Went to Ubuntu Linux!

JD Mandrell

JD Mandrell

Joined
Apr 20, 2001
Messages
18,423
Made the move to Linux finally, I meant to just play around with Ubuntu for a few days with a dual boot set-up, but somehow in my goofing I messed up my XP partition and had to just suck it up and do a full install of Ubuntu.

So far I like it, everything works OK accept my Western Digital Passport drive, it's "read only" for some reason, but I am researching the "fix" now.
 
The Last Confederate said:
Made the move to Linux finally, I meant to just play around with Ubuntu for a few days with a dual boot set-up, but somehow in my goofing I messed up my XP partition and had to just suck it up and do a full install of Ubuntu.

So far I like it, everything works OK accept my Western Digital Passport drive, it's "read only" for some reason, but I am researching the "fix" now.
Click to expand...

My son just did a full install on my older Dell Inspiron 8200, 2 gig mem, but we can't get the alp touchpad to work nor the pointer. If you run into a fix while researching how about a heads up or a link posted. Also having some issues with the wireless, but son thinks he is close on that. Good luck, as for me, on my toshiba sattelite, I am old school and going to stick it out with W XP. till I see Ubuntu solving all my problems.:)
 
The file system on your drive is likely NTFS, by default it will be mounted read only. Have you right-clicked on the drive icon and set the permissions to read write? Not sure of your comfort level in using the terminal but if you are still having trouble you might try starting a terminal session
change to the admin account by typing:
su
if it asks for a password hopefully you are the one that set up the password and know what it is key in the password and hit enter

unmounting the drive with the following command:
umount nameofthedrive
and remounting it with write ability
mount -w nameofthedrive
the name of the drive is likely something like /mnt/hda2 with hda1 being your internal hard drive

to test go to a directory on the drive
cd /mnt/hda2
or whatever the name of the drive is
type
touch testfile
if it created a file you are in business, test this with
ls
and look for a file named testfile

hope this helps, welcome to the land of freedom!

James, have your son check the following
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=78904&highlight=ALPS+TouchPad
also try ndiswrapper to get the wireless going

Good luck
 
I find at most times as a computer engineer that Linux is just as bad as windows.


I use freebsd.
 
baron_1999 said:
the name of the drive is likely something like /mnt/hda2 with hda1 being your internal hard drive

to test go to a directory on the drive
cd /mnt/hda2
Click to expand...
IIRC, in Ubuntu the path to hard drives is /media/ and not /mnt/ like on most other linuxes

If you have enough space on other drives you can also just copy the external drive's contents and format it in FAT32, so that it's still readable and writeable in linux and windows. then put the data you have saved on the other drives back on the external drive.
 
not only that, but i think "su" isn't going to do much in Ubuntu without some hacking

G wireless is a PITA in Linux still, i mean i have never gotten it to work right with the devices i have tried. i just got an old PCMCIA 802.11b card and used that

i've never heard much problem with drivers and touchpads, they've always just worked on my Dell, but i have a Lattitude and not an Inspiron

i'm mostly a Solaris/Redhat/Fedora user, but i've been meaning to play around with Ubuntu more
 
baron_1999 said:
The file system on your drive is likely NTFS, by default it will be mounted read only.
Click to expand...

That was the problem, I found where someone else had been through the same thing on a Ubuntu Forum, and had left a simple walk through to fix it.

The last problem I am having is my Sansa m240 MP3 player, I have it working with Amorak accept linux doesn't recognize the MP3's that were already on there from XP.

Gotta find a way to delete them and reload everything????

That an I am getting these odd "pauses" in my system for a few seconds now and them.
 
I'm used to XMMS to read mp3s, you should give it a try, it's very close to winamp as far as the graphical interface goes. it reads mp3s on my NTFS drives without any modification
 
choubbi said:
I'm used to XMMS to read mp3s, you should give it a try, it's very close to winamp as far as the graphical interface goes. it reads mp3s on my NTFS drives without any modification
Click to expand...

Thanks, I will try it! I used winamp almost exclusively in XP, the main thing is finding away to get files on and off my MP3, that's my last hurdle as far as hardware.
 
Welcome to Linux and Ubuntu.

I'm still a happy Ubuntu user since february, dual boot with Windows XP which my daughter uses, I recently installed Puppy Linux in my 10 year old Compaq and it's just fine, I'm typing in it right now, I did take off Windows on that one.

You may be able to recover Windows XP if you have the installation CDs, but if you do it will rewrite the MBR and you will loose the Ubuntu boot, it's best to install Windows first then Linux.

After installing Linux a few times I have gotten to first partition the disk by booting from a Puppy Linux Live CD, partition with GParted, then rebooting with whatever Linux installation disk I will use, I've tried it with Mandriva and Ubuntu in three PCs , when I get to partition in the installation I choose manual partitioning but do nothing, just go on to mounting and installing.

I normally use ntfs partitions read-only from Linux but I have installed ntfs-3g to use them read/write, haven't had any problems but I do normally mount them read-only, I made a Fat32 partition in my dual boot PC to share data with Windows, even if the ntfs partition is read-only I just copy to Fat32 and use normally, When I boot in Windows I can copy back any modified files.

Luis
 
Last I checked ntfs writing was still experimental and could really screw things up. Unless something has changed be very careful.

I've been using Linux on and off for a few years, unfortunately I use a lot of applications that only work in Windows. I'm still a bit of a distro jumper, Ubuntu is nice but I preferred Debian, Gentoo started to get a bit annoying, Slackware too. Never could get into Redhat/Fedora/Mandrake/SUSE. At the moment I'm using Arch Linux on a spare p3 850 and it's running beautifully. There's been many problems a long the way though, far more with this new version of Arch than the old which is silly but it's fun working all these things out. :) Personally I like a challenge and since I've got a degree in computers I should probably give a hard distro a try. I recommend Ubuntu to anyone that asks me which linux to try though, it's very well polished and has picked up every device I've thrown at it. It has come a long way since I first tried it.
 
Giunta said:
Last I checked ntfs writing was still experimental and could really screw things up. Unless something has changed be very careful.

I've been using Linux on and off for a few years, unfortunately I use a lot of applications that only work in Windows. I'm still a bit of a distro jumper, Ubuntu is nice but I preferred Debian, Gentoo started to get a bit annoying, Slackware too. Never could get into Redhat/Fedora/Mandrake/SUSE. At the moment I'm using Arch Linux on a spare p3 850 and it's running beautifully. There's been many problems a long the way though, far more with this new version of Arch than the old which is silly but it's fun working all these things out. :) Personally I like a challenge and since I've got a degree in computers I should probably give a hard distro a try. I recommend Ubuntu to anyone that asks me which linux to try though, it's very well polished and has picked up every device I've thrown at it. It has come a long way since I first tried it.
Click to expand...

I am about to throw my Dell Inspiron 8200 against the wall, installed the latest Ubuntu and most works EXCEPT MY WIRELESS, NOW WHY ELSE WOULD I want it on my laptop. If anyone has a work around, that works on the last revision of Ubuntu, Please let me know, my son the computer eng. Has not been able to solve it so far. Thanks.:mad:
 
Have you tried getting help on IRC? They're very helpful, always someone there, most know what they're talking about. :) I've never setup wireless so I'm of no use unfortunately.
 
Giunta said:
Have you tried getting help on IRC? They're very helpful, always someone there, most know what they're talking about. :) I've never setup wireless so I'm of no use unfortunately.
Click to expand...

My son is the one making the change for my Dell, he has visited every forum, seems as if no one has fixed OS for the truemobile 1180 from Dell yet. He says he is getting there, can now see the wireless, just will not connect yet. Thanks, I will make sure he has checked IRC.:thumbup:
 
James Todd said:
I am about to throw my Dell Inspiron 8200 against the wall, installed the latest Ubuntu and most works EXCEPT MY WIRELESS, NOW WHY ELSE WOULD I want it on my laptop. If anyone has a work around, that works on the last revision of Ubuntu, Please let me know, my son the computer eng. Has not been able to solve it so far. Thanks.:mad:
Click to expand...

that's why i just grabbed an old PC card and used that, it just wasn't worth all the trouble.
 
James Todd said:
My son is the one making the change for my Dell, he has visited every forum, seems as if no one has fixed OS for the truemobile 1180 from Dell yet. He says he is getting there, can now see the wireless, just will not connect yet. Thanks, I will make sure he has checked IRC.
Click to expand...
*steals your UBB-tag license*

If you'd been searching for "Truemobile 1180" you would probably find that "Broadcom" or "Broadcom 4301" would be a more fruitful search result. Plenty of howtos on that... unfortunately, broadcom refuses to release their drivers for linux, but you can either get their windows drivers working with a hack or use some re-implemented linux drivers. Searching for "Feisty Fawn" and "Broadcom" looks like it brings up what you need. Apparently, just install "bcm43xx-fwcutter" and it should work upon reboot. (presuming you haven't gone fuddling with other things....) If your network is encrypted, also make sure you have copied the key over correctly, etc.!

You can also always install driverloader (they have great tech support!) but I think you'll find that that's not necessary.
 
yermom said:
that's why i just grabbed an old PC card and used that, it just wasn't worth all the trouble.
Click to expand...

My son did that and fixed it immediately, the problem was with the chip set used by Dell, they called it one thing, but had a software run around because the chip was different. He swapped out the wireless chip and it booted up and recognized it right away. If Dell had reported using the right chip, he said he could have fixed it right away, but had to disassemble and remove before he saw it was not what the OS said it was. Got one out of an old Toshiba and SUCCESS . Thanks for the replies and help. WE are up and running screaming Bill Gates your day is coming.:thumbup: :cool:
 
I've been using Debian on two PC for about 3 years now and it does everything micro$soft dues and is easier on my older laptop. In fact, Linux runs faster than WinBlows on my Dell X200 (800Mhz) My Linux-based server has not been re-booted for 6 months:o

My vote.
 
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