First go at using Linux

By thealexweb
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thealexweb

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For the first time I decided to use Linux on one of my primary computers and overall I was very surprised, it went quite well but a few things didn't work. I installed Ubuntu 8.04.1 on my Dell Optiplex GX 260. It recognised my sound card and wireless card but it failed to detect my bluetooth dongle, web cam and second hard disk. Never the less I managed to connect to the internet and do a few things but I noticed it was quite slow, these are my specs: -

Intel Pentium 4 2.0Ghz

768MB DDR1 Ram

40GB HDD (Primary) + 80HDD (Secondary)

64MB ATI Radeon 7000 Dedicated Graphics

It does seem slower than XP, any suggestions...

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Grand Master

markwolfe Veteran

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...

It does seem slower than XP, any suggestions...

Suggestion #1: Compare a current OS to another current OS, Vista to Ubuntu. ;)

Ubuntu with Gnome is a higher-footprint OS, like Vista would be. However, with Linux, you do have the ability to "step down" to a lighter environment - yet still retain all the current updates and apps (something that does not apply to Windows). If you want a little lighter GUI, but still want a pleasing environment, might I suggest you install XFCE (it should be in synaptic package manager). Then when you finish installing it, log out (no need to reboot), and at the login screen, select your "session" as XFCE and login. You will have all the same apps, but be in a bit of lighter desktop. You should notice it feels peppier. If you can do some benchmarks between XP, Ubuntu (Gnome) and Ubuntu (XFCE), it might help put numbers behind your perceptions.

For your other items, I don't have any bluetooth, or webcam so cannot help :(

Also, tell us about this "secondary" hard drive. Is it an external SATA? USB? Internal PATA? Formatted NTFS?

Grand Master

4CxbqFxVnstmA Veteran

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It is a fast system you've got there, so it should actually be noticeably faster than XP or Vista, even with Gnome. I have a lesser spec than you on my laptop and it flies compared to those others.

This makes me suspicious there is something else happening somewhere that is slowing you down. Still XFCE is faster than Gnome and nearly as 'feature complete', as MarkJensen says.

Grand Master

markwolfe Veteran

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Ok, let's see what Linux sees for drives on your IDE channels.

Can you open a terminal, and post the output of the following command in the forum here?

sudo fdisk -l

That command will list the available drives it sees.

I assume it is NTFS. I asked, but you didn't really specify. It is possible it wasn't shut down cleanly, so Linux is not going to mount it. Or there may be other issues.

The fdisk command will confirm that the drive is seen, and what partitions exist on it. If it is NTFS, and everything seems to be in order, my next step will be to recommend booting Windows and doing a full checkdisk on it. I think that is the "/x" option or something.

Grand Master

Budious

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You should be able to have read access to NTFS partitions by default in Ubuntu, I don't know why it would not work for you in this case. You can add write support for NTFS using the ntfs-3g driver, but I'm not sure of the current state of reliability or limitations by using that driver.

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/widows-ntfs-part...ntu-feisty.html

Grand Master

markwolfe Veteran

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No, no, no.... Don't format the drive to FAT just to see it!

Linux can use NTFS just fine. However, it will refuse to work with an NTFS filesystem that has problems (this avoids the risk of further corruption). NTFS is a secret Windows filesystems. Microsoft has not relased documentation on this to allow other devs to fully deal with NTFS, so I would only use Microsoft tools to perform a chkdsk or defrag.

And, as I posted before, I recommend you do both of these. I don't see where you confirmed that you just ran a full chkdsk /x and defrag.

Experienced

Elv13

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in windows, run chksdk twice on the disk. If it is not visible, it is because it has not been unmounted corectly at on point in time (probably an hard restart when windows crashed) you just need to run chksdk (scandisk) and it will appear. You can also force it in the command line with the -o force option, but it is easyer to just run scandisk.

Grand Master

markwolfe Veteran

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Thanks! :)

And now how do I switch to that desktop? :whistle:

:laugh:

When you are at the login screen, you see a pulldown (up?) menu for "Session" selection. Click that and select XFCE, and when you log in, you will be in an XFCE environment. (Y)

Proficient

Class

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:laugh:

When you are at the login screen, you see a pulldown (up?) menu for "Session" selection. Click that and select XFCE, and when you log in, you will be in an XFCE environment. (Y)

Amazing, amazing, how simple it was! :woot: :laugh: Are there any other environment available, except KDE, Gnome and this one? :rolleyes:

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