markwolfe Veteran Posted October 30, 2007 Veteran Share Posted October 30, 2007 Well, after at least a year of problems with her XP install slowing down and requiring rebooting (much to her frustration, as I was her "venting" outlet), I am setting up her Sony Viao desktop to dual boot Linux so she can try it out. There were earlier questions about fast user switching. There may be other factors that she has issue with, and other things she may find herself being fond of. Anyhow, I invite you all on this journey, as it happens (roughly, as I will update this thread with info, as needed) We are busy with kids football, birthdays, and other evening events, so I don't have a solid block of time to perform this. Which is good, because I have a problem that needs to be worked out, and maybe the Neowin Linux community can help. ;) Oct 29th Defragged the Viao's "D" drive, which is about 60GB is size, with half of it "free". Booted Xubuntu (my choice for this computer, as it should be quicker than a full Gnome/KDE install, yet not as "different" as my own preferred Fluxbox for a Window Manager), and when it booted, I double-clicked the "install" icon. When it came time to partitioning, it seemed the guided option would only "take over full disk". I assumed it meant partition, but that was not what I wanted. I wanted to use the slider to make room for Linux. Maybe this is a regular Ubuntu thing, not in Xubuntu. Shame. I closed the installer, and started the partition manager gparted. The partitions were "locked" because they were mounted by Xubuntu automatically. Unmounted them with a right-click and then shrunk the partition down by 20GB, leaving me unallocated room a the end. Re-started the installer, and this time "guided" had the option to "use contiguous free space". (Y) Install was uneventful, I assume. Started it before we had to head out to my nephew's birthday party. It said it would take about 30 minutes. We were at the house for all but the last 5 minutes or so. The only concern I have here is that Xubuntu has a "user import" feature for settings and such. However, this did not see the accounts already set up in XP. I don't know why this did not work. Anyhow, by the time we got back, my wife had seen it was installed and ready for reboot, so she did this without me being there to confirm. Xubuntu booted up and prompted for login. A pretty painless install, overall, though I am saddened that the user import feature (which I have never seen before) did not see teh XP install. Now for logging in. I assigned the same username and password she uses for her XP account, so this wasn't too strange for her. I got an information box about the video card and the "restricted" drivers that were proprietary. I clicked to enable those, so I could get the nVidia driver. Started her browser, and one of her sites uses java, so it prompted for the plugin install. Xubuntu presented me 4 options. Two were Sun Java installs, and that is what I use without problems on my Fedora box, so I picked the most current. It worked, but the mouse cursor flickers slightly when over the java portion of the web page. It does not do this on my box, so I thought "try different java version" as a first step. Removed Sun Java with the Synaptic package manager, and let Firefox re-prompt me. Picked a different one. Still same flicker. She rebooted back to XP because the flickering of the pointer was bothering her. No problem. My first item to fix. She also wants to change the default XFCE setup of a top bar and bottom bar to just one. Like Windows. That one is easy, and I have that mostly done though the right-click "customize" option on the XFCE panels while I was doing teh java exchange, above. When she booted XP, it needed a diskcheck. No problems, but she was concerned by the blue screen popping up - I explained that Windows was just uncertain about the partition because it was resized. I am not convinced she heard me or really even cared. She did her thing in XP, complaining that it seemed slow. I assured her that I did not mess with XP at all. In fact, all I saw of Windows was Start > Shutdown. Once I had the PC back to work on, I figured out that Xubuntu was using the default "nv" driver. Switched to "nvidia", and when I did a CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE, X came back at 640x480. :x I played with this just a little bit before it was time to put the kids to bed, and this is where I am left off. Generic "nv" with the flicker, but full 1024x768 of her LCD, or "nvidia" with 640x480. I set her grub to boot XP by default, and re-ordered things so XP was first, Xubuntu second, and the other options for failsafe and memtest separated by a space to avoid some confusion. If I get any time to play with Xubuntu tonight (I have to take my 10 year old to football practice tonight, so not much time if any), I will post my xorg.conf file for help if I need it. I know Ubuntu uses a "dpkg-reconfigure" to make some changes, and I am not familiar with that utility. Next steps: getting nVidia driver working, importing her Firefox and Thunderbird settings (and mail messages) so they are shared between XP and Xubuntu, and any other bits she may discover as she uses Xubuntu. The ultimate goal is I help do the initial setup, then turn the whole thing over to her for daily use and administration. This is her PC to use and maintain, regardless if it runs Windows or Linux. She will have to find which works better for her. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4CxbqFxVnstmA Veteran Posted October 30, 2007 Veteran Share Posted October 30, 2007 About the 'user import' thing, do you suppose it didn't import her settings because you had unmounted the drive in order to do the gparted thing? Had you mounted Windows XP partition again prior to install? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted October 30, 2007 Author Veteran Share Posted October 30, 2007 :pinch: Could very well be. I could boot the CD and re-start the install process to see if it now sees the XP install. If so, I will re-do it and allow it to import. If not, I'll abort the install. With any luck, I can get some Xubuntu time tonight (if I can kick her off for a bit) :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barney T. Administrators Posted October 30, 2007 Administrators Share Posted October 30, 2007 Nice review, Mark. I live vicariously through your exploits! :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akiratheoni Posted October 30, 2007 Share Posted October 30, 2007 Which version of Xubuntu are you using? Great review btw, sounds really good. Good luck with it. :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raskren Posted October 30, 2007 Share Posted October 30, 2007 Good luck. Personally, I can't imagine turning any Linux distribution over to a family member. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian M. Veteran Posted October 30, 2007 Veteran Share Posted October 30, 2007 I have never managed to get that user import wizard to work in either Ubuntu or Kubuntu, trying to import from both XP and other linux distros. It's just one of those things I see as a "why does this exist" feature :). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4CxbqFxVnstmA Veteran Posted October 30, 2007 Veteran Share Posted October 30, 2007 I have never managed to get that user import wizard to work in either Ubuntu or Kubuntu, trying to import from both XP and other linux distros.It's just one of those things I see as a "why does this exist" feature :). Just wanting to confirm that it is possible to do this and it can work perfectly. It worked for me in a transitional period with the family desktop. It was dual-booting XP and Ubuntu for a few weeks, and I did get the Ubuntu (Feisty) to grab the XP docs and all. (Now the whole machine is Gutsy, we are an MS free household) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barney T. Administrators Posted October 30, 2007 Administrators Share Posted October 30, 2007 Good luck. Personally, I can't imagine turning any Linux distribution over to a family member. Hmmmm... that qualifies as trolling in our forum, sir. And as I said in another thread: To tell you the truth, once I got any distro of Linux on my parent's computer set up to use, they could use it very well for what they do........ surfing the internet, webmail, downloading, typing documents, whatever. It is completely stable and secure for their needs. I would think that being on the computer as a Linux user, once the system is set up would prove equally as satisfying and less risky of picking up unknown nasties on the web.Once the system is up and running, anyone can use it........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnowRanger13 Posted October 30, 2007 Share Posted October 30, 2007 Linux is hard for people because it is not known. People like my mom or dad that do not even know Windows that well can be shown how to do the basics and thats all they need and probably are less likely of messing it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted October 30, 2007 Author Veteran Share Posted October 30, 2007 Good luck. Personally, I can't imagine turning any Linux distribution over to a family member.That's why I think she would be a good test case. Even willing to try it (though she expressed she probably would stick with Windows before I ever had Xubuntu installed).Just wanting to confirm that it is possible to do this and it can work perfectly. It worked for me in a transitional period with the family desktop. It was dual-booting XP and Ubuntu for a few weeks, and I did get the Ubuntu (Feisty) to grab the XP docs and all. (Now the whole machine is Gutsy, we are an MS free household)Just to let you know that the import didn't work, even the second time around. Don't know what the differences are when it works and when it doesn't. Her PC is an up-to-date XP Home (genuine, of course, who pirates XP Home anyhow?).Anyhow, verified it did not want to import for whatever reason. Off to bring my 10 year old to football. :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4CxbqFxVnstmA Veteran Posted October 30, 2007 Veteran Share Posted October 30, 2007 (edited) Good luck. Personally, I can't imagine turning any Linux distribution over to a family member. Actually I am indeed planning to leave the family with all Linux. We've got three Ubuntu Linux machines here and no Windows. The parents are happy with it and with using it to do all they want (except my mum still wants a few lessons on gourmet recipe manager). I am leaving home shortly with my laptop and I feel better knowing they are with Linux than with Windows. I don't mean that as an opposite troll that Windows can't be safe. It can if someone knows what they are doing. We had no Windows infections when I was in charge here for instance. It's just I personally feel safer leaving the novices running on Linux. :D @markjensen : sorry it didn't turn out to be as simple as all that! Another route would simply be to copy over the files from her Thunderbird and Firefox directories in Windows to the hidden '.' directories that form in her home folder after she starts up both of those programs. You may have to play about with overwriting this or that, but it might work. But I think you said something about wanting to have it so she can access her files from both XP and Ubuntu. The problem there seems always to be, as I'm sure you know, that you have to work everything around XP. It won't play nice with other operating systems (won't even recognise they exist) so you have to manage to do things the way it wants and then get what you want with Ubuntu working as well. What are your solutions? Anyways do keep us up to date on how it goes, and how you work it out so your wife can do what she wants and everybody's happy. It's a cool idea writing about the process, very educational. :D Edited October 30, 2007 by James7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted October 31, 2007 Author Veteran Share Posted October 31, 2007 Got a few minutes on her computer. She has an old nVidia RIVA TNT 2 type of card. Xubuntu seemed to have detected it right, and installed nvidia-legacy (the current nvidia releases don't support these older cards). Not sure why when I set device to "nvidia" that it has a highest resolution of 640x480. :unsure: Switched back to "nv", then gave PC back to her. I will try to post the xorg.conf file in the morning, as there are unusual (to me) lines, like for PCI definition. I commented it out, but it didn't seem to affect anything for the better nor worse. :iiam: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted October 31, 2007 Author Veteran Share Posted October 31, 2007 Grrr... Went to take a look this morning. Copied her xorg.conf file into a .txt extension so I could upload it here to be looked at (I could not figure what was wrong on the 29th, nor yesterday evening's few minutes). I was hoping with the file posted, someone with more experience would be able to help (despite my many years of using Linux exclusively, I have really not had to deal with problems. Most things "just worked" for me). And with the Halloween preparations and taking the kids around this evening, I won't get back to that PC until at least tomorrow. :ermm: I can say that the "nvidia" driver works, as when I switched the "NoLogo" option to "False", I get the nVidia splash screen when the driver is activated. It just, for whatever reason, has no option higher than 640x480. :argh: On the other hand, assuming that "nvidia" would have worked like it should have, I think that (X)Ubuntu has really come a long way toward bringing in usability. The video selections have a GUI option for selecting which video system you have, so you can override default detected and switch between "nv" and "nvidia" by clicking a window, instead of editing a file. I still prefer the file, though. :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Digitalx Posted October 31, 2007 Share Posted October 31, 2007 sounds a bit of an ouch i know how much of a pain it is with them drivers, thank god for my card supporting AIGLX that's detected off the spot and ready to go in gutsy :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hotdog666al Posted October 31, 2007 Share Posted October 31, 2007 Just reading all this makes me really want to switch, although for me I still think it's best to keep a mix of the big 3 operating systems :-) Oh yeah, I tried XUbuntu on a pretty old machine a few weeks ago and it didn't see my hard drive ?_? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted October 31, 2007 Author Veteran Share Posted October 31, 2007 Oooh! I found this thread that might help: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-324863.html Option "NvAGP" "0"Option "RenderAccel" "Off" Option "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "DFP,TV" Option "NoRenderExtension" "Off" Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "Off" It is for 6.10, but it is indicated that this still works.Apparently this card is so old that some options that are assumed to be present in the card are not, and just need to be turned off. I'll give this a try... ummm... whenever I get time to back at home (at work on a short break at the moment). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted November 1, 2007 Author Veteran Share Posted November 1, 2007 (edited) That above didn't work. Poked around and saw a "Settings" menu option for "Screen" that allowed me to pick the display I have attached. It was set to auto detect. Selected LCD 1024x768. Surely it could not be this easy! It was just that easy. :blush: Now: I have nVidia drivers. (Y) Correct resolution. (Y) But the mouse cursor still flickers over her java app. :pinch: Tested over simpler java app samples from Sun's site, and other web locations. None of those cause a flicker. Hmmm... The cursor is a much fancier one than she has in Windows. Perhaps the combination of a more resource-hungry animated cursor combined with her large java app is the cause of the problem. Found a Ubuntu thread that said you can change the cursor theme with update-alternatives --config x-cursor-theme Selected the default plain X cursor theme. Voila! :D No more flicker. Rock-solid cursor display. Most of what I had to do to set this up was using the built-in "Settings" menu that has Control Panel-ish options. The playing around wtih the xorg.conf file directly was not needed (but I can see more of what is going on that way than through the GUI). The one command I had to do seems to have no corresponding GUI selection. Strange, as Xubuntu would benefit from having cursor themes selectable from a simple GUI display. Now, all to do is to give her time using it and kicking the tires, so to speak. EDIT: Just confirmed that the printer (HP Deskjet 5440) works. No problems. No prompts for anything to be installed. Just worked. Edited November 2, 2007 by markjensen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted November 2, 2007 Author Veteran Share Posted November 2, 2007 ...Found a Ubuntu thread that said you can change the cursor theme with update-alternatives --config x-cursor-theme Selected the default plain X cursor theme. Voila! :D No more flicker. Rock-solid cursor display. Most of what I had to do to set this up was using the built-in "Settings" menu that has Control Panel-ish options. The playing around wtih the xorg.conf file directly was not needed (but I can see more of what is going on that way than through the GUI). The one command I had to do seems to have no corresponding GUI selection. Strange, as Xubuntu would benefit from having cursor themes selectable from a simple GUI display. :pinch: (again)Yes, there is a "control panel" GUI option to select mouse cursor style from installed options. Don't know how I missed that. I probably never needed to dip into the command line at all to set this up, even when dealing with the nvidia driver resolution selection, and the flickering animated mouse cursor style. Right now, her email is only set up in Windows. I haven't gotten Xubuntu to share the existing Windows profile, I think due to root permissions needed for mounting her NTFS drive. When our schedules with the kids are less hectic, I will transfer the email profile (and accounts/inboxes/filter rules) over to Xubuntu, and then she will have a Xubuntu system to use for daily computing. Until that time, she is going to be using Windows, rather than rebooting just to check email. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted November 8, 2007 Author Veteran Share Posted November 8, 2007 For anyone following, this project has been put on hold by the customer. :p The wife is fine using Linux. But, she doesn't really like the way the default icons look. She doesn't like the mounted drives appearing on the desktop (she prefers to see a "My Computer", I guess). She isn't big on the default wallpaper, and wants her "Azul" beach scene back. Yes, all of these things can be changed by me, now that she has provided this feedback. But I am pretty convinced that just knowing it is "not Windows" is enough for her to not feel comfortable. :ermm: I will leave the dual-boot option in there, because I just know I will hear complaints about needing to reboot because her computer is slow, or stuttering, or some other problem. She seems to be happy rebooting from a problem session of Windows into a freshly rebooted session of Windows. Even if she grumbles during the reboot process. What's a guy supposed to do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barney T. Administrators Posted November 8, 2007 Administrators Share Posted November 8, 2007 What's a guy supposed to do? Take your wife to lunch and say "yes ma'am". :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giga Veteran Posted November 8, 2007 Veteran Share Posted November 8, 2007 What's a guy supposed to do? Beats me. :santa: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted November 8, 2007 Author Veteran Share Posted November 8, 2007 Take your wife to lunch and say "yes ma'am". :p :laugh: I have been married long enough to know the "correct" answer from the "incorrect" one. ;) Beats me. :santa: My oldest has been bugging me for the past year for one! Very sweet machines, I admit! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janitor Posted November 16, 2007 Share Posted November 16, 2007 What's a guy supposed to do? I'll get the tranquilizer gun. (Don't worry that's for the horse over there *points*) Maybe if she doesn't like Linux, keep Windows and install Sandboxie? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted January 23, 2008 Author Veteran Share Posted January 23, 2008 Well, the saga continues. :o Jan 22nd Wife complains about having to reboot XP once again. (no, there is no malware showing up in a scan) She asks me about not being able to get her email in Linux, and when I will have it working. Yes. I am surprised, as I thought she wasn't wanting to run Linux, all the while she (apparently) was thinking I was a lazy bum or totally inept at getting things to work in Linux. I told her I would transfer the email into Linux (or set up the sharing of the same thunderbird profile between the two) this weekend. I think that she may actually be open to using Linux now. But I have thought I understood what she was thinking before.... And I was wrong. :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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