MULTIPLE problems with Kubuntu / XP dual boot

[SkinnyJeans929]

alright, i just installed Hardy earlier and now my head hurts. LOL. I cant seem to find form other posts answers to my questions so i decided to put up my own noob thread. so here goes:

My System:

intel P4 1.8GHZ / VIA Mobo
640 MB SDRAM
80 GB HDD (15GB partition for Hardy)
128 MB Nvidia GForce MX440
Jetway TV878 TV/Capture Card
On Board sound card

My Problems:

1. cant play Videos and/or MP3s stored in the WIN Parititions
- i know im supposed to download plugins for Kaffeine and/ Amarok
- i dont have internet connection at home
- Kaffeine acts like its installing (after it asks "do you want to install plugins", i click ok) and nothing happens.
- where do i download the plugins separately and install them later?

2. TV/Caputer card
- i have a Jetway TV capture card installed and running on Win XP.
- i have the device drivers and app for Win XP, however i would want to use this on Hardy as well. Is there a way to install a third party TV application and/or driver for this?
- one more thing is that i hook up a DVD player in the COMPOSITE input of the TV Caputre card. I noticed that after i installed Hardy, each time I power up the DVD player WHILE the TV Software is running, the computer freezes and will not respond unless i reboot. is there a known issue regarding this?

3. Compiz and Desktop Effects
- i downloaded Compiz 0.6.2. and would like to install it. how do i go about doing this?
- i downloaded a bunch of '.emerald' files as well. it says in the download description that its a COMPIZ THEME. would this work with Compiz like it says it should? how do i do this.


I'm sorry I seem to have a lot of questions. I am new to Linux and I'm very much willing to learn. I have been a Windows user since Win 3.1 and this is all very confusing to me right now. I hope you guys can extend a helping hand. Thanks in advance!

[dibl]

Re: MULTIPLE problems with Kubuntu / XP dual boot

Welcome!


Regarding the TV capture card, I don't know whether there is anything you can use in this, or not:

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3085164.0

The "How Tos" section of the Forum, under "Documentation" covers a plethora of subjects, some more or less related to your questions. For example:

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3086232.0

Which may be helpful to enable 3D graphics on your Nvidia card.

Other resources:

Ubuntu Forum (the only thing different about Kubuntu is the KDE desktop, versus the Gnome desktop, and the included KDE packages): http://ubuntuforums.org/

Sharing windows NTFS partitions: http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/index.php

[SkinnyJeans929]

Re: MULTIPLE problems with Kubuntu / XP dual boot

thanks .. will give this a shot.

[Rog131]

Re: MULTIPLE problems with Kubuntu / XP dual boot

1. cant play Videos and/or MP3s stored in the WIN Parititions
- i know im supposed to download plugins for Kaffeine and/ Amarok
- i dont have internet connection at home
- Kaffeine acts like its installing (after it asks "do you want to install plugins", i click ok) and nothing happens.
- where do i download the plugins separately and install them later?

You can donwload single packages from the Ubuntu packages

Package: kubuntu-restricted-extras

This package depends on some commonly used packages in the Kubuntu multiverse repository.

Installing this package will pull in support for MP3 playback and decoding, Java runtime environment, Flash plugin, DVD playback, and LAME (to create compressed audio files).

Please note that packages from multiverse are restricted by copyright or legal issues in some countries. See http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/licensing for more information.

=> Single packages (example-video needs):

Package: libxine1-ffmpeg

MPEG-related plugins for libxine1

This package contains plugins for the xine video/media player engine, which are necessary to decode MPEG-based codecs. Among them, this package includes the the ffmpeg input plugin for xine, which enables xine-based players a large variety of modern audio and video codecs.

You most probably want to install this package. It is required if you want to watch DVDs or digital TV using any xine-based player.

Medibuntu

Medibuntu is a packaging project dedicated to distributing software that cannot be included in Ubuntu for various reasons, related to geographical variations in legislation regarding intellectual property, security and other issues:...

Single packages:

(W32Codecs - wmv etc support, libdvdcss - software library for accessing and unscrambling DVDs)

W32Codecs
http://packages.medibuntu.org/pool/non-free/w/

[DIR] w32codecs/ 08-Jan-2008 19:55 -
[DIR] w64codecs/ 13-Oct-2007 21:53

libdvdcss
http://packages.medibuntu.org/pool/free/libd/libdvdcss/


Links:

FAQ: Kubuntu without internet connection
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3085805.0

[Qqmike]

Re: MULTIPLE problems with Kubuntu / XP dual boot

(possibly some overlap with the above ... )

A little bit on Kaffeine and wmv & mpg movies:

Kaffeine: play wmv & mpg files

install:
kubuntu-restricted-extras,
as follows (choose one of 3 ways):
K > System >Adept Manager > search > Request Install > Apply, or
Add/Remove programs--Search, or
at Konsole: sudo apt-get install kubuntu-restricted-extras
(Watch for the request to “Agree” to some sun java terms; hit the Tab key then and you'll see a chance to tab-to-OK or some such deal like that.)

THUMBNAILS:
To see movie thumbnails in Konqueror:
libarts1-xine
(install thru Adept Manager)


References, see (and all the links @): Restricted Formats
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats

[SkinnyJeans929]

Re: MULTIPLE problems with Kubuntu / XP dual boot

thanks for all your replies. this will come in handy once i have the right frame of mind to deal with this again.

i am frustrated now, you see. in the process of trying to learn this ubuntu stuff, i came to destroy my system altogether.

i booted up the system to kubuntu and got a command line instead of it going straight to GUI. i typed in my username and password, but found myself in a dark area, knowing not what to do next. i hit ctrl+alt+del and tried to boot up to XP instead.

i got ERROR 17 and the computer would do nothing.



i found the answer regarding what to do when the OS boots to command line instead of the GUI here > http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3093051.0 > but i have no use for it since im not booting into kubuntu anymore.

i dont have the answer to ERROR 17 as of now yet though.

THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO DO NOW: dish kubuntu and do a fresh install of UBUNTU. how do i do this? how do i wipe off the partition for kubuntu to replace with UBUNTU (assuming that I get to boot back to XP).

TIA.

[dibl]

Re: MULTIPLE problems with Kubuntu / XP dual boot

It is not necessary to "wipe off" the Kubuntu installation -- you will merely boot your Ubuntu installation CD (Live CD or Alternate) and use it to install on the partitions that you have. It will overwrite everything that is needed.

But, if you want to feel better that everything from the previous installation is truly gone, you can make a GParted Live CD, from the image you can download here:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...roup_id=115843

I recommend Live CD ver. 03.4-10, as there have been reports of bugs in -11. Boot the Live CD, and format the partition where you intend to install Ubuntu, and there will be nothing there afteward.

[SkinnyJeans929]

Re: MULTIPLE problems with Kubuntu / XP dual boot

alright .. let me spend another day with this and see if running UBUNTU 7.10 will work for me. thanks so much for your help dibl. will let you know what transpires tomorrow. LOL.

[dibl]

Re: MULTIPLE problems with Kubuntu / XP dual boot

thanks so much for your help dibl.

You are very welcome. I would advise a lot of patience, while you build your knowledge about how Linux will run on your PC. Everything will not work immediately. Take it one item at a time, and your skill will increase as well as your computer's functionality.

You didn't learn Windows in 3 days, right?