Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ipex)

democrates · 25-11-2008 03:14AM

Macros42 wrote: »

The problem with the nvidia drivers is that they are proprietary. Ubuntu includes them but you have to activate them. It's part of the philosophy of open source - if you want to go closed source then you have to choose to do so. Personally I think they should activate them by default. Ubuntu is the newbie distro tbh (not an insult - I use Ubuntu) and if they want to make it easy for newbies then they have to get over this hump. IMO there's a difference between not installing proprietary software and not installing proprietary drivers.

+1, you've got to wonder how many first-timers quit because things didn't work and they didn't know how to get them working.

Even for those who have the experience to find answers online, the default of "sort it yourself" is a damned annoying inconvenience, I'd rather check a box once taking responsibility for non-free drivers and have a "just works" experience.

I shudder to think how many man-hours this lunacy is costing human civilisation :eek:.

thusspakeblixa · 06-12-2008 12:59PM

I've just installed Ubuntu 8.10 to replace Vista on my laptop, I have to say I'm really really enjoying it!

An Fear Aniar · 06-12-2008 02:49PM

thusspakeblixa wrote: »

I've just installed Ubuntu 8.10 to replace Vista on my laptop, I have to say I'm really really enjoying it!

Everything working right out of the box? If so, tell us what hardware you have. People often ask on the Ubuntu forums what laptop they would recommend to run ubuntu on.

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thusspakeblixa · 06-12-2008 05:37PM

An Fear Aniar wrote: »

Everything working right out of the box? If so, tell us what hardware you have. People often ask on the Ubuntu forums what laptop they would recommend to run ubuntu on.

.

Well I have a HP laptop, have to check what model actually

How do I get system info. on Ubuntu?
Everything's going really well so far, I was a bit worried at first that it might be too different but everything on Ubuntu is really intuitive.
One question though- I can't download RealPlayer- It downloads an installer onto the desktop but then I can't open it...

Orion · 06-12-2008 05:52PM

sudo apt-get install realplayer

Orion · 06-12-2008 05:54PM

You should also do

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

That'll install all media codecs, flash, fonts and java for you.

thusspakeblixa · 06-12-2008 09:55PM

Thanks guys,
My laptop is a HP Pavilion by the way, 120gb hard-drive.
I'm running Ubuntu alone now because I didn't have enough space partitioned

thusspakeblixa · 07-12-2008 02:46AM

Macros42 wrote: »
sudo apt-get install realplayer

When I type in this command it says "couldn't find package realplayer"

Orion · 07-12-2008 03:06AM

my bad - that's an old thing.
Option 1: Go to http://www.real.com/linux and grab the deb package. Open it with Synaptic and install it. But bear in mind it's based on the Helix player so ...
Option 2: install the Helix Player instead - "sudo apt-get install helix-player". Best of both worlds - full Real support and Open Source.

Here's a good site for a decent setup.

[edit]Gotta ask - why do you need Real Player? I've been using Linux for nearly 2 years now and haven't install Real or a clone at all - no need whatsoever.

An Fear Aniar · 07-12-2008 03:31AM

Macros42 wrote: »

[edit]Gotta ask - why do you need Real Player? I've been using Linux for nearly 2 years now and haven't install Real or a clone at all - no need whatsoever.

I've used it for the SMIL files on RTE. That's the only reason I've installed it. Been trying to watch the car-crash TV that is Pat Kenny but it seems I have to be within the Irish territory to view it.

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Orion · 07-12-2008 03:46AM

yet another good reason not to install it

imo you shouldn't install real or helix just to watch RTE - you should instead write to RTE insisting that they provide media to a license payer that doesn't involve installing proprietary software. (yes I know Helis is OS and the OP is an expat - but they don't need to know that.

)

thusspakeblixa · 07-12-2008 01:49PM

Macros42 wrote: »

yet another good reason not to install it

imo you shouldn't install real or helix just to watch RTE - you should instead write to RTE insisting that they provide media to a license payer that doesn't involve installing proprietary software. (yes I know Helis is OS and the OP is an expat - but they don't need to know that. )

Yeah I was going to install it for RTE mainly...
If Helix is OS and does the same job as real then I may just install that

Gonzovision · 08-12-2008 07:47PM

I've been running this for the last week on my primary pc for the last week. After weeks of dipping in and out of different distros in virtual box I decided to go for Ubuntu. I can finally get Compiz to work. Very pleased so far.Anything I wanted to do worked fine with a bit of googling. I haven't tried any games so far but Ive always got xp anyway.

Orion · 08-12-2008 07:52PM

I've had issues with Compiz on Intrepid. CPU overloading issues on basic things like file copying and browsing at the same time. Machine has hung for a few seconds. So I've turned off all Desktop effects on both my lappy and desktop. TBH I'm not arsed with desktop effects anyway.

Gonzovision · 08-12-2008 10:11PM

tbh honest I haven't noticed my pc hanging at all with any of the desktop effects enabled through compiz. Everythings smooth so far.

Stephen · 14-12-2008 03:19PM

Intrepid broke my wifi

I'm running it on a 3-year-old laptop with a common-as-muck Intel Centrino chipset, which includes an Intel 2915ABG wireless NIC. It worked flawlessly in 8.04 but since upgrading to 8.10 the wireless connection will disconnect after transferring a couple of hundred megabytes over it, and will then prompt for my WPA2 key. It doesn't matter what I enter as the key it will never accept it until I reboot the machine. Poo to that. There's a few threads on the ubuntu forums from people with the same problem and no resolution that I can see yet.

An Fear Aniar · 14-12-2008 07:09PM

Stephen wrote: »

Intrepid broke my wifi
I'm running it on a 3-year-old laptop with a common-as-muck Intel Centrino chipset, which includes an Intel 2915ABG wireless NIC. It worked flawlessly in 8.04 but since upgrading to 8.10 the wireless connection will disconnect after transferring a couple of hundred megabytes over it, and will then prompt for my WPA2 key. It doesn't matter what I enter as the key it will never accept it until I reboot the machine. Poo to that. There's a few threads on the ubuntu forums from people with the same problem and no resolution that I can see yet.

Can you install the older network manager? Or try wicd?

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14-12-2008 08:35PM

Upgraded there the other day, all great apart from:

nothing works on battery power, can't do anything bar move the mouse
bluetooth wont connect (not too concerned about that really)

any advice?

Kinetic^ · 15-12-2008 07:51PM

Going to install this later tonight, hopefully the nvidia drivers work well.

thusspakeblixa · 15-12-2008 09:27PM

Why is my laptop battery ridiculously crap on Ubuntu?
We're talking less than 20 minutes fully charged :mad:

Stephen · 16-12-2008 02:05PM

My Eee PC gets about 4 hours on Ubuntu... it gets 7 on Windows

democrates · 16-12-2008 03:48PM

Looks like Ubuntu does not maximise battery life by default so you're into tweak city.

For starters in power management preferences there are settings for when to dim the display, blank the screen, hibernate and sleep, but you've probably tried that already. To eeek more you could install powertop, it'll scan and report problems and suggest changes which you can accept. hth.

LuisMCSCVC · 13-01-2009 01:27AM

I like the new version. It loads much faster than the previous one.!

Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ipex)

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