Happy Linux User for 6 months, couple of questions.

I don't know if any of you remember me but I came here for my first help getting into Linux. I am currently running Ubuntu Feisty for the 6th month and I have loved Linux every second, so thank all of you for that.

I have a couple of questions with Gutsy about to be released.

First off (this one doesn't really have to to with Gutsy, just Linux in general), I just got a Ci75m Wireless Notebook Mouse by Kensington. I have never set up a mouse in Linux, it is just plug and play or do I have to do a lot of work here? Is this mouse even compatible? Any info on this would be great since I have never dealt with this before.

Secondly, I am excited for the Gutsy release as I am sure many are. Mostly because of the fact that a printer will automatically work after you plug it in since I have had some printer difficulties. But I just wanted to know if I will have any trouble upgrading since I have heard many horror stories of this. I have not done a whole lot to change my Feisty install other than install the restricted nVidia drivers and Beryl, so should I be ok for the upgrade? Or am I looking at a complete re-install.

Thanks for all of your help.

 

I'm a linux newbie but Ubuntu is awesome for hardware recognition so I would assume plug and play.

This link https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GutsyUpgrades should make it easy enough to upgrade but of course the best route is to do a fresh install. Fresh install wouldn't be too bad in your case though since it seems you don't have your entire life on the Ubuntu partition.

 

The mouse should just work. I have an MS wireless notebook mouse and it just worked when I plugged it in. Actually it works better in linux than it did in Vista... go figure.

Gutsy... OK, I love Ubuntu and I will be upgrading as soon as possible. They tend to get a lot of press about new releases, and a lot of hype too. The newest version isn't always the best (at least right away).

When I moved to Feisty I tried the upgrade path. That was a horrible failure, of course that was the first time that was an option. Even when I did a full install of Feisty I lost sound, my burner, and card reader. It took about a month before they were working again. Much of that was because of changes to the kernel, so not really Ubuntu's fault, but they didn't work.

You can try the upgrade path but I would also have a copy of the full install disk handy just in case. I would also make sure you back-up before you try either. Everything may work just fine, but with laptops I would count on something not being quite right day one.
You can look at that two ways:
1. Hold off for a couple weeks until the release has been out and others have had time to find and fix problems.
2. Go ahead, if something doesn't work it's a great learning opportunity.

Hope that helps. If you do install and do have problems don't forget to file the bugs on Launchpad. That helps everyone.

 

I hope that is not the case. ubuntu is built on top of debian which is designed to be a 'install once, upgrade many times" distro. I know people went through the potato->woody->sarge->etch cycle and many server installation also relies on this feature(How would you port configurations accumulated over time to a fresh install?).

If a fresh install is the recommended way for each new ubuntu, I would say it can be remained in the "not so serious" distro category.

 

You wouldn't need to do a fresh install for Ubuntu, as it is updated in the same manner as Debian is.

 

Well i upgraded to gutsy a couple of weeks ago, but encountered some problems, so i decided to make a fresh install and itś worth all the way: the driver for the wi-fi installed almost automatically (in feisty i spent a couple of hours looking for and installing it manually) and my HP multifunction printer was working just pluging it in. Sound and screen resolution were correct and working inmediately also (in feisty i had no sound for the first 3 3 days, and i almost went bold looking for a way to put the correct screen resolution). Also i have a wireless A4tech mouse working properly.

So my recomendation: backup the really important stuff, yor emails or whatever and do a fresh install, you won't be disspointed and you will not need your previous settings 'cause gutsy does almost everything for you.

PS: Notice that i did this when gutsy was still alpha, so you could try the upgrade after the official release when they've already fixed many bugs.

Sorry if my english is not very good, greetings from Venezuela!!

 

For mice. Well, most BIOS recognize 99.9% of usb mice now. Well, if they support mice. Nix has little issue of any flavor i should hope-long as it supports your usb ports.

Now, into the matter of upgrading. Ive used ubuntu(spesificaly kubuntu, but hey, im a lil kde fan) a bit, and gone through 4 upgrades.

Best idea usually... Have a "OS" partition. And don't install anything not easily reinstalled on it. You can then fresh install over this if you do it right... Without loosing most of your stuff.
I have manged to use the upgrade correctly a 2 of the 4 times, 1 more time was fairly simply salvaged... but it tends to be a bit... complantive at times through upgrades and can go wrong too many ways for my tastes.

Take it in mind, the system I was upgrading is ancient. (P3-800... and thats its mb's max...) Its chance of something going wrong is several times higher than most... but regardless, I ran into alot of people that had troubles post-upgrade with it... *sighs*


Now that said, you don't always need to upgrade the whole os. Often you can just update all ya junk... And you can always use this setup and upgrade-and then use it how I mentioned when something DOES go wrong eventualy. That works fine too. Its a nice setup though.

 

I was referring to mostly the /etc/ and /var/ directory, not /home. Even you backup them up, how are you going to merge the setting back as this is the place holding the various setting of packages ?

 

Alright, so general consensus seems to be that the mouse will work no problem and an upgrade can be hit or miss. My Feisty clean install was flawless, I was up and running in no time. If Gutsy does the same thing I might just do that. As for the things I want to save, I have a 20 GB FAT 32 partition for music and stuff, I should just be able to save most of the stuff I need to that and just save it back to the Linux partition. Obviously just doing an upgrade would be easier though. How do I go about downloading and burning the IMG of the OS in Linux (I did this in Windows last time).

 

I recommend you to download and install K3B, it's a very nice and complete burning software, I've already used it to burn some images I've been downloading (mandriva, suse, etc, just to try them out)and is perfect, it's the best burning tool i've seen so far for ubuntu.
And the process is te same as in windows, just download the image, open K3B and select image, a low speed and that's it.

 

Ok, thanks. One thing I forgot to mention. I use Grub boot-loader currently as I have a Vista Partition as well. Will an update mess this up? Will a clean install of Gutsy recognize Vista as well as Feisty did? Anyone in the same situation?

 

It should be just fine, provided you don't go out of your way to nuke the Vista partition when you do the installation.

 

If you didn't want to install from scratch, couldn't you do a dist-upgrade? I did that from edgy to feisty, and it worked out well.

 

Yeah I think that is the same as just upgrading through update manager.

One last question not exactly related but not worth making another thread. Anyone have an easy way to install DC++ for Linux? I found a tutorial on Ubuntu forums but it is from 2005 and is for Breezy. There is a new version of DCPP for Linux that recently came out. So i was wondering how I would go about installing this as I have never installed something in Linux that wasn't in the repos besides Beryl. There is a download button on the site but i know Linux isn't like windows where you just download and install. So yeah, I'm a noob and installs so help would be appreciated. Thanks.


Here is the link to the old installation guide: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=28378

Here is the link to the latest version of DCPP for Linux: http://www.getdeb.net/app.php?name=Linux+DC++

 

Ahhh good old getdeb.net. Installing anything from that site is usually a breeze because you are actually downloading deb packages. Just download the .deb file, right click and you should have an option to open with the package manager (or installer mabye, forgive me but i'm on my windows machine at work ) You will get a message on that window letting you know if all the dependencies have been met; if they have, you will get a button that says 'install.' Just click that button and the install will be taken care of for you. If you do not have all the dependencies, then it will usually tell you what packages are missing, if any. You should be able to find any missing packages through the synaptic package manager.

 

Alright perfect. Sounds easy enough. Now this version is for Feisty 32 bit (which is fine for now since its what I'm running, but will it be ok for Gutsy 32 bit as well?

Thanks.

 

So I downloaded the iso and have burned it and I hopped on the liveCD just now and definitely like it so far. Still wondering about the getdeb.net packages. There is no DC++ for linux for Gutsy, do you think the package for feisty would work or what? Thanks for all of the help.