Ubuntu 15

Post by **MagisterXF94** » Sun Jun 07, 2015 9:06 am

I finally got a disc of Ubuntu 15 which I will soon dual boot with my new copy of windows,
I get it that it's fully open source, and highly modifiable, but what makes it so special?
What should I install- do, to experience linux at best?

peet · Post by **peet** » Sun Jun 07, 2015 12:05 pm

If I may give a suggestion.

Install a virtual machine - say - virtualbox on your Windows computer. In VB you might install Ubuntu and make a snapshot. Now you can learn, play and experiment all you want. If something goes horrible wrong, restore the last "good" snapshot. In VB it's fairly easy to setup shared folders so you can easy exchange files between Ubuntu and Windows.

Ubuntu supports much hardware, most likely it will work on a modest computer. Ubuntu is easier to learn. You can basically get Ubuntu working without entering obscure console commands. Installing software is easier with the package manager.

A word of caution tho, some audio / video formats are copyrighted and are not free to install on Ubuntu.

There are tons of things you might want to tweak or install. Google "what to do after installing ubuntu" will point you to some good advice depending on your desires.

I would recommend installing the codecs and players so you can enjoy multimedia, see that chapter ->
http://www.tecmint.com/things-to-do-after-...-15-04-desktop/

Djole88 · Post by **Djole88** » Sun Jun 07, 2015 12:36 pm

If your goal is to learn something about computers and operating systems I would like to modify peet's suggestion. Do as he says (install ubuntu on a vm) but after something breaks try to fix it before restoring the previous snapshot. I don't mean try to fix it for 27s and quit but rather keep trying as if you don't have a snapshot. The reason why you would do it in vm is because when something would break on a normal install you'd be stuck with browsing the internet through a terminal (that is if you are lucky).

Tbh I'd also skip ubuntu and start with gentoo right away

Post by **MagisterXF94** » Sun Jun 07, 2015 1:27 pm

Djole88 wrote:QUOTE (Djole88 @ Jun 7 2015, 02:36 PM) If your goal is to learn something about computers and operating systems I would like to modify peet's suggestion. Do as he says (install ubuntu on a vm) but after something breaks try to fix it before restoring the previous snapshot. I don't mean try to fix it for 27s and quit but rather keep trying as if you don't have a snapshot. The reason why you would do it in vm is because when something would break on a normal install you'd be stuck with browsing the internet through a terminal (that is if you are lucky).

Tbh I'd also skip ubuntu and start with gentoo right away

I assume gentoo is aimed to developers?
Or is it simply a modified version of Linux?

Djole88 · Post by **Djole88** » Sun Jun 07, 2015 1:52 pm

Blacksun94 wrote:QUOTE (Blacksun94 @ Jun 7 2015, 03:27 PM) I assume gentoo is aimed to developers?
Or is it simply a modified version of Linux?

gentoo is a build it yourself kind of linux. When optimized correctly the best performing OS that I know of.
You build everything from the source with flags specific for your CPU and so you get the best performance.
Gentoo distro repo does supply a modified version of linux - but I believe so does ubuntu?

Blacksun you have to understand that linux is the kernel and not much more than that. Basically Ubuntu, debian, archlinux, gentoo, fedora etc... make use of the kernel and provide their package managers. Some of the packages contain multiple applications (ie: the KDE graphical environment by default also provides kcalc, kpaint, kwrite etc...). So the biggest difference is really in the package managers and in the slight modifications of the vanilla linux kernel. There are also multiple boot systems, init systems, dev rule systems, but that's a bit advanced.

Gentoo's package manager (portage) is a source package manager - as in it pulls the source in for you (and all the needed sources that package depends on) and compiles it, registers the package so that when you ask for updates it knows what to check.

(To further clarify you can have KDE/GNOME/lxde on ubuntu and on Gentoo - thats the looks, the way you handle software is where the fun is )

peet · Post by **peet** » Sun Jun 07, 2015 3:50 pm

I prefer the "mainstream" versions of linux (Debian / Ubuntu) because I simply want to get the job done. I found those well documented. When I run into a problem there is often someone with a solution. Both have good software packages for my needs. It can get a bit annoying with the lack of support for the Dutch language.

A live cd can also be fun to play with. It does not change anything on the computer unless instructed by the user. I find it slow and laggy. It can be handy to boot on a restricted Windows computer to do some surfing or Openoffice / Libreoffice on a document / spreadsheet.

To be fair, I do have a lot of fun with my 2 Raspberry PI's, one in use as an openvpn server, one as a DNS addblocker. It can be a real puzzle configuring with a text editor in various configuration files. The PI runs with Raspbian (Debian for the PI).

SpaceJunk · Post by **SpaceJunk** » Sun Jun 07, 2015 4:36 pm

peet wrote:QUOTE (peet @ Jun 7 2015, 02:05 PM) A word of caution tho, some audio / video formats are copyrighted and are not free to install on Ubuntu.

"sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras" takes care of that.

Getting software on Windows is like shaking hands on a lemon party. It just boggles my mind how much closed code is running on an average Windows machine nowadays.

fuzzylunkin1 · Post by **fuzzylunkin1** » Wed Jun 24, 2015 2:10 pm