My Move to Kubuntu and General Help Questions

[spooter]

Hi all,

Im new to Linux and Kubuntu. I have tried it in the past but now I have no choice but to try it after my Windows Vista trial expired and can’t afford to buy a copy. I have installed this onto my newly built machine and so far im impressed.

PC Spec

Antec 300 Three Hundred Case
Akasa AK 860SF
Arctic Power 500W PSU With PCI-E 2x SATA, 20+4 ATX12V 8pin +12V Connectors
MSI 8600GTS 256MB Overclocked Edition Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card
Maxtor 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm *32MB Cache* - OEM
4Gb DRR 800
AMD X2 6000 @ 3Ghz
SUS M3N78 GeForce 8200 Socket AM2+ onboard Graphics 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard

Install

The install went well for all hardware except the sound but I was happy enough pasting text into the terminal to fix this.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=205449

Games

The one game I play is counterstrike source so I needed this working so Installed Wine downloaded Steam and installed without problems. After installing CSS I couldn’t get the game to play with crashing but after changing the game to run in dx 8 and changing the Open GL setting to high in the Nvidia setting panel I got it working. I haven’t tried playing it much but hopefully it will be stable.

Questions

How do I tweak my Counterstrike Source game in wine for best performance or do I just need to accept the FPS isn’t going to be a high?

Are the any tweaks I should apply to a fresh install in Windows I would make quite a few changes.

What antivirus should I install? Do I need one?

I would often defrag my Windows machine should I defrag this?

I used Firefox on Windows so it made sense to install it on Kubuntu but have noticed the pages don’t load nearly as fast? Any ideas on resolving this?

Is there a way I can see the start-up apps? I have a Widget which opens at the start and for some reason its gone funny and can’t see to stop it opening.

Sorry about all the questions but been new I have so many but look forward to converting.

Thanks

[Fintan]

Re: My Move to Kubuntu and General Help Questions

Welcome to the party

I can't help you on games.
But you may want to post a separate thread with your game as a title so others can help.

As for firefox maybe this will be of use:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1299854/posts

What antivirus should I install? Do I need one?

the answer is in mho basically a no unless you are using your box as a mail server.

But you can use clam (in the repos) to scan incoming mail and prevent sending infected mail to others.

I would often defrag my Windows machine should I defrag this?

No, although this is quite complex ext3 formated HD don't need manual defraging. AFAIK this is done periodicly at boot with fsck (file system check)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsck

Is there a way I can see the start-up apps? I have a Widget which opens at the start and for some reason its gone funny and can’t see to stop it opening.

Which widget is it?
Normally you can you can just delete widgets from the desktop.
right click on the desktop->unlock widgets->roll over the widget and go to the "x" on the tab that opens up on the side of the widget. That should remove it from your desktop and it shouldn't come back up again.

If that does not work use a live cd-> open up kate and navigate to .kde/share/config/plasmarc on your /home/username folder and edit as needed.
.kde is a hidden file so you will have to active "show hidden files" by clicking on the wrench symbole at the top right of the open file window.
Or just delete it. It will be regenerated at reboot. You may have to reconfigure your desktop to your liking again but hey it is a good way to learn, right?

I hope this helps and enjoy

[spooter]

Re: My Move to Kubuntu and General Help Questions

Thanks for your help

I will do a separate post for the games questions and I will try your sugestions tonight and post back.

Regards

[HavocXphere]

Re: My Move to Kubuntu and General Help Questions

@Counterstrike: Results vary hugely. You will definitely take a hit on FPS & there is not much you can do about it. It should be playable though.

Also have a look at a firefox theme called "KDE4 + FIrefox 3". It fixes *some* of the graphical glitches that result from running a gtk app under kubuntu.