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Old 08-05-2009 at 07:27 PM   #16
ali999
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Depends on which partition i guess. If you are formatting the ubuntu one and reinstalling it again, then the ubuntu installation takes care of everything. if you are reinstalling windows, then to regain access to ubuntu it is easiest to restore GRUB. you need to load the ubuntu live CD version to do this. its fairly simple. the link above explains it very well. if you are still having problems, try the ubuntu forums or just a simple google search...never had a problem i couldn't find the solution to online.
Old 08-06-2009 at 12:42 AM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ownaginatios View Post
Ya, install office 2007 through Wine if you can. I find Open Office to be very lacking (it's about as advanced as Office 2000...), spell check is broken out of the box, and grammar check is non-existent.
The spell check is actually great- once you can get it working. I also really like the auto-complete words function that OO has. Grammar check isn't actually useful in Office as it is wrong so often.

The aesthetics certainly aren't as nice, but the whole "free" part puts OO ahead Office in my books. (Although Google Docs > All)
Old 08-06-2009 at 02:04 AM   #18
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Try turning on compiz, as said already. If you want some nice desktops(like the desktop features on lifehacker.com for example) try to get some conky action. Also, you can get different themes for compiz and scripts for conky. Also, if you like docks,try AWN. If you program anything I suggest you stay away from IDEs, as other tools(not as fancy) can do syntax highlighting and stuff, Ive found them to be sufficient. Also, for effect, make your terminal semi-transparent, imo its nice to use that way. In the way of programs, use the built-in add/remove to browse them(can do so by popularity).
Old 08-06-2009 at 09:34 AM   #19
Ownaginatios
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Quote:
Originally Posted by A.Marlowe View Post
Grammar check isn't actually useful in Office as it is wrong so often.
I would hardly say so. Office always corrects me on stupid things I would miss like misplacing "their" and "there". Some things are annoying though, like "fragment and consider revising", which really means "Something sort of doesn't look right I think, and I have no idea how to solve it, lol".
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Old 08-06-2009 at 11:09 AM   #20
AnguishedEnd
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ali999 View Post
dual booting is easy to do. It works best if you install ubuntu after windows. The GRUB boot loader in ubuntu automatically sets up everything for you. Go to http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_l...lled_first.htm for detailed instructions. The drop down menu there has all kinds of different installation options.
Believe me it was not as easy at it said on the cd cover lol. I chose the install 'inside Windows' option which seemed the simplest and easy to remove but Ubuntu was hidden inside the windows boot manager. Are there any benefits of doing a partition? I'm kind of relectant to go that route since I'm worried I might royally f up my harddrive but if its way better than the inside windows option...
Old 08-06-2009 at 11:13 AM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Colin View Post
Believe me it was not as easy at it said on the cd cover lol. I chose the install 'inside Windows' option which seemed the simplest and easy to remove but Ubuntu was hidden inside the windows boot manager. Are there any benefits of doing a partition? I'm kind of relectant to go that route since I'm worried I might royally f up my harddrive but if its way better than the inside windows option...
It is best to have different OS's on separate partitions. This way, if you royally mess up one OS, you have the second one still running. It's kinda like having them on two drives.
Old 08-06-2009 at 11:35 AM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DannyV View Post
It is best to have different OS's on separate partitions. This way, if you royally mess up one OS, you have the second one still running. It's kinda like having them on two drives.
Ya I was just reading some more stuff on Ubuntu. Like you said, you can use Ubuntu as a sort of safety vault in the event Windows goes crazy on you. Kinda cool. Seems like its worth a try.
Old 08-06-2009 at 12:17 PM   #23
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In terms of the mbr, Ubuntu's Grub is about a billion times better than vista's loader and recognizes the ntfs partition of vista right off the bat (unlike vista's!). If you upgrade to 9.10 (currently in beta 3 I believe) you also get the updated Grub 2.

One program I would definitely install is Screenlets...it lets you put widgets on your desktop....also basketnotes is good for taking notes in class or anything related.

If you download a package called "ubuntu restricted extras" it will dl and install all the various codecs and other things you need like java, flash and the microsoft fonts.

Also, check out the sites gnome-look.org or kde-look.org depending on which desktop environment you're using - they both have Tonnes of themes and other stuff to customize your desktop.

Oh! and one terminal command you should definitely take note of if you haven't seen is: sudo apt-get install (program name)
-this downloads and installs the program automatically (you'll need to input your password if you arent root)
so for ex.: sudo apt-get install vlc will install vlc!

Have fun!

Last edited by Raeann89 : 08-06-2009 at 12:19 PM.
Old 08-06-2009 at 02:10 PM   #24
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Raeann89 View Post

Oh! and one terminal command you should definitely take note of if you haven't seen is: sudo apt-get install (program name)
-this downloads and installs the program automatically (you'll need to input your password if you arent root)
so for ex.: sudo apt-get install vlc will install vlc!
you could also just use the synaptic package manager to find and install files. The search feature is quite helpful i find.
Old 08-06-2009 at 02:15 PM   #25
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ali999 View Post
you could also just use the synaptic package manager to find and install files. The search feature is quite helpful i find.
Real Linux users do 70% of their input into the terminal
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Old 08-06-2009 at 02:23 PM   #26
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ownaginatios View Post
Real Linux users do 70% of their input into the terminal

yea..but this is sooo much easier...i hate typing all the commands sometimes what with all the typos i end up with and everything
Old 08-06-2009 at 02:38 PM   #27
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ali999 View Post
yea..but this is sooo much easier...i hate typing all the commands sometimes what with all the typos i end up with and everything
Ya, but the command line is a lot more flexible. I would actually say installing packages using the command line is just as easy if not easier than in Synaptic (as Raenn said; just "sudo apt-get install... whatever"). I only use synaptic if I'm just searching for packages that I don't know the name of. It can really suck though if there is not a .deb package for what you're looking for :p.

I don't even have a GUI installed on my "server" (actually a crappy older computer :p) running Debian (the thing Ubuntu fell out of). It's good because I can use SSH from pretty much anything with a screen and an internet connection to get to it and do stuff (i.e. convert video and stream content at high speed to other computers due to resources not being wasted on a GUI).
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Old 08-06-2009 at 02:42 PM   #28
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Raeann89 View Post
In terms of the mbr, Ubuntu's Grub is about a billion times better than vista's loader and recognizes the ntfs partition of vista right off the bat (unlike vista's!). If you upgrade to 9.10 (currently in beta 3 I believe) you also get the updated Grub 2.
The only thing I don't like about GRUB is it doesn't like it when I try to change my menu.lst. Whenever I do, it likes to "update" it back to how it was before. It's annoying because the entry to start up the computer somehow has the wrong partition listed (thinks it's hd(1,4) when it's hd(0,4)), meaning I always need to press 'e' on startup to correct it.

... maybe that's only mine though :p
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Old 08-06-2009 at 03:13 PM   #29
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ownaginatios View Post
The only thing I don't like about GRUB is it doesn't like it when I try to change my menu.lst. Whenever I do, it likes to "update" it back to how it was before. It's annoying because the entry to start up the computer somehow has the wrong partition listed (thinks it's hd(1,4) when it's hd(0,4)), meaning I always need to press 'e' on startup to correct it.

... maybe that's only mine though :p
Only time i've had an issue like this is when the automatic updates has an update for GRUB. But that is why i make a backup for my menu/lst file so I can just restore it back to what it was.
Old 08-06-2009 at 03:25 PM   #30
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Raeann89 View Post
One program I would definitely install is Screenlets...it lets you put widgets on your desktop....also basketnotes is good for taking notes in class or anything related.
I've got gdesklets, would you recommend screenlets over gdesklets?



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