Simple list of things to do after a Ubuntu fresh intall

Beryl in action

After about 3 years of using various versions of Ubuntu, I have more or less come up with a gameplan following each fresh install of our favorite friendly neighborhood linux distro. I was bugged for the longest time that I could not get Beryl to run in Edgy Eft (version 6.10 for the uninitiated). I did it with the previous Dapper Drake and knew that my PC could handle it and handle it well. The various threads I found in the Ubuntu forums only made me more confused. Being a lazy Saturday I decided to do a clean install and perhaps finally get to enjoy all the eye candy that Beryl promises. Which brings us nicely to the point of this post. Many newbies to linux or Ubuntu will be largely underwhelmed when first confronted with the far from beautiful brown desktop. Worse still is the fact that the thing is mute and blind too. Due to fear of copyright infringement, Ubuntu has no multimedia capabilities out of the box. This does not mean it can't be done. You just need some simple tweaks.

1. Upgrade the OS - as soon as you log into the desktop an icon on the top panel will inform you that there are upgrades available. Click on it and follow the resultant instructions. A broadband connection to the internet is essential.

2. Multimedia - Being a lazy ass, I decided to give the much touted Automatix a spin this time around and it did not disappoint. Before long Morrissey was singing from within my PC.

3. Graphics card driver - I found this automated script recently and it worked like clockwork. You will need the latest driver for Beryl to work.

4. Beryl - Finally. The best tutorial I have found so far is this one here. Everything but the kitchen sink can be found here. Scroll down to the section on "Eye Candy" and go crazy!

5. Should things not work out do not despair. Hop over to the friendly watering hole that is the Ubuntu forums and you will find people who will go out of their way to help you out.

That's all you need to end up with a dancing, singing Ubuntu desktop environment.

Disclaimer : These things worked for me in version 6.10 codenamed Edgy Eft

ubuntu edgy eft - another review

ok i know it has been roughly one and a half months since the release of ubuntu 6.10 codenamed edgy eft but better late then never. after lurking around the ubuntu forums for the past few weeks and coming across horror stories about installation and inexplicable bugs, i finally decided to see for myself if it could be that bad. on the contrary i found it very stable and slightly faster then my previous install of version 6.06 codenamed dapper drake.

the install itself was smooth as butter. slipped in the cd of the iso and booted into the familiar sea of brown. a minor grouse i know but i wish that the powers that be would change the default background after all this time. making sure that my internet connection was detected by firing up firefox 2.0, i clicked on the install icon and away i went. the options by now are like second nature to me seeing that i have in total installed 3 different versions of ubuntu.

rebooting into the installed os was speedier compared to the previous versions. i have come to expect all multimedia to be crippled with a clean install and they did not disappoint as far as this disappointment was concerned. for any newbie reading this though; do not despair. diving into the rich resource that is the ubuntu web forums, i configured the synaptic package manager to include some proprietary repositories and before you can say 'slap me silly on my behind' i have downloaded all the necessary codecs. minutes later various family members were seen running and screaming out of the house with heavy metal music streaming behind them.

downloading some cool wallpaper from www.deviantart.com, i ended up with the look at the start of this post. the bar at the bottom comes with the package gdesklets and it behaves like the famous mac os x dock. you can also run various widget-like menus with gdesklets which you will notice on the upper right hand corner of the screen. sort of like a konfabulator for linux.

over all it feels very stable and just right. firefox is blazingly fast during net-surfing and after installing the flash player and mplayer plugin, i have yet to come across a media-enriched website that it cannot support it. playing all those movie trailers on the apple website is a cinch.

ubuntu has consistently been topping the list of popular distro on www.distrowatch.com. its there for a reason and edgy eft has proved it yet again.

ubuntu - the satanic version

as a response to the squeaky clean christian edition of the popular linux distro, get ready for some satan worship! get it here.

linux - my os of choice

over the past few years i can proudly say that i have tried quite a few linux distribution (or distros for short) and i find that they are generally more sophisticated than windows. also nothing beats something which is free and infinitely configurable. virus and adwares? what are those?

if you talk to any diehard windows users about linux the first thing they think about is an ugly text-based interface where obscure commmand lines are typed in at prompt signs. that may have been true 10 years ago but now some linux distros trump even mac os x in the looks department. everything can be done by pointing and clicking on beautiful graphical interfaces. throw in windows managers like beryl or compiz and you end up with a hippie's lysergic-laced wet dream.

having said that i can understand why some people run screaming away from it after a few days of tinkering. and there lies the crux of the matter. you have to be a great tinkerer. you must relish spending hours setting up restricted formats like mp3s and videos files to get everything the way you like it. be prepared to type or cut 'n paste obscure text commands into the terminal. there are tons of howtos, wiki and forums to wade through on the web for each distro. if you just want things to work right out of the box or if you have a dateline to meet, you are best off sticking with windows or better still mac os x but once in the while you just have to take that leap of faith. that last bit is an euphemism for having more time than what is considered normal by the general public.

from the get go you are expected to install the os on your own. how many people actually do that with windows? discounting all the geeks, this is virtually unheard of. there are partitions to be created or formatted. you have to choose between grub and lilo bootloaders (little scripts that are installed on the very first bit of your hard drive so that the os can be booted into on startup). the jargon used during this process may be daunting at first but most of the time it is pretty self explanatory. over the years the programmers have simplified the process even more with the aim that one day even your grandmother can install the os.

after rebooting into your brand new spanking desktop you will find that you are pretty crippled as far as multimedia is concerned. there is a valid reason for this. mp3, avi, mpg, wmv etc. are all proprietary formats and in order to avoid copyright issues they are turned off by default. this does not mean that they will not work in linux. you just have to sweat for it. this is the first crossroad that will differentiate the geeks from the non-geeks. the latter will just throw their arms into the air, delete the linux partition and crawl back to bill gates who will mock you and throw more security holes at you for daring to question his authority.

the geek will immediately fire up firefox and google up the web forums for their particular distro and after a few quick questions, be on their way to tricking out their os. before long you will have a singing and dancing desktop with some cool eyecandy (ie beryl or compiz windows manager) thrown in for good measure.

a common question that windows users ask me is about compatible software applications. for every windows program, there is a 99% chance that it has a linux equivalent. the caveat is that the software is usually organised into repositories, which as the name suggests, are directories of applications or in unix-speak 'packages'. the directories are hosted on servers all over the world and in order to get to them, most distros come with an inbuilt package manager. these are used to not only download packages from the servers but also to install them.

the linux community is born out of a spirit of sharing. right from the programmers to the end-users, every shred of knowledge and knowhow is shared with no fiscal aspirations whatsoever. any question posed in the forums are usually guaranteed a quick and accurate reponse. the community has only one aim and that is ensure that linux is used and enjoyed by as big a global population as possible. there are no leaders or followers. as long as you have something meaningful to contribute to the linux world, the sky's the limit. already whispers and predictions abound that 2007 may be the year that linux finally breaks through and give microsoft a run for its money. the beauty of this is that for linux there is no money involved!