My Mission

[pfunkman]

Ok so im on a mission to learn to love linux. I tried linux about 5 years ago and became frustrated and overwhelmed with it and gave up. I intended for years to try it again and and just got around to it recently.

I started off with ubuntu 2 days ago and so far am enjoying it. I have been trying to familiarize myself with the workings of linux and get accustomed to it and so far its going great.

So far after some trial and error i have ubuntu 7.04 running flawlessly with compiz-fusion which required i set up an XGL session (What a way to start my linux journey ). I have been enjoying playing my playstation games via the emulator included in ubuntu (I own them dont worry ) and even got WoW going for about 10 minutes in wine (Bleh ill come back to that later).

Now i like ubuntu and compiz fusion but now i would really like to delve deeper and test the waters with some other distros. My plan is to try many distros and get used to using them over the next couple of weeks. I intend to start with elive (its downloading right now).

Now on to my questions.

A) It seems to me that my computer is not being used to its full potential. My system is in my sig. Its not like its running slow or sluggish just dont seem as fast as it should be.

B) Why is installing programs still a pain i figured years ago somewhere along the line linux would have switched over to a simpler way to install programs etc. like windows has with its installer. (This is not intended to be a bash against linux im sure theres a real reason i just want to know)

C) What is the real deal with drivers and who is really to blame? the reason for this question is because my X-Fi is not supported under linux at all! (Not a monumental deal pretty much just gives me the excuse i have been waiting for to sell it off and buy an X-meridian or prelude). and i have been having problems with ATI and my video card being supported without jumping through hoops.

D) Most importantly to me i need to find a powerful media player that supports mp3 ogg and flack playback as well as DSP. Is there such a thing or am i stuck trying to get foobar working via wine? I tried XMMS and was disgusted with it (No offense to anyone that likes it) seemed to me it was just a shameless clone of winamp.

Any other advise, suggestions or criticism welcome.

[Freston]

Welcome to the forums!

Linux has come a long way in five years. If you want to test out a couple of distro's, maybe start here. See if you find a couple that sound up your alley (as I believe the expression goes).

As to your questions:
A) This could be true. Every distro is geared towards certain needs. Ubuntu is an all-round distro tuned for ease of use and able to run most hardware. This is a good thing. But there are whispers in the shadows, saying this may have come at the expense of speed. Not every process running in Ubuntu is absolutely necessary. There is good documentation to spice up Ubuntu though. Other distro's will be faster 'out of the box', and yes, that comes at an expense too. As always, you can't have everything.

B&C) Best start here. Try to install and remove a lot of applications, in a variety of ways and ask the same question again in a week or two. I bet you will have a completely different look on things then. It can't really get any easier than Synaptic.

D) Have you tried mplayer? VLC is pretty good as well. And so are others. I don't use one single application for all my media needs. But it's possible.

[RobinVossen]

A) Download a Monitor and check it, Conky or gkrellm..

B) its not a Pain? In Gentoo i just enter in console: Emerge -av <Name_Package> and it gets installed... Check the ubuntu Package manerger

C) Well, ATI is just the blame. The stuff I never want on a Linux Box are: ATI, WiFi, Amd64 and no Active internet connection.. Sorry cant help you with this..

D) I myself use VLC. Since its lightweight. Easy. Has lots of Functions. And I can put it also on my PDA or install it on Windows. Or I can even put a Portable Version of VLC on my USB Drive so I can use it on a diffrent PC.

[yawningdog]

Oh man, am I ever with you on your software woes. Sure, if there's a package for it then it's pretty easy, especially in Ubuntu. But I've been trying to get XRDP to run on Slackware for two weeks and it's a royal pain in the tukus.

For Ubuntu, the first thing you need to do is install Automatix.