Today folks, we have a rather lengthy experiment. The Rat is Linoman. He will be using Ubuntu Linux 5.0.4 for a period of 3 months as his only OS, ending January 1, 2006.
This will be the start of a diary that he will keep updated weekly telling us his Triumphs and Failures using Ubuntu as his only OS. The Stipulations will be: No Windows, He may use wine for applications. All day to day activities must be done in Ubuntu environment, this means homework, instant messaging, games, playing audio and video files, surfing the net, burning CD’s.
My final Question... Has this guy gone MAD??
0
Diary of a Mad Man?
Started by
Nvyseal
, Oct 08 2005 04:08 PM
53 replies to this topic
#1
Nvyseal
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Posted 08 October 2005 - 04:08 PM
#2
Linoman
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Posted 08 October 2005 - 04:34 PM
2005
Saturday October 8:
As this is my first post let me all fill you in a bit.
My Ubuntu system which will be used as my main PC is the following
Intel Pentium 3, 866MHZ
256 SD-RAM
8MB Trident Graphics Card
2 Hard disks, one is a 20GB (only used for Mp3's) and the other is a 4GB installed Ubuntu on it.
Onboard Sound
Anyway I installed Ubuntu Linux about a week ago; the reason for doing that was I wanted to go back to using Linux again. I always go through stages and have tried so many distros that I thought what the heck, I'll try Ubuntu 5.0.4.
First thing that really scared me about Ubuntu is that its installation system looks a lot like Debian (figures since it’s a debian based distro) I mean so much text based during install its enough to scare anyone off. I continued with the install, almost scared my self silly when it came to partioning my drive. It worked out all fine.
So I managed to install it, then once it had booted up I realised something that disturbed me, Ubuntu by default comes with Gnome. Personally I do not like Gnome, I have always preferred KDE. So I did a Google and saw Kubuntu, I read up about it and thought why should I download a whole distro again if I can just install KDE on Ubuntu. So that’s what I did.
I used Ubuntu's package manager to download and install it. That package manager really makes life much simpler tells one which dependences an app needs etc. I installed KDE and worked great. I came across another problem, my MP3 and Mpeg files would not work. You can imagine my displeasure; I love my music and always listen to it on my PC/PCs. After spending 2 and a half hours I finally got hold of a package which I installed and allowed me to listen to MP3's. Later on I did the same for Mpeg files. Mpegs also work fine.
This weekend I decided to update my system with Ubuntu's package managers automatic update, it told me 9 hours left and what happened at the end of the 9 hours it bombed out. Lost all of my updates, the reason it bombed out, I had changed the package manager’s dependencies from .za to .com. Thus the only way to fix the problem was to change it back. So with the help of people from the Ubuntu forums I changed it back. This means tonight, I will try the upgrade system again. It should run faster though as it will be downloading from a local source.
Now for my Mp3's I wanted to use a music app very similar to WMP10 and Media Monkey, so I came across a wonderful music app called amaroK. Not only does it look great but its so stable (at least so far) and it doesn't seem to lag the system.
My next task is with Wine is to get Office 2002/XP installed or otherwise I'll have to use Open Office. If I use Open Office then I'll only use 2.0beta as Open Office 1.0+ drives me crazy. That’s all for today, I’ll edit this post to show how it’s going with Ubuntu Linux. (Please note this post is edited/updated once a week as I keep this as a diary at home and then just upload it on weekends. As a result some text maybe slightly different as I might come across a grammar or spelling error and do my best to fix that)
Sunday October 9:
What a weird day it’s been using my Linux system. With the help of a few people from the Ubuntu forums I managed to change my systems package manager’s dependencies back to .za. So 9 hours later it updated my whole PC with no problems. (At least all the packages download a bit faster when downloading from a local source, although I ended up downloading and installing 160MB of updates. I also installed Wine, now that was a joke, I just couldn’t get it to run anything so I decided that next weekend (with help from a friend) I’m going to use Cedega (Wine with DirectX support)
Monday October 10:
Been using Ubuntu for a few days and everything seems to be running ok except I can’t get it to play midi files. I installed Kmid and it just tells me that the sound system is in use, WTF? For some people this might not be a problem but for someone who likes midi files it’s a bit of a worry. Guess I’ll have to wait until Friday then maybe someone will be able to help me.
Tuesday October 11:
Not much to report have not used my PC much but still stuck with my midi problem, although everything else seems to be running ok.
Wednesday October 12:
Not my best day using Linux. I decided that maybe my midi app problem could be sorted out in KDE’s control centre. I discovered that my Ubuntu system doesn’t have a midi synthesiser installed on the system. So I tried to compensate by adjusting a few settings in the sound system. Not a good idea as my sound system stopped working completely. But fortunately for a default button, that at least got my sound system working again. Also I decided that I would disable cross-fading in amaroK, I did that and for some reason disabling that made the program very unstable. Thus I decided to enable cross-fading again and now it is working fine again. Strange problem indeed, but at least I can listen to my mp3’s.
Thursday October 13:
The Ubuntu system has been running very nicely today, nothing to complain about except for of cause my midi problems. Been playing with the sound settings again, I have been trying to see if I can set my system volume louder with my Ubuntu system thus so that my speakers would sound clearer and louder with out becoming all muffled etc. Surprisingly enough I managed to set my system volume much louder than Windows ever allowed me. With the sound retaining its quality, I suppose that’s an interesting thing about Linux, it lets you adjust almost anything you can think of. Also I can not wait until Ubuntu Linux 5.10 (I think that’s the number) comes out then I’ll upgrade my system to that, hopefully all settings will still be intact. I’m not doing that anytime soon as it is not final yet.
Although I do have to admit I do sometimes miss using mainly a Windows based environment. Something’s are much harder to get up and running but when they are running its well worth the trouble. Talking about trouble I can’t wait to get Cedega so I can also run Microsoft Office XP or 2003 on my system. Or even Open Office 2.0 beta, as Open Office 1+ is driving me insane. I guess you guys should also know that the ONLY time I use my Celeron (which has a Windows XP environment) is when I burn CDS/DVDS as my P3 doesn’t have a burner. Other than that I have just been using my P3 with Ubuntu.
Friday October 14:
Well I couldn't find a solution to my midi problems so who knows what the problem is. I was very happy to read that Ubuntu Linux 5.10 has been officially released so I'll order my cd’s and then will upgrade my system to 5.10 as soon as possible. I have heard that 5.10 is more stable and reliable than 5.0.4. If that is true then it'll be great. I do hope that 5.10 will solve my midi problems. But until I upgrade I'll have to stick with 5.0.4.
Also last night I installed a few new upgrades and now my system is not as stable as it used to be. This is really disturbing for me as I do not know which update has made my system slightly unstable. Although I did notice that my system did not download the upgraded "Linux image 2.6, 10-5-386" so I'm busy downloading that and hopefully that will solve my instability problems.
Saturday October 15:
As luck would have it the Linux image I was downloading did not download. Had a bad connection last night, only realised it this morning. I found out this morning that a newer version of KDE 3.4 is available, so I decided to download and install the upgraded version. The only catch is its for Kubuntu Linux. I decided that since Ubuntu Linux and Kubuntu Linux is basically the same OS. Why not install KDE’s latest version for Kubuntu on my Ubuntu system? Added the repositories to my system and now its downloading the Linux image (again) and download KDE’s latest version. I sure hope this will work.
Sunday November 6
First of all let me appologize for not updating this but with exams coming up I have not even used my PC/PCs very much.
In my last update I was adding Kubuntu repositries to my Ubuntu system. I did and it upgraded my KDE to 3.4.3 the latest version. The only snag to it all was that Konquirer thought I was running Kubuntu which wasn't a train smash since Ubuntu and Kubuntu are very similer benieth their surface. So I was fine with it, but then I started to notice my system became very unstable after that. Constant apps crashing and my machine would freeze up for no apparnt reason.
Thus I decided to get hold of Ubuntu 5.10 which I did, and instead of upgrading my system from 5.04 to 5.10 I did a clean install. At first I can say 5.10 installed muck quicker and was much more sponsive during installation. Upon first boot up I was greeted with good old Gnome 2.12. As for someone who prefers to use KDE I decided why not give Gnome a try, this version of Gnome seemed much more responsive than my other KDE system.
So I thought oh what the hell I stick to Gnome for about a week and see how it goes, well all I can say is wow 2.12 must be the best version of Gnome Desktop ever, it didn't crash once, was so reliable that I decided that I would not even bother to install KDE on my 5.10 Ubuntu system. So I have been running only Gnome for a few weeks now and I am loving it.
Of couse Ubuntu 5.10 doesn't support any media codecs at first but after installing them it works like a charm. Although I was missing my favorite audio player AmaroK so I downloaded a few KDE runtimes and installed Amarok on my Gnome syste. AmaroK works really well, although it doesn't like WMA's which is a pity but I can always convert my WMA's to MP3's.
5.10 Is such an improvement over 5.04 that I can not believe how I could have lived with out it. This has been so great that I have decided to get hold and install Kubuntu 5.10 onto my Windows box. Then I'll have two linux machines each running a debian based distro which are very similar to each other and best of all I will have the best of having a Gnome and a KDE desktop.
Sunday 13 November 2005
What can I say but today I almost gave up on Linux. Sorry to all Linux people. My first thing was I decided that I really loved KDE and could not stand only using Gnome. So I downloaded KDE 3.4.3 and download Kubuntu artwork and you could say converted my Ubuntu system to Kubuntu. Anyway I noticed that after doing that I made my Linux system unstable. Which it shouldn't have done, I mean its basically the ony difference between Ubuntu and Kubuntu is that the one runs Gnome and other KDE.
So I read that KDE 3.5 RC1 was out. Now this is my fault but being a bit made, I thought that maybe upgrading my KDE to 3.5RC1 would sort out my problem. Oh how wrong I was, I downloaded and installed 3.5 RC1.
Only soon to discover that Konqueror kept on crashing every 5 seconds. As you can imagine KDE is pretty useless with out Konqueror (like Windows with out Windows Explorer) So I decided that maybe reinstalling KDE3.5RC1 would solve the problem. It didn't infact it made the problem worse.
Now at this point I am sure you all thinking why not just downgrade to KDE3.4.3, well my first challenge was to get rid of 3.5, geez that took me almost an hour to uninstall that. Then I reinstalled 3.4.3 and what happens it has weird GUI problems. Back to square one, so that means my Ubuntu system has a screwed up KDE system.
What am I going to do now? Uninstall KDE 3.4.3 and stick with Gnome until KDE 3.5 Final comes out. Although I guess I am still dedicated with Linux.
Saturday October 8:
As this is my first post let me all fill you in a bit.
My Ubuntu system which will be used as my main PC is the following
Intel Pentium 3, 866MHZ
256 SD-RAM
8MB Trident Graphics Card
2 Hard disks, one is a 20GB (only used for Mp3's) and the other is a 4GB installed Ubuntu on it.
Onboard Sound
Anyway I installed Ubuntu Linux about a week ago; the reason for doing that was I wanted to go back to using Linux again. I always go through stages and have tried so many distros that I thought what the heck, I'll try Ubuntu 5.0.4.
First thing that really scared me about Ubuntu is that its installation system looks a lot like Debian (figures since it’s a debian based distro) I mean so much text based during install its enough to scare anyone off. I continued with the install, almost scared my self silly when it came to partioning my drive. It worked out all fine.
So I managed to install it, then once it had booted up I realised something that disturbed me, Ubuntu by default comes with Gnome. Personally I do not like Gnome, I have always preferred KDE. So I did a Google and saw Kubuntu, I read up about it and thought why should I download a whole distro again if I can just install KDE on Ubuntu. So that’s what I did.
I used Ubuntu's package manager to download and install it. That package manager really makes life much simpler tells one which dependences an app needs etc. I installed KDE and worked great. I came across another problem, my MP3 and Mpeg files would not work. You can imagine my displeasure; I love my music and always listen to it on my PC/PCs. After spending 2 and a half hours I finally got hold of a package which I installed and allowed me to listen to MP3's. Later on I did the same for Mpeg files. Mpegs also work fine.
This weekend I decided to update my system with Ubuntu's package managers automatic update, it told me 9 hours left and what happened at the end of the 9 hours it bombed out. Lost all of my updates, the reason it bombed out, I had changed the package manager’s dependencies from .za to .com. Thus the only way to fix the problem was to change it back. So with the help of people from the Ubuntu forums I changed it back. This means tonight, I will try the upgrade system again. It should run faster though as it will be downloading from a local source.
Now for my Mp3's I wanted to use a music app very similar to WMP10 and Media Monkey, so I came across a wonderful music app called amaroK. Not only does it look great but its so stable (at least so far) and it doesn't seem to lag the system.
My next task is with Wine is to get Office 2002/XP installed or otherwise I'll have to use Open Office. If I use Open Office then I'll only use 2.0beta as Open Office 1.0+ drives me crazy. That’s all for today, I’ll edit this post to show how it’s going with Ubuntu Linux. (Please note this post is edited/updated once a week as I keep this as a diary at home and then just upload it on weekends. As a result some text maybe slightly different as I might come across a grammar or spelling error and do my best to fix that)
Sunday October 9:
What a weird day it’s been using my Linux system. With the help of a few people from the Ubuntu forums I managed to change my systems package manager’s dependencies back to .za. So 9 hours later it updated my whole PC with no problems. (At least all the packages download a bit faster when downloading from a local source, although I ended up downloading and installing 160MB of updates. I also installed Wine, now that was a joke, I just couldn’t get it to run anything so I decided that next weekend (with help from a friend) I’m going to use Cedega (Wine with DirectX support)
Monday October 10:
Been using Ubuntu for a few days and everything seems to be running ok except I can’t get it to play midi files. I installed Kmid and it just tells me that the sound system is in use, WTF? For some people this might not be a problem but for someone who likes midi files it’s a bit of a worry. Guess I’ll have to wait until Friday then maybe someone will be able to help me.
Tuesday October 11:
Not much to report have not used my PC much but still stuck with my midi problem, although everything else seems to be running ok.
Wednesday October 12:
Not my best day using Linux. I decided that maybe my midi app problem could be sorted out in KDE’s control centre. I discovered that my Ubuntu system doesn’t have a midi synthesiser installed on the system. So I tried to compensate by adjusting a few settings in the sound system. Not a good idea as my sound system stopped working completely. But fortunately for a default button, that at least got my sound system working again. Also I decided that I would disable cross-fading in amaroK, I did that and for some reason disabling that made the program very unstable. Thus I decided to enable cross-fading again and now it is working fine again. Strange problem indeed, but at least I can listen to my mp3’s.
Thursday October 13:
The Ubuntu system has been running very nicely today, nothing to complain about except for of cause my midi problems. Been playing with the sound settings again, I have been trying to see if I can set my system volume louder with my Ubuntu system thus so that my speakers would sound clearer and louder with out becoming all muffled etc. Surprisingly enough I managed to set my system volume much louder than Windows ever allowed me. With the sound retaining its quality, I suppose that’s an interesting thing about Linux, it lets you adjust almost anything you can think of. Also I can not wait until Ubuntu Linux 5.10 (I think that’s the number) comes out then I’ll upgrade my system to that, hopefully all settings will still be intact. I’m not doing that anytime soon as it is not final yet.
Although I do have to admit I do sometimes miss using mainly a Windows based environment. Something’s are much harder to get up and running but when they are running its well worth the trouble. Talking about trouble I can’t wait to get Cedega so I can also run Microsoft Office XP or 2003 on my system. Or even Open Office 2.0 beta, as Open Office 1+ is driving me insane. I guess you guys should also know that the ONLY time I use my Celeron (which has a Windows XP environment) is when I burn CDS/DVDS as my P3 doesn’t have a burner. Other than that I have just been using my P3 with Ubuntu.
Friday October 14:
Well I couldn't find a solution to my midi problems so who knows what the problem is. I was very happy to read that Ubuntu Linux 5.10 has been officially released so I'll order my cd’s and then will upgrade my system to 5.10 as soon as possible. I have heard that 5.10 is more stable and reliable than 5.0.4. If that is true then it'll be great. I do hope that 5.10 will solve my midi problems. But until I upgrade I'll have to stick with 5.0.4.
Also last night I installed a few new upgrades and now my system is not as stable as it used to be. This is really disturbing for me as I do not know which update has made my system slightly unstable. Although I did notice that my system did not download the upgraded "Linux image 2.6, 10-5-386" so I'm busy downloading that and hopefully that will solve my instability problems.
Saturday October 15:
As luck would have it the Linux image I was downloading did not download. Had a bad connection last night, only realised it this morning. I found out this morning that a newer version of KDE 3.4 is available, so I decided to download and install the upgraded version. The only catch is its for Kubuntu Linux. I decided that since Ubuntu Linux and Kubuntu Linux is basically the same OS. Why not install KDE’s latest version for Kubuntu on my Ubuntu system? Added the repositories to my system and now its downloading the Linux image (again) and download KDE’s latest version. I sure hope this will work.
Sunday November 6
First of all let me appologize for not updating this but with exams coming up I have not even used my PC/PCs very much.
In my last update I was adding Kubuntu repositries to my Ubuntu system. I did and it upgraded my KDE to 3.4.3 the latest version. The only snag to it all was that Konquirer thought I was running Kubuntu which wasn't a train smash since Ubuntu and Kubuntu are very similer benieth their surface. So I was fine with it, but then I started to notice my system became very unstable after that. Constant apps crashing and my machine would freeze up for no apparnt reason.
Thus I decided to get hold of Ubuntu 5.10 which I did, and instead of upgrading my system from 5.04 to 5.10 I did a clean install. At first I can say 5.10 installed muck quicker and was much more sponsive during installation. Upon first boot up I was greeted with good old Gnome 2.12. As for someone who prefers to use KDE I decided why not give Gnome a try, this version of Gnome seemed much more responsive than my other KDE system.
So I thought oh what the hell I stick to Gnome for about a week and see how it goes, well all I can say is wow 2.12 must be the best version of Gnome Desktop ever, it didn't crash once, was so reliable that I decided that I would not even bother to install KDE on my 5.10 Ubuntu system. So I have been running only Gnome for a few weeks now and I am loving it.
Of couse Ubuntu 5.10 doesn't support any media codecs at first but after installing them it works like a charm. Although I was missing my favorite audio player AmaroK so I downloaded a few KDE runtimes and installed Amarok on my Gnome syste. AmaroK works really well, although it doesn't like WMA's which is a pity but I can always convert my WMA's to MP3's.
5.10 Is such an improvement over 5.04 that I can not believe how I could have lived with out it. This has been so great that I have decided to get hold and install Kubuntu 5.10 onto my Windows box. Then I'll have two linux machines each running a debian based distro which are very similar to each other and best of all I will have the best of having a Gnome and a KDE desktop.
Sunday 13 November 2005
What can I say but today I almost gave up on Linux. Sorry to all Linux people. My first thing was I decided that I really loved KDE and could not stand only using Gnome. So I downloaded KDE 3.4.3 and download Kubuntu artwork and you could say converted my Ubuntu system to Kubuntu. Anyway I noticed that after doing that I made my Linux system unstable. Which it shouldn't have done, I mean its basically the ony difference between Ubuntu and Kubuntu is that the one runs Gnome and other KDE.
So I read that KDE 3.5 RC1 was out. Now this is my fault but being a bit made, I thought that maybe upgrading my KDE to 3.5RC1 would sort out my problem. Oh how wrong I was, I downloaded and installed 3.5 RC1.
Only soon to discover that Konqueror kept on crashing every 5 seconds. As you can imagine KDE is pretty useless with out Konqueror (like Windows with out Windows Explorer) So I decided that maybe reinstalling KDE3.5RC1 would solve the problem. It didn't infact it made the problem worse.
Now at this point I am sure you all thinking why not just downgrade to KDE3.4.3, well my first challenge was to get rid of 3.5, geez that took me almost an hour to uninstall that. Then I reinstalled 3.4.3 and what happens it has weird GUI problems. Back to square one, so that means my Ubuntu system has a screwed up KDE system.
What am I going to do now? Uninstall KDE 3.4.3 and stick with Gnome until KDE 3.5 Final comes out. Although I guess I am still dedicated with Linux.
#3
Neon
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Posted 08 October 2005 - 04:39 PM
i look forward to this insight into something i know little about mate, good luck
#4
Nvyseal
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Posted 08 October 2005 - 04:57 PM
May the Fun begin!! 
#5
RedInferno
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Posted 09 October 2005 - 12:24 AM
LOl, nvy, I wonder if you got Linos permission to volunteer him? LOL "he WILL keep us posted"
#6
ShadowFox
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Posted 09 October 2005 - 03:23 PM
Pressure, nothing like it to get the results you want 
#7
RedInferno
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Posted 09 October 2005 - 06:39 PM
Especially when me and KW have tons of hitmen at our disposal....we're kingpins, didn't you know?
#8
Linoman
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Posted 14 October 2005 - 05:10 PM
Diary has been updated!
#9
ShadowFox
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Posted 14 October 2005 - 06:24 PM
Interesting indeed... I never had a problem with midi's on my Fedors Core 4... maybe it's just a glitch or something... I dunno, but I hope things start lookin up for ya buddy!
#10
RedInferno
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Posted 14 October 2005 - 08:09 PM
P3....you don't have a P4 to use Ubutu on?
#11
Linoman
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Posted 14 October 2005 - 08:36 PM
Na its a P3 and it runs pretty well except for the odd problem.
#12
RedInferno
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Posted 14 October 2005 - 08:53 PM
Maybe a bad driver?
#13
Linoman
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Posted 15 October 2005 - 08:31 AM
I don't think its a driver problem though, I'll just wait to upgrade the system to 5.10. Hopefully that will sort out my problems.
#14
Visentinel
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Posted 15 October 2005 - 09:57 AM
Well you should have no problems with Linux Linoman, since you don't exactly have a Gaming video card i take it you don't play Full on Games so aslong as you dont become a gamer youll be cool.
I would have changed to Linux ages ago if i wasn't such a Gaming Freak.
so aslong as you dont become a gamer youll be cool.I would have changed to Linux ages ago if i wasn't such a Gaming Freak.
#15
Neon
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Posted 15 October 2005 - 11:27 AM
Visentinel, on Oct 15 2005, 10:57 AM, said:
I would have changed to Linux ages ago if i was a Hippy Freak.
Damn that was unkind
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