Help a K-alien in matter of Linux!

[kbear]

Hello people of Linux world,

I am just an alien and now I strive to flee from the WIN Galaxy.

Ok...I am absolutely a new comer and have no idea about Linux.

I saw that Ubuntu means with face towards humanity. I liked this. I chose to download Kubuntu because I like how it looks KDE.

I installed Kubuntu, current version from Germany ftp site. All was went ok.

First hop, where is Firefox Some people wrote on a forum that must be installed with apt-get () or with Synaptic.

Terminal Console? I do not understand yet. I chose Synaptic. But where is Synaptic? Aha...in Adept.

Well, people...I really want to get rid off Win forever, I do not play games.

These are my needs:

1. I need some good equivalent for Dreamweaver. What about NVU?

2. I need Skype and a good IM (for yahoo). Kopete does not look too fine.

3. OpenOffice is just good. What about Scribus?

4. I need a GOOD FTP client for uploading files to my store.

5. I want to have on local apache, php and mysql for testing different php files. IS there some like easyphp or so?

People, help me to install these programs, step by step.

For example I downloaded Firefox on home\myname\desktop and tried this command in Terminal:

Ha! Nope...

I got this:

~$ apt-get install firefox-1.5.0.3.tar.gz
E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/apt/lists/lock - open (13 Permission denied )
E: Unable to lock the list directory

I am truly an alien in this world, but, hey!, I am here.

I want to learn and stay here. Help me, please.

Thank you!

K-bear

[kbear]

Re: Help a K-alien in matter of Linux!

I got Scribus from Synaptic. Hmmm...please, help with the rest of my FIRST questions, is ok?

Another important thing. I have on HDD other 3 partitions with important data. Unfortunately they reside still in WIndows XP.

How to see these partitions and access the data? Step by step I learn.

As soon as I feel I am some confident in Kubuntu, I format the HDD and put only Kubuntu. Until then (is ok 3 moths or unrealistic?) I need access to thos NTFS partitions.

Thank you humbly.

K-bear

[Aldrik]

Re: Help a K-alien in matter of Linux!

0. Firefox on 64bit system or 32bit extract (from right click menu) & run run-mozilla.sh from konsole

1. Quanta Plus

2. Skype (I've not got around to even try Kopete or others yet so cant help with that)

3. OpenOffice is just good... (IMO) KOffice is better (nice and fast)

4. Konqueror works great for me or you could try KFTPGrabber

5. How-to install LAMP (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP)

6. kmenu>system settings>disk & filesystems

Hope that helps (sorry no time to write step by steps, google is your friend)... 8)

[lowey23]

Re: Help a K-alien in matter of Linux!

Hello, kbear, and welcome

I am still learning about this great system and found these two links (provided by aysiu) to be a tremendous help.

http://www.psychocats.net/linux/sources.php

http://www.psychocats.net/linux/installingsoftware.php

I'm sure they will be of help to you.

Cheers

Lowey

[mchuskie]

Re: Help a K-alien in matter of Linux!

Gaim is a good multi-protocol IM program. I use gFTP as an FTP client, though you can get FireFTP as a plugin for Firefox.

Most if not all the programs you want are available through Adept, which is the easiest way to install all programs. The two links from Lowey23 are essential reading. Adept and Synaptic do exactly the same thing, it's up to you which you use, and they are both just pretty ways of using apt-get. So, any time you see instructions mentioning either of these three, you can use any.

Adept is also the best way to install Apache, MySQL and PHP so that it "just works". Aldrik's link seems good.

When you installed Kubuntu, it should have recognised your existing Windows partitions. You should be able to find them under /windows. Unless you really need the space, there's no harm in leaving them there as long as you need them. Note that Linux can't write to NTFS, only read from.

Hope this helps

[arochester]

Re: Help a K-alien in matter of Linux!

Hi kbear

The basic installation of Kubuntu gives you only a few repositories to download stuff from. The things you can get are "free" and not "propietary" - you will find on the internet you don't have Flash, Java or Acrobat.

The easiest way of increasing the number of repositories is to install a script - either Automatix OR Easyubuntu. Install one NOT both. I have Automatix.

You will suddenly find that you have more programmes which are available and you can download.

Automatix see: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=138405
Easyubuntu see:http://easyubuntu.freecontrib.org/index.html

[askrieger]

Re: Help a K-alien in matter of Linux!

Welcome to Kubuntu!

I have to disagree with JamesM: Use Synaptic, not Adept. They are not equivalent. Adept is under development and sometimes breaks. Synaptic has worked well for a numbere of years now. Also, I think that if you must use one of the auto-installer programs. EasyUbuntu is safer, because it does not leave your /etc/apt/sources.list file in a disorganized state. Finally, I assume you know that kbear is an ftp client for KDE, and therefore a possible answer to your question 4. Personally, I do things like sftp (secure ftp) from the command line.in konsole.

[kbear]

Re: Help a K-alien in matter of Linux!

Thank you humbly, people, for your benevolent answers and help.

Now I strive to understand many of this surprising Kubuntu. I MUST learn a lot, but I really believe that a good OS based on Linux is best. Windows and all those programs cost a lot and until now I was a pirate

I hope that Linux will develop a technology allowing that any application Linux (Debian, etc.) will run at double click, simple.

If I have questions, I will ask, no doubt.

All the best,

K-bear

[kbear]

Re: Help a K-alien in matter of Linux!

People of Linux Planet!

How do you do?

I just discovered that typing sudo apt-get install gimp it really installed gimp! Fine!

Also I installed skype, ...*.deb, using sudo dpkg -i ...

Great! And I chatted a little on Skype. Then I type sudo apt-get install gftp and I looged alread in my hosting account.

I must discover more. For example, how to see a movie??! I will see!

Thank you again for your help. Lowey23, good links, thanks!

Kubuntu citizen,

K-bear

[kbear]

Re: Help a K-alien in matter of Linux!

Me again

I needed to install NVU. I just find the exact link of NVU deb version and used wget ...I got the deb archive.

Then I type sudo dpkg - i ....*.deb, and NVU is here! Great! And is free.

Correct me if I need to use a better method for installing.

Let me think, what next...

[kubicle]

Re: Help a K-alien in matter of Linux!

Correct me if I need to use a better method for installing.

I'd recommend using the (ubuntu) repositories whenever possible, for two reasons:

1. Upgrading the software is much easier/automatic with package managers (apt-get, aptitude, adept or synaptic) if you install from repositories.

2. Not all *.deb packages work in (k)ubuntu, if you install from the repositories you know they've been packaged for (k)ubuntu (and therefore are much more likely to work as they should) :P

To get the most out of the repositories (and your package manager) you may need to enable a few more repositories (like the 'universe' repository, which includes NVU and a ton of other packages...also skype can be found at least in the 'plf' repos)

On how to enable extra repositories, search the forums or check out these:
http://www.psychocats.net/linux/sources.php (a guide to enabling 'universe' and 'multiverse')
http://www.ubuntulinux.nl/source-o-matic (a sources.list generator with a few more exotic repos available)