Linux General Questions

SixteenBlue wrote:

What comes by default with Ubuntu 12.04? I am not liking it.

Nor am I. At some point I need to slap a 10 foot UI on my 12.04 install so if you come across one let me know.

Sadly my ubuntu media server suffers from me dealing with *nix systems all day and not wanting to touch one when I get home.

Unity is what it's called.

Edwin wrote:

Unity is what it's called.

You can revert back to Gnome pretty easily.

*Edited

That'll teach me not to refresh the page before I post a comment.

I'm actually thinking about giving Ubuntu 12.04 and Unity a try.

All I want from a desktop environment these days is some decent eye candy, relatively painless configuration, and basic window tiling ability. (Compiz's Grid plugin being sufficient).

I launch apps entirely through application launchers - Synapse on Linux, Alfred on OS X. I no longer care what a DE's application menu looks like.

Arch has been fun, and I am keeping it on my netbook, but I need a bit less day-to-day hassle and breakage on the system I use for work (though Arch has had considerably less breakage or hassle than I expected. Some of the hassle is 3rd party packages not keeping pace with the updates to core).

I've been running both Ubuntu 12.04 and Mint 13 in VMs and I'm fairly impressed with both. Linux is definitely more usable than it was "back in the day".

Unity has application launching built in. It's the only reason I'm still sticking with it for the time being. I want to see if I can get used to the rest. I like the default workspace switching UI too.

I like Cinnamon's launcher, whatever it is. I also launch all applications with [windows key]+[first three letters of the app].

I love Arch for my development machine, but I just moved my home server over to CentOS. I realized I like my servers, stable, dependable, and boring.

Lex Cayman wrote:

In my extensive (6 hours) time with cinnamon, I've found it to be nice balance between Gnome3 and xfce. It gives me the pretties and warm fuzzies of Gnome3, but it actually exposes a reasonable about of configuration options.

I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for a pretty desktop. I like animations, gradients, transparencies, etc. Cinnamon is definitely that.

I tried Open box, but I felt like I was reinventing the wheel when setting up all of the widgets, notifications, panels and such. I was okay with Gnome 3 for a while, but there were some things I just didn't like, and it was too hard to change them.

Xfce is definitely configurable, but I couldn't quite get the "feel" I was looking for.

This morning, I am happy.

I feel ya. I've got lxpanel and lint2 running with Openbox, and it's a few steps closer to an environment in which stuff stays out of my way unless I need them. However, there's something to be said about the cognitive affects of aesthetics, and the hodgepodge approach is ugly. I like the visuals of OS X. Currently, though, I'm not even running Xfce, which I agree isn't terribly slick either, as it's just slow enough that I notice. I haven't gone the way of changing out icon sets in lxpanel (the only icons I use, generally, as I have only conky output on my desktop). I don't even know how to do this, and am not sure what's compatible. Maybe there's a leaner, nicer-looking panel; it's been a while since I looked at fbpanel.

I used to trawl through the Arch wiki forum posts showing cool desktops, and occasionally saw some stuff that wasn't totally whack. Maybe I'll hop on one and see what's new.

*Legion* wrote:

I'm actually thinking about giving Ubuntu 12.04 and Unity a try.

All I want from a desktop environment these days is some decent eye candy, relatively painless configuration, and basic window tiling ability. (Compiz's Grid plugin being sufficient).

I launch apps entirely through application launchers - Synapse on Linux, Alfred on OS X. I no longer care what a DE's application menu looks like.

Arch has been fun, and I am keeping it on my netbook, but I need a bit less day-to-day hassle and breakage on the system I use for work (though Arch has had considerably less breakage or hassle than I expected. Some of the hassle is 3rd party packages not keeping pace with the updates to core).

I've been running both Ubuntu 12.04 and Mint 13 in VMs and I'm fairly impressed with both. Linux is definitely more usable than it was "back in the day".

Something odd's happened with network configuration in 12.04. I seem to have to manually ifup when I restart and the GUI configuration tools just plain don't work. I've configured the interface manually but it's still playing sillybuggers.

That's interesting. I've had no noticeable lag, but I also do what you are saying, I don't wait for feedback. If there's a better option I'll check it out though.

SixteenBlue wrote:

Unity has application launching built in.

It does, just not as good (IMO) as those apps I mentioned.

Synaptic and Alfred are just much snappier and faster to filter through searches - just Down-arrow straight down through the list.

It's nice that Unity has that built into the DE, though. It sure beats having no application launcher at all.

Application launchers are one app where I think instant responsiveness is critical for a good user experience. Synapse and Alfred respond to my summon keystroke instantly, and I don't have to hesitate even the slightest before I start typing in my launch search. It's like typing on a CLI.

Unity definitely has some hesitation between summoning and being able to capture my subsequent input. Not a very big hesitation, mind you, but a perceptible "beat".

Synapse and Alfred both won me over by being so fast that I don't wait for any visual feedback before typing in my search. I just type, rather than hitting the summon keystroke, waiting for the GUI to appear, waiting for my brain to recognize that the GUI has appeared, and *then* typing. We're talking about a very short amount of time, but again, that amount of time is the difference between typical typing-in-a-GUI-app versus typing as if you were at a CLI and just assume that it's ready for your keystrokes. (And the slow part is step 3 - waiting for my brain to register the input from my eyes to recognize that the GUI has appeared and the app is ready to take my input. It's knowing that I can skip that step and just start typing blindly that makes the experience so much faster).

*Legion* wrote:

I also don't like that there's no visual indication that if you hit Enter in Unity, it will launch the first matched icon. It ought to highlight that icon somewhat. But that's mostly an initial-use complaint.

This was my first complaint. Generally there's not much visually that I like about Unity, with the exception of the workspace switching/viewer.

SixteenBlue wrote:

That's interesting. I've had no noticeable lag, but I also do what you are saying, I don't wait for feedback. If there's a better option I'll check it out though.

I've got Ubuntu open in a VM right now, and if I try to launch and type into the Unity launcher the way I do in Synapse, it will usually miss my first character, sometimes my second. Sometimes it catches it all, if my fingers are a slight beat slower than normal.

We are talking a *very* brief amount of time, but it's there, for me at least. I don't doubt that it's good enough for most users, especially if they aren't CLI and Vim junkies.

I also don't like that there's no visual indication that if you hit Enter in Unity, it will launch the first matched icon. It ought to highlight that icon somewhat. But that's mostly an initial-use complaint.

I think that it's absolutely awesome that it's there, though. A great default. I like it a lot more than what OS X and Windows ship with. I like that it overlays a good portion of the screen rather than being confined to a small popup menu near a screen corner.

Other launchers exist to serve those of us more picky and anal about it. That, and I like using a 3rd party launcher because it will be the same experience no matter what DE I jump to next.

Ok, I wiped Win7 and installed Ubuntu 12.04 but I am having a few issues and maybe one of you have seen this.

-Alt tab doesn't work. It just tabs around elements within the open app.

-The installation automatically did the partitioning but I re-did it so I had a 2nd partition to hold non-OS files. I did this in Windows and liked the practice so I can wipe and not worry about it. Now the problem is the 2nd partition doesn't give me permissions to write to it since I am not the owner. The drive isn't listed in /etc/fstab. How do I go about gaining permission on the drive and how do I setup my install to point things to that folder. I found this guide for the later but nothing for the former.

-I can't get the Nvidia driver to install with this hybrid Optimus card. It only installs the Intel driver. Any ideas?

edwin@Dreadmaul:~$ lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 vga 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0046] (rev 18) Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:046e] Kernel driver in use: i915 -- 02:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation Device [10de:0df1] (rev a1) Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:046e] Kernel driver in use: nvidia edwin@Dreadmaul:~$ /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0". Error: GLX is not available on the system
Edwin wrote:

Ok, I wiped Win7 and installed Ubuntu 12.04 but I am having a few issues and maybe one of you have seen this.

-Alt tab doesn't work. It just tabs around elements within the open app.

-The installation automatically did the partitioning but I re-did it so I had a 2nd partition to hold non-OS files. I did this in Windows and liked the practice so I can wipe and not worry about it. Now the problem is the 2nd partition doesn't give me permissions to write to it since I am not the owner. The drive isn't listed in /etc/fstab. How do I go about gaining permission on the drive and how do I setup my install to point things to that folder. I found this guide for the later but nothing for the former.

-I can't get the Nvidia driver to install with this hybrid Optimus card. It only installs the Intel driver. Any ideas?

edwin@Dreadmaul:~$ lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 vga 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0046] (rev 18) Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:046e] Kernel driver in use: i915 -- 02:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation Device [10de:0df1] (rev a1) Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:046e] Kernel driver in use: nvidia edwin@Dreadmaul:~$ /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0". Error: GLX is not available on the system

That's odd. Alt-Tab works for me as expected in 12.04.

Also I've mounted ~ to a different partition before a bunch of times. How did you partition it? In the Ubuntu installer?

Edwin,

As far as getting optimus working, I had to install two things: a kernel module called bbswitch, and a service called bumblebee.

Keep in mind, I did this on Arch Linux, not Ubuntu. Here is the Arch Wiki page I used to set everything up: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...

I am POSITIVE this article won't be a how-to for you, but it should tell you WHAT you need to do so you can find HOW to do it in Ubuntu.

Good luck.

EDIT

Also, I should say I'm running the open source nouveau driver, not nvidia's.

Edwin wrote:

-Alt tab doesn't work. It just tabs around elements within the open app.

-The installation automatically did the partitioning but I re-did it so I had a 2nd partition to hold non-OS files. I did this in Windows and liked the practice so I can wipe and not worry about it. Now the problem is the 2nd partition doesn't give me permissions to write to it since I am not the owner. The drive isn't listed in /etc/fstab. How do I go about gaining permission on the drive and how do I setup my install to point things to that folder. I found this guide for the later but nothing for the former.

Between these and your tweet about not having a file manager installed by default, I'm wondering what the hell kind of install you did.

I have my root, /home, and /boot on separate partitions (and /home is on a separate drive entirely). I've done this on many distros and never once had a situation where I didn't have "permission" to write to the /home filesystem.

*Legion* wrote:

Between these and your tweet about not having a file manager installed by default, I'm wondering what the hell kind of install you did.

You really have to be careful where you download your distros from.

IMAGE(http://farm1.static.flickr.com/176/438372327_187c0173e3_o.png)

Edwin wrote:

Ok, I wiped Win7 and installed Ubuntu 12.04 but I am having a few issues and maybe one of you have seen this.

But, but, but....what about games?

Sparhawk wrote:
Edwin wrote:

Ok, I wiped Win7 and installed Ubuntu 12.04 but I am having a few issues and maybe one of you have seen this.

But, but, but....what about games?

I haven't had time to play games in such a long time and was recently passed up for two jobs 'cause of my lack of linux experience. It's just something I have to do for now.

*Legion* wrote:
Edwin wrote:

-Alt tab doesn't work. It just tabs around elements within the open app.

-The installation automatically did the partitioning but I re-did it so I had a 2nd partition to hold non-OS files. I did this in Windows and liked the practice so I can wipe and not worry about it. Now the problem is the 2nd partition doesn't give me permissions to write to it since I am not the owner. The drive isn't listed in /etc/fstab. How do I go about gaining permission on the drive and how do I setup my install to point things to that folder. I found this guide for the later but nothing for the former.

Between these and your tweet about not having a file manager installed by default, I'm wondering what the hell kind of install you did.

I have my root, /home, and /boot on separate partitions (and /home is on a separate drive entirely). I've done this on many distros and never once had a situation where I didn't have "permission" to write to the /home filesystem.

I re-wiped and re-installed 12.04 and things are working more like I expected. Something got really screwed up when I did the first install (all default options). This time I did the partitioning manually and have /dev/sda1 holding root, /dev/sda5 holding /home and /dev/sda6 holding swap. For some reason I couldn't get them in numerical order (sda1, sda2, sda3).

Things to do today:
-Get the video card fan to stop spinning full on.
-Find a way to turn the brightness down (it's stuck on full brightness)
-Figure out some power schemes on this laptop much like windows has (full power, power saver)
-Get 3D working with Bumblebee
-Get the login screen to rotate wallpapers like the desktop

You could always just install Linux under VirtualBox, and keep your ability to play games.

Edwin wrote:
Sparhawk wrote:
Edwin wrote:

Ok, I wiped Win7 and installed Ubuntu 12.04 but I am having a few issues and maybe one of you have seen this.

But, but, but....what about games?

I haven't had time to play games in such a long time and was recently passed up for two jobs 'cause of my lack of linux experience. It's just something I have to do for now.

The only good answer I could think of really. Good luck

Dual boot.

Once you have time for games again, dual booting is not only a good thing to do, but good experience.

I am dealing with an issue right now where Windows 7 will not update because of the presence of Grub 2 in the drive's MBR.

Running into and learning about these dual boot issues (and by "issues" I mean "Windows being a piss-poor co-tenant") will be more good experience for your studies.

*Legion* wrote:

Once you have time for games again, dual booting is not only a good thing to do, but good experience.

I am dealing with an issue right now where Windows 7 will not update because of the presence of Grub 2 in the drive's MBR.

Running into and learning about these dual boot issues (and by "issues" I mean "Windows being a piss-poor co-tenant") will be more good experience for your studies.

Wow, I've not seen it refuse to update a system because of MBR data. What's the error look like?

Tyrian wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

Once you have time for games again, dual booting is not only a good thing to do, but good experience.

I am dealing with an issue right now where Windows 7 will not update because of the presence of Grub 2 in the drive's MBR.

Running into and learning about these dual boot issues (and by "issues" I mean "Windows being a piss-poor co-tenant") will be more good experience for your studies.

Wow, I've not seen it refuse to update a system because of MBR data. What's the error look like?

It looks like every single update failing, even if the update is definitions for MSE or other such stuff that should not be affected in any way by a boot loader.

I'll blog about it. Most of the references I've seen to other people having the same issue have been on forums.

Apparently, in Linux, "sexit" is not a valid command alias for "exit".

Weird, right?

It won't let you sexit in the exit?

Lex Cayman wrote:

Apparently, in Linux, "sexit" is not a valid command alias for "exit".

With a quick shell alias, it is

Running Ubuntu 12.04 in a Virtual Box and am *this* much closer to making it my primary OS.

Still unsure how I feel about the Unity stuff, but so far, hasn't caused any headaches. I'll give it time.