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Ubuntu 10.04 Going Strong
So Ubuntu 10.04 is residing happily on my Dell D800 doing it’s job very well and looking good doing it. Sun Virtual Box is running Windows Vista perfectly and I’ve had no major issues with the box at all. Even my wife, a life long Windows user, hasn’t been able to find anything to complain about in this distro, she’s been a mac user since I switched. At any rate, I thought I’d share a great “Things To Do After Installing Ubuntu 10.04” article I ran across. I found this article helpful and informative, great for new Ubuntu users to use as a guide! Here is the first part of the article.
4/29/2010 by d0od via omgubuntu
1. Run Update Manager
Just because you’ve installed the latest version of Ubuntu doesn’t mean that there won’t be some updates and patches waiting for you. Make sure you run the update manager (if it doesn’t update you first) so that you’re benefitting from the latest fixes and features.
2. Enable graphics card drivers for 3D fun
If you want to use advanced desktop effects such as Compiz (3d Cube, wobbly windows) then you will need to enable the “official” drivers for your graphics card.
Ubuntu should automatically detect and alert you that 3D drivers are available. If so, you will see a ‘circuit board’ icon appear on the top panel. Click this and follow the prompts.
If Ubuntu fails to detect any hardware (do be patient as this isn’t always instant) then you can manually run the hardware configuration tool yourself from the System > Preferences menu.
3. Enable playback of MP3’s, MP4’s & more
It’s a shame this step has to be included at all but sadly Ubuntu aren’t allowed by law to ship certain multimedia codec’s out of the box. Installing them yourself, thankfully, is a breeze – just click the button below!
Check out the FULL article for the rest of the top ten at omgubuntu.co.uk
~TechnoNoob~
Fawning Over Ubuntu 10.04
This is the third article I am posting on Ubuntu 10.04, the latest distro from the Ubuntu team. I’m feeling like a Ubuntu fanboy at this point I just might have to change the blogs name (ok that’s going too far). After installing Ubuntu 10.04 on a friends laptop I had to get it myself. Now regular readers will know my affinity for Apple products but I found myself up to the wee hours playing with Ubuntu 10.04. It was like a drug, checking out all the cool programs and neat eye candy the OS could do, I was mesmerized.
After playing with and tweaking cairo-dock and finding a desktop wallpaper I liked I moved on to installing Sun Virtual Box. I’ve tried to install XP on previous versions of Ubuntu and met with a lot of frustration and mental anguish. This time I thought I would give the Sun VB another shot and install Vista on it. Doing this is much more than an experiment for me, the classes I take at school require Windows software and sometimes my mac just won’t do. And having a ten-year old mac I don’t have BootCamp and refuse to spend money on Parallels. So I bite the bullet and use my XP box to do what I need for school. Long story short, Virtual Box proved to be a great addition to my Ubuntu install. I like being able to use Windows in the background for the required software yet I am able to switch over to Ubuntu quickly to do anything else I want.
I can’t say enough good things about this Ubuntu distro, I highly recommend you upgrade if you use older Ubuntu distros or if you’re a PC user who’s itching for a change from Windows, download the ISO and give it a whirl without even installing it. Yes, Ubuntu Live CD will let you test drive the distro without even installing it. Again, well done Ubuntu crew, keep up the work and thanks for a beautiful and functional OS!
~TechnoNoob~
Original content
Copyright © 2010 The Babbling TechnoNoob
More Ubuntu 10.04
So I’ve been playing with the new Ubuntu all week, tweeking it for a user who just wants a computer that works, and I’m really loving this new distro alot. I wrote a review earlier but thought this piece from PC Advisor was well done.
article below via pcadvisor
For the past few years, we’ve been hearing about the year of the Linux desktop. In other words, a workable graphical-interface Linux, matured sufficiently that it can be comfortably installed and used on a computer by a new user, with no knowledge or interest in command-line operation.
Ubuntu, the most familiar of Linux distributions, is coming closer with its latest operating system, Lucid Lynx – or 10.04 LTS (Long Term Support). With a new desktop theme, some minimal tidying here and some interface tweaks there, it’s easily the best version yet.
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Lucid Lynx is now drawing closer to the layout of Apple Mac OS X. Close/minimise/maximise buttons are now in the top left corner of windows, although this can be switched for inveterate Windows users.
A primary challenge for any OS is to work with all the hardware in a computer. Introducing the Ubuntu install CD to most PCs shouldn’t present any show-stopping problems – unless your desktop is actually a laptop, as we discovered.
A notebook requires a lot more attention to get Lucid Lynx working fully. Problems can arise with many drivers: touchpad, keyboard, WiFi, Bluetooth, ethernet, webcam, microphone, speakers, for instance. And then there’s stability when coming out of sleep. These are, and remain, the biggest hurdles to getting Ubuntu, the most friendly of distros, working on your laptop.
Should you overcome the slings and arrows of installational misfortune, the effort may be rewarded with an attractive, stable and powerful OS. Initial installation of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Lucid Lynx is very straightforward, with partitioning of an existing Windows setup carried out seamlessly.
The software bundled with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Lucid Lynx is much the same as the past few versions – Firefox, OpenOffice, Rhythmbox (think iTunes), and F-Spot (for digital cameras) – so you needn’t scour around for the essentials. GIMP (Photoshop-like image editor, but without CMYK support) is not in by default any more but easily added.
When you do need to install something else, a new Ubuntu Software Centre offers a cheerful interface, for a large repository of free apps.
~TechnoNoob~
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
Just a quick review and thoughts on Ubuntu’s latest release.
I’ve worked with a few Ubuntu distros and each one had its own charm and everyone was user-friendly. With 10.04 I found that the trend continues and is better than ever! Out of the box Ubuntu is not only functional but it is beautiful. Of course there are always the few tweeks you have to install to make it complete (mostly because Ubuntu is not allowed to package restricted extras in the distro) but it is a minor task well worth the time. The wallpapers and themes in this version are amazing and of course the compiz fusion eye candy is amazing! Cairo Dock is also much improved with nice themes and better functionality, I found AWN was a better choice in earlier distro’s but Cairo-Dock works great in 10.04. The screenlets are also improved and seem to run much smoother and really beautify the desktop.
Overall I think 10.04 is another great step forward to Ubnutu and Linux in general to get into the hands and homes of the average user. Kudos to the Ubuntu team for a great OS distro, keep up the great work guys!
~TechnNoob~
original content
Copyright © 2010 The Babbling TechnoNoob
Microsoft Sides With Apple!?
Outside of the debate on the future of Flash and Flash video on the Internet is a separate but related battle over the video standard that will be supported by HTML5. On one side of the battle line is Firefox and Opera which has pledged support for the Ogg Theora video standard, and on the other side is Apple which has been pushing for H.264. Apple is no longer alone in this fight and now has an unlikely ally in Microsoft which announced on Thursday that IE 9 will support H.264 for HTML5 video. Ogg supporters are understandably disappointed with this decision as the two computing giants may now have the combined power to squash Ogg Theora support in these other browser platforms. Look for things to get messier before they get better as Google is expected to debut its own On2-derived V8 video protocol at Google I/O next month.
~TechnoNoob~
thanks to BoyGeniusReport
Linux, Will It Become Mainstream?
I’ve been a Windows user for awhile now, NT, 2000, XP and Vista, I stopped at Vista. I’m now exclusively using Mac OSX just because I’ve had enough of the daily maintenance my Vista machine required. But what about those users who can’t afford a Mac? Is there an alternative? You bet there is! The Linux OS has been around for a long while now, like Mac OSX it is built around the UNIX code. All that techno babble is exactly why people never really got into Linux, but, that may change. Linux is an open source OS that anyone can make their own there are two notable companies that offer their versions of Linux for FREE! Ubuntu and OpenSUSE. Both of these companies have made a final OS that is user friendly and easy to use, two things Linux has never been until now. The best part of this is that they are both FREE! Yes you heard me right FREE! There is a plethora of information on how to install these OS’s on your PC hardware. I say, if you got the time and the gumption to give something new a go, try one of these two Operating Systems out, once you get past the differences from Windows, you’ll love them! [check out this article on ZDnet.com]
~TechnoNoob~
picture from http://memphyx.wordpress.com/linux/
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