Announcement

**ScottyK** · May 24, 2012, 07:20 AM

Welcome to Kubuntu!

After I do a clean install, there are a few packages that I always install first.

Kubuntuguide (http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Kubuntuguide) is a great resource to learn about the various programs available to Kubuntu.

The very first thing I always do is enable the proprietary video drivers (if you have a Nvidia card. just click the blue "K" button at the bottom left, and search "additional drivers"

Next, I enable the various codec's you'll need to play MP3, videos etc. Do this from a command line. (Konsole)

Code:

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-restricted-extras

It really depends on your personal view, do you want to have a system with nothing but free (non-proprietary) programs or not.

**TheMatureStudent** · May 24, 2012, 07:43 AM

Hi, Thanks for the welcome and tips. Yes, i'll try to keep this old PC all nice and free. I've just seen a couple of posts from newbies and there is a wealth of info, looks like i'm going to have fun here. I would like to sart using the CLI as this seems to be de-rigueur in the world of Linux.

**Frank616** · May 24, 2012, 08:22 AM

TheMatureStudent:

Scotty has made some suggestions already, and has shown you a common command to add packages to your installation. However, with today's distros, you don't need to use the command line if you don't want to. Linux distros come with a package manager that will allow you to find all kinds of free software that is designed and built for your distro. For instance Scotty showed you both ways: Click on the 'K' icon and use the restricted drivers mini app to install the nVidia drivers (if you have an nVidia video card in your machine), as well as the command line. Installing the additional codecs can also be done from the gui.

Go to the menu (k icon) and System | Muon Package Manager. On the top line in the right pane, type in

restricted-extras

In the right pane below the search box, you will get a list of packages. One of them will be called kubuntu-restricted-extras. If it is not installed, then you can install that. If you single click on that package, then you get an additional window below the list in the right pane. That window (which can be expanded) gives you some details about the package as to what it does etc.

If you are into networking, then a couple of other packages you might want are the SAMBA server and client packages so that you can work with Windows computers on a network. If you install SAMBA, then you may also want SWAT, which is the Samba Web Administration Tool. With that installed you can type:

localhost:901

into the address bar of your web browser, and get a web view to configure SAMBA.

Now, this is getting in pretty deep at this point, but it will give you some idea of what is possible.

Have fun, and be sure to post back again!

Frank.

**arochester** · May 24, 2012, 09:20 AM

A bit old now, but still good, "Download the Linux Starter Pack" - http://www.tuxradar.com/linuxstarterpack

**woodsmoke** · May 24, 2012, 09:48 AM

Hi TheMatureStudent,

and welcome to a very friendly forum! Please do NOT be a stranger, stick around and visit.

I'll take your comment about "CLI" stuff as a springboard to post something which is much more simple than what the more erudite commenters at the forum have stated.

Ya gotta remember that I'm just a hardware and applications kinda guy.

The day of needing to use "CLI" to install a distro went away some time ago, with certain exceptions, so have no fear...if the ol woodsmoker can install a distro well.....ANYbody can install a distro!

First, pick a distro, maybe Kubuntu, and wander around the different links to find the "download" link and hunt for the "32 bit" cd or dvd ".iso" and click it to download. It may provide links to various "mirrors" which are usually college, but sometimes business and in a very few cases, governmental agencies, usually European, that "host" the .iso.

The usual thing to do is to pick a mirror that is physically closest to you, but if it seems like it is going to take hours and hours to download, maybe try another. Just stop the download and try another.

Other distros have only one place to download,

There is a thing called an MD5sum that is a "check" for whether all of the .iso actually ended up on your machine. Most of the mainstream distros do NOT require you to download the MD5 sum.

The burner application may or may not get onto the net to find it and use it(see below).

The next thing is to get the downloaded file, the .iso, onto a cd/dvd.

If you are doing this on a Windblows machine you possibly have something like "cd burner" or some other commercial app but there is also microsoft's app, which is rather recent. Whatever software you use to burn the .iso to a cd/dvd it will probably NOT voluntarily give you the option of burning an .iso. And the main reason for this, I think, is that about the only .iso that people want to burn is a Linux distro and that does not produce money for the company. Sooooo you will probably have to cursor down through the sometimes LONG menu and probably will find .iso buried at the bottom.

Anyway, click that you want to burn the .iso. It is usually recommended to burn the cd at something like "4x" speed, the general idea being that a slower burn will have fewer mistakes. Or, if the burner software is relatively sophisticated, just let it pick it's own speed. It should not take too long, but it will probably be at least a few minutes.

Depending on the software, it may ask you to find the md5 sum, and you may have to go BACK to the download site and download it, or, if it is relatively sophisticated it will go out onto the net and find the MD5 sum and automagically check it for you.

Once that is done then burn the cd.

The simple thing to do is to leave the burned cd in the tray, which should have been ejected, and turn off the computer, remove the hard drive and attach a new one or if you are going to install on the present hard drive then just restart the machine.

Most distros automatically run the "live cd" but some ask if you want to just install it then and there, that is up to you.

Anywhooooo if you have a Windblows OS on the hard drive the distro will go through some steps to ask you if you want to keep the original OS and volunteer to automagically divide up the hard drive, partitions, for you. You quite often now, have a "slider" that will let you allocate more or less space to either OS.

However, you said you have a nice clean hard drive then just choose the option to "take over the whole hard drive" with a "guided" install.

It will walk you through VERY FEW steps, like what kind of keyboard you have, the time zone in which you live, your name and passwords for a "user" account and/or a "root"(administrator), account(s).

It will then just chug along, sometimes with a growing line, and sometimes with a bunch of pictures and text telling you about the distro.

You can get a libation of choice while this is occuring, it takes upwards of a half hour for most distros but some are shorter.

There can also be an option for downloading extra packages while the install is happening and this is perfectly safe, and may, or may not, increase the install time.

But.....the TOTAL time to do the install and later do the "updates" will all be the same, it just takes a given amount of time to get the software on the machine.

When the install is finished the installer will tell you, sometimes with an audio notifier, in case you are away from the computer, and not sitting there STARING at the each and every step of the installer like many of the .....ahem.....geeks do!

It will say something like it wants to eject the cd and telling you to hit enter. Sometimes the cd does eject, sometimes not, if it does not then just do it manually.

Hit enter, the machine will shut down and automagically restart and you are done!

So....again, you may or may not know more or less of this but since you mentioned CLI....no....CLI is a thing of the past for a new install except for the hardline old style distros, which you may do yourself in the near, or far future!

woodsmoke

**SteveRiley** · May 25, 2012, 01:44 AM

Welcome, MatureStudent. Thanks for joining our community here.

With respect to the CLI, I will quibble ever so politely with my esteemed colleagues and true friends here. And I shall use an example to illustrate. Some months ago, what first appeared to bug crept into the system notification mechanism. Ultimately it was discovered that a change had been made to Qt, the application framework that underlies KDE. The immediate display of symptoms was that system sounds had quit working.

Many of us rather enjoy the peeps and burbles that come with routine use of a modern computer. When these suddenly vanish, we become worried. In KDE, each service or process that raise system notifications creates a .notifyrc file containing the details of each particular notification. For those including a sound, the expected element in the .notifyrc file would include not just the name of the sound file but also the full file specification path.

The bug, er, Qt change, altered the way sounds were specified: paths were no longer allowed, but instead only simple file names. Alas, Kubuntu was unable at the time to make sense of this. So users had two options. One was to use the GUI to change each individual sound setting to include the path, a truly arduous task. The other was to run a simple one-line command:

Code:

for j in /usr/share/kde4/apps/*/*.notifyrc; do sudo sed -i 's_Sound=_Sound=file:///usr/share/sounds/_g' $j; done

Granted, this is a somewhat sophisticated example, in that it includes a for loop and a string substitution. Nevertheless, there are times where the CLI can offer the more elegant and effective means for getting something done. And yes, there are times where a feature-rich GUI, like KDE, is instead the more elegant and effective means for getting something else done.

Don't fear the command line, but instead educate yourself to appreciate it and know when to use it. Yakuake, one of my favorite utilities, places a command line within tantalizingly close reach: one press of the [F12] key. Yakuake greatly simplfies moving between the CLI and the GUI; in fact, the distinction sometimes appears to fade away. I'd encourage you to install it. And, of course, here's how:

Code:

sudo apt-get install yakuake

**Qqmike** · May 25, 2012, 06:06 AM

Very seldom do I ever need to use the command line. But there are many examples, like SteveRiley's, where using it may be extremely expedient, powerful, or convenient. And most of the time, you'll only be using it for quick one-liners!

I wrote this for beginners. For myself, actually (reminds me I should make a note to review it sometime soon). It's a How-To in our How-To section here:

Commands at Konsole: Beginners: 3 parts
http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthr...inners-3-parts

A small example of the fun/power of using the CLI ... Let's say you delete some sensitive/personal file(s), they go into the "Trash Bin" (and you may have an icon for TRASH on your desktop). Instead of simply emptying your Trash bin as you always do, you may want to ensure the data in those files is completely "erased" from your hard drive. You can do this by using a secure remove function, and it takes just two lines (at the CLI):

srm -ll .local/share/Trash/files/*
srm -ll .local/share/Trash/info/*

Or you could use srm not on your Trash bin but directly on the files (without first putting those files in the Trash).

How would you ever think of that?! By asking! Most of the time you will not need to invent your own commands. Instead, you will do a search or ask (here) how to do something, and then you will simply copy those commands into your CLI. Of course, if you want to do so, you can knock yourself out and learn all about commands and you will soon be writing your own from scratch.

**Frank616** · May 25, 2012, 07:44 AM

All:

Yes, the command line is powerful. Yes, you can do things there that you cannot do at the gui. Yes, we all learn to use it to some extent eventually.

Remember, however, we have a newbie here. One does not NEED the command line to run a modern Linux distro like Kubuntu. Lets not scare the poor guy to death!

Give him time to acclimatize....

Frank.

**SecretCode** · May 25, 2012, 08:05 AM

To me, the main advantage of command line input and output, for newbies, is in getting support on forums like this. It's simpler to advise someone to type "sudo apt-get install abc" than to list a series of instruction for opening Muon and entering the package name and etc - and much simpler when it comes to more involved commands. It's also quicker and easier for both sides to post & look at command line output than it is to post a screen-shot ... although some people seem to think screen-shots are necessary!

The upshot of this is beginners should get familiar with how to open a Konsole, enter a command, and copy the output. But this doesn't mean anyone needs to learn how to do everything at the command line and to be able to choose the right commands & parameters for any given task.

**oshunluvr** · May 25, 2012, 09:03 AM

I totally agree with SecretCode. I often opt for the command line because the end result can happen faster in many cases than the GUI hunt for the function I need. Another plus - for troubleshooting - the output from CLI entries is immediate and obvious. Much easier IMO than finding the right log file. Personally, as an old DOS user, I probably revert to the CLI by default more often than I should.

As for the OP's original request: Tips for a new linux user...

Learn and use the correct terminology. As your knowledge expands, starting with the right phraseology will aid others help you and aid you get assistance when you're asking for help.

Plan on some "failures." There are two types of linux users, those who have totally broken their install and those that will. Each time trashed my install I learned something new. One of the beauties of linux is the easy of which one can re-install and with the size of the entire OS hovering around 4-5GB you can have several installs side-by-side even on a really small hard drive. However, I would advise that a total wipe and re-install be a last resort. Too often a new user will avoid a learning experience because of the desire to quickly get back in business.

Develop good data safety habits. Keeping the above tip in mind, make a backup of everything you would be unhappy to lose. In fact, make several. There are posts all over every linux forum of users in panic mode because they mis-applied a command to the wrong location.

Create a good install setup at the beginning. Plan your hard drive layout and allow for data safety. Almost all of use keep a separate /home partition or keep our personal data in a location other than within the main install. You might want to have room for a parallel install of another linux distro or a backup install of your main distro. Most new users "jump" distros for awhile untill they settle on what they want.

Start learning things in a logical order. Walk before you run. What I mean by this is; start at the beginning and work toward a final product. Too often a new user will install, get to the first boot, and then immediately break the system trying to improve video performance or get their surround sound working. This leads to frustration.

I suggest one would get installed and booting then:

Make a backup boot device - either a CD, USB stick, or additional hard drive install.
Backup your data - Protect those family photos and videos.
Learn to recover GRUB (the boot loader) - a common source of a new user's problems, but easily fixed (usually

).
Tackle one issue at a time - Trouble shooting three problems at once is nearly impossible. Start with the largest system-wide problem you might have and fix it before you move to the next-largest and so on. This will lead to a more stable environment and better user experience.

Learn to ask for help in an informed way. Please click on the ReadME link in my signature. Based on your above post I doubt this will be a problem for you, but many new users are unable or unwilling to post in a way that facilitates response. Many of us linger here just to help when we can, but it can be frustrating when we come across posts lacking in information or contain only complaints or whines.

Finally: Welcome and enjoy! I think this the best linux forum around many agree with me. I look forward to participating in your adventures - let the posting begin!

**Frank616** · May 25, 2012, 09:03 AM

SecretCode:

It's also quicker and easier for both sides to post & look at command line output than it is to post a screen-shot ... although some people seem to think screen-shots are necessary!

Valid point.

I wasn't suggesting that the newbie be kept from the command line. When the time comes, it is one of the most powerful tools available. It is just that most refugees to Linux come from Windows, and Windows has pretty much hidden the command line for a LONG time now.

Windows users have heard of the big, bad CLI, and often fear it. "It's too hard" and "Its for geeks" comes up often when Windows users speak of Linux, and the command line is the most often mentioned example, though this is not deserved as we both know.

I've found it helpful to show them the way to use Linux the same way they have used Windows. Less fearful that way. Familiar GUI surroundings. And, yes, there will need to be screenshots. In fact I campaigned to get the file size limits raised here for that very reason.

However, screenshots are part of the Windows trouble shooting world, and they too will be familiar to the new user.

But to post complicated command line arguments on a newbie in their first thread here, well, could that be overdoing it a bit?

Frank.

**jpenguin** · May 25, 2012, 12:06 PM

Don't fear CLI!

When getting help, its likely that you'll get a CLI command...

its often easier to give a CLI command than explain how to do something in the GUI.

remember, 'man' is your best friend

**SecretCode** · May 25, 2012, 12:23 PM

Originally posted by oshunluvr View Post

There are two types of linux users, those who have totally broken their install and those that will.

Along the same lines, the two types of computer users: those who have lost data and those who are going to.

The two types of Windows users: those who have had a virus and ... wait, maybe just one type.

**SecretCode** · May 25, 2012, 12:24 PM

Originally posted by Frank616 View Post

It is just that most refugees to Linux come from Windows

Yes ... I'm pretty sure they account for most of the "some people" I mentioned

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