Moving to Ubuntu for newbies

Now shifting to Linux from windows is difficult sometimes. Not coz windows is superior but because you have to unlearn several ways of computing to learn Linux ways. (e.g. pasting in terminal is ctrl+shift+v and not ctrl+v)
That's why i expose my kids only to Linux. They'll learn Linux as Linux natives :-)

Ok so we'll assume that you are installing Ubuntu 9.04 and you have never done anything except Windows XP or Vista. As a user also, you are a basic user using Outlook, Gmail, MS office 2003 or 2007. You also collect few fotos on your comp, listen to music and occasionally see movies.

So we'll start from this point itself. Later we can talk more gibberish which WILL make sense to you once you have DONE the initial things in Ubuntu

This post is a guide post where mostly I'll give you links about how to do things and not write the whole tutorial myself.

Warning: If you don't have good internet connection, then this may be a bit of an uphill task for you. Ask Ubuntu to send you CDs by post then.

First, Download Ubuntu. Downloaded file is 699 MB .iso file. Make a CD from this using 'burn image to disk' facility from any CD making program of windows (Nero, Ashampoo etc)

Let's begin with Installation.

See this post for step by step guide.

Now if you want to use both Vista/XP along with Ubuntu, you have two options.
1. Run you Ubuntu Live CD and it'll give you an option to install Ubuntu as a program under Windows. This is good for trying out only as it behaves a li'l slow
2. Other option is called Dual Boot. See here for step by step guidance (XP+Ubuntu) or (Vista+Ubuntu)

After Installation Customisation

Now that you have Ubuntu, you'd want to have
1. Customised looks for your desktop and icons
2. The programs to help you meet your computing needs

The top bar of Ubuntu Shows 3 things on left:
Applications (All the basic programs you need: Browser, email, Office Suite etc)
Places: My computer kind of thing
System: Control Panel equiv

What you need to know here are Some basic concepts:
1. All your other drives like D: drive, F: Drive are not available in Linux when it boots. They Need to be mounted. Does that scare you? Don't worry. just click on them once and they'll Mount. This is important coz otherwise if you click on a link of your foto on d: drive, it won't show.
2. The structure of Ubuntu drives is very different from Windows.
Here, the basic thing is root (c:) represented by '/'
Under this /home is your folder. This is equiv to 'documents and settings' under windows. So your 'My documents' are /home/you/documents
If you'll click on Home folder from places, it'll show you your documents, pictures, videos etc etc.

So highest place under ubuntu is / (called ROOT) which is also called filesystem in explorer view.
Remaining drives like D: drive will show like a hard disk icon with label.

NOTE: If you want to access your additional drives from / location, the path is
to open the 'media' folder. (/media) and not look for (/home/media etc). This is coz /home is specific to you but /media is common. Under media you will find all other drives including CD Drives.
(There are some confusing folders under root. You need not touch them. (e.g. Bin is not the recycle bin of windows but binaries; there is a folder called, believe me, 'etc'... and it's a damn imp folder but you need not touch it at this stage.)

From System>Preferences>Appearance you can do a lot about looks and feels. Explore it. Top bar, bottom bar side bars are all highly customisable. Explore to learn.

For installing more software, there are three ways. But before that, I'll explain the concept of repositories.

Ubuntu makes it very easy to add/remove software directly from internet. Almost all softwares are open source (and thus free). So Ubuntu and others keep an online repository of those software. All you have to do is subscribe to those repositiores (see this as the process for step-by-step guidance) This way, all available software are easily available to you on your desktop itself along with description and all. You can do a one click download and install.

So the three ways that i mentioned are:
1. Synaptic manager (System>administration>synaptic manager)
2. Applications>Add/remove....
3. Simplest: Go to http://appnr.com   About 2000 software are listed and described, ready for your one-click download and install. For newbies, this may be the easiest method.

I'll write more.
But till then, hope you are able to install Ubuntu, you desired programs (My Post, Old post about program comparisons, Windows' programs alternatives in Linux)

THE PARTING SHOT:
We'll talk about WINE sometime. It allows you to run windows programs under Linux. I do run Internet Explorer and MS Office 2007.

Happy Computing
:-)

Computing needs and Linux

Most Linux geeks will tell you that a Linux machine can do everything that windows does and more.They must be right. 4 Years with Linux have taught me this. But... The but is

• Sometimes Linux is erratic (like Windows 98 used to be)
• Sometimes the task needs to be done thru command line

You can't do much about the first one except for search for better alternatives. Second one is easy because i have always managed to find step-by-step guide to everything i ever needed simply by googling. Problem: Problems happen in two forms

1. People using Win/ Mac at office and Linux at Home
2. People comparing how this is done in windows/mac and is it bettter or not in Linux

In the first case, there is a bit of difficulty in adjusting to two diff systems in the same day. I'll call it a lifestyle issue. In second case, people need to understand that linux is a different way of computing to reach the same endpoint as in windows. They should see whether they can reach the same endpoint or not. If not, then Linux is not for them. LAstly, I have written articles about computing ease and possibility of migrating by comparing the applications.  To me, it seems not such a good idea any more. Let's compare computing needs and how best does windows and linux fulfill them. For convenience, let's assume all functions of windows score 10. Now let's see how linux scores.

Computing need	Linux does it	Remarks
Writing emails	10	thunderbird, evolution
Browsing internet	9	Only mozilla avl. Some sites work only with IE. (Wine IE is toooo slow)
Writing word docs	7	OOO is only a second cousin
Excel sheets	9	OOO has a pretty good spreadsheet
presentations	5	PPT is wayyyyyyyyyyy ahead
image stores	10
image manipulation mild	9	use picasa; not so easy manipulation
image manipulation heavy	9	GIMP; inferior to photoshop
music	12	amarok etc are very simple and powerful; mouse over music preview
video viewing	10
multimedia editing	12	plethora of editors; better than windows. mac???
pdf	12	default viewer is VERY fast; annotator freely avl
HTML	9	html editors are aplenty but nothing like dreamweaver
scanning	12	Xsane is so easy and practically no installation
Printing	12	finding and installing network printers was such a breeze
games	6	i.e. IF you think gaming is so important.
Education bundles	9	Windows has variety. every asshole develops CDs for windows :-(
Financial transactions	10	except those sites which accept only IE
Virus/ Trojans/ Malware	20	Linux is mercifully free from them
User access control	15	You mean windows has this???
Firewall	10	Inbuilt
Cost	15	Linux is free and updatable along with its softwares
Finding software & installation	12	Package managers are too good. Unique concept.
VAriety in software	7	low commercial drivers. runs on passion.
chat clients	7	most dont have voip.
looks and effects	10	some issue exists with NVidia otherwise it cud be 12
encryption	10	truecrypt being the only easy cross platform encrpting. Forget LUKS.
Desktop publishing	8	(Adobe pagemaker, MS Publisher, Corel draw) Linux has secodn cousins
pdf printer	10
Screenshots	10
Mindmaps	10	Freemind
UML tools	10	several
Desktop sharing	5	pathetic
Accounting programs	10
Fone sync	8	Nokia PC suite missing. Gammu and mobile media browser do an approximate job
Camera Sync	12	All cameras are picked up quickly (i have olympus and kodak)
One Note	7	One note is a unique s/w even in windows. there is no real replacement. try evernote.
Pathcopy	9	copying a file's path can be a pain
Automount	7	Other disk partitions are not mounted till clicked for the first time. Need additional s/s for that
Zipping / extracting	12
Dictionary	9	online only
Cost	14	i shud give 20 but gave 14 considering that most people use pirated win in india
upgrades to newer versions	12	hasslefree
hardware needs	12
Usability/ user friendly	8
Backup and restore	12
Migration to another machine	11
Total	474/470

As luck would have it, Linux scored 4 points more than windows in MY idea. (though it does not make it superior to windows necessarily)
So i do use Linux. Some people may have a make or break deal and may have to use windows. But if you are an average user, Linux can do it for you, free of cost, fully legal and much much hassle free.
Cheers.

Howto: Backup and restore your system! - Ubuntu Forums

Howto: Backup and restore your system! - Ubuntu Forums

Howto: Backup and restore your system!

---

Hi, and welcome to the Heliode guide to successful backing-up and restoring of a Linux system!

Most of you have probably used Windows before you started using Ubuntu. During that time you might have needed to backup and restore your system. For Windows you would need proprietary software for which you would have to reboot your machine and boot into a special environment in which you could perform the backing-up/restoring (programs like Norton Ghost).
During that time you might have wondered why it wasn't possible to just add the whole c:\ to a big zip-file. This is impossible because in Windows, there are lots of files you can't copy or overwrite while they are being used, and therefore you needed specialized software to handle this.

Well, I'm here to tell you that those things, just like rebooting, are Windows CrazyThings (tm). There's no need to use programs like Ghost to create backups of your Ubuntu system (or any Linux system, for that matter). In fact; using Ghost might be a very bad idea if you are using anything but ext2. Ext3, the default Ubuntu partition, is seen by Ghost as a damaged ext2 partition and does a very good job at screwing up your data.

1: Backing-up

"What should I use to backup my system then?" might you ask. Easy; the same thing you use to backup/compress everything else; TAR. Unlike Windows, Linux doesn't restrict root access to anything, so you can just throw every single file on a partition in a TAR file!

To do this, become root with

Code:

sudo su

and go to the root of your filesystem (we use this in our example, but you can go anywhere you want your backup to end up, including remote or removable drives.)

Code:

cd /

Now, below is the full command I would use to make a backup of my system:

Code:

tar cvpzf backup.tgz --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/backup.tgz --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys /

Now, lets explain this a little bit.
The 'tar' part is, obviously, the program we're going to use.

'cvpfz' are the options we give to tar, like 'create archive' (obviously),
'preserve permissions'(to keep the same permissions on everything the same), and 'gzip' to keep the size down.

Next, the name the archive is going to get. backup.tgz in our example.

Next comes the root of the directory we want to backup. Since we want to backup everything; /

Now come the directories we want to exclude. We don't want to backup everything since some dirs aren't very useful to include. Also make sure you don't include the file itself, or else you'll get weird results.
You might also not want to include the /mnt folder if you have other partitions mounted there or you'll end up backing those up too. Also make sure you don't have anything mounted in /media (i.e. don't have any cd's or removable media mounted). Either that or exclude /media.

EDIT : kvidell suggests below we also exclude the /dev directory. I have other evidence that says it is very unwise to do so though.

Well, if the command agrees with you, hit enter (or return, whatever) and sit back&relax. This might take a while.

Afterwards you'll have a file called backup.tgz in the root of your filessytem, which is probably pretty large. Now you can burn it to DVD or move it to another machine, whatever you like!

EDIT2:
At the end of the process you might get a message along the lines of 'tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors' or something, but in most cases you can just ignore that.

Alternatively, you can use Bzip2 to compress your backup. This means higher compression but lower speed. If compression is important to you, just substitute
the 'z' in the command with 'j', and give the backup the right extension.
That would make the command look like this:

Code:

tar cvpjf backup.tar.bz2 --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/backup.tar.bz2 --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys /

2: Restoring

Warning: Please, for goodness sake, be careful here. If you don't understand what you are doing here you might end up overwriting stuff that is important to you, so please take care!

Well, we'll just continue with our example from the previous chapter; the file backup.tgz in the root of the partition.

Once again, make sure you are root and that you and the backup file are in the root of the filesystem.

One of the beautiful things of Linux is that This'll work even on a running system; no need to screw around with boot-cd's or anything. Of course, if you've rendered your system unbootable you might have no choice but to use a live-cd, but the results are the same. You can even remove every single file of a Linux system while it is running with one command. I'm not giving you that command though!

Well, back on-topic.
This is the command that I would use:

Code:

 tar xvpfz backup.tgz -C /

Or if you used bz2;

Code:

 tar xvpfj backup.tar.bz2 -C /

WARNING: this will overwrite every single file on your partition with the one in the archive!

Just hit enter/return/your brother/whatever and watch the fireworks. Again, this might take a while. When it is done, you have a fully restored Ubuntu system! Just make sure that, before you do anything else, you re-create the directories you excluded:

Code:

mkdir proc
mkdir lost+found
mkdir mnt
mkdir sys
etc...

And when you reboot, everything should be the way it was when you made the backup!

2.1: GRUB restore
Now, if you want to move your system to a new harddisk or if you did something nasty to your GRUB (like, say, install Windows), You'll also need to reinstall GRUB.
There are several very good howto's on how to do that here on this forum, so i'm not going to reinvent the wheel. Instead, take a look here:

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthre...t=grub+restore

There are a couple of methods proposed. I personally recommend the second one, posted by remmelt, since that has always worked for me.


Well that's it! I hope it was helpful!
As always, any feedback is appreciated!

__________________
"Windows is something to overcome"

How to Kill a Running Process in Ubuntu (or any Linux distro)

How to Kill a Running Process in Ubuntu (or any Linux distro)

Some or the other mischievous app crashes. You try to reopen it, only to find this warning: “Application X is already running. Please close all versions of the application and try again.” You instinctively hit ctrl+alt+delete, only to remember that you’re not in Microsoftland anymore. How exactly do you kill a running process in Ubuntu?

See this
http://productivelinux.com/2009/02/12/how-to-kill-a-running-process-in-ubuntu/


In Ubuntu, for most applications, you can open the system monitor under the system tab, go to the processes tab, highlight the one you want and click the kill button.

Fresh Perspective

Of late i have been thinking, again, Why Ubuntu?

With my Current windows, the working is becoming smoother and smoother. So Windows is evolving and evolving for good.
What is not happening is that it's not becoming cheaper. In India, forget individuals, even small time non-IT companies are using Pirated Windows, coz of cost factor.
Add to this, the guilt and the bad example I am setting for my kids by trying to use pirated windows.
Add to this perpetual fears about viruses and a firewall (read extra cost and headche)

SO going for Ubuntu may be a very good idea in view of safety, legality, cheapness etc.

Caveat is that your favourite programs may be only partially available (Thru WINE) or not at all. Their Poor cousins are avl in Linux though. Some of them really good while some of them just about doing the job and still others which are just basic. And then, MS Office is a few lightyears ahead of any other office s/w.

The problem is unlearning windows. We have become so used to it that Linux error messages now appear incomprehensible. Willingness to achieve the same effect from a diff route sometimes falters.

Yet I have Ubuntu on all my machines, co-existing with Windows.

Decision:

May be i shall try the following:
For usual usage which is browser based, use Ubuntu invariably.
For using highly specialised programs only, use windows (spl CDs, Adobe Photoshop etc.)

Lemme see how i succeed in view of the limitation that kids in indian schools are being taught Windows in the name of being taught computers.

Sankat Mochan Linux

My last post said that it'd be the last one
I had turned away from linux for some time... that is till yesterday.
My Win XP SP3 landed in a BSoD (Blue Screen of Death) and nothing has been able to do the repair.
I had an urgent online meeting to attend.
Out came Ubuntu 8.04 Live CD
Smooth Boot
Logged into Google Talk
Enjoyed meeting
(One glitch was that it hung midway once and required a reboot but this is small price to pay considering that there is no Live CD in Win and even then, i dared not run without an anti-virus)
Thanks Linux
Once again

On the turning away

This is my last post on this blog.

Finally, after two months of experimenting with Linux, I am going back to Windows.

Why? You may ask.

Well, as OS there is very little to choose between Win and Lin by quality and features; I am not talking cost here, but usability and stability; though Ubuntu 8.04 hung a few more times than windows does.

As far as applications are concerned, there are n number of windows equivalents available; but they are just that. Equivalents. There is practically nothing that Linux does but windows doesn’t. But there is a lot that Windows does but Linux Applications just don’t do.

This is especially true if you are into multimedia editing etc. These are a disaster in Linux. OOO can only be called a second cousin to MS office. And so are most other applications like Scribus (adobe PageMaker), InkScape (Corel Draw), GIMP (Photshop).

This is true to the extent that even the same company that makes s/w for Linux makes it inferior. E.g. In Skype Linux, no plugins are available which makes life so difficult for me.

Overall, I don’t wanna take away any credit from Ubuntu coz it IS fabulous. But practically, the usability of its applications is still to catch up with windows. So for organizations looking to cut costs, perhaps Ubuntu is an option; but for personal use at home PC or Laptop, Windows it is for me.