I'm Windows free for 60 days, oops, make that 7 months

[Bill Terry]

Thanks for the info to all.

Jonathan, this is a dual boot install, but sometimes I only need Windows for one thing, and then just for a couple of minutes, so the convenience of a Windows VM is nice (booting Windows is a real PIA). As it's turned out, I haven't really needed Windows for anything other than IE, as my company uses Outlook and a webmail tool, and IE gives me a better 'interface' into the remote Outlook mail client (or whatever it is) than Firefox. I usually run the Windows VM for just long enough to do that and then close it, so really no huge conflict of resources I don't think.

Steve, agreed, I'm actually fairly comfortable with the command line interface. I worked in a Unix enviroment for several years (not recently) and was pretty fair at shell scripting, enviroment configs, etc.. I think that's really the big problem for a lot of folks with Linux, as you say you really need to get comfortable with doing things that customize the environment to what you want, and not all of it is as obvious as clicking a box in a GUI. As far as Google, absolutely, that's been my main info resource, there is a ton of useful info. I've already visited several of the links you mentioned.

John, I haven't revisited the CD problem yet, as I haven't needed it for the reasons above. I just don't spend that much time in Windows anymore. I may investigate just out of curiosity, but I did notice if I don't actually use the CD reader in the VM, there is no problem when I close it and go back to Ubuntu.

I'm having a blast.. and it feels SO good to be Microsoft-free (as much as possible).

[Steve Norman]

you probably just have to remount the cd drive after closing vm down. I would imagine vm unmounts and remounts it as a windows device.

something like

Code: Select all

sudo mount /dev/whatever_your_cdrom_is_named /media/cdrom

Id check in your /etc/fstab for an entry, or use

Code: Select all

sudo lshw -C disk

to find the logical name and replace "whatever_your_cdrom_is_named" with that for your mount command

does it come back online after a reboot?

Thats how I got into linux as well, worked for an oceanography group that used unix with no gui. I realized how much more stable unix was and ave been hooked since. I use crunchbang now, its built on the ubuntu minimal install, way less of a resource hog.[/code]

[Bill Terry]

Still digging it.. had Firefox hang the other day, first real 'incident' since the swap over from Windows. I ended up opening a terminal to list all processes and then 'kill' to stop firefox. Restarted Firefox and all is good.

I'm beginning to remember why I liked working on the Unix boxes back in the day. I've ported a bunch of shell scripts that I'd kept for certain things I did often. And there is something appealing to me about the elegant (albeit cryptic at times) command line in a terminal window.

I was reminiscing and thought about vi.. surely that user-hostile application is long gone??? Wrong.... there it was wow...

[Steve Norman]

there is vim now, slightly improved vi. When I was first introduced to unix I was working on a box that pretty much only let me use vi. I actually punched my head really hard out of frustration using it. Vi is the definition of non intuitive commands.

[Bill Terry]

Hi Steve,
Yeah, that's what popped up.. VIM.. It still seemed like some sort of 'test' to use it. I remember the first time I started vi, I was thinking I was going to have to reboot to get out before I finally figured it out..

Strangely enough, I know a couple of hard core guys that still use it for quick script editing, etc. sheesh..

I haven't decided if the Linux thing is really that good (it seems to be) or if I'm just reveling in the fact that I'm giving Mr. Gates the virtual finger.. LOL..

[Cal Sharp]

Stephen Fry (Bones, Jeeves & Wooster, A Bit of Fry & Laurie) is really into the Linux/GNU thing.
http://www.gnu.org/fry/

[John Cipriano]

Ha! I had forgotten about that. I don't really need anymore reasons to love that guy.

[Steve Norman]

linux is as good as you make it. Windows is as good as your patience, and mac is as good as your budget,

[Bill Terry]

I just got the first 'scheduled' update notice for Ubuntu (10.04) since my initial install so I went ahead and installed/upgraded. It went smoothly with no hitches and all my preferences and configurations were retained. Not sure what this new release brings to the party, but unlike Windows upgrades, I wasn't too afraid of unpleasant 'surprises'.

I can't even remember the last time I used Windows on this box.

[John Swindle]

Those scheduled updates happen every few days. It's a good idea to let your system go ahead and do the updates. People who don't will have a lot of catching up to do when it's time to upgrade to the next version - which will be in October.

I'm always glad to read about new Ubuntu users. I've been using Linux since '97, and Ubuntu since '07. Sometimes, it's hard to avoid proselytizing. Especially when people complain about their Microsoft and Apple problems.

With your past Unix experience, you may want to try something more hardcore some day. There's plenty of free-and-open stuff out there beyond Ubuntu. Congrats!

[Bill Terry]

Hi John, yeah I've been getting those updates every few days, but this was apparently a major release, which involved pretty much a full reinstall. To be honest, I haven't seen much difference although the UI has some slightly different colors and appearance.

That seems to be the Ubuntu philosophy, they're slightly slower to pickup the new updates, but generally a little more stable than some of the other Linux releases.

I just keep smiling..

[Cal Sharp]

I've tried updating my 10.04 several times and always get a not found error for 3 Firefox security updates and xulrunner, which seems to be another Mozilla thing.