command lines just isn't much fun for average users like myself. I am doing it out of curiosity, but I can see it being a hindrance to widespread Linux acceptance.

Since you're planning to install on the HDD I would suggest using Ubuntu, Kubuntu, FC5 or SuSE 10.x probably in that order.

Ubuntu is one of the most friendly distributions.

You don't really need a book. You just need google, wikipedia, tldp.org and a few other sites.

I'd be happy to walk you / talk you thru some stuff if you're interested.

Good Luck :-D