Making a change

[Jayce]

Hey Jayce,

Well being a windows person and not knowing that Unity could be auto hidden, plus using it in only 11.04 and not the newer versions it was always in my face and annoyed me. But now that I have 11.10 installed Unity isnt that bad. It does auto hide when my apps are open and such. Which is a nice new feature. I would like to know how to hide it while on my desktop, if possible. Only having it show when i go to the upper corner and make it appear would be nice.

Another thing that I found that annoys me, how can I change the blasted theme! While the new darker theme looks great, I prefer the clearlooks controls. That is the one thing that Windows has done to me. I always look to the upper right for my close and minimize buttons. After scrolling to that corner only to have to go all the way across the screen is a waste. I think I found a way to do that now. Just found it via Google. So hopefully this works to address that issue I am having.

I did install Ubuntu to my SSD. I hope everything is done right. Not to sure at this point. But I did set it to / on the SSD and /home on my mechanical drive. I just dont know where the apps are installing to. I hope the mechanical drive and not the SSD. Anyway I can verify this?

Themes and icon packages go to /usr/share/themes and usr/share/icons. The catch is, root:root owns them. Personally, I just change myself to owner, which can be done via sudo chown -R jason:jason /usr/share/themes && sudo chmod -R jason:jason /usr/share/icons. Or you could ALT + F2, gksudo nautilus, and change it via GUI. Also, install "gnome-tweak-tool". That's a GUI to handle changing the theme, etc. Anything you dump in /usr/share/themes or /usr/share/icons will appear in gnome tweak tool (seen as Advanced Settings in the menu) will be selectable.

It sounds like you did the partitioning just fine. Apps install to root, or /. Don't worry, applications are rather slim on Linux. I've ran a fully loaded Ubuntu install with all that applications I could ever want that had 10GB for / and still had 4GB free space. Anything in your home directory will be on the mechanical drive. If you run "mount" in terminal you'll get a listing of what's mounted where.

jason@Area51:~$ mount
/dev/sdd2 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755)
none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880)
none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
/dev/md0 on /home type ext4 (rw)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /root/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev)
jason@Area51:~$

Notice these two lines in particular:

/dev/sdd2 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/md0 on /home type ext4 (rw)

/dev/sdd2 = my SSD drive, which I can verify in either GParted (be careful) or Disk Utility.
/dev/md0 is my RAID array, which contains /dev/sdb and /dev/sdc as RAID components.

Notice "/" and "/home", you can see which mount point they're referencing.

The Disk Utility GUI is actually quite nice. If you fire it up, you can see your disks on the left side. Select the disk accordingly. You'll see a partition table readout (kind of like GParted). The table is interactive. You can click on the partition and the parameters below giving you information will change. So if I select my SSD, I can click on the middle partition and see its mount point is /, whereas under "Multi Disk Devices" (RAID) I can see the mount point is /home.

Here's a screenshot of what my exact Disk Utility looks like:

http://i.imgur.com/Yfhf1.png

On the left pane you can see my disk readout. 160GB is the NTFS drive for Win 7 (which according to Disk Utility, that disk actually has a few bad sectors, ehh), then the two 1.0 TB drives (sdb and sdc, part of the RAID array), the 60 GB SSD for Ubuntu /, and the actual combined array underneath Multi Disk Devices.

Hope that helps!

 

[KSoD]

I have figured out the Gnome Tweak Tool. It has come in handy, but I messed up my install by trying to force transparency on some themes using Compiz. Either that or I installed some bad things by following some guides to manually install themes and busted up my dependencies. So after a reinstall I have gotten back up and running yet again.

Must say things are much faster to get operational in Ubuntu to restart after a reinstall than Windows. I have the Disk Utility along with the Storage Device Manager so I can get my drives auto mounted upon boot and not have to mess with that. Such a pain when I go looking for a file or something and the drive isnt mounted. Maybe at some point I will switch them all over, but that will be years away. Not looking forward to copying 2TB worth of data off of NTFS just to put it on EXT4.

So far I have just manually downloaded themes from Softpedia and Gnome-Look and put them into the .themes folder myself not installing anything else. So maybe this time when I try to use Compiz to get soem other effects going it wont break on me.

I thank you for the help Jayce. I am checking my music files to make sure those still work. Then all that is left is ripping my kid's DVD collection for easy transportation. Not fun taking a few dozen DVD's across country.

 

[Jayce]

I have figured out the Gnome Tweak Tool. It has come in handy, but I messed up my install by trying to force transparency on some themes using Compiz. Either that or I installed some bad things by following some guides to manually install themes and busted up my dependencies. So after a reinstall I have gotten back up and running yet again.

Must say things are much faster to get operational in Ubuntu to restart after a reinstall than Windows. I have the Disk Utility along with the Storage Device Manager so I can get my drives auto mounted upon boot and not have to mess with that. Such a pain when I go looking for a file or something and the drive isnt mounted. Maybe at some point I will switch them all over, but that will be years away. Not looking forward to copying 2TB worth of data off of NTFS just to put it on EXT4.

So far I have just manually downloaded themes from Softpedia and Gnome-Look and put them into the .themes folder myself not installing anything else. So maybe this time when I try to use Compiz to get soem other effects going it wont break on me.

I thank you for the help Jayce. I am checking my music files to make sure those still work. Then all that is left is ripping my kid's DVD collection for easy transportation. Not fun taking a few dozen DVD's across country.

Good deal! I've seen themes on softpedia, but never really utilized them. Gnome-look.org has been the best site for themes, at least for me. There's also XFCE-look, etc. I do feel as though installing custom themes is a little strange because you either have to do a root override as Nautilus or run the command in terminal to swap the permissions over. Nonetheless, once done it's a snap to do.

Not sure about you, but each time I run across an application I like, I swing over to Evernote and add it to the list of applications I like. Then when you do a new install, you run that massive command and suddenly all of your applications are re-installed. The nice thing is, if you keep your home and root directories split, you'll keep your configs for each application too. Your configs are hidden directories in your home folder that begin with a period. For example, .KSoD would be hidden, whereas KSoD would not be. So let's say you just installed 11.10 and you want to install 12.04, but keep your home directory.

Start 12.04 installer.
Advanced partition mode.
Select root partition, file system type - EXT4, mount as /, select format, hit okay.
Select home partition, file system type - EXT4, mount as /home, DO NOT SELECT FORMAT, hit okay.
(Only select EXT4 if that's the file system type it was before)

You'll install 12.04 directly on top of the 11.10 instance and keep your home directory in the process, including the hidden files/folders inside that contain application configurations, etc. Go to Evernote, Google Docs, whatever, copy your massive sudo apt-get install command, paste, and bingo - everything back to normal. For example, let's say you have Pidgin installed in 11.10, therefore you have a pidgin hidden folder (.purple), but when you install 12.04, that .purple folder is useless since it directly corresponds to Pidgin. Once pidgin is installed from your massive command, click on it, and suddenly KSoD is back online without needing anymore input.

My apt-get install command, to give you an idea:

sudo apt-get install audacity vlc gnome-tweak-tool gparted samba system-config-samba thunderbird chromium-browser pidgin xchat hardinfo gimp inkscape etherape cheese leafpad exaile openshot winff wifi-radar apache2 clementine deluge gnome-shell synaptic stellarium p7zip-full wireshark soundconverter unison grsync mdadm

NOTE - If you don't feel comfortable doing that, please, make sure your data in /home also resides elsewhere for backup purposes. I did, and it gave me a much needed level of comfort until I got used to partitioning like this.

EDIT - Also, "Storage Device Manager" I believe is the GUI I was trying to think of earlier that handles /etc/fstab.

 

[KSoD]

Now why you gotta go and give me more ideas? I never thought of creating a massive list of apps I use. I just always go through the Software Manager.

Now I gotta sit here and waste my day finding all the names and create my list. Along with make my other notes about what Themes I have and stuff like that. Which wasnt that hard once I used Google to see that there is a command to do that. Now I have my list and can update it anytime.

So honestly thank you for the tip on that. I am just looking for customization options and media options. So far I am loving my stay and dont have the slightest temptation to go back. I am considering formatting a couple of my drives over to EXT4 and leaving only ones needed for Windows in NTFS format so I dont have to use the Storage Device Manager and /etc/fstab to mount them everytime.

 

[Jayce]

Haha, good deal. Software Center is definitely a great way to install new applications. I use it for finding applications as well as single installs. But for applications I KNOW I want, I tack them on to the big command.

As far as /etc/fstab and NTFS, I've actually never set up NTFS drives to auto mount in fstab, but when my mother was in her mostly Windows/tinkering with Linux stage, she would just go to Nautilus and click on the NTFS drive on the left side. Then navigate to whatever files she wanted within her drive. It wasn't automatic, but it worked decently well for the time. Now-a-days she runs only Ubuntu on her desktop and her laptop is W7 for now since she just got it brand new a few weeks ago. I'm holding off until 12.04 to dual boot it for her. If history repeats itself, she'll spend most of her time in Ubuntu land, but we'll wait and see.

 

[MindoverMaster]

I wish my mother could use Windows... And we're not even talking Linux...

She has to ask me everything how to do this, that. Things we take for granted.

 

[KSoD]

Well Jayce you certainly know more about Ubuntu than myself, which is why using the command is far easier for you than using the software center. For me I know nothing about what apps I want for sure, cause I know nothing.

I have gotten my media sorted. Got myself Handbrake and it is operational, so that solves the kids issues. Got my MP3's that play. Now I just have to figure out what drives I want to switch over to EXT4. Sadly I have to leave my music as is, the wife connects to it from her Windows Laptop, which I have to finish settings up via Samba.

But I really have no ideas about any further customization's. I do miss my gadgets from Win7 that gave me my info. I know there are screenlets, which I might end up using. But I miss that aspect so far. That is the only one I miss.

 

[MyGodAL3X]

Wow what a thread.
Thanks for the link to Steam on PlayOnLinux, definitely going to try that on my laptop.
And now I just have to make one more game work on Linux and if it works then I will be making the switch again, but for good this time lol
Always wanted to, and this thread has pretty much given me all I need
Will also be getting more and more into programming and I thought, why not do it on Linux.

Good idea on the master apt-get list, didn't think of that, had a list of all I needed and I wasn't putting it in one string lol
You guys got me all Linux excited again.

 

[KSoD]

Here is a question now.

I got my master list, now the real question is how do I turn this text document into one that can install all my software? I know the sudo apt-get install aspect. But fo I have to put a && inbetween each item?

Just and example.

sudo apt-get install aacgain && aacplusenc && abiword && abiword-common && abiword-plugin-grammar && abiword-plugin-mathview

Does it have to look like that for each item or can I just do this instead:

sudo apt-get install aacgain && aacplusenc;abiword;abiword-common;abiword-plugin-grammar;abiword-plugin-mathview

or even this:

sudo apt-get install aacgain && 
aacplusenc
abiword
abiword-common
abiword-plugin-grammar
abiword-plugin-mathview

That is an aspect I dont quite get. When I look at the list the command generated it look like this:

aacgain install
aacplusenc install
abiword install
abiword-common install
abiword-plugin-grammar install
abiword-plugin-mathview install

Should I just do a sudo apt-get install for each line?

 

[Jayce]

You only separate with && when you want to run multiple commands. When installing applications, just leave a space in between, nothing else.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade is the same as:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Whereas:

sudo apt-get install xchat vlc

is the same as

sudo apt-get install xchat
sudo apt-get install vlc

So in essence, you just need "sudo apt-get install" down. After that, just add the name of the application one at a time, spacing in between. You don't need to be in a rush to do it. In fact, it's probably good to just use your system, find what you like, and someday a few weeks from now go through your list and write down the ones you definitely want installed again, then go from there. The nice thing is, once it's done, it's just a copy and paste away.

Also, about Samba, a quick and easy GUI to handle those tasks is "Samba", otherwise known as system-config-samba. It's a very simple GUI. About all you can do is add shares, add users, and set which users can access which share. It's crazy simple. Samba is something I'm very fond of, as it allows my work issued Macbook Pro, my work issued Ubuntu Lenovo, my fiance's Windows laptop, and my personal Ubuntu laptops to connect to it just fine.