[latheesan]

Hello,

A friend of mine showed me this video when i was boasting about how cool my vista was and completly changed my view about linux - YouTube - WINDOWS VISTA AERO VS LINUX UBUNTU BERYL

Now i am in love with this operating system Ubuntu Beryl, but i know nothing about it. I am a windows user you see, but i want to migrate, this looks too good to miss.

Here's a list of questions that comes to mind, so i wanted to ask in hope someone will answer them and clear things up.

1. When i searched for Ubuntu Beryl, i could not find a proper page for it, i kept seeing Ubuntu Home Page | Ubuntu site. Is this what i am suppose to download and install? Or is "Beryll" some sort of addon to ubuntu?

2. What are the hardware/software requirements for me to use Ubuntu Beryl?

3. Will stuff like internet, sound, video, games etc work straight after installing Ubuntu Beryl or do i have to spend hours looking for correct drivers (or wtv is called for linux) to get them working?

4. How and where do i get started? Can't wait.

Here is the current specs of my laptop:

CPU - Intel Centrino 1.86 GHz
RAM - 1 GHZ
Hard Drive - 60 Gb
Internet - ADSL Dialup using Speedtouch modem
Sound - not sure what's the card called, but it's built in
Video - ATI Mobility Radeon X300 Card

[Kieren]

1) Ubuntu is the operating system and Beryl is a program that you install after. Beryl works on all the distros of Linux (As long as they have a GUI)

2) A 3D Graphics card with the latest drivers installed should work fine

3) All these things _should_ work out of the box. Depending on which games you want to run. It may be a good idea for you to set up a dual boot with Windows to run games

4) To get started just download Ubuntu and have a go. If you've never used it try out a Live CD as this will not affect your Vista instillation

Edit: The live CD will let you see if sound and things will work without problems. I don't think you will be able to get Beryl to work though as it needs installing

[Runn3r.cze]

you should know, that programs from windows don't work in linux. some of them have also version for linux, but for others you will have to find an alternative.

[Kieren]

There is an application called Wine that lets you run Windows programs from Linux though. It's not a fantastic solution though and can be very buggy. The best thing to do is find an alternative program that has been written for Linux. I've found this is especially true for games.

Since you will be changing operating systems it will take you a while to get everything set up the way you like it. You will just have to try alternative programs out until you find out which you prefer.

[minersrevolt]

I have a terrible, terrible time getting Beryl to work on my Laptop with an ATI card on it. ATI doesn't support Linux, they have never put out an effort to make their cards compatible, Nvidia is the way to go.

[latheesan]

Okay, that sounds awsome.

Can someone answer this question please.

At this moment, i use windows xp pro with Speedtouch ADSL Usb modem to dial to my internet service provider.

How would i install this on my ubuntu OS ? will it even work? Because, networking is the most important aspect of any OS, and without it, it'll be useless to me.

[Kieren]

I've never used either. The best thing for you to do is download and try the live CD. This wont install Ubuntu onto your computer but will run straight from the CD. You can use it to check if your hardware (such as your modem) will work out of the box

[latheesan]

=(

due... i got like 60kbps download speed on my 2mbps connection. It took me like 3 hours to download the ubuntu iso =\

I dont wanna download again. how do drivers normally work with linux OS such as ubuntu?

[Kieren]

Drivers are generally quite good. Apart from the latest 3D NVIDIA drivers, every other piece of hardware I own had drivers with OpenSUSE. I should expect Unbuntu to be much the same.

You could try Google to see if anyone else has had any problems with the modem in Ubuntu. However, what I suggest you do is just try it out. Make sure you install a dual boot so you have a working operating system to use to get support, people here are really good for any problems.

[latheesan]

Yey, i successfully installed Ubuntu on my laptop. All that is left now is networking.

I found out that there is a linux driver for the modem i use at this web site - The Linux Kernel SpeedTouch Driver And Ubuntu

I am currently making a file called "speedtch" with the following contents:

noipdefault
defaultroute
user 'username@isp'
noauth
updetach
usepeerdns
plugin pppoatm.so
0.00

### If the firmware loads but pppd won't
### connect, uncomment this option to make
### pppd be more verbose in the system log

# debug

### For more details (and more options)
### Read man pppd

I am suppose to replace 0.00 with the VP/VC values for my country/ISP. Well i am from United Kingdom, but i am not sure what i am supposed to replace 0.00 with. Can someone help me figure this out..?