The Perfect Desktop - Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) - Page 2

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Submitted by falko (Contact Author) (Forums) on Sun, 2008-11-02 20:04. ::

3 Update The System

Now it's time to check for updates and install them. This is done using the Update Manager. If you see a notification in the taskbar that new updates are available, you can start the Update Manager by clicking on the update icon...

... otherwise you can start the Update Manager by going to System > Administration > Update Manager:

The Update Manager tells you which updates are available (you can click on the Check button to refresh the list). Click on Install Updates to install them:

Type in your password:

The updates are being downloaded and installed (this can take a few minutes):

When the update is complete, click on Close. If a new kernel was amongst the updates, a system restart is required to make the changes effective. If this is necessary, you will see a blue reboot icon in the upper right panel. Click on the blue reboot icon to restart the system.

Confirm by clicking on Restart Now:

After the reboot, the system is up-to-date.

 

4 Inventory Of What We Have So Far

Now let's browse all menus to see which of our needed applications are already installed:

You should find the following situation ([x] marks an application that is already installed, where [ ] is an application that is missing):

Graphics:
[x] The GIMP
[x] F-Spot
[ ] Picasa

Internet:
[x] Firefox
[ ] Opera
[ ] Flash Player
[ ] FileZilla
[ ] Thunderbird
[x] Evolution
[ ] aMule
[ ] BitTornado
[ ] Azureus/Vuze
[x] Pidgin
[ ] Skype
[ ] Google Earth
[ ] Xchat IRC

Office:
[x] OpenOffice Writer
[x] OpenOffice Calc
[ ] Adobe Reader
[ ] GnuCash
[ ] Scribus

Sound & Video:
[ ] Amarok
[ ] Audacity
[ ] Banshee
[ ] MPlayer
[x] Rhythmbox Music Player
[ ] gtkPod
[ ] XMMS
[ ] dvd::rip
[ ] Kino
[ ] Sound Juicer CD Extractor
[ ] VLC Media Player
[ ] Helix Player
[x] Totem
[ ] Xine
[x] Brasero
[ ] K3B
[ ] Multimedia-Codecs

Programming:
[ ] KompoZer
[ ] Bluefish
[ ] Quanta Plus

Other:
[ ] VMware Server
[ ] TrueType fonts
[ ] Java
[x] Read/Write support for NTFS partitions

So some applications are already on the system. NTFS read-/write support is enabled by default on Ubuntu 8.10.

 

5 Configure Additional Repositories

Some packages like the Adobe Reader are not available in the standard Ubuntu repositories. The easiest way to make such packages available to your system is to add the Medibuntu repository.

First we open a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal):

First off, we edit /etc/apt/sources.list...

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

... and enable the intrepid partner repository (because some packages such as Opera are available only in that repository):

[...]
## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's
## 'partner' repository. This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is
## offered by Canonical and the respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu
## users.
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu intrepid partner
deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu intrepid partner
[...]

Then save the file.

To enable the Medibuntu repository, please do the following:

Import the repository:

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/intrepid.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

Import the gpg-key and update your package-list:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update

up

Copyright © 2008 Falko Timme
All Rights Reserved.
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Maybe it will be the next "Windows"
Submitted by Serguei Fedorov (not registered) on Wed, 2008-11-05 16:10.

Many people misinterpret Linux as being an operating system, where in reality it is only a base of an operating system. The the Linux kernel, the base, is one of the most powerful kernels available today. It is able to utilize the hardware in such a way that Windows will never be able to. I think, that if the right people, and companies kick into the making of an extremely good, easy to use operating system (Ubuntu for instance), I think it would make a great replacement for Windows.

 Anyways, here is a link to some good terms to know before switching to Ubuntu (Or any other linux distro)

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"full-fledged replacement" for a Windows desktop
Submitted by Robo Hubinák (not registered) on Wed, 2008-11-05 12:25.
Linux is not and will never be a replacement for a Windows desktop (maybe for Windows 3.1), because of it's philosophy. GNU means that amateurs with no salary creates software for everybody = that sounds like charity.Personally, I wouldn't trust anything that comes for free from these guys.
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Re: "full-fledged replacement" for a Windows desktop
Submitted by linux user (not registered) on Thu, 2009-04-09 09:17.
robo, i use nothing but linux. on everything. i have 4 laptops running linux as well as a raid 5 file server. the only thing i use windows for is my work pc and that's because my co-workers don't like it when i install an o/s they can't use full-fledgedly. you must be one of my co-workers...
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Re: "full-fledged replacement" for a Windows desktop
Submitted by deandownsouth (not registered) on Wed, 2009-01-21 21:12.

A little bit of education for you...

Actually, that is NOT true. Open Source companies have PAID developers that develop much of the code. And, at least for Red Hat, ALL of their developers sit in the Open Source side and all development code is released back into the Open Source world (some amazing up-and-coming stuff like oVirt and IPA are two great examples). Novell, Canonical are similar with both of these companies vying for the desktop big time-especially the corporate desktop.

Ubuntu has made the desktop extremely easy, so much so that even though I support and work with RHEL all day, I switched over to Ubuntu for my main desktop (from RHEL 5.2) since once I get my desktop dialed in and the way *I* like it (that's an important concept that Windows users don't get) I don't like to mess with it since I need to be productive on it (as opposed to playing around with stuff), so point and click and a fast install/configuration became important to me at that point.

Novell's work (using PAID developers)  on Mono (the Open Source .Net thing) is also great, and that gets pushed back into the community.

 Now it is a common misconception that Open Source equals free, as in beer. No, it is free as in speech. While it is true that you can download the sources and put together your own enterprise version of Red Hat Linux (got to take out the trademarked items though), for example, you can't however, download (for free) Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Same is true for Novell Suse. These are commercial Open Source distributions that come with, everyone say it together ***support***. The free (as in beer) versions of these phenomenal Operating Environments are Fedora and OpenSuse respectively. Major Fortune 500/100/50/etc companies run mission critical applications on these commercial distributions. That's what I do for a living (in addition to regular Unix [HP-UX and AIX]).

Some companies like CentOS, download the sources (RHEL in this case) and create an identical binary compatible and do give that away for free (as in beer) and accept donations to help cover the cost. Many companies use RHEL in production and CentOS for development environments.

So while it is true that there are those (and it is a great number) who submit code who are hobbyists, retired programmers, or teenagers hacking away in their parents' basements, you diminish the truly great work that professional programmers do by reducing it to just a bunch of  amateurs sharing code.

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Re: "full-fledged replacement" for a Windows desktop
Submitted by Anonymous (not registered) on Fri, 2009-01-02 08:10.

dude i really never respond to peoples comments,  but maybe u just dont know what free means when it comes to open sources products.  obviously you, me and many others dont have all the skills and knowledge yet to completly take advantage of a system that can be tweaked however you want.  I dont know, can Windows Xp and Vista  do what gnu/linux do?

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Re: "full-fledged replacement" for a Windows desktop
Submitted by Earthman (not registered) on Thu, 2008-12-04 06:54.

Now I believe. Aliens really exists.

If not a alien, perhaps a bugish Robo(t) assembled by M$.

Mr(?) Robo(t):

I know you can access forums, read and write, but can you understand the Human being?

Maybe you need the "charity" of "these guys" to get a brain!

Earthman

Stardate  2454805,357

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Re: "full-fledged replacement" for a Windows desktop
Submitted by Tacticus (not registered) on Mon, 2008-11-10 02:40.

amazing that you ignore companies like canonical and Red Hat who develop these apps (amongst others) and the incrediably huge number of people who develop for it as a past time outside of their normal profession

Go ahead don't trust it if you wish the rest of the world already does

It already runs servers(it owns the internet market), it runs desktops around the world (and has for many years) if you choose to ignore it because of your own ignorance or bigotry go ahead and fall behind.

This is 10.8 Billion dollars worth of work http://linux-foundation.org/weblogs/press/2008/10/21/linux-foundation-publishes-study-estimating-the-value-of-linux/

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Re: "full-fledged replacement" for a Windows desktop
Submitted by Matthías (not registered) on Wed, 2008-11-05 16:19.
Well, I think people making software for Linux put more ambition into their work rather than a guy working at Microsoft struggling with some timeline. And you talk about amateurs as a bad thing. You got to start somewhere right ? and the Linux community is great for that!
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