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[LUG] Ubuntu Fiesty Fawn

 

I don't know why, but I recently got restless and
decided to change my distro.  Since I haven't posted
in a while, I'll give a bit of background:

*First failed attempt:*
Debian GNU/Linux Woody.  Failed to get graphics driver
to work.

*First Distro:*
Mandrake (can't remember which version).
I liked it, but didn't manage to set it up as well as
I'd have liked.

*Second Distro:*
SuSE. (again, no idea of version).
Success, even got my girlfriend at the time (a
technophobe) to use it instead of windows for
everything except playing worms (the only game she
played).

*Third Distro:*
Debian GNU/Linux Sarge.
Old SuSE PC was left with old girlfriend.

Had some problems with sound at first, but thanks
to help on this list I got it to work.  Slowly
learned my way around command line.  Now when I
am in work and have to use a dos prompt, I often
find myself typing ls backspace backspace dir!
This distro served me well for what must be over
two years?  Main programs used KDE desktop (I
kind of prefered GNOME in many ways, but had
problems getting kmail to work unless I used KDE),
kmail, konqueror, firefox, kate, kedit, gimp,
kooka.  Had problems getting mike to work for
skype, although earphones worked fine.  Mike
volume seemed greyed out in master volume
controls.

*LATEST DISTRO*
Ubuntu Fiesty Fawn.
Backed up important files and installed it over
the old debian instalation.  Not necessarilly
planning to stay with Ubuntu but thought I'd take
a look because I felt like it.

Impressed.  Installation was simpler than installing
most windows applications, only thing that would
through a non-techie would be the drive formatting
bit, but I'm guessing that only a techie would attempt
to create a dual boot system anyway, so a non techie
would probably just stick with the default options.

Sound worked straight off too. Didn't like Evolution
much.  Replaced it with Thunderbird.  Managed to
configure Thunderbird the way I like email progs set
up (like kmail).

I used to use konqueror for ftp.  I now use the
FireFTP plugin for FireFox.  Far superior anyway.
I used to use kate to edit php pages.  After
experimenting with screem, gphpedit and gedit,
I have found that gedit is by far my favourite.

GIMP preinstalled.

Oh, and I bought a LAN HDD to facilitate the
sharing of files between winxp, linux and the
apple laptop I plan to buy.  Setting up the
smb shares in nautilus was a simple matter.
I should probably set up a script to mount
them so they are accessible from the command
line and in applications, but I haven't got
around to that yet.  Still, it doesn't worry
me.

I'll probably stay with this distro for now.
It meets my needs in a rather unobtrusive
way, and I have adapted to using GNOME apps
pretty well.

Anton

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