Back to linux after several years - Ubuntu 9.10 is amazing

[Malakai]

Hey there. I was a serious gentoo user for many years, but health problems and other issues kept me from spending much time with linux for awhile. Heck I have only recently gotten back into the pc & hardware scene, much less had time to mess with alternative OSes.

But I finally bit the bullet and gave ubuntu 9.10 x32 a shot. Actuallt I tried several flavors and variations like Mint, NBR, Eeebuntu, kubuntu, ect; and stuck with regular plain 9.10 desktop version in the end.

Well, having used Gentoo and XP for many years, then the last 2-3 were spent on XP and then vista, and then Ive been on 7 nearly exclusively since release. I thought 7 was the best, really liked it, and did not anticipate on even giving linux much of another shot for at least the next year while I was enjoying 7.

But my netbook has been lagging a bit (win7 ult 32) and I really dont want to have to format it every 3-4 months to keep it feeling new and snappy, and I definitely do not have the free time to install and configure my baby Gentoo, so I went with ubuntu.

I hit some snags first, bluetooth and wireless net performance out of the box was terrible, and without the equivalent of asus power save programs for windows my batt life was not as good as win7. But I decided to really stick with it, and after a day or so of researching around the net & namely the ubuntu forums, I solved those problems and the result is something wonderful

First Id like to note the Ubuntu forums are an absolute amazing resource of info. I loved Gentoo because of its awesome forums, and now I love Ubuntu for the same reason. Every potential issue and problem I hit was already discussed and answered there. And the people posting are quite pleasant and friendly, immaturity seems at a minimum there; thats something that has been lacking on the gentoo forums lately.

So I discovered I needed to replace the out of the box wireless lan and bluetooth drivers with some newer better ones, called compat-wireless. They dont exist in apt but were easy to download and very easy to install once I found a nice guide in a post on the forum. So after a little bit of untarring and make'ing, they were compiled and installed. After installing the new drivers, both wireless and bluetooth work absolutely perfectly. My wireless network performance is totally stellar, just like it was on win7 (the asus 1000he which I use has awesome wifi!). And I havent had to re-pair my bt mouse once since updating.

Then the power management, I figured out that I needed to add Fewt's repository to my ubuntu install, then just use apt/synaptic to install it. It was rediculously easy, and fast now that my wifi is performing as it should.
The final result is batt life nearly identical to windows 7. I could not be happier.

Now onto the good stuff. Fonts look absolutely incredible. I imported all my fonts from win7 into my ubuntu install so I have a vast array of truetype fonts. But they look sooo much better rendered on ubuntu than they did on windows. I ended up putting ubuntu 9.10 x64 on my desktop too tonight, and the fonts look even more breathtaking on my giant 24". Clear, sharp, smooth. I overrode the default firefox fonts with the DejaVu ones too, and now firefox'es fonts also look incredible!

Compiz+gnome also look incredible. It makes win7 look absolutely dated! Not only do the desktop compiz effects look awesome, but they run fantastic on my lil netbook, and now on the desktop. I can enable everything withot a single hitch on the desktop in my sig too, it looks totally wild.

And a quick note, the ATI proprietary hardware drivers installed just fine, no issues, with the GUI installer even. I was expecting to need to hit the command line for that, but nope, they installed without a hitch and my 4870X2 (replaced the 4770 in sig) is running great with the newest catalysts.

Now I note all kinds of cool stuff, like every game i play (wow, supcom:FA. and several steam games, are all platinum rated in the free wine. Sweet, will I really be able to drop windows completely on my desktop & game on linux? Im so impressed that Ill gladly sell the 4870x2 and get a nvidia card if it would allow me to do that!

Performance is great. Desktop is as smooth or smoother than on win7 on the netbook, despite there being substantially more effects going on. And firefox can handle more than twice the open tabs before lagging in ubuntu compared to winxp or 7; and it uses way less memory. Oh, and a 64 bit flash plugin for firefox finally? Ive been trying to run 64 bit firefox for years on both linux and win, and now I stumbled right into it with no trouble at all an hr after installing ubuntu 9.10 x64 on my desktop. It works good too whoa!

So yeah, im absolutely astonished at how far linux and ubuntu specifically have come over the last few years since I seriously used linux. Ill be wiping my win7 partition off the netbook shortly, as ubuntu does everything win7 could do for me there, and more, and it does it faster and smoother (and easier!) than windows7. After using windows package manager for years (which is the complete lack of one), having a system like apt is such a breath of fresh air. No tracking down obscure programs and utilities, its all right there at the command line or in synaptic. No need to search for driver and program updates and patches individualy every now and then, its all automated and dead simple with debians package mgmt.

I could go on and on with how pleased I am. Ubuntu just became my primary desktop OS, I give it an A+, theres nothing wrong with needing a bit of tinkering to get it perfect. But once its done (I have the netbook totally perfect now, does everything I do in windows at least as good and mostly better, not even considering looking back) the result is something special heh. Anyone else been away from linux for years and just come back, are you as blown away as me? =)

 

[Stratus_ss]

Its always good to hear a side by side comparison from people, especially when they have different hardware then i do (i.e. a netbook or ati)

we're here to help if you need it

 

[mbentley]

i'd have to say that the last time i took a step away from linux was when i first started using it sometime in 2002. it was redhat w/kde and i hated it a couple years later i rediscovered linux via debian and that changed my outlook on things. no longer did i live in redhat dependency hell that existed at the time. debian seemed so much easier and things just seemed to work compared to my experiences with redhat. then i learned gentoo and i've used gentoo since then with the occasional debian or ubuntu install here and there.

i wish i could say that i am as impressed with ubuntu 9.10 as you are. i've installed it and i don't really like it a whole lot. mostly due to changes in the ability you have to customize your installation from out of the box. in the end, it really only comes down to a few things that bother me, but coming from the standpoint of a daily gentoo user, i really disliked the level of total control i was given. from there, i went with debian testing for my less powerful laptop. seems to still give me enough control for my liking and things still just work.

 

[rumbl3]

Good review/comparison.

I used to use SuSe back in the early 2000's for a while.

It was ok but i got sick of it plus I had my 9800xt radeon then and it had nothing but problems half the time.


Anyway, I tried ubuntu about a year ago or so and was just amazed at what linux had become at least on that distro.

I mean hell for the most part you can do everything you can in windows usually better or about the same.

The tinkering part to get some things to work keeps it fresh and a little more fun (as long as tinkering it not to get a WORK/SCHOOL related program to work lol).

 

[Malakai]

Its always good to hear a side by side comparison from people, especially when they have different hardware then i do (i.e. a netbook or ati)

we're here to help if you need it

Thanks!

I had actually grown quite familiar with linux awhile back, but then did not have time to mess with it for several years. Interestingly after using it again for awhile, even a completely different distro, everything starts coming back. Ive found myself mounting drives and partitions, changing permissions, starting & stopping services, ect. from the command line. Several times I have not realized I knew how to do something until after I had already typed out the command and hit enter.

Earlier at work I was looking to see if a process was running and before I realized it I had typed 'ps -Al | grep prog_name'. I was like whoa, where did that come from!

Another one, I was trying to figure out what identifier the system had given my 2gig usb flash drive, and I typed df -h without realizing it.

Lol this is so cool =)

 

[UnseenMenace]

Linux for Life Malakai - In some ways Ubuntu is really cool although its at a crossroads at the moment imho, it seems to be trying to get killer features out before bug fixes in the most recent release.
Im hoping that they do not continue this direction, mark shuttleworth seems to have noticed this needs addressing by recently changing his role in the organisation to help the distro get its direction and purpose back

 

[curtis1552]

I will admit the Frefox difference really surprised me too. (and Adobe put out Flash 64 for linux first, due to better feedback from beta testers) FF in Win7 literally uses more than double the RAM and CPU than when I'm running it in Mint8. Flv and Hulu (not sure what they use) playback is actually dead even in linux or win7. That was my first surprise when I finally had windows installed. (I was always griping to myself about the stuttering video, thinking it was always issues with linux, and it wasn't just my old hardware)

I'm working on getting a few nice VMs set up right now because I have to have a PS/2 keyboard to change my boot order (dual boot, but not a combined bootloader, I have to swap drives in the BIOS) Wish there was a free version of a VMhost program that would run a previously installed OS as a VM.

 

[Malakai]

Ok I have a question.

I have ~1.5tb of movies, music, tv series, software, ect on my main pc. I want to switch it over to ubuntu. I ofc will leave win7 on its 100gb partition alone.

Now my issue is, all those files are on 2 different HDD's, on 3 different partitions. They are all NTFS.

a) is it safe to mount all those drives read only in linux and allow them to be shared via vsftpd or something? IE is ntfs read support 100% safe? I dont mind if I have to boot into windows to write to them. Ill probably test ubuntu for a few months as primary OS to see if I can get the box functioning exactly as it does now (my win7 install on my main box runs filezilla server, so I can access all my files both at home over my wirelessG network, and from wherever else I might be with a net connection. I use ftp for both accessing the files on the network at home and from over the net). If it ends up working well, I would eventually switch my storage partitions over to ext4 or something. For now I just want linux to be able to read them and provide them for sharing via ftp server.

b) Im having a little bit of trouble understanding linux ftp servers. In windows with filezilla, you create a user, assign it the folders you want shared under that name, using aliases to link all the folders across various partitions into one central folder. Basically I make a directory on a drive E:\FTP. I put an upload folder in that dir with write permissions, and alias all my other shares (storage1, storage2, storage3) into that E:\FTP directory. So when I log in, I see an upload folder with full write permissions, then storage 1-3 with read only.

Ive been reading all kinds of guides and am having a hard time figuring out how to do it. Ive been using vsftpd for now but I have no particular attachment to that server, Id use whatever as long as it does what I need it to do. I have managed to log into vsftpd from my network over my home wifiG network, but I needed to log in with my actual home acounts username. It made my /home/billy (my actual home) my default directory. I would prefer to have a username unique to the ftp client, with read permissions on my 3 ntfs storage partitions, and write permissions in just 1 folder somewhere for uploads.

TY in advance for the help. I would not necessarily mind logging into the FTP server as myself, my PCs main user account that is. I just want to be able to read everything mounted in that case, and write only in my home dir. But I would prefer not going that way, since I intend to have the server accessible from the net, and if anyone ever cracked my pw I would not want them trashing my home folder.

Also I need to know how to change the port, in whatever server im using. vsftpd in this case. There was am option in the config file like "use_port_20=YES/NO". I guess Id say no there & there is another option line something like "use_port_number=XX (my firewall is set up to use port 88).

That box is stuck on windows7 all day when im not home right now so I can access my files at work to watch tv series and movies and stuff. Id like to get the ftp server set up **securely** as soon as possible, so I can start experimenting with more important stuff like how games are going to run on my 4870X2 (temp solution, Im looking to sell the X2 as its too powerful for my PSU & I need teh monies hehe) or 4770 under wine, ect.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

In my experience, using ntfs-3g, both read and write support are very safe on NTFS. I would consider read support 100% safe. Write support is also very strong these days, but I wouldn't want to quote a percentage - I've never had a problem, and I use it extensively.

I'd recommend running proftpd rather than filezilla server going forward - its what sourceforge and many other huge installations use. It's better at doing FTP than filezilla server, and can be very easy to setup a basic installation:
http://www.proftpd.org/sites.html

 

[moz_21]

In my experience, using ntfs-3g, both read and write support are very safe on NTFS. I would consider read support 100% safe. Write support is also very strong these days, but I wouldn't want to quote a percentage - I've never had a problem, and I use it extensively.

I'd recommend running proftpd rather than filezilla server going forward - its what sourceforge and many other huge installations use. It's better at doing FTP than filezilla server, and can be very easy to setup a basic installation:
http://www.proftpd.org/sites.html

I believe write support is like 95%. If you have a lockup or crash that requires a chkdisk on NTFS I am pretty sure Ubuntu will make note of the error and refuse to mount it (or possibly mount it read-only).

I agree with the read support, zero problems.

And yes, Ubuntu is coming along nicely. I use it exclusively.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

If the dirty bit is set on an NTFS volume, Arch Linux will only mount it read only - until its connected to a windows machine and chkdsk is run. I expect Ubuntu does the same thing.

Ubuntu is nice, but since you were on Gentoo you may like Arch Linux. I switched over from Gentoo when that install died. Arch has a great wiki, and their package installation is the fastest you will find anywhere, and the most flexible except for Gentoo. Their forums have been helpful also in my experience.

Basically, I think Arch runs more recent packages and their package manager beats the snot out of aptitude or synaptic IMO.

 

[Malakai]

If the dirty bit is set on an NTFS volume, Arch Linux will only mount it read only - until its connected to a windows machine and chkdsk is run. I expect Ubuntu does the same thing.

Ubuntu is nice, but since you were on Gentoo you may like Arch Linux. I switched over from Gentoo when that install died. Arch has a great wiki, and their package installation is the fastest you will find anywhere, and the most flexible except for Gentoo. Their forums have been helpful also in my experience.

Basically, I think Arch runs more recent packages and their package manager beats the snot out of aptitude or synaptic IMO.

Yeah I always expected Arch would be very similar to gentoo, but I always figured that if im going to take the time to install a more complex distro, I may as well go with gentoo so I get everything compiled for my specific CPU.

I definitely intend to try it tho, now that linux has drawn me back in again. And I mean, I have been showing off my netbook ubuntu install to everyone who will look and pay attn. I have my boss readty to let me put it on his lappy too. When I mentioned how secure it is, how it does not need antivirus and spyware/malware/viruses for linux practically do not exist, coupled with how gorgeous it looks, he was getting onboard the ubuntu train.

Any linux is great. Ubuntu just caught me by surprise cause I used it before and only thought it was meh. It was always newbie linux you know, not suitable for power users, god forbit a gentoo user. But from the near perfect default install to the beauty of a real package manager after using just windows for years, I have been totally impressed with Ubuntu.
I was really really surprised at how slim Ubuntu is, I remembered/expected it to be heavily bloated, there was only 3-4 startup progs/services I didnt need, relating to printing & scanning which a normal pc user would need anyway. Again I was not expecting it to run so smooth on my little atom netbook but it runs absolutely fantastic.

 

[Malakai]

In my experience, using ntfs-3g, both read and write support are very safe on NTFS. I would consider read support 100% safe. Write support is also very strong these days, but I wouldn't want to quote a percentage - I've never had a problem, and I use it extensively.

I'd recommend running proftpd rather than filezilla server going forward - its what sourceforge and many other huge installations use. It's better at doing FTP than filezilla server, and can be very easy to setup a basic installation:
http://www.proftpd.org/sites.html

I use filezilla server on windows, I have been experimenting with vsftpd on linux. Is proftpd better/simpler than vsftpd on ubuntu 9.10?



Thanks for info all, on ftp and ntfs support.


If anyone has any specific config suggestions for vsftpd or proftpd, to set one up how I outlined in my earlier post, it would be greatly appreciated =)

 

[I.M.O.G.]

You'll find arch's install much quicker compared to gentoo. I think 8 hours is realistic for Gentoo. You can be up and running with Arch in an hour or so - I'd say 2 if your following/reading the install guide for the first time. The time consuming part is selecting packages you want installed - since your coming from Gentoo you already know what you want for the most part (window manager, base apps, etc) and things should go quickly.

proftpd is better, and getting a basic install up and running is simple. It is likely more complex than vsftpd, but I haven't used vsftpd. I've used proftpd via cygwin on Windows, and it is very simple to use (it's built into cygwin). Due to its power, it could also be as complex as you want to make it however. It's operation is controlled thru a config file, there is no gui.

Here are example configs for proftpd:
http://www.proftpd.org/docs/example-conf.html

 

[vgta88]

I was amazed by ubuntu also. My wireless finally worked out of the box (was cutting out for no reason while running in livecd but it worked.)

You really can't expect a noobie to know how to compile a driver on linux and where to start.

I didn't feel like installing it to a harddrive but i tested (installed)flash player without my video driver installed (requires restart which would clear the ramdisk in livecd) so I know how simple they made ubuntu. You don't really have to look for anything. It also has open office installed by default so it was nice trying that out.

what do people really need except internet(email) some flash videos(youtube) and office apps. (games can be run on wine I guess with some tinkering)

Only cons I see are it needs more specialty software on top of what it already has, fonts(it has none) and thats it.

btw thanks for letting me know there's a way to add real power management features.

I can also confirm that there is a lot less resources used with firefox on linux. You get rid of the cons and change up the interface with compiz and I think I like the new kde4 and you have a windows replacement. (one more con, the media player doesn't come with any codecs but I know kaffeine media player is good if I could find it)

what i forgot to mention is, it's easy to find everything on ubuntu because it knows which video driver you need if it's nvidia/ati and I think you just search for software through the synpatic or apt

 

[Stratus_ss]

I didn't feel like installing it to a harddrive but i tested (installed)flash player without my video driver installed (requires restart which would clear the ramdisk in livecd)

Actually it doesnt require a restart. What it requires is that X is restarted, which can be done without restarting the computer.

If you have installed the drivers

ctrl-alt-f1 (or any number between 1 and 6) and log in

The type

sudo service gdm restart

and your done.

If you want to install the binary nvidia drivers same process, get to a TTY via the Function keys

 sudo service gdm stop
sudo sh Nvidia-driver.sh
sudo service gdm start

obviously the Nvidia driver name has a specific name and you will have to follow the prompts, but this will allow you to install graphic drivers without rebooting.

Basically the only thing linux really needs to be rebooted for is kernel updates (even in the live cd)

 

[Stratus_ss]

(one more con, the media player doesn't come with any codecs but I know kaffeine media player is good if I could find it)

You can try either Linux mint for codecs or use VLC, XMBC or moodiva as your video players, and most of the time mplayer. All of which can decode almost anything

 

[Creegz]

I'm glad to hear ATi worked for you, I think you've pushed me into going for a 5 series ATi card instead of going for the Fermi chips. And yeah, I enjoy 9.10 and the theme Modern. Glad to see other who don't just go "Ubuntu is lame/noobish" because I happen to like it overall.

 

[eli]

You can try either Linux mint for codecs or use VLC, XMBC or moodiva as your video players, and most of the time mplayer. All of which can decode almost anything

I use Mint 8 in VM on virtual box on my Macbook Pro. I would say that if I were to switch completely over to Linux, it would be with Mint 8 or perhaps Fedora. With Vista I was very close to switching; OS X kinda brought me back.

 

[johnz]

Linux for Life Malakai - In some ways Ubuntu is really cool although its at a crossroads at the moment imho, it seems to be trying to get killer features out before bug fixes in the most recent release.
Im hoping that they do not continue this direction, mark shuttleworth seems to have noticed this needs addressing by recently changing his role in the organisation to help the distro get its direction and purpose back

I've gotten a little disenchanted with Ubuntu, and their sometimes buggy releases. AFAIC, steps should never be taken backwards, and it's better to have tiny forward steps, than have the latest/greatest while breaking what already worked.

I'm still on 8.04, but when 10.04 is released, I'm gonna give Debian a try. I like the idea of a rolling release, and Debian takes things a little slower, or at least as slowly as you choose. I want to change my partitions anyway, so the next Ubuntu release will be a good time to try something different.