Kubuntu 11.04

I'm running this distro on my Vostro V13 with a Celeron ULV and this OS is buttery smooth. In fact it's the first Kubuntu release that didn't crash and burn.

A few questions for you experts.

1) Is there an Intel driver for my 4500MHD integrated graphics card?

2) I have a built in webcam how can I find out if it's working or the driver is intalled?

 

What's up with your intel gfx? I have that chip in my u20a - intel is pretty much plug and play on any distro.

Most webcams use uvcvideo ( lsmod | grep uvcvideo to see if it's loaded, and see if it's even detected with dmesg | grep -i uvc) - try running cheese webcam booth to see if it's working.

 

No problems kitty cat, just wasn't sure if it was plug and play until you answered it.

 

AYG I visited your site. http://allurgroceries.com/dpkgcleanup.html Does this apply to Kubuntu as well?

 

Yes, it works for any deb-based system, just be careful.

To be safe run this to check what will be purged:

Code:

dpkg --get-selections | grep deinstall | less

Equally true for using --purge on autoremove, just look over the list and make sure you aren't going to totally break things with what's being removed. It's generally safe, but things can get weird depending on your 3rd party repos etc.

 

Cool, i'll run it later then i'll post it so you can give the thumbs up or down.

So, first I run that, then is it ok to run things in order from your list?

 

If something's labeled deinstall it is almost always safe to remove.

You can really get into trouble with apt-get --purge autoremove if your dependencies are silently broken - if you're unsure just don't do it, or at least save the output of the terminal to a text file for later reference so that you can reinstall anything you need.

 

Hey fellas I was noticing that Mint comes with a built in Firewall and unless i'm missing something Kubuntu does not. Should I install one like KMYFirewall?

Also while this has been beat to death should I consider something like KlamAV for an extra layer of protection?

 

I'd go with gufw personally. (It's a dead-simple frontend for ufw, which is itself a wrapper for iptables.)

IIRC there's a package for it in the main Ubuntu repos.

 

Thanks Rob i'll check later. The only thing I saw in Kubuntu was Firestarter which didn't look too bad. IIRC isn't GUFW part of Mint?

edit: AYG I ran the deinstall list ( dpkg --get-selections | grep deinstall | less) and it was blank. All it said was END at the terminal.

 

(g)ufw is in both Debian and Ubuntu's repos, so any distro that derives from them (such as Mint) should have them unless they've gone out of their way to remove 'em.

There's nothing inherently superior about the way that ufw works from a security standpoint -- it's just another front-end to iptables -- but it is IMHO substantially simpler than any of the other front-ends that I've used. gufw in particular is quite straightforward: it takes all of three clicks to set up a highly-restrictive ingress policy.

 

Thanks again for the explanation Rob.

Could you or someone else tell me how to go about removing unwanted language packs which were downloaded via the Kubuntu installation?

 

OK I found this How to remove unneeded language packs? - Ubuntu Forums does this still apply? I don't want to run since i'm not sure.

Also if I weren't connected to the internet during the installation process would it have installed the additional language packs?

 

Ya since you're on a relatively fresh install there shouldn't be any deinstalled packages. When you get to upgrading and maybe installing and removing some stuff, you'll have some.

In terms of your language packs, that localepurge thingy is a bit dangerous (see its package description*), you shouldn't have extra locales installed unless you selected them during installation. You can see which are selected easily by running sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales and scroll down the list (just hit cancel unless you want to add/remove).

In terms of what pulled in that extra language stuff, start from the bottom of your apt console log:

Code:

sudo less +G /var/log/apt/term.log

BAH I just got your PM Well I just typed all this anyway so there u go.

*

 

At the risk of sounding like one of those growly old UNIX sysadmins, you might want to read the man pages for apt-get and apt-cache. I know that GUIs like synaptic are easier (I use them myself from time to time), but one of the strengths of Debian and its derivatives is the excellent package management tools -- and the man pages do a *very* good job of documenting them.

 

I never use synaptic, it often ends badly for me. Recently I've even stopped upgrading in X, I do it from tty1 just in case I have a major library upgrade that wants a display manager restart or something like udev that tends to break the running desktop.

The importance of reading the apt-* and dpkg man pages cannot be overstated. They are even hosted online in a bunch of places.

Chapter2.Debian package management

Ubuntu Manpage: apt-get - APT package handling utility -- command-line interface
http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/oneiric/en/man8/apt-cache.8.html
Ubuntu Manpage: dpkg - package manager for Debian

 

TBH, the only time that I use synaptic is when I want to tick off a whole bunch of packages and their dependencies in one go, tick off a bunch more for removal, and then sort through them based on what action will be performed.

And *that* is just because I'm too lazy to do the CLIfu necessary to do that.

 

Question regarding updates. When you see a bug icon next to an update is it mandatory? I saw to bug icons next to language selector and I couldn't disable them.