Tech/Computer advice from me

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I knew that with the hardware FTS has, he would be able to run Ubuntu at the barest of barest minimums, but the default settings would kick in so as to at least be usable. If Ubuntu is as slow as he reports, maybe Puppy Linux or DSL would be a better option.
 
tshile said:
When in doubt check the hardware requirements ;)

Sorry. I thought Ubuntu was still super light weight :\
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SkinnedAussie said:
I knew that with the hardware FTS has, he would be able to run Ubuntu at the barest of barest minimums, but the default settings would kick in so as to at least be usable. If Ubuntu is as slow as he reports, maybe Puppy Linux or DSL would be a better option.
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I just happened to have a 2nd Desktop PC, that is also running on Windows XP currently, so it also needs to be updated.
However, this other PC does have better specs.
It's got a Intel Celeron CPU with 1.6 Ghz, and 1.99 GB of RAM. So I'm going to try my luck with an install on this PC
And now that I'm starting over on another PC, I am seeing some options that I either overlooked, or forgot about on the last install.

First, is a lack of an option. It's telling me it's a 6 GB installation, with a drop down menu. But I drop down the menu, and there's no other option.
Then it gives me the options of Desktop environment :

Ubuntu
Kubuntu
Xubuntu
Mythbuntu
Edubuntu
Lubuntu

I guess I left it at the default of Ubuntu on the last PC. Would any of the other choices have made a positive difference on performance ?

EDIT : I'm reading posts on this other forum, that Xubuntu is friendlier to older PC's with lower specs. Sounds like this is what I need. If this is true, am I giving up anything major by going with Xubuntu, as opposed to Ubuntu ?

I'm guessing I need Xubuntu on the first PC, with the lower specs, but I'm wondering if Ubuntu will work well on the above specs ?

T, I see that you referenced Kubuntu here. At the time, I never heard of KDE, so I wasn't aware that KDE was short for Kubuntu

tshile said:
Looks like you go to GNOME or KDE or some other linux desktop environment.
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From my understanding, the only difference between the two is the graphical interface. Ubuntu uses the relatively resource hungry GNOME, whereas Xubuntu uses XCFE.
 
This was helpful

https://www.udemy.com/blog/kubuntu-vs-ubuntu-vs-xubuntu/

Xfce has been a powerful (and lightweight) Linux environment for a long time. In fact, Xfce can be run on a computer with as little as 40MB of memory – making it a perfect choice for older systems running low-end hardware.
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^
Good :)

Xubuntu does not include LibreOffice
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Xfce also doesn’t include Rhythmbox – a popular music library program found in Ubuntu and Kubuntu.
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^
Not good :(

.....
Wait, maybe this is what I need to do......

There are many other software options that are unavailable if you choose to install Xubuntu directly. As an alternative, many people actually install Ubuntu with Unity and then download and install the Xfce desktop. This gives users the lightweight, reliable experience typically associated with Xfce, but the installed software options associated with a full Ubuntu installation.
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I'm learning that this is a lot more complicated than I originally thought.
I knew absolutely nothing about Unity, Ubuntu, Linux, or Gnome, until recently, and I still know very little. I had no idea there was so many options.
 
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Install Ubuntu, but run it with the XFCE graphic interface instead of GNOME. I thought I said that, but upon further checking, my earlier posts didn't say you could run Ubuntu with Xfce.

There are all sorts of options, but only if you are prepared to see what option does, and if it is better for you.

Also, if you want to play DVDs, you will have to install the restricted extras, which can be found in the Ubuntu Store, probably under the media section.
 
Fear The Spear said:
T, I see that you referenced Kubuntu here. At the time, I never heard of KDE, so I wasn't aware that KDE was short for Kubuntu
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Kde is just a graphical interface or Linux. I don't know if Kubuntu uses that, but the two are separate. Kde is old school. Unfortunately that's the extent of my knowledge on it. I was thinking you could use it or gnome instead of unity but it sounds like you have found a light weight solution.


Btw, just because those other options don't come with the software prepackaged doesn't mean you can't use if,unless there's some system limitation. You might just need to install it manually?
 
Fear I reread what you wrote. Do Ubuntu with unity and install that xfce interface. That's the solution you want
 
MikeSr619 said:
So I have a mac for work and my PC sitting next to it i use for fun. I have found a program that allows me to use the same mouse and keyboard for both systems. Its called synergy.

Its a little buggy but 99% of the time it works wonders and is very handy.
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I have a desktop in front of me, and a laptop some 2000km's away. I can use the same mouse , keyboard and monitor on both. It's a program called TeamViewer. No bugs, and work flawlessly. Extremely handy when needed to connect remotely.
 
if you really want to screw with your IT guy, find out what the top level domain extension for your local network is. It's probably something like .com, .org, .net, something that mimics your company's actual website. It could be something like .local, .int, .intranet, or another obscure one that doesn't (so, company.local instead of company.com)

If it's a .local, casually ask your IT guy when you run into him why the network was set up using an unsupported TDL that's against best practices (that's not exactly true, just fyi)

If it's a .com/org/net, ask him why the network wasn't originally set up to use .local.

It's preferable that you do this when there is a group of IT people around, for maximum amusement. If it's just the two of you, just watch his head explode and tell him you're screwing with him. If it's a group of them just step back and watch them argue with each other as the grenade you just rolled at them explodes.
 
tshile said:
Fear I reread what you wrote. Do Ubuntu with unity and install that xfce interface. That's the solution you want
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I have attempted that. It has improved the speed somewhat, but it's still extremely slow, and still much much slower than Windows was/is on the very same PC. Another thing happening on Ubuntu, that never happened or happens with Windows on this same PC, is it constantly disconnect and connects to the wireless service, back and forth, on and off, constantly, every couple minutes.
Besides replacing Ubuntu with the XFCE desktop interface, I believe the other option is to remove Ubuntu, then install Xubuntu, and then manually/individually install the programs I want, that don't come with Xubuntu. Would you agree with that ?

tshile said:
Turn off unity
uninstall - How can you remove Unity? - Ask Ubuntu
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When I flip back over to Windows, Ubuntu is listed in the Control Panel, under Programs, with the option to remove, probably since I used WUBI through Windows to install it, which seems like the easiest option to remove

EDIT : So, I just finished uninstalling Ubuntu, from the WIndows Control Panel.....and now in the process of re-installing it, as "Xubuntu" with the hopes that will be lightweight enough
 
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You know more about Xubuntu at this point than I do, so I can't help you with whether it's a good idea or not :)

Hopefully that works. Sorry Ubuntu didn't work out well :\

I was going to mention Fedora. It's not as user friendly as Ubuntu but if you've gotten this far and feel comfortable continuing to plow ahead you'll have no problem with Fedora. But their minimum system requirements are about the same :\

Sucks. I didn't realize those OS's had grown up so much.

But there is another option... Debian. Debian is significantly less user friendly. I really like Debian, if I were to install a linux I'd go with Debian above all the others (including Ubuntu and Fedora) but I'm far from an expert on it. It's among the more popular linux distros among those that graduate past the entry systems of fedora and ubuntu. Debian's a true step into the world of linux. It's minimum system requirements are a Penteum 4 1 ghz and 256mb of ram. 3.4.*Meeting Minimum Hardware Requirements

you can read more about it at debian.org

There's tons of good information about how to do things in debian on google, and who knows - maybe you'd become a true linux guy. Most people that venture that deep into linux never go back... ever. I'm always willing to help but you'd pass me in knowledge on it pretty quickly. Not sure how many linux people we have here, by that i mean true linux people, you'll likely have to find other resources.

At the end of the day these are all linux distros. a group of people took a core operating system and tweaked it enough to build their own custom platform on top of it. but fundamentally most of the things you'd want to use are available generically for linux.

it's an option. it's not daunting. it's a question of how much you want to invest in learning a new OS vs dealing with your computer vs buying a new one.

If you're really adventurous you could try Mint. It's not as hard as debian but its not nearly as polished as the others. I couldn't even get it to work last time I tried but I had a pretty wild and unsupported setup when i was messing with it.

Pay special attentions to install instructions for linux if you're trying to keep your windows install. Don't venture into this without backing up your system really well - you might accidentally destroy it (you can rebuild it, but you might lose data, you wont permanently break your computer though.) So make sure you read them 3 times then ask your questions here if you can't find answers elsewhere.

I don't really feel like walking you through how to rebuild your master boot record even though it's not hard :\
 
On second thought, you may just want to spend 30 dollars and up your memory to 3 gigs and use Ubuntu. If you post your service tag I'll find some memory for you.
 
Happy to report that I finally got Ubuntu, actually Xubuntu, working satisfactorily for the first time.
In fact, just to give you an idea, this is the very first time I'm posting on BGO, while on any version of Ubuntu.
I think it's going to work.

With that in mind, I just have one more question.
I guess I'm on the "preview" version, as you call it. And it's still running dual OS, both Windows and Xubuntu.
So I choose which one I want, whenever I boot up.
So, how do I completely replace Windows with Xubuntu, and make Xubuntu my only OS ?
I assume, that will speed up the PC even more, by removing all that disk space taken up by Windows.
My main concern is that I had to use the WUBI Windows installer to install Xubuntu, so Xubuntu is actually a component, or program within Windows. So Windows is still the primary OS. So, can I make it so Xubuntu is the one and only OS, without having to re-install it with a CD, DVD, or USB, since using those installation methods was a problem originally ? It never gave me the option to replace Windows completely with Ubuntu/Xubuntu, when I installed them using WUBI
 
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You've got it mostly right. I may be a bit off the mark, but I think WUBI essentially works like this:

The 'program' installed in windows is actually just a place marker that eats up a chunk of windows so windows doesn't try to write to the disk there. Then WUBI installs ubuntu to your disk, then it modifies the boot record (the thing that knows what operating systems are on your computer and where to go on the drive to get to them, this is not part of windows) to recognize this section of the hard drive contains a second operating system.

So windows isn't a 'host' os. You could theoretically destroy windows and keep ubutu the way it is, but you don't want to do that for a variety of reasons that just aren't worth going over.

All that is to say that windows being on your machine isn't hurting you other than it east up hard drive space. There can be performance benefits to having more free hard drive space but there's diminishing returns on that and I don't know enough bout xubuntu to comment eithe way other than to say it probably doesn't need a whole lot (2-3 gigs?) to function normally.

In fact, you don't even need to remove ubuntu from Windows when you're ready.

What you want to do is essentially rebuild your computer. There's a process but the short version is that you boot to the installer (via a disc or usb drive) and format the hard drive on your computer. At this point your windows is gone. You'll then install ubuntu cleanly onto the disk. When it's finished Ubuntu will be the only operating system on the computer.

The first step is to back everything up, which I hope you've done by now. The sad fact is many people realize they forgot to back up something until it's too late and they need it... stuff they only used once a year or so and was stored somewhere different than where they usually store stuff. A turbo tax file, for example. Anyway - make sure you have everything you could ever want. You don't get to go back unless you want to pay big money. I know I'm harping on it, but there's a reason for it.

Follow these instructions. When you download it download the 32 bit version.
Install Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS | Ubuntu

When you get to the installation type it looks like your options are Replace Windows 7, Something Else.

The way the instructions read yours will probably say Replace Windows Xp. Choose this option.

*Replace Ubuntu with xubuntu :eek:
 
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