Seven Essential Tips For Using Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 282
Ed Albro writes "Matthew Newton, a columnist at PC World, has a great article up on seven things you'll want to change as soon as you start using Feisty Fawn. Some are as simple as making sure the Alt key works right, another gives you step-by-step instructions for turning on the impressive Beryl interface. 'I could spend a whole 'nother column telling you about all the great packages that are not installed by default, but for now I'll just leave you with this bonus tip: If you're running Ubuntu on a laptop and your Wi-Fi card is not detected or supported, try installing the Ndisgtk package (listed as such in Synaptic, but as 'Wireless Windows Drivers' in Add/Remove Applications). Then select the new System, Administration, Windows Wireless Drivers entry in Ubuntu's menu bar.'"
Already a great experience by default (Score:4, Interesting)
but I feel that the system just after installation is already really usable and reliable.
If you are not an expert and you start to turn on Beryl and to play with Synaptic...
I believe that a lot of people will be going back to windows because their system has become
unusable.
Once you're ready to take off, you will discover by yourself these great features.
Just my idea.
marco
Re:Linux: Not There Yet (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:My tip... (Score:1, Interesting)
This may have been true in 1995 and, as evidenced by your post, it still makes for a nice marketing message, but it is no longer the case. The bulk of FOSS development is done by people who are paid to do it and the companies who pay them most certainly expect that investment to pay off.
Re:Already a great experience by default (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm curious as to the issue with Synaptic. I just started using Kubuntu and find myself using Synaptic, Adept, and apt-get interchangeably. On my Debian desktop, I've done the same with apt-get and Synaptic for years without negative impact. Is there something subtle that I'm missing?
I agree with Beryl. It's quite spiff but when it breaks, it does so in rather annoying ways. Right now it works fairly reliably for me and gives me some eyecandy to break up the work day. But I also am patient enough to deal with the (now) rare oddity and know how to keep from such events causing me a loss or otherwise impacting my work. If that changes, I can drop back to a more stable window manager quickly and easily. I wouldn't recommend this to someone just getting used to Linux.
Re:Linux: Not There Yet (Score:2, Interesting)
If you don't have SP2, forget it. Turn off your computer, get your golf clubs or your tennis racket, or whatever, and go play outside. You can't use a computer nowadays with XP without SP2.
Step 3 - Most installations don't really need new drivers. With few exceptions
Correction: most *Linux* installations don't need new drivers. Most Microsoft installation needs new drivers, so those are what you call "few exceptions", I suppose. Any hardware that came after the Windows version you have installed needs a CD with the driver. Considering that Microsoft only releases a new version of Windows every few years, it's a practical certainty that you'll need to insert a few driver CDs in every Windows system you install from scratch.
All in all, from your comments I conclude that you have never installed either Ubuntu or any other Linux distro. You think all the bother one has to go through to install Windows is perfectly normal, or "the nature of the beast" as you put it. Well, it just doesn't need to be so.
The difference between Linux fanboys and Windows fanboys is that almost everyone has or had in the past a Windows computer, but not everyone has a Linux system. The Linux developers know all the quirks in a Windows installation and they try to do something better when they create their own solutions for Linux. The Windows people think it's so nice when XP reboots automatically instead of showing a blue screen, because they have never seen a system like Linux where a device driver crashing doesn't bring the whole system down. They think it's so easy to go to CompUSA, buy a software, get home, insert the CD and click in "D:\setup.exe" because they have never seen something like synaptic or adept where you can install any application from the 20000+ that are available online by a single click of the mouse. The Windows experts, or "power users", feel so proud about their detailed knowledge of whatever binary data they have to edit in the registry because they have never felt the pleasure of editing text files in the
I used to be a Windows expert, I knew it intimately, down to the "undocumented" functions. I wrote many applications for Windows, I debugged many Windows systems, even to the point of running a disassembler on some device drivers to find why they were crashing. Today I have fully shifted to Ubuntu, although I still use and maintain a Windows computer for some games. I know of no one that ever learned Linux to the point that I learned Windows that has shifted back to a Microsoft system.
People who know Windows a lot and something of Linux may prefer Windows, and vice-versa, but if you really know intimately both systems, to the point of being able to write a device driver, as I have done for both Linux and Windows, you'll never, ever, shift from Linux to Windows.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)