I took my PC and dual booted Ubuntu on it. But I have nothing to do in Linux. What are some of the must have or sweet software should I be downloading?
[quote=“Frost”]I took my PC and dual booted Ubuntu on it.
[/quote]
Hey, me too! Did it last week.
Wondering the same. Ububtu does come with OpenOffice and Firefox, which are the most important software to me.
Any Dr. Eye equivalents for Linux?
what do you usually do with your computer?
games, window programs, photoshop type things, download porn, make web pages.
Don’t know about Frost, but here are my main uses:
Word processing and spreadsheet (taken care of)
Translation (hence my need for something like Dr. Eye)
Web browsing (taken care of)
Usenet (I need a good newsreader)
Photo editing (taken care of)
And a bunch of minor stuff…
I also need to find a way to change the permissions on my FAT32 partition so I can manipulate the same files from Linux and Windows. The “sudo chmod 0777” command doesn’t seem to have any effect.
get “wine” and launch some windows apps 
you have to modify fstab BUT be very careful and do your homework before trying anything…
For Photoshop type stuff, there’s always the Gimp www.gimp.org
Personally, I can’t live without Photoshop - Gimp doesn’t quite do enough for my needs, but for the average user, Gimp will do it all.
It’s the only reason I’m not running Linux.
Mmm! I am considering dual booting with Ubuntu, too. I haven’t bitten the bullet yet, but I definitely do not like the maintenance and activation systems that make it difficult to replace and update software on my pc.
I had several hard disks added to my pc, then discovered I had to reactivate xp. I am swearing never again.
I shouldn’t be treated like a thief just because I add extra features on my pc and I have a FULL XP Pro license.
Disgraceful. If I can, I will switch to Ubuntu or similar, probably before I have to upgrade to Vista.
Best Wishes
Kenneth
I’m glad Apple requires no registration or serial numbers for all their non pro software. They know little things like this can ruin a brand. Vista’s licensing might not be better.
Office 2007 pricing came out recently. Figuring out what to get is as convoluted as buying insurance. Are they really trying to make computing accessible for normal people?
[quote=“KenTaiwan98”]
Disgraceful. If I can, I will switch to Ubuntu or similar…
Best Wishes
Kenneth[/quote]
Excellent. There are lots of linux people here. Maybe Commrade Stalin could help you out.
I don’t want to use the boot select thing Ubuntu installed, so I deleted it. I want to use the boot.ini file in windows but not use how to configure it. This is what it reads so far.
[boot loader]
timeout=8
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=“Microsoft Windows XP Professional” /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
Partition 1 is Windows, Partition 2 is Linux swap and 3 is Linux Ext3. What do I need to add and where so I can select at startup?
I remember doing that years ago. I bet you’ll find the answer in google in a few minutes. Probably would take me 10 seconds since I have a vague memory of of the steps.
Not that I don’t mean to be helpful. It’s just curious thru reading these forums I wonder how many people are the curious type, about anything, about knowledge; and like to figure things out. Who here wonders? Where are the people who love every subject? Computer science? Even science?
Alas, how we’re raised in the west has taken a turn these last few hundred years we’re even at more of loss than we were before.
You might check out some linux and tech blogs. Get into the culture.
One other thing I’ve found: the time it takes a web page to load on Linux is far slower than on Windows on my computer.
I’m actually not one of those people Gary. I did look and do have a generic answer, but what I found wasn’t specific to Ubuntu and wasn’t sure if that mattered.
try different browser. opera under linux works great (and now it’s free). what gui are you using?
Still need a Linux Guru’s help on this one.
k. here ya go. Googled “linux boot.ini windows xp” and it was the 2nd result. 
jaeger.morpheus.net/linux/ntldr.php
add ubuntu to the search and you’ll get more sites.
One thing I learned a long time ago is intelligence or ability to do something, anything involving the mind, is not genetic. it make take years or decades to begin to free yourself of any past conditioning but you can do it.
Long ago it was Socrates who was able to naturally lead a slave to discover the principles of geometry. Was it the physicist Oppenheimer who said there were 4 year old children who could solve the problems he was working on? For most of human history and in most cultures, education has done nothing but kill the curiousity of children. Humanity is still a young species.
Anyone can figure out the world in front of them; they just gotta try.
i’ll stick to lilo or grub if i were you. optionally try pqmagic’s bootmagic, it’s very robust.
FROST, if you wanna learn more about linux or if you encounter problems, i suggest you go to linuxquestions.org, their forum is a great knowledge base.
try different browser. opera under linux works great (and now it’s free). what gui are you using?[/quote]
GNOME.
I still haven’t yet figured out how to install software I download…
[quote]GNOME.
I still haven’t yet figured out how to install software I download…[/quote]
if you think ubuntu is too hard, get rid of it and get mandriva (mandrake), itĺl be a lot smoother for you to use and understand. mandriva has a control panel where everything is centralised and where everything can be configured easily for newbies… also, mandriva can be updated extremely easily. there are a couple of mirrors in taiwan. itś fast and straight forward.
do not install gnome with mandriva, install kde instead. imho kde is way better and advanced, it comes with many applications that make life so much easier. countless apps can also be installed thru control panel.
give it a try!
I wonder how is linux software management coming along?
For OS X, all I’ve kept track of are unix package managers. Fink, DarwinPorts, and even Gentoo for OS X.
But modern GUI apps on linux? We have Lindows. What is it called now? Linspire or something? There’s probably other stuff.
Even OS X or Windows could use some work. How is the average person going to find out about shareware or commercial software?
What day will someone ask their computer I want to record music, and the computer will start a conversation. Even if, for now, it shows only a catalog.
At least OS X makes software installation easy. For people who program using good guidlines, they can package every single file that’s part of an app into one file. Download something like a disk image? You can have it auto unpack when it finishes. Then all you see is one icon on your desktop. Imagine downloading Photoshop and it being one file, one icon. Double click and it asks, should it install, say yes, and then it runs. Instantly OS X can do most of that now.