Today’s xkcd was pretty awesome:
Some Tips from Experience When You're Getting Started on Ubuntu (or something similar)
With the release of Hardy Heron looming within the next two weeks, Wordy is getting set to give Ubuntu another go-’round, and I’ll be upgrading Michelle’s machine from Egdy Eft as well. Talking over some of his concerns and questions made me think of the stuff that I had issues with when I first moved over to Ubuntu. There are few things I wish I could have done differently from the beginning, and a few steps I took that I found really beneficial. Here are some words on those things.
* This is NOT yet another “howto” for installing Ubuntu, just some suggestions from a guy who was a total newb when he got started…
Don’t Jump In With Both Feet
When you download and then boot the Ubuntu installation CD, there is that option to very easily re-partition your harddrive and install Ubuntu along side your existing OS. If you’re planning to use both Windows and Ubuntu, this is the way to go.
However– when I was getting started, I often found myself getting frustrated with making something work in my new Linux system, and it would be late at night, and I was frustrated with scouring the forums (which are AWESOME, by the way, don’t get me wrong), and I would just say to myself, “Ah, I know how this works in Windows, I’ll just switch over and do it there.” And then sometimes it would be days or weeks that my Ubuntu system would lie dormant.
If you’re like me and you’re switching NOT just because you want to dump Microsoft, or NOT just because you don’t ever want to “upgrade” to Vista, but because you also enjoy the challenge of learning something new, and the fun of tinkering with your system, then what you should do is back up that Windows partition to another drive and do a standalone Ubuntu installation.
I have used SystemRescueCD and/or GParted for backing up partitions. GParted is a little more intuitive and straightforward for those of us accustomed to a GUI, but using the Partimage tool with SystemRescueCD is probably a little more robust and has some extra options. The reason is pretty clear if you look at the individual projects– GParted is a straight-up partition resizing and copying tool, whereas Partimage is for, well, creating an image. For a lot of people, the functionality and usefulness of either will be comparable. There’s a really good tutorial on using partimage with the SystemRescueCD in the Ubuntu forums. It’s a bit dated at this point, but the steps taken there still work fine.
Multiple Partitions are Your Friends
Speaking of partitions– one of the things about Linux that I have grown to love is /home. You set up your user profile, and by default all of your documents, program settings, desktop customizations, Firefox extensions, etc., all get put in /home/<username>. When you’re running an OS with a much more aggressive release schedule than Windows, it is madly convenient to have /home on its own partition, and the rest of the system on another one. It makes it a lot easier (and less risky) to upgrade to that bleeding-edge distro when you know that if you have to roll back, all your docs and settings are going to stay put. There is a method for moving /home to its own partition at a later time, but I really wish I would’ve started out on separate partitions, to avoid the (mild) headache.
BUT– Always-ALWAYS Back-up!
Keep in mind– I still strongly recommend doing a complete backup when you’re going to upgrade. Particularly after a while when you have a lot of customizations or you’ve installed a lot of packages in addition to the standard install, there could be some bumps with a new distro. Just a couple weeks ago, I tried installing the Hardy Heron beta, and a few devices stopped working on me. Fortunately, I just had to roll back to the backup I had done.
A good backup schedule is something that you (ideally) should have in place regardless of whether you’re running Linux, Windows, or Mac, because you never know when something nasty is going to happen (the Case Fire of 2002 is a great example; click the link, then push Ctrl-End). I’ve found this to be particularly true with Ubuntu, though, if for no other reason than I “mess around” with it a lot more.
It’s Important to Know the Command Line, But It’s OK to Take it Slow
I should take this opportunity to mention that the public forums on Ubuntu are wonderfully helpful, the people are generous easy to understand, and I have not yet run into a roadblock that didn’t have a solution (eventually). I also found a ton of good information early on at ubuntuguide.org.
Something that you’ll see a lot of in both places, though, is help offered by means of “open up a Terminal and type such-and-such.” You definitely need to be careful about just pasting and executing whatever commands people tell you, because there are people out there just trying to be dicks by having you run malicious commands that mess up your system. The forums are very well moderated, though, and I’d say they catch the overwhelming majority of the assholes. That said, you DO have to be careful.
The thing that trips you up the most when you’re coming over from a GUI-based environment is the syntax of doing things on the command line. “sudo dpkg -x mplayer32_20070130-1_amd64.deb ./” just doesn’t mean much to the average end-user. I was not comfortable at all with the command line when I got started (something like 18 months ago now). Since then, I have gotten to the point of “somewhat-comfortable-with-basic-things”. I still need good references for individual operations, but I keep a reference sheet with common Unix commands pasted to the wall by my desk. As time goes on, and I keep copy-paste’ing all those commands, the function of each starts to sink in and I have even (GASP!) had a couple occasions where I said to myself, “Why am I dicking around with this? It would be easier from the command line…” If you’re a bit more conscientious of what these commands are doing, the fog is going to lift. In the short term, bookmark the forums and read thoroughly when you have to go and find help.
Tomorrow, I’ll have some things to say about software alternatives in Ubuntu, and a few additional packages that I’m really glad I installed.
Gimme the News
Had a productive weekend of “getting some shit together.” There was Joe’s help w/ the mail server, some general household sorta crap on Saturday, and oil-changing, computer-fixing, furnace-repairing, condo-cleaning action on Sunday. Michelle and I even got to go out on a date on Saturday evening.
Decided I would try to keep it going today, so I was looking around my insurance carrier’s website at lunch for doctors and whatnot. I found a dentist pretty quickly (he’s only a couple blocks from my house, but of course that’ll change come July 1), and I have it narrowed down to three doctors. As I was sharing with Wordy, my criteria for selecting a primary care physician are as follows:
- Geography– someplace close to work or home, in a hospital (not a strip mall)
- Sound of name– whose name do I like the best?
So, yeah. I have Jack Kaufman, Geoffrey Lamb, or Theodore MacKinney. I like #’s 1 and 3 the best. I’m partial to Jack, though, probably because of Alias and LOST. Which I understand is absolutely ridiculous, but I’m just being honest.
The dentist I picked is named Barry. That also sounds like the name of a dentist to me.
A Very Special "This American Life"
I haven’t been able to listen to the show as regularly since I live in Milwaukee and don’t have a 90-minute drive a few times a week. But I digress.
The episode from March 28 was called, “The Audacity of Government.” What it dealt with most of all is the way that the Bush Administration has very shrewdly, very carefully, and very frighteningly reinterpreted the way that executive power can be used in the United States and how and when the Constitution applies to the president. These are issues that are easy to overlook if you’re not directly affected by them, but they do cut to the core of what sort of democracy we want to have (and what sort President Bush has set the precedent for us to have). In my mind, this is something that should be central to the current presidential campaign, because of some of the power seized by Bush isn’t returned immediately, it’s never going back, and the way that we govern ourselves will have been fundamentally changed.
Anyway, I get my TAL via podcast, but for now, you’ll need to stream this episode over the web. I HIGHLY reccommend doing so. This was one of the best ones I’ve ever heard.
ESPN is saying John Hammond as new Bucks GM
Took a little break for lunch, and lookie what we have here. Hammond is the #1 assistant to GM Joe Dumars in Detroit. I think this will be a good hire, if it goes through. That’s only half the battle, though, as Milwaukee also needs a coach that actually knows how to (A) get through to players and (B) win in the NBA.
Don’t hold your breath, but this is definitely the most exciting day for the Bucks since Game 7 of Conference Finals in 2001.
Working On a Coupla TwoThree Things
I had a breakthrough yesterday in realizing that I was sending posts via email is not that difficult. I was just not completing the process. I can now pull in those emails pretty quickly.
The ones that I’ve grabbed, though, don’t seem to display correctly once they’re here. I get titles that reflect the subject line, but the body itself is always empty. I’m going to head out to the forums next to take a look at that.
Why I am blogging at 12:40am, you ask? Just couldn’t get to sleep. I was lying awake in bed about an hour before I decided that I would grab the laptop and see if that would make me tired. It only seems to have made me thirsty, which doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Well… Schlemiel, Schlimazel.
Picked up an article from the Journal-Sentinel yesterday about how Schlitz is going back to the original formula, in bottles only.
A little excerpt from that article:
Despite the renewed focus on aging boomers, Schlitz might also find new fans among drinkers in their 20s, Schumacher said. He cited Pabst Blue Ribbon, another old-time brand that has enjoyed a revival in recent years from young drinkers drawn by its retro appeal – and lack of a big ad campaign.
“They might get some young hipsters” to drink Schlitz, Schumacher said, “just because of the irony of it.”
No, they “might” not– I GUARANTEE you that’s what will happen.
Dorks In Short Supply
You know you’re living a sad little dork-life when you make exceptionally dorky jokes to yourself, like this one:
Uncharacteristically thick envelope that you’re not expecting shows up on your desk while you’re out to lunch. You pick it up, look at it, and say to yourself, “Venice, Italy.”
Lucky for me, though, I have the blog.
Still More Room to Get Crazier
Latest word from the Energy Information Administration is that gas will peak around $3.60 in June. As the linked article mentions, there are plenty of folks who think it’s looney to imagine the price will stop there.
This, combined with the spiraling cost of… well, everything, further galvanizes my mindset to be “I’ve got to get rid of this petrol-guzzling monstrosity ASAP.” Now, those of you who’ve seen what I drive may think that I’M nuts, but remember that I drove the Festiva for all those years, and I was spoiled by its fantastic fuel economy.
I’ve mentioned to a number of people that I’ve read rumors about a Honda subcompact hybrid that is apparently still in the cards for the 2009 model year. Granted, I don’t really follow the “news” about the auto industry that closely, but until I see a picture and a photo and a MSRP for this vehicle I’m not going to bank on it. Something priced in the range they’re talking about got me to thinking about a math problem, though– feel free to take a stab at your leisure:
If I were to buy a new car that averaged 60 miles per gallon (versus my current average of 30) at a net cost of about $5,000.00, how long would it take the savings in fuel to offset the purchase price, if I drive the car 15,000 miles a year?
So that’s something I’ve got on the brain.
A Few Tasty Links to Start the Week
Kyle used the Internet to fix his furnace. I think that’s pretty rad.
According to Lifehacker, there are a lot of good things to look forward to with Firefox 3.
McSweeney’s has a pretty humorous feature about Hillary Clinton’s days as the First Lady, written by Nick Ripatrazone.