Sara on Linux
posted by brian at 07:28 PM
A few days ago Sara agreed to try out Ubuntu Linux on her computer. Windows had been misbehaving in some very annoying ways... not that I can stomach its normal behavior anyway. The final push came when we were at a party and noticed that her friend's boyfriend had done the same with her computer, and it seemed to work out well.
Everything went pretty smoothly despite some minor annoyances, and the results have been quite enjoyable. Some of our experiences, good and bad, follow...
- "What is this, Lion King Catharsis? Who makes this stuff?" - Sara on the overly dramatic Ubuntu login sound. (Does anyone not immediately disable all sounds? Shhh!)
- "That's all I have to do to install stuff? This is awesome." - Sara on package management.
- "Huh, is this better than the other photo manager?" - Sara on F-Spot. It took me a second to figure out she meant Nautilus, which displays image thumbnails. I really think images should have normal mime-type icons in addition to a small thumbnail overlay in a file manager. Some thumbnails just make for really annoying icons.
- "Wait guys... let me just try a couple more packages." - me, several times, while trying to watch a DVD with people. We gave up and used a Mac.
- I hate packages that think the world revolves around them. Do I really need all of Sun Java 5.0 Plugin Control Panel, Sun Java 5.0 Policy Tool, Sun Java 6 Plugin Control Panel, Sun Java 6 Policy Tool, and Sun Java 6 Web Start cluttering up my menus? This should be one or zero menu items. Who uses that bullshit? Die, Java. (With thanks to Menu Layout—checkboxes instead of deleting stuff is brilliant.)
- Even though I prefer KDE, I'm convinced GNOME was a good choice for vanilla Ubuntu, and I can't wait till 2.18 gets pushed into the repositories. Many of the reasons I prefer KDE are because I'm a developer and couldn't live without things like IO-slaves. That said, I ended up having to install KDE libraries anyway because Amarok and Akregator blow away GNOME's offerings in my opinion.
- I could only get Cisco VPN support to work from the console. Save us, NetworkManager!
That's all for now. I expect Sara to start contributing to the Linux kernel any day now...
Comments
So this is what it takes for your girlfriend to get a mention in your blog. ;) I was thinking I'd have to have my bike "stolen" again just to get some lipservice.
"BICYCLEMANIA: NO HOLDS BARRED, JUST HANDLEBARS."
Come on, that would get readers. BIKE-THIEF readers.
To get DVDs working:
Enable Universe and Multiverse (not sure but I think you need them)
sudo aptitude install libdvdcss2
To get every codec (except WMV9 I think) I use this command on every Ubuntu install I've done:
sudo aptitude install gstreamer0.10-pitfdll gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-gl gstreamer0.10-plugins-base gstreamer0.10-plugins-good gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse libxine-extracodecs w32codecs flashplugin-nonfree sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin libdvdcss2
I have sun java but it never installed a menu item for me....but it certainly would have annoyed me too.
Good choice with Ubuntu over Kubuntu. Kubuntu has many issues that have "fixes" that are more like hacks. Unfortunately it isn't as polished as Ubuntu is. I missed ioslaves and Amarok (I know I could still use it, but it seemed a little wonky when I installed it last time on Gnome) at first but I've gotten over that.
Oh, and to get Cisco VPN working from NetworkManager:
sudo aptitude install network-manager-gnome
Then download the CVS version of network-manager-vpnc, I'm using 0.7.0-cvs20061010 with no trouble at all. I think I downloaded it here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=1669887&postcount=6
That has network-manager-gnome 0.70 but it didn't work for me so don't bother with it. Using the current version of network-manager-gnome from the repository and network-manager-vpnc from that post worked well. It will apparently be available in Feisty from the repository.
Then you have to set up the vpn connection which needs that secret password that I always forget. More googling leads to a method of finding it from the file that Case gives out.
Thanks, Ben!
Haha, too bad I never finished that 'how to make ubuntu not suck' guide. Because it would have had most of that :P
FREE THE IOs!
I installed Ubuntu as a dual boot with XP on my laptop. A few irritants:
1. no native mp3 support.
2. I simply don't get the package installer thing.
3. I cannot figure out to configure the wireless network. XP automaticallly picks up the nearby networks. NOTE - When I use Ubuntu as a LiveCD it automatically picks up the wireless network - it is only the installed version of Ubuntu where I have difficulties.
Actually, I like the little bongo sound at the login screen.. :D And I usually diable login/out sounds too, but right now i changed them instead to little 8bit video game power-up / death sounds. :>
I'm with chris (for a change).. FREE THE IOs!
easyubuntu is the easy way to add dvd playback and other multimedia capabilities to ubuntu...
easy ubuntu
Also, I just wanted to say that sucks-rocks totally rocks. Thank you for creating it!
I know there have been a couple suggestions for DVD playback, but all I had to do was install Automatix and then select the non-free codecs.