Making a change

[Jayce]

Unity in 11.04 was just plain bad. 11.10 presented some new changes, but it wasn't quite there for me. I've traditionally been very vocal against Unity, but 12.04 is the first release I not only gave it yet another solid shot, but it's actually replaced Gnome Shell on all of my computers. I actually enjoy using Unity. The more I use it, the more I get what developers were aiming for. I've heard similar reports that a lot of the masses that left Ubuntu due to Unity are quietly coming back.

As far as what distro, there's a million possibilities. I've left Ubuntu many times. I've also came back to Ubuntu each time. I can easily use Fedora or many other distros, but Ubuntu works best for me, so I'm sticking with it.

 

[KSoD]

I am the same way. I hated Unity in 11.04 just like the rest. I have 11.10 installed right now and it really isnt that bad at all. I have not upgraded to 12.04 as of yet to know anything about how it is.

I have already made the switch to Ubuntu and switched my drives over as well. Yeah it stinks having to find middle ground when transferring your old data. But after all is said and done, I am glad I did this move to *NIX.

 

[MindoverMaster]

Even with all your MS knowledge.

I accidentally installed 11.0.4, thinking it was 12.0.4. And I'm like, no.

 

[KSoD]

Even with all your MS knowledge.

Yes even though I have more than my fair share of Windows knowledge I am glad I switched. Been using Windows for far to long only to realize to late that open source is a far better way to go than using software like Windows. There is far more that you can do and that can be done using *NIX than can be done within Windows.

Jayce,

Any customizations you can recommend? Along with that any good software you can recommend that isnt commonly found in the Software Center?

 

[Jayce]

Yes even though I have more than my fair share of Windows knowledge I am glad I switched. Been using Windows for far to long only to realize to late that open source is a far better way to go than using software like Windows. There is far more that you can do and that can be done using *NIX than can be done within Windows.

Jayce,

Any customizations you can recommend? Along with that any good software you can recommend that isnt commonly found in the Software Center?

When I got started on Linux I had a ton of Windows experience too. I think it's important to just acknowledge what else is out there, regardless of your preference.

About the software, I'm trying to think back to what software I use commonly. Most of it is in the Software Center actually... The only piece of software I go outside to get is the PPA for XBMC on my HTPC... but 12.04 sounds like it'll have it in the Software Center. A rough list of some of my favorites.:

Chrome - browser of choice
Audacity - audio manipulation
Clementine - think iTunes without the suck (works on Mac Linux and Windows, great audio application)
Deluge - torrent application
Cheese - take pictures/video with your webcam
Thunderbird - email
Shotwell - photo management
Handbrake - video handling
Openshot - video creation

Some of what I like to do stretch beyond basic software. For example, I like having apache2 installed and forwarding port 80 through my router to my file server. Then, inside /var/www, I have my own folder created there, normally just named public (/var/www/public). Since I run DDNS on my server, I can basically direct a friend to my web address/public. That way I can easily host files to a buddy.

Samba is self explanatory. A file server that works with Mac, Linux, and Windows? C'mon, no brainer.

 

[KSoD]

Oddly enough, I have almost all those programs already installed and use them.

Chrome, Chromium are my browsers of choice. I use Chrome for stability and Chromium to see what is coming up.
Audicity I have been using for a long time. Make my ringtones with it and send them to my phone.
Deluge is one I remember using back when I first got into Ubuntu and have since reinstalled it.
Thunderbird is installed and operational. I like it for the fact I can open each account in its own tab.
Shotwell is installed by default.
Handbrake I installed to test some stuff out. But still cant get it to work how I want.

Have not tried Clementine, Cheese or Openshot. Will check them out.

Thanks for all the great info man. I really do appreciate it.

 

[Jayce]

Handbrake might require certain libraries in order to work. I remember it needing libdvdcss2 to be installed before it would function with certain discs. You basically hit source, navigate to the drive, then it'll load everything accordingly. Tinker around with the settings, video quality, extension, etc. I tend to use 18 for video quality. Not sure why... 20 is default. Lower, the higher quality/bigger the file. MKV is the extension I often use. It's nice having all of the home videos ripped (we used to use those video camcorders that burned to discs on the fly) and available right there on the HTPC in digital format. Makes it nice when family is over, just navigate to it and bam - embarrassing videos for the whole family to see. Love it!

Cheese is an application that students often use. I personally just use it to make sure my webcam is working, but it's still a nice little utility. We have a slew of Lenovo X120e's that have integrated webcams. Sometimes the students will snap a picture of themselves and then morph it around and do crazy stuff in a photo editing program.

Openshot is basically Windows Movie Maker, but with some extra frills. That video I linked you a while ago on YouTube about advanced Linux partitioning was done in Openshot, if I recall...

Clementine is pretty sweet. It's based on Amarok 1.4. A little history... when Amarok 2.0 came out, they basically had it revamped. A lot of Amarok fans weren't the most excited about it as it changed a lot and even had some feature regressions. Clementine came out of left field. While they are "based on" Amarok 1.4, they of course are going their own direction with it. I personally like it because of how it's laid out. If I'm listening to a song, I can hit "Song Info" and lyrics for it will come up in the navigational pane. If I hit Artist Info, up comes Pearl Jam's Wikipedia page. Flip back over to "Library" and you can navigate around for whatever you want to add to your playlist and listen to. I like Clementine because, well, it's really, really kick ass and it's available on all platforms. That way if I'm on a Mac, Windows, Linux, whatever - I can use it just the same.

The one thing I like about Chrome vs Chromium is Chrome supports PDF's natively. Since a huge portion of my job is reading troubleshooting guides, which often is in PDF format, having it hosted right in the browser is kind of nice versus downloading it and launching it accordingly.

Adding to the more advanced side of things, I'll shortly be re-doing my file server to another box with more physical drive space, at which point I'll also be installing ZoneMinder for home surveillance. I used to run it when I was living at home off of my main desktop when we were trying to figure out what was eating these massive fish out of the pond out back. Since I moved I haven't set it up again. It's a nice Linux based utility with a ton of features and entirely web based. I can add network based cameras into its pool and manage each one independently. I can also set certain cameras to record mode, motion detect, etc. I've grown to be a bigger fan of home surveillance lately. I have an indoor wireless N camera that I've been using to make sure the puppy is okay when nobody is home which really adds to the comfort level. I plan to pick up two outdoor cameras at some point and run them when nobody is home. Knowing I can just install ZoneMinder from the Software Center and let it do its thing on my existing Linux server is pretty darn convenient.

 

[KSoD]

Well I woke up today to some interesting findings on my system. First I got a warning that my /home drive was almost full. It is an 83GB Drive that is somehow full? I dont have much as far as documents or pictures go on there. So how can the drive be full?

Could it be due to the fact I updated to 12.04 without using a disk? Everything got downloaded, so anyway I can clear up some space?

Also now my Chrome nor Chromium is working. Will have to see about uninstalling and reinstalling them. But I have to do all this thru Firefox cause the other 2 wont even load a page.

 

[Jayce]

Can you post the output of the following commands?

cat /etc/fstab

sudo fdisk -l

mount

sudo blkid

 

[KSoD]

Output from cat /etc/fstab:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
# / was on /dev/sda2 during installation
UUID=5ff14131-0cc7-4ce0-8459-8bbe4ae02b48 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /home was on /dev/sdb4 during installation
UUID=4001c1c6-b23a-47db-af8c-245c00212de2 /home ext4 defaults,user_xattr 0 2
# swap was on /dev/sdb3 during installation
UUID=868bf637-f2ac-4f5b-9b4d-e6df73c2d28f none swap sw 0 0

Output from sudo fdisk -l:

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders, total 234441648 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0009aaa1

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *          63   117226304    58613121    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2       117227520   234440703    58606592   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 203.9 GB, 203928109056 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24792 cylinders, total 398297088 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x8f8000b1

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1              63   173983949    86991943+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2       173983950   199157804    12586927+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb3       373109625   398283479    12586927+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb4       199157805   373109624    86975910   83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdc: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xe1a7e1a7

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1            2048   625141759   312569856   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdd: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000906f1

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdd1       244573560   625137344   190281892+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdd2            2048   122286079    61142016   83  Linux
/dev/sdd3       122286080   244572159    61143040   83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sde: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0006cf5b

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sde2            2048  3004137471  1502067712   83  Linux
/dev/sde3      3004138935  3907028991   451445028+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Output from mount:

/dev/sda2 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/sdb4 on /home type ext4 (rw,user_xattr)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/ksod777/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=ksod777)

Output from sudo blkid:

/dev/sda1: LABEL="Windows 7" UUID="70AB46001749C884" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda2: UUID="5ff14131-0cc7-4ce0-8459-8bbe4ae02b48" TYPE="ext4" 
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="Win7 Apps" UUID="4CC1FE95414A8361" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sdb2: LABEL="Win7 Pagefile" UUID="3A53352075CD6371" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sdb3: UUID="868bf637-f2ac-4f5b-9b4d-e6df73c2d28f" TYPE="swap" 
/dev/sdb4: UUID="4001c1c6-b23a-47db-af8c-245c00212de2" TYPE="ext4" 
/dev/sdc1: UUID="7c0d8dd9-ea15-41da-8bdb-aa557c206035" TYPE="ext4" 
/dev/sdd1: LABEL="Games" UUID="40066785047EC202" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sdd2: UUID="01e1cb98-92b6-4d76-9503-61a54de31c0f" TYPE="ext4" 
/dev/sdd3: UUID="8b135afa-9a5c-4a03-a6cf-dd5f93ce8f7b" TYPE="ext4" 
/dev/sde2: UUID="dafccdc4-e482-4588-835b-e95fe293ef3e" TYPE="ext4" 
/dev/sde3: LABEL="MS Software" UUID="584BCD7A7BEB1446" TYPE="ntfs"