I have Ubuntu installed on an old Dell GX620 here at work. I installed it just to mess around and get a feel for the OS. Anything cool I should be installing or doing? Tips?
I like the fact that adding (network) printers is idiotically easy. Click and install.
Ran it for a while on my laptop at home, got sick of it, went back to win 7. Just hated that every time I needed to do something it was lots of time spent reading forums full of supernerds. 95% of things I need to do in windows I can do without research, and if it’s something I do need to look up a 2 second google search finds the answer.
What do you plan on doing with it?
I usually just install all the stuff I need for work. I recently switched from Ubuntu to Fedora though. I got fed up with Ubuntu breaking useful features/necessities that I count on (primary work machine). 2 steps forward and 1 step back with every damn release.
flashplayer is good
virtualbox is a pretty good VM platform
pidgin, obviously is a need
GIMP is a great image editor
Nothing other than mess around with it. I’ve got two 7 boxes and a XP box on my KVM, so this is just an extra box to fuck around with. My only real Linux experience was Red Hat for a bit in college. I may use it for a student machine that they can use to log in to their email and shit with.
Also, I can’t seem to get flash to install. I download the RPM file, it shows the software update manager, then says NOT FOUND: There isn’t a software package called “Adobe-Flashplugin” in your current software sources.
if you’re using ubuntu, you shouldn’t be installing rpm files. You should be using .deb packages.
Sorry not RPM file…APT file (according to Adobe page it’s for Ubuntu 10.04+)…Adobe doesn’t show a .deb option on their page.
open terminal and run sudo aptitude search flash
does it come up with any hits on flash player? There should be something in the ubuntu software repos to use.`
If you installed the 64bit OS, its a little more work to install flash since flash doesn’t have a 64bit version AFAIK
command not found
@boxxa. Shouldn’t be 64-bit, the processor is only a P4 and 1GB of RAM. Flash has a 64-bit Beta, which I think is only available for Linux distros
paste shell output here
lol… thank you for proving my point.
ok thanks for your input
I use Linux for probably at least 10 hours every day, with minimal interruption.
The only reason why your spending hours on forums is because you are a noobie with ZERO experience. How long have you been using Windows for as opposed to Linux? If you have experience, this stuff is easy. If you know nothing, it’s VERY overwhelming. That’s the case with ANY software package, let alone complex software like operating systems.
At this point, people ask me to do stuff for them on their windows machines, and I have NO CLUE how to do it. Windows 7, I am clueless on.
This what you’re looking for?
cns@cns-OptiPlex-GX620:~$ sudo aptitide search flash
sudo: aptitide: command not found
cns@cns-OptiPlex-GX620:~$
sigh
you spelled it wrong
aptitude
What is that saying, you can take a horse to water but can’t make him drink?
yeah, that about sums it up
in for results. I’ve had linux partitioned on my laptop and desktop for messing with C in this class I took, but I want more but I dont know where to start. I’ve got flash working a while ago 
and got an arduino board working (only messed with it for a few mins though)
Ubuntu is pretty well done with support and as a really out of the box desktop replacement. I am not sure why you are having so many problems…
Did you enable the non-free repo and add canotical or whatever it was?
adding a few repositories will definitely open up software choices big time.
Recently I had a situation come up. My fiance’s co-worker became bed-ridden for several months of her pregnancy. Tracy asked me if we could lend her our netbook for that time, since she didn’t have anything suitable. The netbook is running ubuntu with the netbook interface. IE, large icons. Had Skype, firefox and a few other things. Had tracy show her how to choose her wireless network.
It’s been at least 6 months, and she has thanked us countless times and never reported any issues with the machine. so
Of its def a awesome system. Just if you are someone who constantly is changing stuff, needs new software, etc. its not the best if you don’t understand what you are doing. If you have a specific need for email, chat, and web browsing and very little need for installing random stuff, its golden. I have setup office networks that use a pure web based application for their business on all Ubuntu PCs and they have never complained about issues with anything.