Re: ubuntu

sounds like an off case to me. this is a sony laptop so there are probably going to be more driver issues since it is a laptop than a desktop.

if you cant read from your volume do this and make sure it is in fact an ntfs volume:

fdisk -l

It should show NTFS not FAT32

Re: ubuntu

Yeah. Kick Sony in the pants.

Re: ubuntu

[QUOTE=algy;589804][COLOR=Orange]... must be FAT32 which rules out any large drives (might be some LNX pros on ms that know a workaround)[/COLOR][/QUOTE] I know what you're saying and have known this for quite some time but I find it odd that the HDD in a PS3 is formatted in FAT yet you can have larger hard drives installed. I know I'm diverting but anyone care to add anything? My brain is fried. 100 work week.

Re: ubuntu

Just installed Ubuntu 8.04 via Wubi on my Sony Laptop....... it's working so much faster and smoother than Vista.

And the most impressive thing is that it automatically installed, sound, video, audio, wifi card drivers without me having to touch a button on... FANTASTIC

Re: ubuntu

its getting better...... it got a Vista-ish ability to go to the internet and automatically download plugins (such as flash) for browsers, it wasn't able to play my mkvs and when trying to play them, asked me if I would like to download the appropriate codecs to play them (which it did) and now I can play mkvs on it. Like vista, it also downloads patches and updates. I am extremely impressed with it so far.

the smooth operation is really really apparent and its Mac-ish opening / closing / minimizing of windows is wicked too. If you click the menu bar of the window and drag it, it reacts in a jello-ish fashion stretching / compressing the window and releasing the mouse button releases the window back to its original size. The screenshot should give you an idea.

You can also see the little "widgets" in the bottom bar showing weather, PC performance, find and remote connection.

Best of all, you can remote desktop into windows based PCs too. I dont think I want to roll back to Vista.

Re: ubuntu

just installed the newest release of ubuntu on my work pc, it is very nice and user friendly. each release gets better with drives, plugins, etc it is pretty nice now days since there is a driver out there for most stuff...

Re: ubuntu

I might have to install the newest version then... my last complaints were driver-related issues

Re: ubuntu

if you dont have really odd or super old hardware you shouldnt have too many probs, was it a laptop before? i dont remember, but those sometimes have issues, you have to hunt around to figure out how to get some of the special keys to work, etc..

Re: ubuntu

here we are 2 years later and I want to make the switch again. :lol: I'd like to grab 9.04 and run a dual boot install, but there are a few big worries on my mind that are stopping me:

I've been trying to make the switch for a while to open-source apps... I want to be able to configure the cross-platform apps I'm using to pull their data from a separate partition, so I can run either OS and still be operational. For example, Firefox profile/bookmark/addon settings, or Filezilla option/server settings, Pidgin contact lists/settings, Thunderbird profile/email accounts/rss/archives/etc, and even possibly OS basics like Desktop and Document folder redirects.

I also have a Brother MFC-3360C printer/scanner that I'd like to be able to have working, but it use PaperPort (which I'm not a fan of) for scanning the pages. I assume it commuicates via TWAIN/32... are there any good TWAIN/scanner apps out there in case it works on twain? What alternatives would there be to communicate with a scanner on xUbunutu?

It would also be nice if I could find a cross-platform data backup app that will backup all my files to my ext hard drive daily, regardless of what OS I'm in. I currently use SyncBack but am not sure if it's cross-platform.

I guess I essentially want to be able to boot into either partition and be able to access all my data and core apps without any hangups. Am I being too unreasonable? :lol:

Re: ubuntu

I just did a bit of quick searching and it seems it's definitely possible for Firefox, Thunderbird, and Pidgin... I expected it would, but I didn't expect to find a single article explaining how to do all three :lol:

[url]http://lifehacker.com/348858/use-a-single-data-store-when-dual-booting[/url]

I still appreciate any comments you might have!

Re: ubuntu

well... repartitioning my drive caused my MBR to get overwritten or something, because now it won't boot, I can't view the file system from a recovery console, and it only shows 10mb free. Looks like I'm re-installing Windows. YES!

Re: ubuntu

you didnt try installing through wubi?

Re: ubuntu

[quote=picklemonkey;745747]well... repartitioning my drive caused my MBR to get overwritten or something, because now it won't boot, I can't view the file system from a recovery console, and it only shows 10mb free. Looks like I'm re-installing Windows. YES![/quote]

i think that your mbr just isnt setup right to point to the correct place to load the OS. it is relatively easy to fix with a boot cd.

let me know if you havent switched back if you need help with this. i have had it happen to me many times and you just have to fix the bootsector to get access to your data back.

Re: ubuntu

I tried to repair with the windows boot cd and had no luck... I just reinstalled fresh. I'm on the xubuntu partition now posting this, and am already seeing problems when trying to play an mp3. I double-clicked it and it went into Movie Player, asked me to download an mp3 codec, and now every time I try to play an mp3 from it (by either double-clicking the mp3 or by opening it directly from Movie Player) it just closes.

I'll get this thing set up one step at a time, but it looks like I'm going to be able to have all my data accessible from both partitions which is fn sweet :D

Re: ubuntu

[quote=picklemonkey;746047]I tried to repair with the windows boot cd and had no luck... [/quote]

windows is shit when it comes to this. it thinks it is the only os that is ever going to be installed on the disc and ignores everything else. a linux boot disc is smart enough to know this, the windows one prob cant do what you need. tip: if you want to dual boot always install windows first, and then linux. so windows will do its mbr shit, and then the linux install will ask you if you want to dual boot etc and get you setup properly.

[quote] I double-clicked it and it went into Movie Player, asked me to download an mp3 codec, and now every time I try to play an mp3 from it (by either double-clicking the mp3 or by opening it directly from Movie Player) it just closes. [/quote]

Use synaptic and download this: amarok [url]http://amarok.kde.org/[/url]

It looks like itunes, but is the shit. 10x better than itunes.

Also, you could be missing some codecs.

Check this site: [url]http://www.medibuntu.org/[/url] It has a bunch of non-free codecs that cant be installed by default due to license issues.

Add this to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb [url]http://packages.medibuntu.org/[/url] hardy free non-free

Then update your package list, and install the w32codecs package.

[quote] I'll get this thing set up one step at a time, but it looks like I'm going to be able to have all my data accessible from both partitions which is fn sweet :D[/quote]

Yeah you should be able to read any NTFS/FAT32 partition on your PC no problem. I do this all the time if i need to copy files over from my windows partition. Also i think NTFS write support finally became stable, so you can even write to your windows box from ubuntu if you like.

Re: ubuntu

@ reson,

what is your opinion on Banshee and Songbird?

Re: ubuntu

regarding Amarok, I'm just looking for something that I can use to double-click an mp3 file and have it automatically play. I don't want a complete media organizer/etc... is this going to be too much for me? :lol:

Re: ubuntu

ok... I finally got all my mounts set up with r/w access (took me forever), Thunderbird configured on both partitions and sharing all email/rss folders and settings, and FileZilla set up on both and sharing sites. :D

All the forums and blogs out there have really helped me accomplish much of what I've needed to do, though it has definitely been a little painful/frustrating trying to dig for answers to things I don't fully understand. I guess considering this is all mostly brand new to me and I've still been able to dig up my answers and learn a little bit along the way. I have some intermediate unix shell experience from work, and I think it has helped me quite a bit through this.

Not knowing anything about the interface or OS-specific install/config locations, I wouldn't have gotten anywhere without Google! I'd bet that anybody who knows how to use the Internet could get by, assuming they just wanted their computing experience to start from scratch without any of their data, no dual-boot system, no shared data across the two partitions,etc. So far I like it!

Re: ubuntu

now that I got my initial reaction out of the way... I do stll have a problem with playing my mp3s that I need help with :lol:

I installed the whole medibuntu package but it hasn't done me any good. I've enabled the "Software restrictecd by copyright or legal issue" in the system administration, and have even installed VLC. Even after all this, I'm not able to play a mp3 in Movie Player or VLC! Any suggestions? It seems a fresh install is limited on media playback, but medibuntu was supposed to fix that?

I've tried everything here, including Steve's comments in the comments section. no luck! I think my problem is because I tried to open a mp3 before going through all this, which caused Movie Player to try installing the codecs before I had gone through the medibuntu steps.

Re: ubuntu

anybody know of an ubuntu app that will host a windows-compatible RDP session that I can connect to from a Windows box? I want to use Remote Desktop to connect since I'm not allowed to install any external software on my work laptop

Re: ubuntu

rdp server for linux? i havent used that but maybe check this out:

[URL]http://xrdp.sourceforge.net/[/URL]

rdesktop is a nice linux based rcp client to connect TO windows rdp hosts:

[URL]http://www.rdesktop.org/[/URL]

also if you cant install any software on your laptop, i would suggest trying TightVNC:

[URL]http://www.tightvnc.com/[/URL]

you can download the client binary from the website in a zipfile, and the winvnc.exe is self contained and you can run it from your laptop w/o installing anything at all. this does basically the same thing as rdp. so you can start a vnc server on your linux box with something like:

$ vncserver -geometry 1280x1024

then use the windows client binary to connect to your linux box.

Re: ubuntu

I've seen a lot of other sites recommend xrdp... but no luck. I've installed it via Synaptic and am still unable to connect to it from either my two windows boxes here. Other articles have suggested installing tightvnc in parallel (which I also did via Synaptic) but that didn't produce any results

I'm also unable to connect via the tightvnc Win client from either Windows box after starting the server on Jaunty. It's pingable, it doesn't make sense! I just want to terminal into my main box from my couch :what

Re: ubuntu

I use KRDC, work a treat. Its in the package manager.

Re: ubuntu

........

Re: ubuntu

hey poults, I just tried krdc and it's actually letting me connect to my Windows boxes from my Jaunty box... this is the farthest I've gotten yet! It doesn't look like a host though. Can I use it to connect to ubuntu from Windows RDP?

Re: ubuntu

^^, run the vncserver command i gave you above and post its output here.

also do you want a full gui of your ubuntu box on your laptop? if yes then vnc is the way to go, if not just ssh in from your laptop.