Ubuntu - Still Way Too Geeky!

[Thanh-BKK]

Hello.

Yesterday i decided to install Ubuntu on my second computer. So far so good, it worked. Spent about four hours to download and install all updates (it's version 6.10 "Edgy"). Still worked.

Today then i decided to take the generous offer of "upgrade to 7.04".

After another three hours of downloading finally the upgrade process got stuck at "Stopping Bluetooth services" (there is NO Bluetooth in that computer!)

Shutdown failed. "Reset".

And of course - won't boot now.

All over again!

I HATE wasting my time like that!!

Regards.....

Thanh

[ruddick]

Hi,

I tried to install Ubuntu version 7.04 on a number of different machines with and without bluetooth without any success at all. In the end I gave up with Ubuntu and am now having a play with PCLinuxOS which so far seems to be a bit more user friendly. You can try it out running from CD that way you don't completely screw up you machine.

A word of warning all Linux distros are pretty Geeky but there are a lot of support sites on the WEB to help.

[RKASA]

I v been with PClinuxOS for about 7 months now.  I started out total noob.  Installed the livecd which in my older laptop worked just fine.  New equipment may need a few adjustments, but I have seen in the forum this is worked out all the time.  Then run the updates and install your choosen extra softwares all from the repos using synaptic one stop for everything with just a few clicks. Then run remaster me and make your personnel up to date install DVD or just save the iso it makes for later use.  After getting my feet wet in this linux stuff I will never go back.  I spent far more time with windows issues in the past.   This is easyier to get live support then windows ever was.  It never locks my out of my own system.  I tried out a lot of distro's before setting in on PClinuxOS and Ubuntu is not bad its pretty good, if I didn't have PClinuxOS I am sure I would be using it.  If your XP type then KDE desktop and PClinuxOS feels vary normal in a short amount of time.  Read the forums and read about the install issues.  Search the forum with your hardware set info etc.  Keep in mind your PC didn't have linux installed when it was shipped, just think about what vista install would be like and cost.    You can do it man.   pclinuxos.com

[BigSnake]

Need to check it out soon.

[Gumballl]

Hello.

Yesterday i decided to install Ubuntu on my second computer. So far so good, it worked. Spent about four hours to download and install all updates (it's version 6.10 "Edgy"). Still worked.

Today then i decided to take the generous offer of "upgrade to 7.04".

After another three hours of downloading finally the upgrade process got stuck at "Stopping Bluetooth services" (there is NO Bluetooth in that computer!)

Shutdown failed. "Reset".

And of course - won't boot now.

All over again!

I HATE wasting my time like that!!

Regards.....

Thanh

What error are you seeing that prevents your system from booting?

[adammike]

Well (gutsy gibbon) 7.10 is the latest distro and mine works fine, so try to

download and make a CD of 7.10 and do that, but if you have a slow

internet connection the up-dates may well take a while.

[Thanh-BKK]

Hello

Please forgive me for late reply, i have been busy as heck at work..... only now i could view my tiopic again. So lety me answer each one of you

@ruddick:

I tried the "famous Linux web support" a few times - and failed miserably. All forums i encountered are of type "by geeks - for geeks" and my newbie-questions were either completely ignored or i got a (no doubt working!) solution which would require me to have a doctorate degree in advanced nuclear physics to follow up on the procedure. I have no idea on how to use a command line and don't want to buy and study a 600-page UNIX manual to get a <deleted>' Linux distro to work!

@RKASA:

I have been with SuSE 6.4, SuSE 10.0 and Ubuntu. I also tried a number of others (Easy Linux, Red Hat and some more from the back of magazines) and had the same (non) successes with all of them - non-working hardware components, systems that screw themselves into uselessness after small changes etc. I found Ubuntu to be the easiest from an "install" point of view, and, also important for me, it is just simply the most beautiful Linux out there - desktop, menus, colour composition - i LOVE it. I AM a Windows-guy but i don't mind if Linux comes with KDE or Gnome - as long as i have icons on the desktop that, if clicked, do something, i am happy I also have my work machine (XP) modified in a way that it looks and feels like Mac OSX and my main machine at home runs Vista, also slightly "Mac-ish" tweaked with taskbar on top and dock. By the way i know exactly what a Vista install looks like - done that a dozen times (once my own, many for customers) and it's always like - pop in DVD, boot from it, click "OK" a dozen times, enter serial number and an hour later there is a beautiful, working, system that needs almost no tweaks etc.

@Gumball:

NO error message! It just sat there, with about 5% of the "start bar" completed (that animated thingy that comes up upon Ubuntu's start). I kept it sitting there for 30 minutes, thinking it does something in the background (such as completing the previously failed update, that's what Windows does if an update is interrupted) but no, the HDD was not active and the computer appeared frozen. That was just like before when the update got stuck - then it said "stopping Bluetooth services" and that was it, no further activity. I clicked "shut down" and started doing so, however froze in the process (black screen with blinking cursor, no HDD activity), which was when i hit "Reset".

@adammike

One of the reasons i generally dislike Linux is exactly that there are not only way too many, too different distros available, but even one particular (here Ubuntu) is replaced by a new version soooo often, each time either requiring a whole new download and re-install from scratch (why is there no "repair previous installation" routine in the Ubuntu boot menu?? SuSE had that....) or a thousand prayers and "update on the fly", which is what just failed miserably for me.

@ALL

I got it working again, good ol' 6.10 "Edgy". The computer i put that on is one i fixed, using second-hand parts, with the goal of selling it some day - however it's my first Intel-machine in many years and i decided i could as well keep it and make it a "Hackintosh", i.e. put Mac OSX on it. Too difficult, so i went back to beautiful Ubuntu which i used before. The initial install was a breeze - just like Vista, only a lot faster (25 minutes over all). As the mainboard in that machine is one of those horrible "everything on-board" ones i used it's only advantage - usually, regardless what OS, after an OS install every bit of the hardware works without any extra drivers, and so it was with Ubuntu - even the internet connected right away without changing any settings. Sound works toooo. Now why i can't set the monitor refresh rate any higher than 60 Hz is a mystery (even with a resolution as low as 800x600) but it's ok as i don't sit in front of that one all day.

Installing Ubuntu's updates is also painless, just like Windows - they download, they install, it works. Just the upgrade to the newer version failed for some unknown reason (Bluetooth - why does Ubuntu install that in first place, there is no Bluetooth hardware!) and the Ubuntu updates even included the newer version of Firefox, something that failed on a previous Ubuntu install. I don't know how to install programs on a Linux system - i unzip them according to the manual but in that Firefox case i was told that i don't have the permission to write to that folder where Firefox insisted to be installed - in the end i had NO Firefox (old one screwed up, new one not installed) and again had to re-install the whole OS.

Linux (Ubuntu...) is like "Install, DON'T TOUCH, just use". Once (SuSE 10.0) i changed the monitor from a 15" CRT to a 19" LCD - Linux would not boot (Linux's standard "reply" to any change - not booting!) and i was told to "become root, open a console and edit some strange files to make it work". My simple question "Ok how do i get a console when it won't boot and if i get a console, where are those files and how do i edit them?" was ignored. Again - asking experienced Linuxers for help makes them expect you to be an experienced Linux user yourself - newbies are ignored.

By the way Windows XP (on that same machine, dual-boot setup) did the fiollowing after that monitor change: Started normally, auto-adjusted the screen resolution and was happy.

Why can't Linux be like that? With thousands of programmers worldwide constantly working on it, why does it, in the year 2008, still rely on command line crypting while M$ did away with that essentially with Windows 95?

That's why i say - "too geeky".

With kind regards.....

Thanh

[adammike]

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/hardy/alpha-6/

here try this if you are feeling brave.

[RKASA]

"Why can't Linux be like that? With thousands of programmers worldwide constantly working on it, why does it, in the year 2008, still rely on command line crypting while M$ did away with that essentially with Windows 95?"

Your missing something, it is like that.  99% of what I do is GUI.  I use no more comandline in Linux then I had to in windows.

1000's of un paid programmers worldwide making free OS's with free software and great support fourms that are free.

When will microsoft ever catch up?

[Thanh-BKK]

Hi

Well i was actually referring to the fact that Linux, if i change a bit of hardware (even something externally like a monitor!) will screw up in a way that it is unusable except for those who DO know how to tinker with the command line.

If Linux, like Windows, simply works with the new hardware (or, worst case, defaults to some low resolution graphics and allows the user to change the parameters with a mouse on a GUI) i am sure Microsoft WILL have to come out with something - because a lot more people will be using Linux then.

The only reason why they don't is because Linux is, well, too geeky for "Joe Normal". People want to do work on their computer - not work to get the computer working And if i have to reinstall the entire OS (losing all data in the process) every time i change a monitor or a USB device........ well, that's counter-productive.

Best regards.....

Thanh

[dave_boo]

IRC is the place to go. Especially #tuxhacker on freenode. Linuxforums is also a great place to get questions asked.

I think a lot of the problem that you have getting help could be your choice of distro. Power Linux users kinda look down on Ubuntu, simply because of the crowd it's attracting and the general attitude exhibited by the company. Thus they usually stay out of those channels. Granted there are some very knowledgeable people using Ubuntu, but they're lost in the cacphony of the n00bs.

In regards to your non-starting 7.04 install....if the machine hangs, hit ctrl-alt-f3. This will bring up a console that should have your dmesg in it...assuming the machine is still going through its start up. Write down and post what it says (should be the last item if that's what it's hung on) and I'll try and help.

Assuming it's the bluetooth, next time you boot, choose the safe mode. It should boot up with minimal hardware detection. If it still hangs, and dmesg isn't shown from following the last paragraph, you'll just need to edit a file to blacklist bluetooth. Type in:

sudo vim /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

Then scroll to the bottom of the screen and type in this:

i
blacklist hci_usb
esc(the key--don't type this!)
:wq

Alternatively, instead of futzing about with vim, you could directly unistall the bluetooth packages. I can't gaurantee this will work though.

Once again, using the ctrl-alt-F3, and no dmesg (or restarting in safe mode), type in:

sudo apt-get remove bluetooth

And if none of that works, following the same ctrl-alt-f3 procedure, type in:

sudo vim /etc/init.d/bluetooth
i
exit 0
esc (the key not the letters!)
:wq

[Thanh-BKK]

Hello

Thank you very much for the detailed reply, i highly appreciate it. Unfortunately it is too late now - i have already re-installed the 6.10 version ("Edgy Eft") and it is working really well on that computer, so i just decided to stick with it. As they say "don't change a winning team"

Another question rgarding "safe mode" (yes i AM a "n00b", i am sorry for that....) how do i get a "safe mode"? As when i turn on the computer (power button), after POST it says "loading GRUB" and then, immediately, it starts booting Ubuntu (graphical, i.e. animated splash screen). I guess i have to press some key during the "loading GRUB" stage - but which key would it be?

I am still interested in removing any bluetooth services, i will give it a go later from within the GUI but if i fail to find it, i may need to get back to you on that.

With kind regards.....

your Thanh

[dave_boo]

Hello

Thank you very much for the detailed reply, i highly appreciate it. Unfortunately it is too late now - i have already re-installed the 6.10 version ("Edgy Eft") and it is working really well on that computer, so i just decided to stick with it. As they say "don't change a winning team"

Another question rgarding "safe mode" (yes i AM a "n00b", i am sorry for that....) how do i get a "safe mode"? As when i turn on the computer (power button), after POST it says "loading GRUB" and then, immediately, it starts booting Ubuntu (graphical, i.e. animated splash screen). I guess i have to press some key during the "loading GRUB" stage - but which key would it be?

I am still interested in removing any bluetooth services, i will give it a go later from within the GUI but if i fail to find it, i may need to get back to you on that.

With kind regards.....

your Thanh

There's nothing wrong with being a n00b.....unless you're not willing to learn. I think that safe mode is Recovery *something* in Ubuntu. It sounds like your Grub timeout is set really low, you should see a few choices when it comes up. That can be adjusted by modifying your /boot/grub/menu.lst file. Of course, if you've only got on operatng system on the machine, and don't intend to upgrade to 7.x, you should be good. Alternatively, you could try using the arrow keys, which should interrupt the boot process and allow you to choose the option you want.

[RKASA]

Ask someone in your distro's forum to type out a safe mode line for you.  Then copy paste it into menu.lst in the grub.  If your menu at start up times out to fast you will see and can change the time in that same file.  Its just a text file read by grub during start up.

/boot/grub/menu.lst >

timeout 5

color black/cyan yellow/cyan

gfxmenu (hd0,1)/usr/share/gfxboot/themes/pclinuxos/boot/message

default 0

title 2.6.22.15.tex3

kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22.15.tex3 BOOT_IMAGE=2.6.22.15.tex3 root=/dev/hda2 acpi=on resume=/dev/hda5 splash=silent vga=788

initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd-2.6.22.15.tex3.img

title 2.6.18.8.tex6

kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18.8.tex6 BOOT_IMAGE=2.6.18.8.tex6 root=/dev/hda2 acpi=on resume=/dev/hda5 splash=silent vga=788

initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd-2.6.18.8.tex6.img

title Windows (XP home)

root (hd0,0)

makeactive

chainloader +1

The system I currently have on line uses this menu.lst  You can just copy and paste in another title like safe mode with the details and bang it does it.  This system works so well its been trimed down to choice of kernel and windows with a 5 second time out. defaults to top of list.  I will be removing the older kernel as the newer one has been sable.

[Thanh-BKK]

Hello again

Thank you both for replying. There IS a menu - it has a 2-second timeout, on first start (when the monitor, a CRT, reacts still slow) this menu is gone before that monitor can display it. It says "Press ESC for options", i guess "Safe Mode" or "Repair" etc should be in there. I actually see this meny when i do a restart - the monitor, having been "on" before, reacts faster and that actually becomes visible I will hunt down that file tomorrow and change the timeout to something like 5 seconds, should be sufficient.

Today i spend some time installing additional software, using the package manager or what it's called, the one that allows to chose software from a very huge list and then downloads and installs it automatically) and i found some real jewels in there - i can't remember the names now but one is a very nice video player that does support DVD's (i already installed VLC yesterday which does, too, but the one from today automatically plays a DVD when i insert one!) and also a DVD burner application that looks and feels just like ImgBurn. I know i can use ImgBurn itself with "wine" but i rather don't run Windows stuff on a Linux box

What i did NOT ghet to work is Skype. I downloaded it from Skype's website but they have "Ubuntu" only for 7.04 and up - i downloaded that nevertheless but it doesn't install due to some dependency error. I'll have to google for a version that is supported by Ubuntu 6.10.

Also RealPlayer, it downloaded as a .bin file and i don't know what to do with that? Double-clicking it shows "no application associated with that type of file". But it was the only "Linux" variant they had. I need that one to play those .rmvb files, VLC does not handle them.

Now what i still need to find (my dear friend Google will help me) is video editing software (got Gimp for pictures, i use that on Windows too) and video converters. Once i got all that, i'll give that machine some serious tests - if it does what i hope it does, i may one day put another HDD in my main machine and install it there too (now that's dual booting Vista and XP but haven't used XP in months now since i got a good video converter that works in Vista). Maybe i'll become a "Linuxer" after all

Oh and another thing that i wonder - i know Ubuntu 6.10 can read NTFS partitions (6.06 could already) but can it WRITE them? Because ALL my data in the main machine is on a NTFS hard drive (500 GB, 4 partitions) and i don't intend to change that. If i change something then only the OS HDD (a separate 120 GB HDD) for Linux.

Thanks for all the help here - already received more help than back on 6.06 in the Ubuntu-Forums

Best regards.....

Thanh

[Crushdepth]

I like Ubuntu but it still has a long way to go before it will be suitable for non-geeks. I've never had it 'just work' out of the box, there's always something that needs hours of fiddling to get going. The last release broke wifi on my laptop - not the kind of thing that many non-geek consumers will tolerate.

Bag M$ all you want, their latest OS is miles ahead in usability. Pity they still can't make a decent browser.

[adammike]

there is a program called Automatix2 that will download and set up Skype and some other programmes for you.

you have to download Automatix2.

[RKASA]

All the repos should have real player 10 in it.  mark for install and it should be done complete automatic.

I use 3kb in linux it burns cd dvd use it for iso's if your on kde desktop and right click anything it gives you options lot of them for 3kb.  I don't use anything else anymore.  

I have wine back in but only for star downloader I just like that little thing.  

I would stay away from installing anything on your own its rare that its needed as always a sub. in repos.  If you do see something on line check the repos first, most the time it already to go just click its done and never had to re boot.  The last time I ever downloaded and installed anything in linux outside the repos was back when tring out puppy linux.  

If you install the win-32 codex package you find you can play everything in m player and others.

Don't search for software in google its all in the repos already.  search in repos.  I am sure Ubuntu is as up to speed as PClinuxOS in this reguard.

They have some editors but have not had time to use one yet.  

I use ntfs-3g installed from the repos which makes linux read and write ntfs systems.  Everything I have partitioned in linux works in xp. All my data is using nothing but ntfs drives.  I only format in linux for os par

titions and swap.     

I take a little time every morning to check mail (k mail from desktop).  check headlines google news etc.  Then to the forum and read read read.  Use the search bar in the forum.  Every problem I have had somebody aready solved somewhere.  

One word of warning linux can be addictive to some.  

[higgy88]

Thanh,

I am definitely not a geek, but I started using linux about 3 months ago and doubt that I will ever go back to windows. I´ll let the geeks here help you with your specific problems, but I just want to say that if I can do it, I am sure so can you. I picked up an old used computer just to play around with linux, tried a few distros, and settled with Xubuntu 7.10. I have had issues since day one, and it sometimes took quite a bit of hunting through the forums for solutions, but with just a little patience and perseverance I´ve been able to get through everything so far. One of the things I did sucessfully was install skype by downloading their feisty 7.04 version and just following their instructions. I did not install it through the repos as I never thought to search through them. One of the main reasons I started playing with linux was to show my kids that windows, microsoft, and computers do not in fact have the same meaning. Now if I can only get them to pick their heads up from their windows games to take a look at it.

Higgy

[dave_boo]

I noticed that no one answered your question about that *.bin.

Unfortunately you have to use the CLI to work with this. Open up a terminal, and assuming you saved the *.bin to your desktop type in:

cd /home/*your_user_name*/Desktop
sudo chmod +x *the_file_name*.bin
sudo ./*the_file_name*.bin

Please note that if you have the first two letters or so of pretty much anything in a terminal, hitting the TAB key should autocomplete it. If it doesn't autocomplete it, hitting the tab again will show the options that it can autocomple. I.E., when you are typing your user name, assuming it's than_s_the_man, typing in th than TAB will auto complete it to than_s_the_man.

Also note that you don't have to sudo it, but it won't be a system-wide install unless you do.

[Thanh-BKK]

Hello

A big, fat "THANK YOU!" to everyone helping me here Problem is - i overslept today because my boyfriend has a day off (normally i get up very early to bring him to work) so by now i have no time left to do anything..... i will do that tomorrow, or maybe today in the evening depending when i'm off work.

@dave_boo

I am not "scraed" to use a command line, thing is only that i don't KNOW how to use them - i know a lot of commands in DOS and S-IV and even Commodore Basic, but quite none in *nix "sudo" is known to me - superuser-do, i used that rather often under SuSE which wouldn't do much without it Thank you especially for that hint, i will try it as soon as i have that box running again.

@higgy88

I am currently doing exactly that - installing and playing with Linux on a second computer that, should it screw up, doesn't hurt me. When i get the system there so tweaked and application-equipped that i can use it just like my main computer, AND it keeps that state by itself, i.e. is stable, then i'll do step two - get another HDD, change the OS-HDD in my main machine and install an identical Linux on there, see if that works too (different hardware of course.... including WiFi and TV-Out, something i NEVER got to work under Linux!) But if THAT becomes a success too, i *may* just delete the Windows HDD (but possibly not - i paid 20k for Vista Ultimate!)

About the Skype, it works for yo ubecause your distro is newer than that Skype - you have distro 7.10 and Skype for distro 7.04 and up - while i have distro 6.10 (six), which is below the Skype one And Skype doesn't offer an older version (but i'll try the "Automatix" that was mentioned above).

@RKASA

I did a search within the repos and it didn't find any RealPlayer... .which is why i got it from Real. (Didn't find Skype either.... maybe they stopped that for commercial software?) I also found (i installed a lot of stuff thru repo) that it does everything by itself - downloads, installs, works, no reboots and no conflicts (apart from one that i got, something demanded a MySQL server which it couldn't connect to, i re-tried that a number of times and always failed... well, guess you can't have everything I think that was... err.... something to do with TV (as in "television").

And true - Linux IS addictive. I had that effect with SuSE 10.0 before, which i installed (with boss' permit) on my office workstation. I tweaked it out in a way that it was, graphically, stunning... playing with transparency etc (i had to update the KDE version to do that!) and created a real looker of an OS. However the day my company implemented VoIP and we needed a SIP client, i installed one..... and it generated what i call "The Linux Problem" - installed seemingly fine, but didn't work at all.... and after the next reboot, it would, well, not boot. This "not booting" issue is what i hate most about any Linux.... if you don't know those commands, you are sitting there with a dead computer (that's still very much alive but for a mouse-pusher, it's dead).

And unfortunately, i'm a mouse-pusher

With kind regards......

Thanh

[RKASA]

Thats the one thing I like most about PClinuxOS if its not in the repos ask and they add it, but they test it first, then it runs about two weeks in the pass server where only pass downloaders use it.  Its pretty good stuff by the time it hits the main servers, and I have seen posts where Tex listed reasons for not including stuff.  If you get time you might check it out I know they got real player I installed it and I see something about sykpe now and then but I don't use it.  I am a real big mouse pusher I have three connected at a time a wireless, a ps2 and keyboard via usb, and the pad on the laptop with its keyboard.  

[dave_boo]

Yeah, Than, it's my understanding that Ubuntu has a "stable" repository as well as a "testing" one. If you really value stability, you'll take the testing repositories out of your updater and revel in the non-problems.

I have been using SuSE since ~2000. Started off on Mandrake (now Madravia or something), went with Slackware for a while and got tired of Volkerding's insistence on stability.

[Thanh-BKK]

Hello

Well, here is my first post in the "Linux" forum, typing on a Linux distro Finally i have gotten time to take care for these issues - and now i'll follow the instructions as i go, bit-by-bit.

First, i searched the repositories (with that "Synaptic Package Manager", i hope that's the correct thing to use?) and there is neither Real Player nor Skype, even "universe" and "multiverse" servers are enabled. Next, i'll try to find "Automatix".

Nope, no "Automatix" either!

Now did the "RealPlayer" install with the terminal, seems to have worked - no idea where it went as it asked me things that i don't know of (path? syslinks??? I just hit "enter" each time, hoping it would do the right thing by itself.....) Let me see if it is somewhere......

Yup! Believe it or not, it's right there, under "Applications - Sound & Video" And works, too!!

Now i hope i can get hold of Skype somewhere..... as i use that sometimes

Thanks again to all who helped me, it is much appreciated - and me not posting for a while does not mean i do not appreciate it,. it just means i haven't gotten to it yet

With kind regards......

your Thanh

[Thanh-BKK]

Hello again.

I got Automatix2 the "manual" way - their website also supports only "7.04 up" but via some other site (http://www.howtoforge.com/automatix_ubuntu) i got it and it is right now it is doing it's thing - i selected pretty much all software it offered as they all seem to be useful and similar to things i use under Windows. And yes, Skype is amongs them (also Google Earth, i LOVE that thing!)

Let's see how this goes - i hope that it will boot again after a shutdown when all of these are installed

Best regards......

Thanh

Edited March 25, 2008 by Thanh-BKK

[RKASA]

One big word of warning.  Linux can be addictive.  The most importent part is having fun.  You sure can't beat the price.

[Thanh-BKK]

Hi

Yeah addictive it is - in the beginning at least, getting it to work properly and enjoy some success on the way But still there are let-downs involved - even Automatix isn't that automatic as it suggests to be

So i had it do it's thing which it did for close to half an hour without requiring any input from me, so i left to pick up my car from a workshop and after that went to car wash, getting stuck in traffic in the process. After almost an hour i returned home - and found Automatix sitting there, apparently the very moment i closed the door behind me it STOPPED "doing it's thing" and required me to click "OK" on something. AAARGH! An hour wasted.

From then on it again went thru it's process, and a few more times i had to click "OK" or "Accept terms" blah blah untill it was finally done - WITHOUT "Google Earth" as that was the only one that "could not be found". AAARGH again!

But at least i've got Skype on it now (and lots of other stuff that i'll have to explore first) and it even works just fine.

I can somehow sense i'll be at Panthip soon, buying a 120 GB hard drive....... to get me some "Ubuntu" on my main machine. But i have to find out first if it really fully supports writing to NTFS partitions because there is NO WAY that i am going to change my data HDD to any other format.

Best regards.....

Thanh

[RKASA]

    It should work in ntfs.  I use ntfs for everything but the os partition and swap.  all the back up share etc.  I don't know in Ubuntu but in PClinuxOS install ntfs-3g from the repos and from system menu click config ntfs bingo thats it.  Both google earth and real player 10 on my desk top.  

   I was in synaptic to do something with my minime install and saw Skype and read the discrip.  It said after install follow links to set up seemed pretty easy.

I don't know why your having problem finding things in repos must be the selected sections in the package mang.  should be a sticky on that subject in the Ubuntu forum to walk though the set-up for their repos, make sure your seeing everything.

and a download or install will always stop if you close the door its one of the laws of nature. 

[hp8000]

I saw in your posts that you're looking for video editor and converter.

Avidemux Is a nice free multiplatform video editor.

WinFF Is a free video converter.

Avidemux is in the Ubuntu repos, and WinFF should be or you can download and install it from the website.

I've posted these links in another thread already but lazy to search where.

And You don't have to reinstall Ubuntu at any version change if you're updating regularly the system. A proper backup is harmless to and in case will save many hours reinstalling the whole system and updates. BTW I don't use Ubuntu but Mandriva but it's a GNU/Linux distro like many others.

Have fun.

[dave_boo]

I don't use Ubuntu either (although I do have it in a Virtual Machine--but not on my work laptop, so you'll have to wait till I get home to give you an exact answer), but I'm SURE that Ubuntu has a one-click deal to enable NTFS writing in its settings menus.

Hmm, apparently following this link if you're using an older version of Ubuntu, you need to install some software to do it. Newer versions have it installed.