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Clutter Learns Linux


Cluttermagnet

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OK... your present update/"Automatix" situation... the way I see it, three choices:1) Do it with your dialup. Hours and hours... but doable.2) Drag the puter to your friend's place... do the updates there. Install and run Automatix there. Sounds rather straightforward.3) Download and burn the six-DVD-set at your friend's place. You have to have a full set... but then you'd have every doggone package there is in Ubuntu repos.

In terms of general downloading and installing into linux, I'm not even up to the training wheels level yet. Where to begin, where to begin... :hysterical:
Software installation - if we forget the dialup woes - is soooo easy. Synaptic Package Manager (System -> Maintenance -> Synaptic etc.) does it with panache. Let's say you need to install programs A, B and C. You open Synaptic, search the programs and mark them (by right clicking) for installation. If there are dependencies (other packages needed by the programs), Synaptic takes care of them. Hit "Apply"... Synaptic dowloads A, B and C (plus dependencies should there be any) from repositories and installs them. Also: in the future, updates for A, B and C are checked once a day along with all the other stuff you've installed. How cool is that?Things you might need outside the repos aren't many. Automatix is one example. It's a debian package, so you just download it to, say, desktop, double click on its icon, and the gDebi installer installs it for you. Not too difficult, see? :thumbsup: :D :D
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Cluttermagnet

I just spent a few minutes unchecking 225 items in the download list. By clever cursor placement and keyboarding/ mousing, it is only about 675-700 'clicks'. Now I'm going to download FF 1.5.0.10 only...

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Then I can avoid messing with any parts of the OS I have no business being in.
As long as you're using the File Manager with "user rights", it won't allow your tampering anything outside your home directory. You can watch, but you can not touch. :P
I'm being offered 226 updates.
... most of them fairly small, I guess. :hysterical:
If I can uncheck, then I can choose certain items one at a time for download/install- such as Firefox 1.5.0.10...
The easiest way to do this would go to Synaptic Package Manager (see the above post), hit "reload", and mark (right click) only "mozilla-firefox" to be updated/installed. Then hit "Apply."
By clever cursor placement and keyboarding/ mousing, it is only about 675-700 'clicks'.
:thumbsup: :D :D I needs to type faster so's I can give timely advice... :medic:
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Let us open a discussion on updating if you are on dialup;See . . . . . 6 DVDs is a bit much for a distro that will be replaced by the next version next month. ( 7.04 Feisty )First let us state: This is not like Windows, the updates are not all "Critical" updates, in fact most likely only 1 or 2 will be of the list of twohundredsomething.Bugfixes are more interresting, but only if the bug does affect a program you acually use.My advise would be: - Get the extra stuff ( making your computing more fun ) using Automatix.- Only get the "very-critical-updates" and the bugfixes for the bugs you come across.- Relax !! Get out of the stress that updates are absolutely needed . . . 2 reasons: you are on dial-up so your IP is not fixed, and this is NOT Windows and it is pretty secure also without the updates.- Update to the next version ( 7.04 ) as it is released in April ( every 6 month a new version is released, they will include all the security updates ):hysterical: Bruno

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My advise would be: - Get the extra stuff ( making your computing more fun ) using Automatix.- Only get the "very-critical-updates" and the bugfixes for the bugs you come across.- Relax !! Get out of the stess that updates are absolutely needed . . . 2 reasons: you are on dialup so your IP is not fixed, and this is NOT Windows and it is pretty secure also without the updates.- Update to the next version as it is released in April ( every 6 month a new version is released, they will include all the security updates )
Makes a heck of a lot sense. :hysterical:
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Cluttermagnet
As long as you're using the File Manager with "user rights", it won't allow your tampering anything outside your home directory. You can watch, but you can not touch. :P... most of them fairly small, I guess. :hysterical: The easiest way to do this would go to Synaptic Package Manager (see the above post), hit "reload", and mark (right click) only "mozilla-firefox" to be updated/installed. Then hit "Apply." :thumbsup: :D :D I needs to type faster so's I can give timely advice... :medic:
Well, I did the Firefox download and now I seem to have a slightly wounded copy of FF. The trouble is, I can't tell what revision of FF I am now running. Probably 1.5.0.10. When I do Help/ About Firefox, I get a persistent "XML parsing error..." I will take a look at Synaptic. Yeah, the '700 mouse clicks' is funny. But I actually did that, one time. I think I'm going to take Bruno's advice and just not sweat it, I suppose. BTW FF seems to still work, it is just not able to tell me 'About Firefox'. And yes, I will download the next release and update to that version. (Does that mean uninstall 6.06, then install 7.04?)
... most of them fairly small, I guess.
Oh, I don't know... 56M seems fairly large to me, looking at them on dialup. ;)
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... now I seem to have a slightly wounded copy of FF. The trouble is, I can't tell what revision of FF I am now running. Probably 1.5.0.10. When I do Help/ About Firefox, I get a persistent "XML parsing error..." I will take a look at Synaptic.
:hysterical: :thumbsup: :D Hunh... while in Synaptic, mark Firefox ("mozilla-firefox") for reinstall. DO NOT MARK IT FOR REMOVAL FIRST. Might fix it.
56M seems fairly large to me, looking at them on dialup.
What's your d-load speed? 20kB/s? 56 Megs... that'll be done in a jiffy. [Dialup oughta be illegal. Cruel and unusual and all that.] :D Edited by Urmas
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(Does that mean uninstall 6.06, then install 7.04?)
It means you install 7.04 over the 6.06 . . . format the / partition and keep the /home partition with all your personal files, mail, bookmarks, documents, etc.etc.7.04 will be released the 7th of the 04th . . . so April 7, and that is just a bit more then 2 weeks from now :hysterical: . . . so make the most of the time you have with the 6.06, have fun, experiment with it, trash it if it is unavoidable . . . . now is the time to learn from your mistakes. Once 7.04 will be installed and kept it up to date you will not want to repeat the mistakes that allowed you to learn ;):thumbsup: Bruno
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. . . so make the most of the time you have with the 6.06, have fun, experiment with it, trash it if it is unavoidable . . .
Dappermagnet: Licensed to spill :hysterical:
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Cluttermagnet
What's your d-load speed? 20kB/s? 56 Megs... that'll be done in a jiffy. [Dialup oughta be illegal. Cruel and unusual and all that.] :D
Oh, yes, dialup is certainly cruel and unusual punishment, 20kB/s? In my dreams. In terms of bits/s, my so-called '56k' dialup conection rarely handshakes at much above 28,800. I've seen less ocasionally. A typical speed these days has been 31,200. The most I've seen is around 34,000. That is apparently Kb/s (Kbits per second). Anyway, a typical download speed, as reported by firefox, tends to run at or slightly above 3KB/s. That's right, 3K Bytes/second. Maybe 3.4K on a good day. That's all. I have never, never, never seen anything even approaching '56Kb/s' here. I'm too far from the Central Office. I've also been told that my copper pair gets MUXed into a fiber line only about 1 block away from my house, but that the SLIC card (Subscriber Line Interface Card) will intrinsically limit me, in practice, to more around 28.8K. And indeed, that's all I ever see. Bah Humbug!Cable TV internet connection would cost me 60USD per month. That is never going to happen. I'd pay half that, not a penny more! 60USD is the most I'd ever pay for absolute top tier service, and the download speed had better approach/equal fiber optic speeds for that price! If I could get it, I'd gladly settle for a slower DSL (20-30USD/month) as a good compromise. Nope. Not going to happen. I'm too far from the Central Office. It can't be done by DSL. Satellite is similarly overpriced, and doomed at the outset due to latency problems. I'd never seriously consider satellite internet, unless I was out in the middle of a wilderness and it were the only possible option. BTW cable subscribers in this area are currently being offered a package deal consisting of cable TV + cable internet + 'unlimited' telephone service for about 100USD/month. But that's a *sale* price. It goes up after a 1 year period. The suckers around here usually pay between 120-130USD at the low end, up to nearly 200USD at the high end, and that's just for cable TV + internet. Yikes! Can you say "overpriced"? I hear so many horror stories about very poor service from the local cable company, which has enjoyed a government- sanctioned, total monopoly for 25 years or more, around here. They are just now finally allowing the local telco to compete, but I strongly suspect there will be collusion to keep prices excessively high- no real, meaningful 'competition' for broadband dollars. My costs for dialup? Including ISP fees of under 5USD per month, plus one telephone line, I pay about 25-30USD per month. I have two dialup lines and two ISP's at 5USD/month, each. So I'm actually already paying around 60USD/month, but I have *two* redundant lines plus *two* ISP's for that. If I could get DSL (30USD), I'd drop one of them, but alas, no way.Once my local phone company wires my area for FTTP (fiber)- in about *3 years from now*, I can probably let go of the old copper pairs. That FTTP service includes a 'dialup line' MUXed into the broadband data stream. But I'd be settling for *less* reliablilty, actually. I can't remember how many times I used my one good dialup line to call the telco to report the other line 'out of service'. I like the security of that 2nd line!Let's not even get started about 'cell phones'. Overpriced garbage. I don't want one. Unreliable, crappy, garbled connections, 'dead zones' where the signals do not reach, exorbitant 'roaming charges', extremely disrespectful treatment of customers from the very start, with very unfavorable service agreements. It's all about ripping out reliable, traditional services and replacing them with hugely overpriced, less reliable services. It's all about disrespecting the customer and abusing the customer and overcharging the customer. Er- well, as I said, don't get me started. :thumbsup: Let's stick with discussing Linux. Heh! :hysterical: Edited by Cluttermagnet
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Cluttermagnet
It means you install 7.04 over the 6.06 . . . format the / partition and keep the /home partition with all your personal files, mail, bookmarks, documents, etc.etc.7.04 will be released the 7th of the 04th . . . so April 7, and that is just a bit more then 2 weeks from now :thumbsup:
OK, got it. Install the new code over my present root partition, but reuse the present swap and home partitions 'as is'. :hysterical:
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I've also been told that my copper pair gets MUXed into a fiber line only about 1 block away from my house...
Block? :P Block? You live in a community large enough to have blocks - as in there are streets crossing each other used by human beings, not just bears and moose - and broadband is scheduled "in about 3 years from now" ?Here in Finland (population density pretty much the same as in Maine, 20% of the population living in greater Helsinki area), the first method to bring broadband to rural [as in "Block? Yes, there is a block 20 miles thattaway."] areas was to subsidize (by the provinces) the operators when it came to upgrading the existing [rural] "wired telephone network" so that the local yokels could be offered broadband connectivity up to 8 Megs/s... provided they didn't live too far away (4-5 miles) from the "switch box". This "took care" of most of the households. Phase two: The areas deemed too expensive for "wiring" got/will get their broadband service via Wimax. Examples: http://www.wimaxday.net/site/2006/10/02/be...ble-in-finland/ http://www.wimax-industry.com/ar/3z.htm Phase three (and this one is interesting): "universal" 450 MHz/Flash-OFDM/1 Meg Coverage: http://www.digita.fi/digita_dokumentti.asp...;2081;8103;8468 And... let's not forget 3G mobile telephony. Today, the "full 3G" coverage is limited in urban areas, but the joy is spreding fast. Prices aren't astronomical either: 1 Meg/s "all inclusive" mobile connection for less than €40/month. Network cards/adapters are expensive - something like $500 - however. Ditto for Wimax.
Let's not even get started about 'cell phones'. Overpriced garbage. I don't want one. Unreliable, crappy, garbled connections, 'dead zones' where the signals do not reach, exorbitant 'roaming charges', extremely disrespectful treatment of customers from the very start, with very unfavorable service agreements. It's all about ripping out reliable, traditional services and replacing them with hugely overpriced, less reliable services.
Not true here (all of that, anyway :hysterical: ). Different history. The NMT network's coverage was total by mid-eighties, and when GSM was introduced, people didn't make the switch until its coverage was (almost) as total. In the "NMT era", long distance and mobile telephony was state monopoly in Nordic countries. This meant that once the decision to build the network was made, it was built for "universal coverage" never mind the costs. It also meant that the calling fees were astronomical... something like $2/minute. With GSM it was open season for operator competition, and after years of intense price war the fees are at 1c/minute (plus a flat monthly fee of, say, $5). This kind of pricing combined with reliable connections without "dead zones" is "ripping out reliable, traditional services", however. The "landline prices" haven't come down at all... we're talking about $15 flat monthly fee plus call charges 5-15 times more per minute than with a mobile phone. The choice is rather obvious. :thumbsup:
Let's stick with discussing Linux. Heh!
Ah, the mystic "topic" thing again huh? ;) OK:
OK, got it. Install the new code over my present root partition, but reuse the present swap and home partitions 'as is'.
Yessiree. This is why it makes sense to create a separate home partition. And since you are in the "explorer mode", you could open the file manager and check out the hidden files (names start with a ".") in your home directory. That's where your user prefs for the programs are. :D :D :medic:
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Cluttermagnet

Siiiighhhh! My respect to the Finns. Sounds like they did it right, in so many ways. :thumbsup:Things run very differerent in the US. It's well known that broadband deployment has gone rather badly here. The process reminds me of a crowd of pitiless muggers. We are far behind the Koreans and the Japanese and the Finns, too, apparently.No, I'm not out in the country or anything. Yes, there are a few cross streets in my neighborhood, which is a partly built-out suburb, formerly farmland. Around here, the citizens are at the mercy of government- industry collusion, which has effectively thrown us to the wolves at the highest possible price that can be extracted without actual loss of consciousness. For a quarter century, the local cable company had an exclusive agreement with local government. Totally anti-competitive. Cable companies in the US are well known for total apathy and the poorest possible customer service they can get away with. And in collusion with the federal government, they have managed to deregulate themselves pretty much, thus cable prices are exploding once again. Not likely I'll ever be a subscriber of the local cable company. I was briefly, for a year, in the early 80's. I'll wait for optical fiber and see what deal I can get.The local telco finally got it approved to compete in our area, but only after a lawsuit. They want 3-5 years to build out their network. My neighborhood falls into the 3 year range, with no DSL possibilities between now and then. If Wimax were available, I'd possibly go with it. Again, all depends on price. Most of the time, I don't need much bandwidth. Downloading Linux distros recently is the first time I've actually had to borrow broadband at a friend's house. I've been able to work with and live with dialup for 10 years now. I can wait them out. I just don't have to have flash animation or streaming audio or video, etc. No interest in downloading any videos. Either they meet my price point or I'll die a dialup dinosaur. <_<We've had broadband via Cable in my neighborhood for maybe 5 years now? I forget. That's it. Too far for DSL. Still a monopoly for 3 more years.

With GSM it was open season for operator competition, and after years of intense price war the fees are at 1c/minute (plus a flat monthly fee of, say, $5).
That's amazing. Congratulations on doing it right, as a nation. I'm truly happy for you. At that price, I'd certainly have embraced cellular. Edited by Cluttermagnet
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Guest LilBambi

I agree much respect to those countries that just bit the bullet and did broadband for even more rural areas. My respect definitely goes out to Finland for their forward thinking. As well as Japan and Korea. They saw the value in getting their people 'up to speed' as it were. ;)Well said Clutter.

Block? :hysterical: Block? You live in a community large enough to have blocks - as in there are streets crossing each other used by human beings, not just bears and moose - and broadband is scheduled "in about 3 years from now" ?
At least in Clutter's case, they actually have it scheduled!!! :blink:Where we live we are on the far end of the county, in a little town of little over 300 souls they say. With real streets :thumbsup: intersecting and everything! There is Verizon DSL about 3-4 miles out now, as well as Charter Cable about 6 miles out on one side of us, and Cox cable was brought clear across the cable to the schools here in the county and they turned the corner to get to the schools less than 3 miles away. And our town isn't the only one. They actually brought the cable straight through the center town for the county and never bothered to try to hook up anyone along the way!!!And we are LESS than 1 mile to the CO. ... Every time I call, they say there are NO plans to upgrade our little town. Maybe in a year or two. They have been saying that for EIGHT YEARS at Verizon (who is our telco co. here).So, broadband is so close you can almost taste it, but they refuse to bring it just that little bit further....sigh...The only way to somewhat 'reasonably' (READ: get at least 30 families in a depressed area to PREPAY AND GUARANTEE they will continue to PAY more than Verizon DSL would cost per month --- just to get Wireless) get any kind of broadband in here is to get a T1 that would have to be distributed via Wireless in our town. The T1 providers oddly enough would be more than happy to set up a T1 here....if we could afford one! :lol:As to the Linux, Clutter you are doing great! :thumbsup:I love Ubuntu with all the extras installed. I would definitely either follow Bruno's advice or take the computer to your friends house. I did the latter. ;)Well, worth taking the time since the Automatix items are not tiny either....IMHO.
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Thing is, there are sooooo many ways to provide broadband access these days... sometimes it just needs a wee [$/€/£] boost to make things happen. Couple of solutions I left out in my previous post:Wireless MESHSDSL (this has been used for providing access for homes - just like Bambi describes - just teensy weensy little bit (2km tops) outside the "ADSL range". The idea is to utilise a "nearby ADSL connection" by building a SDSL line between, say, two neighboring houses, one within the "ADSL coverage", and one outside it. Expensive, though.The 450 MHz/Flash-OFDM/1 network that is being built is a great idea. Total areal coverage, roaming... in a country where (almost) everyone has a summer house the further off the beaten track the better... and the abitity to use the "old", currently unused 450Mhz mobile phone base station network for the job... colonel Hannibal Smith would've approved this plan, I'm sure. :D

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Cluttermagnet

I just installed Thunderbird using Synaptic. All went fine. I like TBird and am very familiar with it, so it's the logical choice for me.

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Guest LilBambi
I just installed Thunderbird using Synaptic. All went fine. I like TBird and am very familiar with it, so it's the logical choice for me.
Awesome! :thumbsup:That was one of my first installs as well ;)You will also be pleasantly surprised that most Firefox extensions work in Linux as well as Windows and Mac.Oh, by the way, if you use FTP at all for website updates, etc. GFTP is a great FTP client for Linux. There is also a Cygwin port for Windows, and ooooo! I just found a port for Mac OS X!! Yea! ... nevermind, it's missing in action. :D
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Cluttermagnet

Ubuntu does this wierd little thing with dialup- it starts dialing out even as Ubuntu is still booting, right about when the ID and password dialog is popping up on the screen. But when I then look to see if it is online, it claims it is, but FF will not load web pages. Seems I have to completely reboot Ubuntu, then it shuts up and does not dial out the second time. After the first boot it is 'frozen' in the dialup function, and even actively lies to me about being connected when it is not (or ignores when I tell it to "Activate"). After the second boot it just straightens right up and works as it should. I open the networking dialog, tell it to Activate, and it seizes the line and dials out just as it should. Strange behavior. Is there some "connect when Linux boots" dialog I can reset to stop doing that? If so, where does it live? I've seen this option in a diferent distro recently. -_-

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Hmmm... those suffering/having suffered from dial-up woes (Bambi, Adam etc.) might have the "easy one-size-fits-all answer", but:Here are two links:https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DialupMod...0c9157ebe9c8ef6http://www.debianadmin.com/setting-up-dial...untu.htmlprint/Not knowing how (=with which tool) you've set up the connection, the following may or may not apply:From the first link:

Some people [having used The Networking section of System => Administration] have had a problem with the modem dialing during bootup. This may be related to setting the modem as default route to the internet on the Options tab of Interface properties.
Which brings us here (from the second link):System—>Administration —>Networking -->Modem Connection-->Properties-->Options:5.png"Set modem as default route to the Internet" ticked? Try unticking it.As for the "starting stuff"... System --> Administration --> Preferences --> Sessions... see what's in there first... -_- ;) :)
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I think it may be dialing out when you boot because you were still connected when you shut the computer down. When I was using my dialup modem and the Networking applet (I highly recommend KPPP instead), I had to go to it, and manually dial out each time.Now, in my case, I had to manually run the command to initialize the winmodem each time I booted, so I may be completely off base.Adam

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One nifty tool for managing "boot-up" programs and services is "bum", Boot-up manager. If the above tricks don't work, I'd try this next.Either search/install it with Synaptic, or open Terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) and type or copy/paste...

sudo apt-get install bum

... and hit <enter>. It'll ask for password and install the program.Once installed, it will show up under System -> Administration. It's a tad slow to open... the thing you might want to eliminate is "PPP daemon".

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Cluttermagnet
One nifty tool for managing "boot-up" programs and services is "bum", Boot-up manager. If the above tricks don't work, I'd try this next.Either search/install it with Synaptic, or open Terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) and type or copy/paste...
sudo apt-get install bum

... and hit <enter>. It'll ask for password and install the program.Once installed, it will show up under System -> Administration. It's a tad slow to open... the thing you might want to eliminate is "PPP daemon".

Unticking the "Set modem as default route to internet" prevented the modem from dialing out. I reticked that option.Opened up the terminal and tried my first ever command line. Response was that the package is not available, may be missing, obsoleted, or available from another source. I'm guessing the last option. Bum is not listed under Synaptic. "Package bum... is referred to by another package." "E: Package bum has no installation candidate." Edited by Cluttermagnet
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Response was that the package is not available, may be missing, obsoleted, or available from another source. I'm guessing the last option. Bum is not listed under Synaptic. "Package bum... is referred to by another package." "E: Package bum has no installation candidate."
My bad. You don't have additional repositories enabled yet. There are more than one ways to do this... the easiest is to open Synaptic, go to Settings (or is it Preferences) -> Repositories, and tick all the boxes... Universe, Main, Multiverse and Restricted.... Source isn't relevant now, won't hurt, though. Then hit "reload"... now the effin' "bum" should appear... whether you install it via Synaptic or Apt-get.Sorry. -_- Edited by Urmas
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