I need help please 4 questions and comments

[integrity]

OK a few more questions in regards to kubuntu fiesty.

1. Why when I view a .avi file with mplayer,VLC or Kaffeine the video looks like it has been filtered? Almost like someone turned on the brightness high on a TV screen.

2. How come using xmms audio player mp3 files the sound clarity is much different then on windows platform?

3. Why they don't make linux variants feel more user friendly? everything is command this and that not to mention that someone should come out with a autoinstaller similar to Wise installers or MsI installers for Windows? I love how kubuntu looks and all but some of these things are enough to make some people switch back. Installing firefox was a 20 minute job trying to figure it out.

4. Where are the files stored? in windows usually everything is in C:/(then you have Program files etc. self explanatory) on linux everything is all over the place Root folder you have names for these folders like (Bin,srv,sys,var etc..) WTF this all means dam someone come up with simplicity

I am going to vent a little, I will use this until sat morning if I cannot figure these things out I will be whipping out my ghost restore disk and image.

[Fintan]

Re: I need help please 4 questions and comments

To question 1:
I have got no idea. Maybe you should post your spects and someone can help. I don't have that problem.

To question 2:
My sound clarity in amorak is different too. Better. Crystal clear.

To question 3:
I can't think of anything easier thatn snaptic / adept I have seen windows apps that i had to look for, download, open the installer, click 6-20 times, answer all kinds of needless questions so they have me in a databank, then restart (reboot) etc, etc.

If you think that is userfriendly, okay.

20 minutes, well maybe if it was the first app. you ever installed under Kubuntu and didn't know about adept / synaptic.

To question 4:
Which files are you talking about? Data is usually stored in /home unless otherwise defined. And yes the etc, var, bins are confusing at first. There are also plenty of places to read up on that as well. Basicly it is because linux came in a sense from unix and still uses some of their traditions.

At any rate the files that you really need to know about are in /etc.

As far as the f....g simplicity is concerned. Well I like to boot up my machine in the morning and start work, instead of having to wait 30-40 minutes untill my various anti-virus, -trojan, -spyware apps have finished checking my system and then having to tell my firewall everytime some another person wants access to my machine that he/she is allowed or not.

I could go on and on but that is awaste of time and I want to enjoy the nice weather.

One last thing.
There are plenty of helpfull howto's on varios topics (like finding, installing apps) the various forums here.
and that is the biggest difference to the win world. If you need help you get it. Have you ever gotten a qualified answer to a windows problem within a reasonable period of time.

The answers of course allways depend on the questions and the tone of them.

Make them as informative as possible, ie the make model of your machine, cpu, ram, video/sound/lan/wifi card, HD size and type. Moniter, router etc.

Many items in the linux world are hardware specific so be specific and you will get help.

Cheers and be nice
Fintan

[jhewer]

Re: I need help please 4 questions and comments

1) & 2) do you have the correct drivers for your hardware installed, and the correct codecs for playback of the video and audio files?

3) if adept / aptitude isn't easy then i don't know what is. the ability to install an application and all of it's dependants by entering 'apt-get install ...' on the command line is wonderful!

4) there's plenty of explainations of the file system directory structure around. for example:

http://www.freeos.com/articles/3102/

hope that helps

[lowey23]

Re: I need help please 4 questions and comments

I am going to vent a little

Before you vent a little more, do a little reading. Here is a really good site

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/index.php

which will give you a lot of good K/ubuntu/linux tips

Google is also a good source of information.

I'm not doing a RTFM thing, integrity, but when you use a new system you have to learn a little about it first.

[integrity]

Re: I need help please 4 questions and comments

My apologies but this is no lie windows xp running on a p4 2.80ghz 1gig ram 160gig drive on a hp d530 small form factor pc total boot time 3minutes if that and I am ready to go everything in the taskbar is loaded. If you don't believe me I will gladly take video of it. But this is not my point I want to use linux because MS sucks but doing comparison this is a bit confusing to use.

I will def check out the sites mentioned one last request if I may
I downloaded opera browser it arrived as a rpm now if i right click over it it gives me the option to install but when I click a window pops up for a sec then goes away.

I promise if you help me out it will be the last time I harass you hehe :-)

[lowey23]

Re: I need help please 4 questions and comments

As a new user, please don't try to install an rpm. Use what is in the repositories. Have a read of the links that I sent you and things should become a bit clearer.

[dibl]

Re: I need help please 4 questions and comments

integrity -- your first 2 questions really relate specifically to your hardware and whatever players/viewers you chose to use, so there isn't a specific answer possible to those -- try different players, maybe, or different drivers.

#3. That's a good one -- I'm sure by now you've discovered the Adept Manager for installing "packages". So, the real answer is twofold: (a) if the software you want is a package in the repositories, it takes perhaps one or two minutes for a big one like Firefox, and maybe 20 seconds for a little one like lm-sensors or something, OR (b) if the software you want is NOT in the repositories and/or is not already "packaged" for Debian Linux systems, then you are in deep doo-doo -- you can either go to Packaging and Compiling University, or forget about it. Happily, there are 20,000+ in the repos, so it's hard to get real outraged about this one .....

#4. The real answer is "It only looks that way from your Windows viewpoint". Except for the OS installation process itself, there is little reason for you (as the user of it) to know or care where anything outside of your /home folder is -- it is quite analogous to "My Documents". Conversely, if I look at the WinXP folder on this piece of crap that I'm presently writing on, I find a mess of arcanely-named directories that do who knows what -- "properties" tells me it contains 15,507 files and 1,359 folders, and consumes 3.84 GB of disk space. Is that what you mean by "simplicity"?

Welcome aboard -- here's your first free help: DON'T attempt to install anything you downloaded as an rpm. If Opera is not available in the repos, there is a relatively simple process using a package called alien to convert a .rpm package into a .deb that you can install on your Kubuntu system. A little search here and/or at Ubuntu Forums should yield more "how-to" on that subject.

[kubicle]

Re: I need help please 4 questions and comments

The unix/linux filesystem hierarchy may seem confusing at first (if you're coming from windows), but in the long run it's easier to understand and manage (on windows the system is rather chaotic and will get more so after more things are installed).

The filesystem hierarchy has it roots in unix, which was designed to be a multiuser/networked environment, in which everything appear under the same filesystem tree no matter where the data actually is (on which drive or which networked machine etc...you can actually have /usr on a networked server and use it for a number of client machines, for example, as it (shouldn't) contain any machine specific data)...it may be confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it, you won't regret it.

(and on most cases, you don't need to know where everything is, though as an administrator it definitely won't hurt if you do...you can run programs, read man-pages etc. without knowing where the files are, your machine finds the files as they follow the the hierarchy standard (FHS)).

I downloaded opera browser it arrived as a rpm now if i right click over it it gives me the option to install but when I click a window pops up for a sec then goes away.

ALthough it's possible to convert rpm files to install on a (k)ubuntu machine, I'd suggest you download the .deb package, which is the native format for debian based linux distributions (like kubuntu). The deb-file is available from opera.com (if you choose the ubuntu download option)

[Fintan]

Re: I need help please 4 questions and comments

Opera is in the repository. Search for it in adept/aptitude/synaptic and rightclick to install.

This took 3min.

If you choose the ubuntu version from the opera site then download it to /home/yourusername/whatever and rightclick on the deb file in konqueror and choose kde install manager. A window will open and you may have to give your password, press enter and it will install.

Enjoy and welcome to the club
F

[kubicle]

Re: I need help please 4 questions and comments

Opera is in the repository. Search for it in adept/aptitude/synaptic and rightclick to install.

Err...If I'm not missing something, Opera is not in the supported standard repositories, one has to add the canonical commercial repo or a third party repo (like opera's own software repository) to install opera with the package managers.

Opera is not included in the standard repositories as it is closed source commercial software.

[Fintan]

Re: I need help please 4 questions and comments

I stand corrected. It is of course in my automatix epos. Sorry.

[SheeEttin]

Re: I need help please 4 questions and comments

Your Windows machine takes three minutes to boot? That's a pretty long time. I think this thing here boots up in less than two.

EDIT: Power button to usable state, 1:17, give or take about two seconds (mostly take).