Messing around with Ubuntu on the laptop

[Sir Psyko]

I figure it's a good a time as any to spend messing with Ubuntu, learning a bit more about Linux (and hating root access already). So I backed up the XP Pro install to the original HD and installed 10.04 onto the 64GB SSD of my Thinkpad. I was surprised how smooth it all went, and even things that I didn't think would work do without requiring anything from me. The backup and install combined were about an hour. Finding the "trick" to make my TrackPoint middle button enable scroll took about an hour and then I went to sleep. As far as I can tell, everything else is working perfectly hardware-wise, even the Hotkeys that Windows requires a driver to recognize are all functioning. Pretty slick really.

This morning I ran all the updates (250-ish) and have installed the Firefox plugins I use, VLC Media Player (which I've been using on Win7 anyway lately), Wine, GIMP, the full OpenOffice Suite (only a few parts are included), FileZilla, Kiso (an ISO manager), a PDF reader... basically just scanned the Canonical Software manager for stuff I'd need. I'm thinking about installing XAMPP so I can mess with website stuff (PHP, MySQL, Apache, etc) without actually needing a website, but that's just something I've been thinking about doing anyway.

Anyone else have a Linux box that can suggest some software that I "must get" ? Looking for a utility similar to Daemon Tools right now as I have lots and lots of Isos that I just mount and play.

Really the only thing that's taking some getting used to is the minimize/maximize/close buttons being on the left and not the right. And the fonts are different, but I think they're more readable...

[Bulwark]

It's been several years since I was running a 'nix box. After having it set for dual boot for about 6 months I removed it. I didn't really see much advantage it had for me over windows.
That being said, I'm glad you got most of your hardware up and running with it. That seems the be the barrier for most people.
As for useful software, get grep

[Vespasian]

I hear windows 7 is pretty good.

[Sir Psyko]

I actually ran the various Betas and RC1 of Win7 on the laptop for about a year before it launched. I rolled back to XP Pro since I could only afford one copy and that went to the desktop. I figure by the time I get Win7 for the laptop it'll just come with a new laptop. The desktop loves it, but I've got a Q9550 (2.83Ghz and 12MB cache) and 8GB CL5 DDR2.

Interesting... Grep has a Windows version too... I can see it being handy editing phpBB files.

I put it on the laptop because I can't game on it (SimCity4, RoN, AoE/AoM run but that's about as recent as it'll allow on the 9xx chipset) and it's got 4GB RAM and the SSD. So far it's extremely fast, though I think it may boot faster than resume from hibernation.

[Sir Psyko]

XAMPP is installed and configured. I've also got phpBB3 running on the laptop now too. Joomla is next (I think)

File permissions in the root folders is a pain in the ass, I spend a LOT more time in Terminal than I though I would, but being used to DOS/CMD windows in Windows it's not that bad... just learning the different commands (like rm instead of del).

[Sir Psyko]

Joomla's not cooperating so I went back to messing with phpBB. It's kind of nice to be able to edit templates without having to upload anything. I think I'll work on modifying some templates for Jedi/Sith themes.

Maybe I can use this time productively enough to get a web design job.


EDIT: Joomla now installed. There was an issue with the error reporting in the php.ini file that was causing the problems. Known issue, just not a well explained answer... delete the word STRICT from the .ini file under error reporting and viola! Apparently it's a local-install issue that doesn't happen on remote installs.