+jamesyfx Subscriber² Posted August 3, 2010 Subscriber² Share Posted August 3, 2010 What's going on? I installed Ubuntu 10 just to see how it's improved since previous versions and it automatically picked up every single driver for my laptop, including the multimedia keys, and even sleep/wake mode works perfectly well. I've had nothing but trouble with every version of Linux, including Mint - I've always had to connect to Ethernet and grab stuff like Wifi and Webcam drivers.. but not this time. I'm just quite impressed, and I'm going to keep it. It's either use this or go back to Windows Vista. :p Any tips for a new user of Ubuntu? I've just used it straight out of the box and there are some things I'd like to alter. Like the way the 'toast' notifications display (they appear too far down and take too long to disappear) and any software I may be missing out on? I'd primarily use this system for FTP transfers and editing HTML documents. ... That makes 2 Linux users in this house now. :p There's only one Windows PC left in this house! We're a Mac and Linux family. :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amon91 Posted August 3, 2010 Share Posted August 3, 2010 Get compiz-config (I think that's what's it's called). It's a good tool for customizing the visual effects, like adding window thumbnails and other things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lechio Posted August 3, 2010 Share Posted August 3, 2010 For an HTML editor you could try kompozer, if you haven't heard about it yet: kompozer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ichi Posted August 3, 2010 Share Posted August 3, 2010 There's no easy way to modify the notification bubbles out of the box (which is weird), you'd have to install either a patched notify-osd or the notifyosd-config, both from PPA repositories: http://www.ubuntugeek.com/notifyosdconfig-simple-gui-for-customizing-notifyosd.html#more-6195 The excuse for the gap above the notifications is to leave space for the volume notification, but it's kind of lame. Even if they are decided to keep it all on the upper right border they could have made it so a volume notification made every other notification to slide down, and then back up if they were still visible after the volume event. Still not perfect, but a bit more elegant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jamesyfx Subscriber² Posted August 3, 2010 Author Subscriber² Share Posted August 3, 2010 I control my volume with buttons on my keyboard, so theres not even a need for that slider thing. :[ I'm not comfortable with tweaking the OS as I truly don't know what I'm doing. I installed compiz-config, and .. it's just too verbose for me. :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ichi Posted August 3, 2010 Share Posted August 3, 2010 Yeah I do that too, but whenever I hit the volume keys on my keyboard the not-that-useful volume notification resembling a slider appears on the notification area. Not sure if that can be disabled, I haven't really bothered looking into that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jamesyfx Subscriber² Posted August 3, 2010 Author Subscriber² Share Posted August 3, 2010 Hmm, I get a proper toast notification if I do that. Same with LCD brightness. It's in the proper place as well, in the absolute top right corner. Weird. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quattrone Posted August 3, 2010 Share Posted August 3, 2010 I tried hard to switched to Ubuntu 10.04 but the drivers issue and lack of quality apps make me switch back to Windows 7. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jamesyfx Subscriber² Posted August 3, 2010 Author Subscriber² Share Posted August 3, 2010 Complete opposite for me. The only thing I don't like about Linux so far is the fact that toolbars are on every window (can I hide them?), and the fonts are not great. :[ Otherwise, absolute dream. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Growled Member Posted August 3, 2010 Member Share Posted August 3, 2010 Complete opposite for me. Here too. I have a newish laptop and a lot of drivers haven't been released yet. I have to baby it to even get it to boot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Behemoth Posted August 4, 2010 Share Posted August 4, 2010 Get Ubuntu-Tweak, you'll love it. It should be available in the package manager. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ge_generation Posted August 4, 2010 Share Posted August 4, 2010 For fonts, try installing the Dejavu set (actually I'm not really sure what fonts are default on Ubuntu anymore, so this is from my experience in Arch), the Dejavu Sans font is pretty good. Or there is droid sans, which also works well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moustacha Posted August 4, 2010 Share Posted August 4, 2010 .. it's just too verbose for me. :p When you go back to windows you'll be wishing for that verbosity. "Error 12736, WHAT THE **** IS THAT?!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amon91 Posted August 4, 2010 Share Posted August 4, 2010 Complete opposite for me. The only thing I don't like about Linux so far is the fact that toolbars are on every window (can I hide them?), and the fonts are not great. :[ Otherwise, absolute dream. Ubuntu 10.10 will have better font smoothing, which indeed they do need. Still not as good as the one you'd find on OSX (in my opinion) but it's a step in the right direction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Behemoth Posted August 5, 2010 Share Posted August 5, 2010 When you go back to windows you'll be wishing for that verbosity. "Error 12736, WHAT THE **** IS THAT?!" Who says he will go back to Windows? I have been Windows free for 3 years now (minus the gaming machine - UT2004 ftw). And I have not missed it a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vice Posted August 5, 2010 Share Posted August 5, 2010 Ubuntu works great for me most of the time. But then one time I tried to install the 'Recommended' NVIDIA Drivers (Ubuntu prompt me to do this) and then it wouldn't boot anymore. Just a corrupted screen on boot. Kinda annoying.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jamesyfx Subscriber² Posted August 5, 2010 Author Subscriber² Share Posted August 5, 2010 Who says he will go back to Windows? I have been Windows free for 3 years now (minus the gaming machine - UT2004 ftw). And I have not missed it a bit. I'm no gamer and my iMac/Xbox 360/Wii/iPhone will probably cater for my gaming needs at some point in the future. :p It feels exactly the same as if it were running Windows 7 when I'm using it, I don't really have any issues when it comes to usability, just a few things I'd like to tweak here and there cosmetically. Is there any way to get the toolbar to behave like OS X's Apple Menu? I'd rather have one single toolbar instead of one on every Window. The main GNOME one seems like wasted space for the most part, just 3 items and 2 little icons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inferniac Posted August 5, 2010 Share Posted August 5, 2010 I had only one issue with ubuntu 10.04, it didn't turn off built-in laptop speakers after pluggin in headphones, quite annoying :/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
still1 Posted August 5, 2010 Share Posted August 5, 2010 get wine... a new stable version has been released few weeks ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pezzonovante Posted August 5, 2010 Share Posted August 5, 2010 Ubuntu feels incredibly fugly and almost unusable compared to Windows 7. Windows 7's UI is so much better looking and productive. And after using the ribbon in Office 2007/2010 it's totally impossible to go back to using the ugly menus/toolbars of OpenOffice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
etempest Posted August 5, 2010 Share Posted August 5, 2010 Happy with Ubuntu 10.04 myself. Only had issues with Creative X-Fi and horrible Hiss which was fixed by switching from Pulse Audio to Alsa sound system. Around less then 1 minute to be booted up, logged in, and surfing the web. < 20 seconds to shutdown. Can use Google Chrome, DropBox, OpenOffice, full muti-media playback support, I love it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jamesyfx Subscriber² Posted August 5, 2010 Author Subscriber² Share Posted August 5, 2010 I'm not at all interested in using Wine or any sort of emulation.. I've got no Windows applications I particularly need (Don't use it... I'm an OS X user primarily). But yeah, Ubuntu works wonderfully so far. I just wish I could customise the interface without needing to know technical matters. :rofl: Like Windows or OS X does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Behemoth Posted August 5, 2010 Share Posted August 5, 2010 I'm not at all interested in using Wine or any sort of emulation.. I've got no Windows applications I particularly need (Don't use it... I'm an OS X user primarily). But yeah, Ubuntu works wonderfully so far. I just wish I could customise the interface without needing to know technical matters. :rofl: Like Windows or OS X does. Have you had a look at ubuntu-tweak that I posted earlier? From what I remember, it makes a lot of the customization easier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knife Party Posted August 5, 2010 Share Posted August 5, 2010 A few things to refine ubuntu: 1. get droid sans font on ubuntu 2. try using Elementary theme if the grey colour shades is your thing 3. use chrome on ubuntu 4. get ubuntu tweak 5. check out omgubuntu.co.uk for app news and things ubuntu alike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azies Posted August 5, 2010 Share Posted August 5, 2010 Doesn't work out of the box for me, only because Ubuntu doesn't detect my Asus g60vx model, all I need to do in any Linux distro that I've fuddled with so far is add a line to alsa-base.conf so that my headphones work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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