Complete Noob Questions

[mshearon]

Yeah, I've got that installed. I'm not sure if that's how I got it, because there was a WHOLE lot of downloading and installing, for quite some time. But, now in Synaptic, I see several things named "ubuntu-restricted-modules" with the Ubuntu logo beside them. I'm installing them now, Since, unless I completely miss my guess, Ubuntu is recommending these things.

[elija]

There should only be one ubuntu-restricted extras (there may also be a kubutnu.. and xubuntu...)

NOT MODULES PLEASE NOT MODULES!!!!

[mshearon]

Why no Modules? I mean, i can uninstall them, but what exactly am I doing/undoing?

EDIT: Already uninstalled all of them. That Vehement a statement isn't without reason... But I would still like to know what they do, and why they're so bad.

[elija]

Cancel your current install - the modules are things like drivers and stuff. Don't uninstall the ones it chose when installing Ubuntu. I don't know the effect of having loads of unneeded modules installed, but I don't imagine it will be good

The ubuntu-restricted-extras package will give flash, java, mp3 and so on

[edit]
I should think uninstalling ones it needs will be worse! I have no idea how to undo that

Hopefully you just need linux-restricted-modules-common and linux-restricted-modules-generic
[/edit]

[D-cat]

Modules in Linux is the equivlent to Drivers in Windows. Having the extra modules is basically having extra drivers available for hardware you don't have installed on your machine. The base modules package takes care of about 98% of home users needs. It doesn't hurt to have the extras there, it just takes up space.

The *buntu-restricted-extras package is the one that loads the proprietary plugins and codecs needed to play a great deal of the online content, including the Adobe flash player.

[mshearon]

Okay, I picked the main one, and it picked a couple others on its own. What about the Kubuntu and xubuntu? restricted extras? same things for different builds? To reiterate my problem... i have Flash. it seems to work okay, but it doesn't run very smoothly. Flash games that require timing and precision are almost impossible, because the lags and freezes make precise timing impossible.

[D-cat]

Ubuntu come with an open-source flash player. It's clucky but is designed to get you by until you load the real thing.

Other things that can slow you down are using the generic vesa video driver, using a compatibility wrapper app or just having an old processor (anything under 800MHz will have choppy flash playback these days, 2.3GHz needed for smooth video).

[mshearon]

BRAND NEW PROBLEM! I've been trying, unsuccessfully, to run City of Heroes on my computer, rather than a Vista box I have access to. I've been using Wine for a while, but I learned that to better help it run things, I needed a file called Cedega. I downloaded Cedega, from their site, and restarted my computer... only when I did, It deactivated my graphics driver... and now I can't reactivate it. I'm really at a loss, and have no idea how to fix this... I don't even know what BROKE.

[D-cat]

I'd start a new thread if I were you.

Wine typically runs things slow or has features missing; it's kind of acting like an interpreter between a Windows program and the X environment. Cedega is a commercial product that tweaks Wine so it works with more software than its default settings.

I don't know too much about Cedega since I don't run it, but from my viewpoint I fail to see how it would kill a graphics driver.

A new thread with a complete list of your symptoms might bring in fresh eyes to help you out with this one.

[mshearon]

No worries... I fixed the problem the best way I knew how... reinstall Ubuntu. Not like I had anything unrecoverable on this comp. The only thing I regret is this means another trip of putting my CDs into my music library. Plus, reinstalling has let me fix a couple things on the outset.