Alternative to Microsoft Windows: Free software (Ubuntu)

[RedPhoenix]

The only reason my Netbook still has XP on it is for itunes to sync my iphone.

For music:
http://www.simplehelp.net/2007/07/03/ho ... in-ubuntu/
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Porta ... ces/iPhone


Still need a windows box for that first activation though.

Red.

[ohagas]

Geez I can't believe I've spent half the day mucking around with this! Now have it running on my Samsung netbook as a dual boot option.
Thanks for posting this Red - it's definitely worth a try. I was pleasantly surprised when it automatically installed Open Office and pdf viewer. Pretty much everything you need is bundled in.

I had a few issues with the inbuilt Totem media player. Certain xvid files would throw an error, so I ended up installing VLC and they play fine. It certainly takes a while to get used to the interface, but I agree things definitely run faster and boot up time has signifacantly increased. Everytime you boot Windows the updates drive you crazy.

Getting back to the issue that instigated all of this - antivirus sw, is it necessary? Red, I notice it has KlamAV although it's not installed by default. Do you recommend installing this? Also, am I correct in assuming ubuntu has a built in firewall?

[RedPhoenix]

I had a few issues with the inbuilt Totem media player. Certain xvid files would throw an error, so I ended up installing VLC and they play fine.

Good stuff.

Getting back to the issue that instigated all of this - antivirus sw, is it necessary? Red, I notice it has KlamAV although it's not installed by default. Do you recommend installing this? Also, am I correct in assuming ubuntu has a built in firewall?

Nup - don't bother. You won't need it.
And yes and no to the firewall; all linux systems come with a firewall, but it's not really activated by default, or required.

About the only time you need a firewall, is if:
a) Your computer is not behind an ADSL router / cable router / wifi router (which have their own firewalls), and
b) You are running services on your computer that you do not want people out on the internet to connect to.

By default, windows fires up all sorts of network-accessible services, for file sharing, printer sharing, inter-user communication, and so on. Therefore, you generally need a firewall to 'lock them down' so that people don't get to them.

By contrast, here's a network map of an ubuntu system I just installed:

Code: Select all

$nmap 10.0.0.209

Starting Nmap 5.21 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2010-10-20 16:09 EST
Nmap scan report for 10.0.0.209
Host is up (0.00039s latency).
All 1000 scanned ports on 10.0.0.209 are closed

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 1.18 seconds

Nothing.. nada.. null..
So no services running by default - therefore no requirement for a firewall to 'lock away' those services.

If you decide to install a web server, or a 'samba share', or something along those lines, then a firewall could be worthwhile.
Grab "gufw" from the ubuntu software centre; it'll provide a nice GUI for you to use the native linux firewall.

Red.

[paulthetaffy]

Great post Red. I'm a windows software developer so my hands are tied on that front, but I've been toying with the idea of setting up a spare box as a DVR for a while now. I hadn't even considered Linux as an option until I read your post! It's been a few years (like 8!) since I last used Linux and, whilst I'm aware it is a million times better these days, hardware integration issues is something I'm still wary of. So I'm just curious what TV card / video card you use and roughly what hardware specs too for your mythtv box? I would be wanting at least 2 HD tuners and conencting to a full HD TV, preferably via HDMI - do you use something similar?

mythtv looks good by the way - I have a beyonwiz PVR are the moment which is a bag of crap, hence why I'm going to build my own PVR. One of the main things I want to do is to be able to specify a particular resolution/encoding for recordings (so that they are smaller on disk) but use a different (higher quality) encoding/resolution for live TV. Any idea whether that's possible?

Realise I'm hijacking your thread a bit here so happy to PM if other's aren't interested in this stuff.

Cheers
Paul

[Duane]

Geez I can't believe I've spent half the day mucking around with this! Now have it running on my Samsung netbook as a dual boot option.

I did the same thing to my Samsung netbook today.......but I was already a Ubuntu convert. The big thing I noticed was that the install process was much easier and hassle free than it was when I first installed it a couple of years ago. So if have tried Ubuntu in the past and you found it too much trouble to get everything working, then it might be worth another look.

Unfortunately the itunes/iphone stuff is still a bit flakey with Ubuntu. I hate itunes at the best of times, and messed around with tit for a while but at the end of the day I couldnt get it to work smoothly and would rather invest my time in other things.

[RedPhoenix]

hardware integration issues is something I'm still wary of.

Very true.

So I'm just curious what TV card / video card you use and roughly what hardware specs too for your mythtv box?

From a CPU perspective, anything that has been bought out in the last decade or so, will be fine. My first mythtv box was a small athlon-based 'half a shoebox' system that took a single half-height tuner card. Worked really well, but expansion opportunities were limited. Now, I have a box thrown together by the local computer mob; the only thing I really specified was:
* Nvidia graphics card, no fan. (My TV has a monitor-input, so I didn't need to stuff around with TV-out... but the nvidia's, I've found, work well with linux). You should be able to find a cheapie these days that has HDMI out.
* A nice quiet power supply.
* I didn't care too much about CPUs; as I mentioned above, anything will be fine. However, they threw in a Intel Pentium E2180 @ 2.00GHz.
* 512M of ram, and you're laughing.

I then threw two DVICO Ultraview's into the machine. They come with their own remote controls, a nice big usb-based IR receiver, and seem to be very well supported.
You can also pick up cards that have two tuners per card also - check the mythtv web site if you like the look of other hardware, just to make sure it will work first go, without stuffing around.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Hardware_Requirements

One of the main things I want to do is to be able to specify a particular resolution/encoding for recordings (so that they are smaller on disk) but use a different (higher quality) encoding/resolution for live TV. Any idea whether that's possible?

Yep; I tend to use the defaults (the mythtv now has 2.5 terabytes sitting in it, since disk is so cheap these days.. it also functions as a backup server, and a few other things), but you can tell it to 'transcode' a program, once recorded, into something a bit smaller/nicer (and cut out the ads at the same time).

Realise I'm hijacking your thread a bit here so happy to PM if other's aren't interested in this stuff.

Nah, it's all good.

http://www.mythbuntu.org/
http://www.mythdora.com/

Red.

[paulthetaffy]

Thanks Red that's great!!

[labrat]

Apart from having trouble downloading Ubuntu due to my shaped connection speed it was quite easy to install on a USB drive (even changing the BIOS setting was easy ) - running it now under the "Try Ubuntu" option. Unfortunately it won't save any setting changes / desktop shortcuts etc running this way.

Seems to run fine and Openoffice opens our existing Word and Excel files OK.
Firefox is same as usual (ie good).

Just a few more questions:

Am a bit wary about setting up alongside XP - how does the dual boot option work - is there a choice on boot up or do you need to change settings and reboot when you want to go back to Windows temporarily? (Personally I believe I could kick the MS habit cold turkey but the rest of the family may need patches for a while )

The instructions for setting up alongside Windows say to backup in case of damaging the partition setup and files. They also mention that changing the size of the partition may be needed. This is getting into twitchy territory for me - are there any other complete numbnuts like me out there who have done this kind of stuff and if so, how easy/hard is it?

Is it possible to install fully on the USB drive or will the setup utility automatically stick it on the hard drive?

Your inquisitive little rodent thanks you for your assistance

[kraley]

Is it possible to install fully on the USB drive or will the setup utility automatically stick it on the hard drive?

Your inquisitive little rodent thanks you for your assistance

yes - as long as your computer's bios recognizes the drive as bootable you should be able to choose a usb drive as the destination for the install.

[RedPhoenix]

is there a choice on boot up

Yup! Something like this..


Red.

[mingle]

Hey Red, that screen pic just reminded me about an Ubuntu question I had:

Is there any way to ditch Grub 2 and revert to the pre-Ubuntu v10.x Grub (as on your system)?

Cheers,

Mike.

[RedPhoenix]

as on your system

Not mine Mike - just a random screenshot from internetland.

[beware, casual readers - heavy geekism talk ahead.. switch off now if you wish to retain your sanity]
I suspect there is; grub/grub2 are nicely segregated from the rest of the operating system.
My only concern is that grub(1) might not be able to mount an ext4 filesystem to boot the kernel, so you might have to settle for ext3 in a new install.

Alternatively, just hit escape as grub(2) is booting; it'll fall back to grub(1)-style menus, and allow you do do all grub1-ish stuff.
[ok.. safe to wake up again now]

Red.

[Rodman]

[nerdmode]
Geez, whatever happened to LILO (crusty Linux user from 1992 here).

It's worth having a Ubuntu CD handy even if you don't want to run it. Recently I was able to diagnose a Windows boot problem and create a backup of the disk prior to attempting a repair. Turned out to be a bad block in the "system32" folder - not a file within the folder, the folder itself. No way that was going boot.
[/nerdmode]

My dog sat on Red's toaster.

can-u-see-jesus.jpg (35.69 KiB) Viewed 122 times

[yankatthebay]

8 days until I go back to using Linux (I am a redhat fan for one reason or another). Fedora 14 is coming out and I shall give it a go - sure cant be worse than Windows7 - just got to figure out how to configure Wine to run with Adobe CS5 applications properly (cant be too hard since CS4 works apparently).

[RedPhoenix]

LILO.. ahh, memories.

just got to figure out how to configure Wine to run with Adobe CS5 applications properly

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/idiots-gui ... untu-1004/

Substitute appropriate RPM's for apt's..

Red.