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Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: swift240 on March 06, 2007, 02:11:59 PM
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Hi all,
I run Win XP pro, I am thinking of going Ubuntu (Linux)
Are any of you out there runnig Ubuntu ?
If so how good is it?
Are there many driver?
Would it be worth my while going over to it? compared to XP pro?
Can I run AmiKit (I must look this up, me thinks)
TIA.
Mike
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I run Ubuntu on my Pegasos II. I have also run it on a two Windows laptops, and on two Macs under virtual machines. It is a thoroughly excellend distro of Linux and would recommend it if you're looking to move away from Windows. It's so easy to set up. Hardware detection and support is excellent. Go for it :-)
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moto
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perhaps this article will help
Ubuntu for 30 days (http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTI5OCwxLCxoY29uc3VtZXI=)
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I had a quick look at that article. It looks quite good, though to be honest I think I installed Ubuntu and felt comfortable with it in less time than it took me to read that article :-)
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moto
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Are there many driver?
http://www.linux-drivers.org/ (http://www.linux-drivers.org/)
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I'm running Ubuntu on my server, and I'm quite pleased with it. If I didn't have MacOSX at home, I'd be using Ubuntu there as well.
If you're new to Linux, please-pretty-please try a LiveCD (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD) first. It's just like the real deal, except you're booting from a CD instead of your hard drive. With the LiveCD you can see if this is the thing for you. Saves you the hazzle of modifying partitions, MBR's, etc.
Some adjustments may be required if you're used to the Windows world only. But believe me, it pays off later.
Ubuntu, as most other distros featuring the Linux kernel, is loaded with drivers.
So, is it worth ditching XP Pro for it? It all depends on what you want to do. If you want to surf, read mail, do some programming and/or run a server, then Linux is your best choice. If you want to play games, then stick with Windows.
Linux can be extremly powerful, so watch your step. ;)
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I use also Ubuntu on a very old Laptop.
There was winxp befor it and with xp i could not even imagine me using some 3d applications with it like blender.
xp + blender was impossible to use.
Ubuntu + blender = perfect. Feels like i have a better graphics card even its only 8 mb :) and all other 3d stuff run much better and smoother than in xp.
big negative experince was that you have to install alot of stuff just to be able to watch dvd movies or listen mp3. Not impossible but consumes alot of nerves :)
uae works also perfect ( perfect = all i need works, the rest i dont know )
I say go for it, just takes a wile then iu wont even remember windows.
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Ubuntu these days comes on a live CD so you can test it out on your PC without having to install it first. This is a good way of checking hardware compatibility and to see if you like its features. If you are happy to use Ubuntu over Windows, the CD contains an installer to allow you to permanently install it to your hard drive.
The greatest determiner for switching to another OS is: 'Can it do the tasks you want it to do as well or better than the previous OS?'. What sort of things do you do on your PC? It may make a full switch turn out to be a negative experience if you find out something you do often is only able to be done with a program that's only available for Windows.
The Ubuntu installer allows for Windows and Ubuntu to share the same hard disk in what is called a 'Dual Boot' configuration. Many people set up their PC like this as they still need to access applications on Windows that are not avaiable on Ubuntu (ie. Games). This can be a good compromise if Windows apps are rarely used. Otherwise, another option is to use virtulization software such as VMWare to allow Windows to be 'hosted' within Ubuntu so the apps you need can be accessable. WINE (WINE Is Not an Emulator) is another way to run Windows apps under Ubuntu, though it can be hit or miss depending on the app.
If you haven't already, I suggest downloading the the latest Ubuntu CD from www.ubuntu.com and trying it.
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I run Kubuntu on my back up machine (debian 64 on my dual core AMD64)
Its bloody awesome. I wish I had installed it on the main machine instead of debian 64
For max usability stay away from the 64 bit version for now as flash hasn't been written for 64 bit yet.
btw..
K=ubuntu is kde
Ubuntu is Gnome
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Thanks all, thats very help full. :-)
Mike.
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The_Editor wrote:
K=ubuntu is kde
Ubuntu is Gnome
There's also Xubuntu which uses XFCE (a very lightweight and fast window manager).
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moto
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Unfortunately the last release of Ubuntu I tried failed to boot due to not recognising my SATA controller, so no Ubuntu for me on the short term :(.
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A friend told me about Ubuntu, but it was a few months ago when I finally had chance to get the LiveCD and give it a try myself.... I was totally impressed by it no doubt. The installing of software is easy, and pretty much anything I threw at it, it did without a struggle.
As said earlier, if you just want to surf the web, email, some word documents and music, then this would be perfect.
I am actually not that picky at games. Quake 1-3, Unreal Tournament 2003, and a few others make it work like a champion.
If you have a pretty beefy machine and want to run World of Warcraft, try and buy Cedega... The app to run many popular windows games in Linux. ;)
Yes as first its a pain to get it to play back DVDs and such since it doesnt install it all at first, but once you go through it, it is worth the experience.
Personally, Ubuntu is THE best distro for users who want to install linux and have it very usable.
Have fun! :)
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Well my system isnt that beefy, runnig Athlon 1.67 gig CPU, 512 DDR ram, 80gig HDD
But I reckon that should do it.
Mike. :-)
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It will definately run it.
I am getting ready to install it on my 1.2ghz athlon with 512mb of ram. I wont be running games on it unless they are simple like quake ;)
I would recommend having a spare 10gig drive at least if you want to just use it as your everyday machine, as that is even good, but also having your primary windows one with all your music/videos.
As far as emulators, im not sure how well they are.
Give the LiveCD and see how it goes. :-)
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If you're worried it won't be as responsive as you would like, you may want to consider Xubuntu as it doesn't include the overhead of the bulky Gnome or KDE desktop environments.
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moto
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Another thumbs up for Ubuntu from me too...
The combination of Ubuntu, OpenOffice, InkScape, The Gimp and Firefox immediately covers a huge area of computer uses.
Installation is: bung a CD in, reboot, follow simple prompts and then it's up and running.
The easiest way to get DVD playback, miscellaneous video/audio CODECs, Flash plugin, NVidia driver, etc, is to install Automatix. This requires the one-off editing of a text file and running of a couple of shell commands (the modified contents can be copied from the web browser window and pasted into the text editor and shell windows easily) and from there, it's all point and click. Information is here (http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Edgy#How_to_install_Automatix2_on_Ubuntu.2C_Kubuntu.2C_and_Xubuntu) and here (http://www.getautomatix.com/wiki/index.php?title=Automatix2_for_(K%2CX)Ubuntu_6.10_i386).
Have fun!
- Ali
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I tri-boot no problem with ubuntu (and windows 2000 + xp 64) I love it
:D
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motorollin wrote:
The_Editor wrote:
K=ubuntu is kde
Ubuntu is Gnome
There's also Xubuntu which uses XFCE (a very lightweight and fast window manager).
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moto
Which might I add - is awesome. Brings life to any 233mhz + x86 you have laying around. Try the LiveCD and see how it flies!
As far as Ubuntu:
I have it on my laptop dual boot. (Please defrag a few times before you re-partition for dual boot BTW)
An issue you will no doubt have to deal with if you install on a laptop is getting wireless-nic working. Chances are you will have to play with nswrapper but its not that bad and with a little mucking around you should get it working.
The Ubuntu forums/ community is great! You will get instant support through their forums.
DVD/Mp3 Codecs - Use EasyUbuntu, its an application that takes the work out of getting your Ubuntu box media-savy install and run and you should be all set. It automates the task and gets you up and running in no time.
Try it out!
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motorollin wrote:
If you're worried it won't be as responsive as you would like, you may want to consider Xubuntu as it doesn't include the overhead of the bulky Gnome or KDE desktop environments.
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moto
XFCE's savings are overstated. (http://ktown.kde.org/~seli/memory/desktop_benchmark.html)
This isn't to say that it's not nice software, but you're generally talking 16-32MB differences, the bulk of which may quickly end up swapped to disk and never see use. In turn, those megabytes of cruft in the 'larger' environments may actually contain features you care about (keyring management, background thumbnailer, beagle search daemon, etc), and the old XFCE file manager was decidedly *not* any faster than Nautilus on my dual P-II -- Thunar might show some improvement.
...
I guess it's 'lightweight' if you're 32MB or 50MHz short of being able to run Gnome comfortably, but (as demonstrated) OO.o's requirements are orders of magnitude 'even-worse,' but that's rarely the case -- either a system is too hopelessly slow or memory-crippled to run either one with comfort, or a system will run either well enough that it just comes down to taste.
...
Meanwhile, Ubuntu is great, but whoever manages their package repositories is taking their sweet time in producing any backports for the 'LTS' release, and 'Edgy' certainly had some warts and regressions that weren't smoothed out at release time for basic tasks like, um, running OO.o. On the whole, it's certainly a fine distro, but expect Debian-like lag on updates to 'stable' releases (apparently Debian's gotten 'even worse' in recent years...), and I wouldn't count on their release process smoothing out until X.org's does.
OS X isn't particularly better unless you're a developer craving some particular NeXT/post-NeXT feature, so consider that a point of comparison. Much like OS X, Gnome suffers from the occasional half-implemented or half-forgotten UI feature, but I see marked improvement with each release lately.
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To qualify my previous post...
Debaser wrote:
Which might I add - is awesome. Brings life to any 233mhz + x86 you have laying around. Try the LiveCD and see how it flies!
...The interface may fly (and, in fact, Gnome may or may not do half bad), but the minute you attempt Firefox or OO.o you'll discover why you won't be getting anything done on the hardware. With OASIS OpenDocument become a standard, you could use AbiWord if you just want to take notes, and maybe limit yourself to one window, no tabs, and no heavy Flash sites in the browser (or pretty much the same behavior with Opera), but that does effectively rule out a good chunk of activities.
The desktop environment is just not really likely to be the limiting factor here, since you're going to have an uphill battle watching YouTube on a P233 no matter what.
Oh, and UNIX's way of dealing with a true out-of-memory situation is to quietly kill off what may or may not be the offending process. (There are technical reasons for this, though implementing a mechanism to 'bless' the graphics server and a notification client might not be a bad idea.) If you find yourself starting some of today's mega-apps only to watch them disappear, this is why.
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Okay, last data point from me tonight -- on recent-vintage Sempron boxes for office usage, using Ubuntu's default Gnome environment and, notably, a 256MB VMWare VM for the legacy Windows image...
512MB RAM appeared livable, with modest grinding when loading OO.o. However, given memory leaks and all other contributing factors, after a month of uptime running a "standard" small-office stack (OO.o, a long-lived Firefox session averaging a dozen tabs, the Windows VMs) things would begin to get painful; specifically, trying to work on five or ten documents at once with OO.o would get even more painful.
Bringing the machines up to 1GB effectively eliminated the issues; any memory leaks don't outrace my haphazard patching schedules, and it's possible to juggle as many OO.o windows as one could want without getting into trouble.
This is, of course, a ridiculous amount of bloat (almost entirely on OO.o's part), but pragmatically, it lets work get done and leaves plenty of headroom, especially if one assumes OO.o will eventually see rounds of profiling and optimizing after the scramble for feature-completeness is over (in a decade, let's say; something similar happened to Mozilla).
In comparison, a PPC Mac Mini with an equal 1GB of RAM will still bog down when using NeoOffice from time to time... and you'll be wishing for far more than that if you get serious with Illustrator on that platform, these days.
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Floid wrote:
...you're going to have an uphill battle watching YouTube on a P233 no matter what.
Very true!
Then again, even with something as ancient as a Pentium 233, you could probably still just about get by with something like Deli Linux (http://delili.lens.hl-users.com/) or DSL (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/), provided the machine had enough RAM.
Or just junk the whole Linux idea and install AROS on it!!!
- Ali
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Floid wrote:
To qualify my previous post...
Debaser wrote:
Which might I add - is awesome. Brings life to any 233mhz + x86 you have laying around. Try the LiveCD and see how it flies!
...The interface may fly (and, in fact, Gnome may or may not do half bad), but the minute you attempt Firefox or OO.o you'll discover why you won't be getting anything done on the hardware. With OASIS OpenDocument become a standard, you could use AbiWord if you just want to take notes, and maybe limit yourself to one window, no tabs, and no heavy Flash sites in the browser (or pretty much the same behavior with Opera), but that does effectively rule out a good chunk of activities.
The desktop environment is just not really likely to be the limiting factor here, since you're going to have an uphill battle watching YouTube on a P233 no matter what.
Ok maybe I got a little out of hand on claims of performance. But if you have a 233 machine laying around - are you going to keep Windows 95 on the thing or Linux. Ok lets say PuppyLinux, DSL, or Xubuntu then... Linux still breathes life into the thing IMHO.
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Yep; I'd personally do OpenBSD or NetBSD for older hardware, but among Linux distros, most of those compact suggestions should be fine.
Just trying to put it in perspective -- 7 years ago, when I found I couldn't fit XFree86 + Netscape into 16MB RAM that probably would've supported OS/2 "just fine" (if with a good day's swapping to get anything done), that was rather disappointing.
However, once you realize X provides some services and security measures other GUI environments may not (and, of course, the option to use 7 competing widget libraries at once if your memory can hold them), it's less egregious.
Statements of "*NIX is great on older hardware!" should generally be amended with "...if you stick to the console and don't use any program popularized after 1998." ;) Of course, for use as a firewall or server you don't need a pretty display (on the same host).
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[I should actually amend the above... DX2-66 with 16MB, best to live with no GUI. P233 with at least 64MB, sure, at least with one of the compact distros.]
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Would Ubuntu run on a Peg 1 as well, or must I choose some other Linux distro.
I also would like to run Mac-on-Linux on my Peg 1, is this also possible?