UBUNTU? Any good?

gonzo127

computershack wrote: »

With Linux, if it works OOTB, its great, as is Windows. Difference is when it isn't. With Windows, finding drivers is a breeze. With Linux, its a crapshoot.

lol you assume that everything has a windows driver, been running vista 64 on my gaming system for quite a few years and there are some of my admittedly older bits that just will not work with it, and no chance of them ever working with it because the company will not make the drivers for it,

yes ubuntu might have some things which will not work however so does windows, the difference as i see it is that if it doesnt work with windows it never will, if it doesnt work with ubuntu you (if you can or want to try) or someone else can try and make it work, which is the wonerful thing about a open source system,

anyways any up date OP?

fwor

computershack wrote: »

Perhaps you'd like to get the scanner on my Epson SX405 working? That'll take longer than installing Windows, all the updates, all the drivers, all the software and copying your files back.

According to the documentation, SANE fully supports the Epson SX405:

http://www.sane-project.org/lists/sane-mfgs-cvs.html#Z-EPSON

Simply install the sane-epson2 library and you'll have it working.

http://www.sane-project.org/man/sane-epson2.5.html

computershack

fwor wrote: »

According to the documentation, SANE fully supports the Epson SX405:

http://www.sane-project.org/lists/sane-mfgs-cvs.html#Z-EPSON

Simply install the sane-epson2 library and you'll have it working.

http://www.sane-project.org/man/sane-epson2.5.html

Perhaps you'd like to tell my installation that. It doesn't appear to be listening.

deebee

running ubuntu through wubi download as mentioned on here, it is so fast, gonna try it for a few weeks and then seriously contemplating ditching windows 7, need to check out their version of 'office' to make sure it is all compatible, internet was easy, detected wireless connection straight away, and just had to enter my code, then it fire up no prob, so far it seems great!

fwor

deebee wrote: »

then seriously contemplating ditching windows 7

If you already have a fully licensed copy of Windows 7 installed and you have plenty of disk space, I would recommend that you keep it in place and install Ubuntu so that you can dual-boot into either. That way you have the flexibility of running either without having the overhead of running one as a virtual machine within the other.

It sounds complicated, but the Ubuntu installation process actually makes it really easy - you just need to put a bit of thought into how you want to partition the hard disk, and it does the rest automatically for you.

patman99

Ubuntu is an over-hyped load of tosh.
I've been using Linux for 12 years, and of all the versions, 'PCLinuxOS' is by far the easiest. It even comes with drivers for all the common WiFi chipsets built-in.
Playing DVDs only requires installing the appropriate piece of software from a very friendly windows-alike package manager.

I set-up my network attached printer in under 5 minutes WITHOUT going near a terminal window (Dos-like interface for all those in Windows-land).

I have the latest version on my laptop, and it took less than a minute to set-up my WiFi (Broadcom chipset), and start surfing the net.

As for drivers, ATi & Nvdia both supply custom drivers for linux, as do Canon, HP, Lexmark & Epson.

stat1on

I can recommend Linux Mint over Ubuntu, as things like multimedia codecs and extra software repositories are already set up. They also produce a well written user guide (ftp.heanet.ie/pub/linuxmint.com/stable/8/user-guide/english.pdf). When I first started using Linux, I found the set up guides at howtoforge.com invaluable, they have one for the current version of Ubuntu (howtoforge.com/the-perfect-desktop-ubuntu-9.10-karmic-koala). However before I was brave enough to actually install to my computer, I installed to a USB flash drive first, I learnt a lot this way. pendrivelinux.com have some excellent tutorials detailing how to do this, such as (pendrivelinux.com/create-a-ubuntu-9-10-live-usb-in-windows/) for the current version of Ubuntu. I now use Linux full time, it is different to Windows, not necessarily harder, but can mean learning new ways to do things.

skipsmum

I'm a typical girlie, had typewriters at school, no computer quals etc.
Ive run ubuntu for several years with no problems whatsoever. I upgrade when it tells me to, my brother printer/scanner thing and modem and camera card all work fine.
Although ubuntu is free its worth buying the official book and you get the live distro dvd with it and lots of useful setting up help. The current one is only about £20 and I found it really helpful explaining how linux works and what to expect.
My kids also use ubuntu at home but have no trouble swopping between this and windows at school. They say ubuntu is much quicker!
Btw, with the current version of unbuntu you don't have to use the terminal, everything is plug and play, and all the software for dvd playing, editing etc come with it. No hassle!