The Linux newbie perspective

[StoneAgeMoron]

As a Linux newbie, I nearly deleted Kubuntu after attempting to use sudo for the first time. It didn't accept my user password as it should have according to documentation I read on this web site. It appeared that the sudo command was broken or didn't work.

Two nice users in the forums pointed me to the SudoRoot link. There I found the probable cause: It had been more than 15 minutes since I logged in.

Why does Kubuntu forget a users password after 15 minutes? This just adds another step, and unnecessary complexity, to the sudo feature. Sudo, as opposed to becoming root, appears to be unique to K/Ubuntu and counter to the administration implementation of virtually all other distros. Having to log in as a regular user virtually each time you want to use sudo is not much of an improvement over simply becoming a root user when you need to. Removing the 15 minute time-out appears to mitigate this one small problem.

Also, are functions as mundane as changing time format so dangerous that they really require administrative access?

How about a single-user version without the unnecessary security precautions of su or /root?

Please, in your responses, be kind. It's not like I know anything about Linux!!

[aysiu]

Re: The Linux newbie perspective

I've already explained that you do not need to enter your password to change the time and date format. Something is wrong with your installation, otherwise.

I also don't see how you could have removed your entire Kubuntu installation because sudo forgot your password.

The whole point of sudo is that you're basically a user with limited privileges and that by prefacing commands with the word sudo you can temporarily gain root (administrator) privileges. Even though the password is remembered for fifteen minutes, you still need to preface each command with the word sudo. If the sudo command you're running (for example, sudo apt-get dist-upgrade) takes longer than fifteen minutes, you'll still be able to execute it without having to re-enter your password.

This is for security, and I've found it to be far superior to the traditional root/user model for several reasons:

1. One less password to remember.
2. You're far less likely to accidentally do something because you forgot you were logged in as root. You have to make a conscious effort to put sudo in front of commands you want to execute as root.
3. You can launch a graphical "browse as root" by creating a launcher for the command

kdesu konqueror

This is far handier than logging out of user, logging in as root, making changes, logging out as root, and then logging back in as user again.

If you don't like this security model, you can change it. The instructions for changing to the traditional Linux root model, along with the pros and cons of the sudo model, are on this page:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RootSudo

[StoneAgeMoron]

Re: The Linux newbie perspective

Thanks, aysiu!

You have been, by far the most helpful member to assist me on this forum.

Did I imply that changing time format damaged my install? Sorry, I just meant to say that this simple task didn't seem to be dangerous enough to warrant much in the way of security measures.

Anyway, Kubuntu just isn't for me. Thanks for all the help, and keep up the great work in helping newcomers. If someone wants a great computer project, Linux is probably it. Setting up a working Kubuntu system might make a great Senior Project for a gifted High School student, for example. I think Kubuntu requires either someone who is technically well educated, has worked on Unix systems for many years, or who considers computers to be a hobby. Users who absolutely require instant productivity out of the box should not be encouraged to investigate Linux as a viable operating system AT THIS TIME. Next month, maybe!

Kubuntu is a great project and the Community and Mr. Shuttleworth are great patrons of humanity. Keep up the great work!

[askrieger]

Re: The Linux newbie perspective

It's probably too late, but nobody explained why changing the VALUE of the time and date really does require administrative access. The reason is that if you set the time back, e.g. switch from daylight time to regular time and you have done something that changed the modify time on a critical file, the file system can get confused. Now suppose that bright adolescent who is enjoying the chance to get back at the world decides to do precisely that to your computer, or suppose some thoughtless user, does the same thing inadvertently, which is much more likely. The need to type sudo for every administrative task and to give your password every 15 minutes is just to make you stop and think.

[aysiu]

Re: The Linux newbie perspective

Did I imply that changing time format damaged my install? Sorry, I just meant to say that this simple task didn't seem to be dangerous enough to warrant much in the way of security measures.

I didn't say you implied it. You seemed to say you needed your administrator password to change the time format, and that's not normal. Something is wrong with your installation if you're being asked for any password to change the time format.

Anyway, Kubuntu just isn't for me. Thanks for all the help, and keep up the great work in helping newcomers. If someone wants a great computer project, Linux is probably it. Setting up a working Kubuntu system might make a great Senior Project for a gifted High School student, for example. I think Kubuntu requires either someone who is technically well educated, has worked on Unix systems for many years, or who considers computers to be a hobby. Users who absolutely require instant productivity out of the box should not be encouraged to investigate Linux as a viable operating system AT THIS TIME. Next month, maybe!

I take real issue with this conclusion, having installed Windows from scratch myself--installing any operating system on a computer not designed for it is difficult and a time-consuming process.

Buy a computer from http://www.system76.com, and I can assure you Ubuntu will be easy to use, as it comes preinstalled. Also, do not equate Kubuntu with Linux. It is one Linux distribution. There are many, and they are, in fact, different. You'll have a completely different experience installing Mepis from installing Slackware, or installing Damn Small Linux from installing Linspire.

[gregwalton]

Re: The Linux newbie perspective

As another Linux newbie who has been trying out Kubuntu recently I think it's useful to remind yourself just how much acquired knowledge you have to have to think that a Windows install is easy.

Even with years of experience of build Windows PCs an install, including all the apps, takes about a week of my spare time (don't get much *spare* time). In the time it takes to install just WinXP you can install Kubuntu with all its apps and (with a bit of research beforehand) most of the obligatory extras like mp3, dvd, divx, etc.

My first install had a few problems which seem to be mostly down to multibooting with a couple of copies of XP. When I think back to the learning curve I had to get Windows to work as advertised Kubuntu has been an absolute breeze.

Now, if only I could get css-protected dvds to play I'd be sorted...

[kubicle]

Re: The Linux newbie perspective

Now, if only I could get css-protected dvds to play I'd be sorted...

Have you looked at:
https://wiki.kubuntu.org/RestrictedF...7cfe144f23af8c

It describes how to install libdvdcss2 (which you need to play encrypted DVDs...do note that libdvdcss2 may or may not be legal in your country)

[gregwalton]

Re: The Linux newbie perspective

[Have you looked at:
https://wiki.kubuntu.org/RestrictedF...7cfe144f23af8c

It describes how to install libdvdcss2 (which you need to play encrypted DVDs...do note that libdvdcss2 may or may not be legal in your country)

Thanks for that - I'd installed the package but just needed that extra command to get it going.

Kubuntu Dapper now up and running and replacing WinXP on my desktop. Laptop next. Who needs Vista?

[utnubuk]

Re: The Linux newbie perspective

Anyway, Kubuntu just isn't for me. Thanks for all the help, and keep up the great work in helping newcomers. If someone wants a great computer project, Linux is probably it. Setting up a working Kubuntu system might make a great Senior Project for a gifted High School student, for example.

I don't share this sentiment at all. One thing I observe is that often, our instant gratification psychology gets in the way of absorbing or even obtaining information. Our societies are designed in ways to provide immediate fulfillment to consumers, be it fast food, entertainment or whatever. We forget how to properly think because everything is arranged. Even our school systems don't educate, they paste information into our brains where it remains as abstract, passionless memory with no real and deep understanding. This transcends all aspects of life. So in a way, we are suffering from a sort of "wake coma" which we ourselves do not recognize because the system around us is, willingly or as a coincidental consequence of a collection of patterns, designed to support that mental state.

All this results in an ultralow frustration tolerance and unwillingness to develop an enthusiasm for "problem" solving. Have you ever made the mistake of answering your phone right out of deep sleep? You can try as hard as you want to sound normal, but it always comes out sluggish and funny and leads to the fatal question: "Oh, have I woken you up?", and we deny this of course, as if sleeping was an embarrassing act.

Approaching GNU/Linux is very similar to trying to have a conversation out of deep sleep. Approaching anything that is alien territory is an unusual experience at first (we evolved to dread this for good reasons), and especially so for those of us who have never learned to learn.  The beauty of technology however, is that it forces us to (re)learn to learn, because if we do not follow its underlying principles - and we have to understand these principles before we can follow and manipulate them - it will just sit there and do nothing. So once you have stepped into this alien terrain, the first thing that will happen to you is a sort of culture shock, like waking up by a bucket of cold water. While before we consumed products, entertainment, holidays (yes, we even consume our free time instead of just taking a rest), and even consume relationships (the expectations some people project onto each other are absurd, more like going to a bank instead of discovering the other), stepping onto the terrain of technology is probably the first time for many when they change from a passive consumer to an active creator.

Yes, creator. The thing you're creating is ways to get the technology to do what you want. And part of that _creative_ process is acquiring both the knowledge _and_ the understanding to manipulate the technology. And this shift can be a dramatic experience, it was for me, because once I began to glimpse what was going on, it changed my entire view of the world around me. So when you approach GNU/Linux, coming from Windows which was designed for the _consumer_ never to venture behind clicking things (otherwise it wouldn't have been this successful), you're in the middle of that process. The very fact that you've been downloading Kubuntu proves that you are curious and interested, but then come the hurdles.

These hurdles aren't really that high, but because we're still drowsy from our consumer life coma, the hurdles seem much higher and more difficult to climb than they really are.

If we are not analytical about this situation, we generally respond in two ways. Either we decide that life outside our consumer shell is too complicated and slip back, or we become _more_ curious. When I met my first hurdles, and I, in an attack of delusions of grandeur thought I could install Debian Woody, I responded just like the newbie who started this thread, albeit less elegantly and thought to myself: funk this.

It didn't last long however, and soon I heard about liveCDs and so it happened that I burnt my first iso of Knoppix, which in German is pronounced with the K. It looked awful with the screen resolution not set up to match my monitor and the font potugly and fuzzy, but here I was clicking around, fumbling alien apps. I even started a console but just to stare at it in morbid fascination. So this is where it all happens I thought to myself. My Windows found a sudden death when I, against the glaring warnings saved my Knoppix configuration to the drive which deleted it all. Well, I got giddy and just wanted to see what happens.

My first installed version was the prerelease of the very first Ubuntu, you know, the one where apps crashed left and right, and coming from the corporate blueishness of XP onto a brown Gnome was like a slap in the face. Eventually, Gnome and me never became real friends so I installed SuSE, I think that was version 9.3. I've been using it till the 10.1 fiasco, but I used GNU/Linux with much the same attitude as I had used Windows, with no interest to venture beyond. This resulted in the paradox situation that I've been using Free software for quite some time but never left the newbie status. Just recently I decided to learn more and I set myself little project goals, like a dual install which I only had since Kubuntu LTS. Now I can use my TNT travelmanager and other propriety applications that can't yet run under Wine.

So this is where I am and I'm certainly enjoying myself. Despite knowing little, I know already much more about GNU/Linux than I do about Windows.

I think Kubuntu requires either someone who is technically well educated, has worked on Unix systems for many years, or who considers computers to be a hobby. Users who absolutely require instant productivity out of the box should not be encouraged to investigate Linux as a viable operating system AT THIS TIME. Next month, maybe!

I find this statement understandable but unfair and false. People who require instant gratification, oops, productivity can simply make a dual install, continue the OS they're used to and learn the other as time allowes. I wouldn't claim that motorbikes as a mode of transportation are not ready for the public streets just because I fell on my bum. You don't get "instant productivity" from a car either, you have to get a driving license. And even if you have a license, it doesn't mean cars with a gear are not ready for the roads because you've been used to driving an automatic.

You are frustrated, which is very normal because landing on your bum dampens the ego. But it doesn't mean that Kubuntu isn't ready for everybody, it means that you are not ready for Kubuntu. While I maintain that you are really, because the OS doesn't *consist* of hurdles. All these people (everybody in the FOSS movement as well as the people involved in Kubuntu) have spent millions of hours overcoming their challenges and I think it isn't asked too much if you try and overcome yours. And even if you decide to throw your hands in the air, that is your choice but I disagree with the sentiment of condemning the entire OS.   

Besides, it works for me and so far I've enjoyed instant productivity from start. It allowed me to make a dual install (after resizing the Windows partition, I stopped the installer and restarted it to take the install option "use the largest available space") which I couldn't even do under Yast with SuSE, and generally its been a positive experience. There are still many things to do, like figuring out how to change the screen resolution from 60Hz to 75Hz (yes can you believe it, after more than two years on GNU/Linux I still don't know), or to find out why Amarok doesn't play any icecast streams, including Ogg and after installing the extracodec thingy, or spits "access denied" messages at me when trying to listen to SOMA dronezone, or how to send data to my husbands computer without using email, who sits in the other room but behind the same DSL router. Also with Kubuntu btw.  He is especially happy since he was, as a native English speaker stuck with a Dutch version of Windows. You know, Windows *and* Dutch. (Ducking and running:-) Nothing against the Dutch, but no one should be forced to suffer under the combined evil of that language an that OS. There are limits you know:-)

In any case, I suppose I got carried away writing, so I conclude rather abruptly with the advise to not let any minor frustrations control you. Just relax and experience the streaming love that is Free software. Probably the best method is dual boot, or using "the old" computer. I think part of the reason, if not the main reason why I'm so behind is because I used Free software on my main working computer so there was always a fear to "break things" by mistakes. However, good used PC's can be had for 50 Euro or less and if you bring a LiveCD to the shop you'll know if Kubuntu will run on it. Once you install for learning purposes you can bang around fearlessly. That's what I should have done, however my "old PC" died from unknown causes otherwise I wouldn't have gotten a new one. And my husband is very nervous about me touching his PC.

[nevaziah]

Re: The Linux newbie perspective

Very well put Nubuk. I know the switch to Kubuntu this afternoon wont be easy, but I can tell you by the end of this weekend, I will have mastered at least the same functions I know of windows. Why? I am not being arrongant, it's just the way I am. If I am going to be using something for a long time, I try to find why something works, how it works, why it's not working like this or like that and I ask questions, poke around, get electrocuted once in a while ya know? (jk)...

I will install it this afternoon if I can get my hands on some cds soon, otherwise, for tomorow. (damn dvd torrent is 4gb....)

Any smaller installation isos i can use for Ubuntu 6.10 or 6.06?
you know, I had expected the instalation disk to be around 700 meg or so....

[marshallbanana]

Re: The Linux newbie perspective

I know already much more about GNU/Linux than I do about Windows.

This is what I really like, after 5yrs with windows and 5 months with kubuntu I already know much more about kubuntu and how it works than I ever did about windows, not because I had to just to use it, but because I could toy around with it. Which means that I have more control over what my computer is doing and when I have a problem I can actually solve it.

PS: Nevaziah, just download the cd, http://www.kubuntu.org/download.php#latest, the dvd just contains a bunch of apps that are not included in the default install, and which you can get later via adept anyway.

[fdv]

Re: The Linux newbie perspective

I don't share this sentiment at all. One thing I observe is that often, our instant gratification psychology gets in the way of absorbing or even obtaining information.

And I'm going to disagree. In my experience, maybe in the OP's experience too, I am finding that Kubuntu is unpredictable. It's frustrating when you follow an online guide to...
...install w32codecs, and you have to enter a gpg key, and you get an error. The error isn't covered in the instructions. One tiny little step prevents the whole thing.
...install nVidia drivers, like here: http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3080537.0 and something happens that apparently has never happened to anyone else. An error not covered in the instructions. One tiny step prevents driver installation.
...launch Apt, but for some reason, you have to launch it twice (select it and click, select it again and click) because it never launches the first time.
...do something as root because you want to be a good citizen and use Google but the instructions you're reading are for Debian and direct you to do things with su or perhaps use a root console, and there is no such thing in ?ubuntu, then you find out why ?ubuntu has no "root" per se, and you have to just know how to work around that, but few n00bs actually do.
...make a change to a system setting but the "OK" button is just out of sight, or perhaps there are no buttons, just a red bordered screen, so you post and someone tells you what to do, but by no means is it intuitive (an OK button is intuitive. Putting it off screen is another story). (And yes, now I know I can use ALT to move stuff).

I consider myself to be an expert in Windows. A while back I created a simple way to remove Internet Explorer from Windows 2000 (no, for real -- not just the icon.) I used to think that people who couldn't figure something out in Windows were just lazy. After all, it's out there on Google, and for a lot of interface stuff and behaviors, all you have to do is going hunting in the Registy. Which, I will add, I have come to understand very, very, very well. No wonder I used to roll my eyes with even advanced users who didn't know how to get rid of XP's search dog (as in, get rid of, not prevent from showing, but actually delete from the system).

I am a hobbyist. I stay with Kubuntu because I enjoy learning, and I still agree with nearly everything StoneAgeMoron has to say. Things are intuitive when you have some clue. N00bs like me and StoneAge don't. The difference is that I am willing to waste the time finding out Linux's peculiarities. My aggravation (and perhaps StoneAge's decision to leave Kubuntu behind) has nothing to do with instant gratification. It's patience with idiosyncracy. Honest.

[fleamailman]

Re: The Linux newbie perspective

I like kubuntu yet I feel that there should a sticky in this newbie section about how to upgrade with those apt-get commands, trash did a great post but it has gone, I feel a simple iso burner for windows should be recommended too so that the to be kubuntu user does not burn the iso with xp's generic burner which won't then boot, the problem for me is that forum is very willing to help newbies who have just installed their system but by then the newbie is feeling lost because he or she is posting from a feeling of being blocked, I would like to see a tut form the kubuntu iso download stage to the getting updates stage.

Also, I would like to see even a rough list of main component drivers that work with kubuntu, so that one get the parts to make to system work, now for example I have a dell dimension 9150 and no sound, if I knew what sound cards worked I would go out and buy one since they are very cheap.

I am not expecting all the windows possibilities with my kubuntu system, but two things are clearly better with kubuntu, those being the fact that it is malware free and the fact that it is without XP's eula limitatoins or price.

l am sticking with kubuntu then,

[calnerd]

Re: The Linux newbie perspective

Another newbie view: A transition from years of indoctrination on 'this is how all software works/looks' is compounded with companies that don't support your specific device in Linux. The terminal commands remind older folks (like myself) of the DOS days. Until I understand how to use it, the power doesn't really do me much good. I haven't asked for help yet because I've been able to find it through searches so far and because I haven't done the requisite RTEDM (read the expletive deleted manual). I'm not saying that I don't think it's worth it. I don't know that I've booted into Windows since I got my wireless card working. I do think that the number of choices available can make simple things intimidating. It's easy to get deep into the process and still not know why there are rpm or deb packages or which one you're supposed to use. Oh yeah, that's what the RTEDM was for wasn't it? Oh well, when I get time.

[mchuskie]

Re: The Linux newbie perspective

Also, I would like to see even a rough list of main component drivers that work with kubuntu, so that one get the parts to make to system work, now for example I have a dell dimension 9150 and no sound, if I knew what sound cards worked I would go out and buy one since they are very cheap.

Google + "linux sound cards" = http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/