My first week!

[Arkad]

Hi everybody,

I'm Didier from Belgium and I thought it would be nice to start by a little presentation. I installed Kubuntu 1 week ago... and I like it. A lot! I have known (I mean I have been aware of the existence of) Linux for years but I never took the time to try it.

I have used Windows XP for years and I only tried Vista SP1 a few weeks ago when I installed it for a friend. I guess this is what gave me the desire to "upgrade" (I love visual effects like transparency and 3D 8) ) but I didn't want to pay like 130 euros for a limited OEM version. I have often read that Ubuntu was one of the best distribution for beginners so I immediately looked for a live cd. I read about the different versions and I liked the KDE screenshots so Kubuntu was the chosen one.

For information, here is my configuration:
CPU - Intel Core 2 duo E7200
Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R
Memory - 2x1Go Corsair PC6400
Video card - Sapphire ATI Radeon HD4850 512Mo

The test with the live cd was amazing. So user-friendly, it was so easy to configure my internet connection. The whole thing is so both simple and stylish. I quickly decided to try the real installation. But I was in a fake RAID 1 mode using Intel drivers with XP so I already needed to do a search about ubuntu and RAID. I found that Linux doesn't like such configuration but is capable to do its own (better and faster according to some sites).

So I chose to deactivate RAID (after a backup of my data of course) and run the Kubuntu installation. It's quite fast, only a few popups and still user-friendly. Used to Windows installations, I find great to have the possibility to immediately create a partition for my data. Have you ever tried to move the whole "Documents and settings" folder ? :-X

Now Kubuntu runs smoothly and I already do almost all the activities I did on Windows. It immediately proposed lots of upgrades so I discovered Adept. I took the opportunity to install Firefox (old habits...) and all was fast and easy. I tried a few other installations and only one reboot was needed for the ATI drivers. The system seems very stable.

But of course all isn't smooth and easy. I encountered some difficulties but I already found some good answers on the web. I had problems to configure a dual monitor extended desktop (ATI panel crashed every times); I had no sound although my on-board audio was recognized; I cannot disconnect my Ipod properly with Amarok... I'll post in the appropriate section if I don't find good solutions.

In the end, the whole experience is very positive and I plan to stay on Kubuntu. I already tried virtualization (I was eager to try that one!) with VirtualBox and I still can't believe how easy it is to have Windows running in its little window!

I will keep a dual boot though, since I sometimes play video games. But I'm excited to do all my other activities on my new OS. I hope my testimony can help people who are still uncertain to try the (not-so-)big step.

Nice to meet you all!

[claydoh]

Re: My first week!

Hi Didier!

Welcome to Kubuntuforums!

It is wonderful you are having a pleasant experience using Kubuntu.

Do feel free to post your problem areas here as someone may have already been in your shoes and can help you find the solution you need

[GreyGeek]

Re: My first week!

Welcome!!!

In Penguin country you will find no toll roads, DRM restrictions, spyware that calls home to Redmond with your personal info and demographic data.

You will also find that about the only way to get a virus infection in your email is if YOU
1) save the attachment as a file and give it a name
2) mark the saved file as executable
3) then execute it.

The only reason most Linux users use anti-virus software is that they may forward emails on to their friends who still run Windows and, as a courtesy (to avoid giving them an infection) their Linux anti-virus software strips the maleware from the email.

A few weeks ago I had VISTA Home Premium on this laptop. Now I have only Kubuntu 9.04 with KDE 4.2.1

[Qqmike]

Re: My first week!

Hi Didier, Welcome to the forum!

A good place to check out is
Documentation > How-To's.
For example, dibl's Top 20 Kubuntu FAQs & Answers:
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3099811.0

Welcome aboard!

--Mike
USA/New Mexico

[Arkad]

Re: My first week!

Thanks for your advices, I already found a lot of useful infos. I keep exploring every day and I find very interesting and useful stuff.

What impress me the most are all the powerful programs and commands available. It's so quick and easy to manage partitions, to back up my data, to configure almost all my system...

Now I'm learning basic commands with linuxcommand.org, the few things I have seen and tried are very powerful.

[flarson]

Re: My first week!

Hey, linuxcommand.org looks great. I was not aware of that. Thanks.

[Qqmike]

Re: My first week!

Welcome to the forum, Arkad.

You're a pretty good researcher -- linuxcommand.org, is a very good site!

I wrote this one, too, and it may have a few things different/useful for doing certain tasks in Kubuntu; it's in 3 parts:
-- Commands at Konsole: Beginners: 3 parts
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3091607.0
(from beginner to somewhat intermediate)

[Snowhog]

Re: My first week!

Welcome to the "light side" of the Force Arkad. Now that you've experienced the wonder that is Linux, you'll probably begin to start thinking, "why did I wait so long!"

I don't see where you've said what version of Kubuntu you installed? Intrepid Ibex?

[Arkad]

Re: My first week!

Yes, Kubuntu 8.10

I had some fright yesterday after trying some configuration of the ATI drivers. I had to use commands only but it was a good lesson, and I now have the latest drivers which seem to not crash anymore. Note for myself and all the newbies: deactivate all desktop visual effects BEFORE trying to remove the display drivers!

Thanks for the link Qqmike, it's exactly the kind of thing I need.

[Pillage Idiot]

Re: My first week!

Very good news.
I had a fairly easy entry too, back at Ubuntu 6.10.
Vista helped me in too, I bought OEM 64 bit ultimate.
After three months of no problems a single update fried the whole installation and it could not be recovered.

For your information, the software RAID on most main boards works fine.
I hadn't read anything much at the time, and as all my drives are set up as stripe volumes I just installed away.
I don't span discs though as I don't want to lose everything if one drive fails.
I have not had a single issue, and RAID almost every computer that I build.
The only exception so far was an XP computer with a SATA optical drive, which does not play nice with XP.

I had the pleasure a little while back of a flatmate asking me to convert his laptop to Kubuntu.
He was sick of problems with Vista and just came and dumped his laptop on the bench, said put what you've got on there, and hasn't looked back.
That evening he was installing stuff, found limewire, downloaded some music, etc. I was quite surprised at how quickly he took to it.

Anyway, I hope you continue to enjoy your experience in our world without windows and gates.

[Arkad]

Re: My first week!

Thanks I am still fine with my new system and I keep enjoying it. I like it so much that I have installed it on two other family members' computers! They are both newbies in the whole computer world so they don't have to unlearn Windows habits.

This week, I discovered testdisk to recover partitions after a big Windows crash. I'm still amazed about how fast it was. I also discovered how to check my hard drives status with smartmontools.

I discover new little things almost everyday. Today, I just learned about the "folder view settings" on the desktop. It was under my nose all this time and I didn't even notice.

Concerning software RAID, I have used RAID 1 for a few years with XP and it works fine. It saved me when a 3 months old Samsung drive let me down with more than 150 Go of data.

I have read that I need the alternate .iso to use RAID with Kubuntu. But I don't feel like re-installing the system since I have learned about backup tools like rdiff-backup and backup-manager. I'm going to use one of those to backup my data. After learning how to make a nice little script to automate all that...

[flarson]

Re: My first week!

If you have networking on your computer there is nothing on the alternate iso that is not available to you over the network through the package manager. Software raid is built in to the linux kernel. All you need are programs to control it like mdadm. I usually use parted to setup the partitions with RAID flags set so the OS will build the RAID all by itself after they are first activated.

[Pillage Idiot]

Re: My first week!

I honestly haven't done anything with mdadm.
I set up my arrays in the chipset utility just after the system boots through post.
Once the arrays are defined the partitioner sees them as an ordinary empty volume, ready for partitions.
The live installer and the alternate installer both see these fine.
Sometimes I will set up the partitions with parted before installing, other times I just do it during the install.
I have a couple of drives set up in this way from previous machines that I have just plugged in to the main board and these have been recognised fine.
When I came over to Oz I brought a 1tb drive that I had configured as a raid stripe volume, set up an ext3 partition, and copied all my media onto it on my machine in NZ for the shift.
When I got here I built a new pc, plugged it in, and voila, it was recognised by the on board raid.
I installed Kubuntu on to the other new drive, after setting it as a raid volume, and set a mount point for the imported volume.
The on board raid has proved to be very tolerant, and has helped enormously in keeping my volumes portable.
Very simple too, like me.
mdadm looks to me like it is a raid solution for use when an on board or hardware solution is not available, and can be used with ide drives as well. I don't think the volumes created with it would be as portable.
Correct me if I am wrong. As I said, I haven't used it.
Again, that is one of the strong points of Linux, there is always more than one way to skin a cat.
For me, I prefer to have the raid configuration separate from the OS and not dependant on it for definition.

[Arkad]

Re: My first week!

If you have networking on your computer there is nothing on the alternate iso that is not available to you over the network through the package manager. Software raid is built in to the linux kernel. All you need are programs to control it like mdadm. I usually use parted to setup the partitions with RAID flags set so the OS will build the RAID all by itself after they are first activated.

Thanks, I used GParted (Parted kept telling me that my partition was not unmounted clean or something like that) to resize 2 partitions on 2 separate drives. Then I build a RAID1 array with mdadm and it works well, I put my /home on it. It's really great to be able to create RAID at any moment and not just at the installation of the system. And I find it greater that I can RAID only 2 partitions and not the entire drive. I will probably RAID the entire drives later but I needed to keep some room on my second drive. Also I like testing...

Pillage Idiot, you didn't need any drivers to use the on board RAID ? I have Asus and Gigabyte motherboards and Kubuntu didn't see the RAID but displayed the 2 drives separately when I installed it.

Anyway, Kubuntu and KDE rocks, it's awesome almost everything is customizable. I can't wait to test the final Jaunty with KDE 4.2...

[flarson]

Re: My first week!

If parted told you your partitions were not cleanly unmounted you should have run the appropriate fsck (eg fsck.ext2 fsck.ext3) to clean them. I hope that Gparted did that, but my guess is it did not. That is not a benefit.