What are you currently installing/playing?

[Stephen Morgan]

Yes nathan28 it appeared to be something like a monitor driver incompatibility issue or something of the sort. I am not a command line guy nor a coder so I do not think I will try the workarounds on this distro.

Must learn by doing.

And I give, what is a Linux Repository? Is that like a bridge between Linux and Windows programs?

It's where the free software lives, where the software centre downloads the programmes you install from, where updates get downloaded from and so forth.

[Stephen Morgan]

The original train of thought was:
1. Install in text-only mode.
2. Update the distribution [apt-get update]
3. Pray that this would upgrade the boot loader, and restart in graphics mode as per normal.

There is an "alternate install cd", designed for low-ram systems, which might work for that. I'm not familiar with the boot loader issue, but you can replace the Grub2 bootloader with the grub-legacy by using apt-get install grub. However I believe the Cd uses Syslinux, rather than grub.

Does Linux Mint have the same problem, do we know?

[AhabsOtherLeg]

I'm currently playing Dragon Age Origins on my PS3 and got a pre-Steam version of Half Life 1 running on wine on my laptop.

Half Life 1 is quality. So is Half Life 2, come to think of it. Have you played Portal, 82_28? It was free on Steam for a while not long ago, and I signed up just to grab it - it's a very special game, excellently written and voice acted (how rare is that, in this medium?) and featuring the most creepily entertaining villain ever committed to celluloid... I mean, to digital distribution. There are some disturbingly RI-like themes in that game, but it is a lot of fun, and of course it has the best ending OF ALL TIME!

If I were at some point to stop being eternally spit-roasted by Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer in a Tron-like hell-dimension, where they cackle endlessly in poorly compressed Quicktime and RealPlayer looping audio, would I still be able to run Python 2.6?

I need it for stuff.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Commodore 64, Master System 2, Win98 for me.

I salute you for the purchase of these fine systems.

No Amiga between the Master System and Win 98, though... Were you in the jail?

[Stephen Morgan]

If I were at some point to stop being eternally spit-roasted by Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer in a Tron-like hell-dimension, where they cackle endlessly in poorly compressed Quicktime and RealPlayer looping audio, would I still be able to run Python 2.6?

I need it for stuff.

Of course. Python, perl, bash, sed, awk, pretty much any scripting language you care to name is probably better supported under Linux than windows. In fact I seem to have it installed. And the Software Centre has python 2.7 and 3.1 listed, if that's any help.

Not Visual Basic, of course.

Commodore 64, Master System 2, Win98 for me.

I salute you for the purchase of these fine systems.

No Amiga between the Master System and Win 98, though... Were you in the jail?

I was still in school, actually. Not much difference, as far as I'm concerned. And of course there was the poverty, all the above were generally used on a black and white TV, one of those with the little dial to tune it in. And the wire aerial on the top. And a cathode ray tube, because we'd only just emerged from the stone age back then. And some of these were second hand. And then as now I'd happily sell my mother for some computer stuff, which I suppose is better than her doing it for booze. Wait, I said I wasn't going to talk about my childhood.

Anyway, I may have had an Amiga. A hand held one like a shit Game Boy, I think. Atari, could have been. Game Gear, maybe. I never had a Sega Saturn or anything, though, I think I may have had a second hand SNES at one point, I remember the Starfleet Academy game. Difficult to remember what I merely used at other people's houses. I definitely knew people who had all sorts of consoles, from 8-bit up to 32-bit, which was probably the most sociable period of my youth.

[nathan28]

W/r/t the work-around for the borked installer, I don't know. There are some solutions that are pretty simple but those don't work for everyone.

And the issue is w/ the boot loader IIRC. You can install the Ubuntu kernel fine, but X is just borked. As soon as it loads during boot you'll get a corrupted-looking splash graphic. So I don' tthink it'll work to install w/out X, then do an apt-get install or whatever. Again, should be an easy fix for some, something like adding a line or two, but I just went ended up using 9.10 on the machine w/ that problem.


Anyway, apparently there is a beta of Schrivener available for linux but it's got a three-week time bomb on it. I'm going to try that and LyX, though most of the composition programs are geared towards math/science/computer geekery and using LaTex, not third-rate would-be avocational historians (ouch, I just hurt my own feelings) such as myself. I'm scared of the "user-friendly" multi-doc tool in the Libre/OpenOffice suites.

There is also a clone desktop app for Evernote now, which you had to run in Windows-emulation and was ugly as sin, and would be helpful ifyou use multiple computers in different locations and need to take notes on things or save files.

If you do get it fixed there is a "random hints" pop-up pseudo-screenlet? for noobs.

I'm going to look at qOrganizer, too, b/c the new Thunderbird calender app isn't all that great.

Also there is a touchpad gesture thing out, which is needless memory usage and sounds like a great way to cause unpredictable I/O and hardware conflicts but makes the computer look like you built a mac out of junkyard parts, which, once I get some more corrugated steel sheets and scrap plywood, is pretty much where my life is headed right now. I'll post my electric car conversion on Instructables. I'll be the guy with matted, receding hair and a bird's nest in my beard.


MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL, both Mac and Linux now have SelfControl, which writes to your config files and ip-tables to block specific websites for a pre-selected length of time. It alters the config files and ip-tables apparently, so unless you want to actually find them and edit them (not hard but too many damn steps) once you set the timer... you can't get to those sites. Even if you reboot. IOW, see y'all in about two weeks.

[Stephen Morgan]

And the issue is w/ the boot loader IIRC. You can install the Ubuntu kernel fine, but X is just borked. As soon as it loads during boot you'll get a corrupted-looking splash graphic. So I don' tthink it'll work to install w/out X, then do an apt-get install or whatever. Again, should be an easy fix for some, something like adding a line or two, but I just went ended up using 9.10 on the machine w/ that problem.

Have you tried the nomodeset boot option?

You won't be able to install Ubuntu without X. You can set it to boot to a command line, then run startx, that might do the trick.

MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL, both Mac and Linux now have SelfControl, which writes to your config files and ip-tables to block specific websites for a pre-selected length of time. It alters the config files and ip-tables apparently, so unless you want to actually find them and edit them (not hard but too many damn steps) once you set the timer... you can't get to those sites. Even if you reboot. IOW, see y'all in about two weeks.

There's a frontend for iptables in ubuntu called ufw (uncomplicated firewall), and a graphical gufw.

sudo ufw disable

[AhabsOtherLeg]

EDIT: In relation to eyeno

Wow, this Ubuntu Linux Unix thing seems very easy to get into for the casual computer user who hasn't even grasped msconfig or regedit yet. FFS. Show some mercy in your advice, Shodan. Nobody coming over from Windows is going to know about repros and so on. They might not even know about boot options. A generation of IT professionals have made monetarily renumerative careers out of the fact that people don't even know what the F keys are, or do.

This is why many subsist in the grubby and smelly Windows world. It may well be that we know no better - but at least we know what we know.

Knowing all that other stuff takes time, and effort. As you convert newbs to your cause, try to remember that you have a degree of technical knowledge slightly above that of the average convert. Don't just say "Yeah, you'll have to mount C: on your RAM drive then start running the distros off your repros through perl, mate." Or whatever.

[eyeno]

Yep what Ahab said! You guys are totally over my head. Windows does not teach one much about things outside of it's own nested box. A lot of what you guys are explaining to me is like me trying to explain to a sleepy person that al-qaeda is a myth. It will not compute! I will try 9.10. That will be easy enough. The official ubuntu site does not offer 9.10 does it? I want to make sure I get a clean copy.

[82_28]

Eyeno, there is no reason for these guys to scare you off. Once we get your Ubuntu running, you'll understand. It really is basically a system that runs itself. Go here for your 9.10.

http://releases.ubuntu.com/karmic/

Since it is one release cycle away from 10.10 you should be able to upgrade from synaptic. I ran 7.10 for eons. But enough of the |33t speak. Give 9.10 a whirl. Let us know what's up. I tried rolling through a bunch of ubuntu threads to try and whittle down (with what little I know about your system) your problem. If I were you I would post your question here as far as 10.10 goes. Don't worry about not knowing what the fuck you're talking about. Somebody will help you quickly. Try and figure out your system specs if you can. Hell, post them here as well.

http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=326

Like I said, I got a newish system of my dad's running Ubuntu a couple of weeks ago. Went off without a hitch.

If gnomad/penguin is around we could definitely use you!

[82_28]

EDIT: In relation to eyeno

Wow, this Ubuntu Linux Unix thing seems very easy to get into for the casual computer user who hasn't even grasped msconfig or regedit yet. FFS. Show some mercy in your advice, Shodan. Nobody coming over from Windows is going to know about repros and so on. They might not even know about boot options. A generation of IT professionals have made monetarily renumerative careers out of the fact that people don't even know what the F keys are, or do.

This is why many subsist in the grubby and smelly Windows world. It may well be that we know no better - but at least we know what we know.

Knowing all that other stuff takes time, and effort. As you convert newbs to your cause, try to remember that you have a degree of technical knowledge slightly above that of the average convert. Don't just say "Yeah, you'll have to mount C: on your RAM drive then start running the distros off your repros through perl, mate." Or whatever.

Believe it or not, Linux is a lot simpler, logical and less capricious than any OS out there -- conversely it can also be as complex and inscrutable as you want it be as well. You don't need a lot of technological know-how at all. You merely must adapt and also trust the community. There are many, many people out there eager to help in getting you up and running.

[Stephen Morgan]

I think it's the installing that scare people off. Partitioning is the only bit that ever made me nervous, even when installing from a pile of floppies a decade back. You don't want to wreck everything. Also, as with eyeno, there are occasional problems. With windows the manufacturer, Acer or Dell or whoever, spends millions making their system work with Windows, installing windows on each machine with all the special drivers and so on. With Linux, even though it's easier, you've got to do it yourself. Or, nowadays, the distribution development team have to configure the OS to figure these things out for itself, especially if they want to attract new users.

Using windows is like an abusive relationship. Windows keeps control of everything so you never learn, never develop too much interest in tech stuff and go wandering off, sniffing around the competition. Learned helplessness is the term, I think.

[eyeno]

9.10 booted to live cd and it worked fine but it did not detect a wireless signal. I checked the settings and the proxy setting was set to use a proxy but none of the proxy details were filled in. I checked the "no proxy" box. I looked at the ipv4/6 settings but its grayed out, probably because it is not picking up a connection yet. I do not think I can set the adapter settings until it recognizes the adapter.

[82_28]

ugh. I'm sorry homie.

Please. Tell us about your rig. Is it older? Is it a desktop? Laptop?

I've never heard of so many problems ever on an install.

edit: *well, recently that is*

[Hammer of Los]

Freedom Force, and Freedom Force versus the Third Reich.

It's a squad level tactical superhero game. It reminds me a bit of xcom, but of course has its origins in all those tabletop rpgs and fantasy/sci fi boardgames that came out of the wargame/simulation game field. The games are a little short on mission content, but there are some good fan created mods apparently, which unfortunately I'm having a little trouble installing properly. Oh well, I'll keep on trying.

Broken Sword was good, wasn't it Stephen?

82_28, uninstall Oblivion, and install Morrowind. It was a much better game.

As to O/S, I now have a dual boot win2000/winXP home system. I only put the xp on it a couple of months ago.

These days the world around me moves far more quickly than I do.

I should try installing ubuntu or something similar, but I'm lazy and short of time. Maybe one day. I think I downloaded the installer once.