Ubuntu, Few Questions Options

[Marcilo]

Anyone using Ubuntu? How is the interface? How big is the entire setup?

[Exon]

Anyone using Ubuntu? How is the interface? How big is the entire setup?

Have been using it for a few years. Earlier I was using few other distros of Linux. Left Windows about 6-7 years ago; don't want to go back to windows again. Initially, I was using dual boot system; because, I needed a few programs running on windows. Now, all my needs are met with Open office. Besides Linux, I have a few computers running Mac OS X.

I haven't checked exact disk usage. Very basic Ubuntu and Gnome GUI might need about 2-3 gb. I have lots of utilities and programs occupying about 15gb.

You can download and burn a 'Live CD' of ubuntu and get a feel of the OS.
All Linux distributions and updates are listed at DistroWatch.

I am not a computer expert; basically learnt by trial and error. Will be glad to help you with what ever I learnt by using it.

Exon

[simplefable]

Now..am too testing the waters.. getting my feet wet as they say..
never been a geek..and the horror of burning my boat is making me a little hesitant..but HB, the master showed me a way...

[hildebrand]

I use the parent distro of Ubuntu, Debian. Ubuntu is a quite easier to use interface and most users of M$ are able to move forward very fast with just a little bit of guidance. Disk requirements are as Exon suggests however usually one needs to get lots of packages from net when installing from the net. That can be often painful and sometimes bewildering to someone bridging the gap. So to totally new users I usually recommending using another custom Ubuntu distro called Ultimate Edition. It comes with almost all programs one may need pre-installed. Its available for download here:-
http://ultimateedition.info/ultimate-edition-2-3/
This is a slightly bigger distro due to the many packages which come pre-installed (2+ GB DVD and on installation should be around 9 GB I think) saving some headache in the initial days.

If you do lots of multimedia stuff you could use another variant Ubuntu Studio available here:-
http://ubuntustudio.org/
It has some customisations for multimedia apps.

A help page for some trouble shooting etc is available here:-
http://lug-iitd.org/Articles/Debian_Help
Not all maybe relevant to Ubuntu users though but should give an idea.

Feel free to ask questions here incase of a problem. I'll try to help as much as possible.

This post has been edited by hildebrand: Oct 20 2009, 10:15 PM

[Marcilo]

Anyone using Ubuntu? How is the interface? How big is the entire setup?

Have been using it for a few years. Earlier I was using few other distros of Linux. Left Windows about 6-7 years ago; don't want to go back to windows again. Initially, I was using dual boot system; because, I needed a few programs running on windows. Now, all my needs are met with Open office. Besides Linux, I have a few computers running Mac OS X.

I haven't checked exact disk usage. Very basic Ubuntu and Gnome GUI might need about 2-3 gb. I have lots of utilities and programs occupying about 15gb.

You can download and burn a 'Live CD' of ubuntu and get a feel of the OS.
All Linux distributions and updates are listed at DistroWatch.

I am not a computer expert; basically learnt by trial and error. Will be glad to help you with what ever I learnt by using it.

Exon

You are Champ Exon. wow, i must say if you are not into computers and you are heavy on unix/Linux.

i was looking for a netbook and was wondering if i should go for Ubuntu. Problem is, Best buy doesn't even has one for display.
if it was for me i would have tried playing with it. i plan to gift it to my Dad who is getting into issues with MS (runs XP)

so Ubuntu is overlay on Linux?

[Marcilo]

I use the parent distro of Ubuntu, Debian. Ubuntu is a quite easier to use interface and most users of M$ are able to move forward very fast with just a little bit of guidance. Disk requirements are as Exon suggests however usually one needs to get lots of packages from net when installing from the net. That can be often painful and sometimes bewildering to someone bridging the gap. So to totally new users I usually recommending using another custom Ubuntu distro called Ultimate Edition. It comes with almost all programs one may need pre-installed. Its available for download here:-
http://ultimateedition.info/ultimate-edition-2-3/
This is a slightly bigger distro due to the many packages which come pre-installed (2+ GB DVD and on installation should be around 9 GB I think) saving some headache in the initial days.

If you do lots of multimedia stuff you could use another variant Ubuntu Studio available here:-
http://ubuntustudio.org/
It has some customisations for multimedia apps.

A help page for some trouble shooting etc is available here:-
http://lug-iitd.org/Articles/Debian_Help
Not all maybe relevant to Ubuntu users though but should give an idea.

Feel free to ask questions here incase of a problem. I'll try to help as much as possible.

The reason i asked for space was, Dell has 16GB solid state drive. i was wondering of 16gb of HDD space good enough? i doubt there will be more than document processing or web browsing on that PC.

Does Ubuntu come with office suite/ word processor? also is it compatible with MS?

[hildebrand]

Comes with Open Office. Latest version is fairly good with reasonable compatibility with M$. Its features are usually more than what one really needs. I generally export OO to .doc and except some margin problem sometimes all turns out well.
Before you buy you could download ubuntu and try it out for yourself.

This post has been edited by hildebrand: Oct 21 2009, 10:29 PM

[Exon]

You are Champ Exon. wow, i must say if you are not into computers and you are heavy on unix/Linux.

i was looking for a netbook and was wondering if i should go for Ubuntu. Problem is, Best buy doesn't even has one for display.
if it was for me i would have tried playing with it. i plan to gift it to my Dad who is getting into issues with MS (runs XP)

so Ubuntu is overlay on Linux?

Marcilo,

Basically, there are three types of Linux distribution packages, RedHat (Fedora), Suse, and Debian. In Debian all programs are packaged in a certain way and have package names with 'deb' extension. Ubuntu is a popular flavor of Debian distribution. If you have ubuntu version of Linux, it will readily accept all program packages with 'deb' extension. There are also ways to install RedHat packages and compile programs from source in a Ubuntu system. HB, please correct me if I got it wrong. BTW, Mac OS X operates Linux (BSD) on it's backend.

Linux OS runs quite well on computers 4-5 years old. I feel, 15GB will be quite sufficient to run Linux. When one installs Linux OS, it will need minimum two partitions: Root and Swap. Generally, the swap partition takes up about twice the size of RAM memory.

Just now I noticed that Dell has a laptop with 8GB SSD, preinstalled with Ubuntu.

Exon

This post has been edited by Exon: Oct 22 2009, 04:06 AM

[hildebrand]

Basically, there are three types of Linux distribution packages, RedHat (Fedora), Suse, and Debian. In Debian all programs are packaged in a certain way and have package names with 'deb' extension. Ubuntu is a popular flavor of Debian distribution. If you have ubuntu version of Linux, it will readily accept all program packages with 'deb' extension. There are also ways to install RedHat packages and compile programs from source in a Ubuntu system. HB, please correct me if I got it wrong. BTW, Mac OS X operates Linux (BSD) on it's backend.

Actually Suse also uses rpm packages. In general, its not recommended to mix packages between distributions (or even between their versions) even if they are of the same kind because their philosophy of making the package and installation files may differ. RPM and deb are just two kinds of packages. There are quite a few other packaging systems as well. You can read about the need and different kind of packaging systems here:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package_management_system

Debian's system and portage are considered best by some although rpm has also improved quite a lot.

Ideally try to get softwares from same repo. In some cases you can use alien or other software/methods to install one packagee system in another one but it may occasionally cause problems. Mac has also started ussing BSD in backend since Mac OS X and you can install linux softwares in it using darwinports.com

This post has been edited by hildebrand: Oct 22 2009, 06:13 PM