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Linux Application Question

Beanbag

Illuminator
Beanbag
Joined
Jun 7, 2003
Messages
3,468
Time for the Clueless Windows User Stupid Question(s).

I just converted one of my old Windows XP boxes over to Ubuntu Linux. I'd tried the bootable CD-ROM and liked what I saw, plus the fact that it found all the hardware with no problems, do I did a full install on the hard drive.

Now, the issue is that the version of Firefox that comes on the install CD image is an older version, like 1.0.7 or something ancient. The newest version is like 1.5, which I've got on my Winboxes. I'd like to update to the newest version. I went to the Mozilla site and found the latest version and downloaded it as a tarball (.tar) file. It's sitting on the desktop, but damned if I can figure out what to do with it from here. I get some hints from the system help files that there's an application called the Synaptics Package Manager that has something to do with what I want to do.

Okay, so laugh at me because I'm obviously missing something obvious. Windows has spoiled me with applications that install themselves. Just exactly how does one go about installing a Linux application? Pretend I'm REAL stupid, and you won't be too wrong. It has to be something easy, because I can't find anything in the online documentation or in any of my reference books. Or is it one of those things that Linux users just assume everybody knows or is so obvious an unusually retarded chimpanzee could pick it right up?

'Scuse me while I go peel a banana. I need some help getting pointed in the right direction.

Beanbag
 
Beanbag,

Rest assured there are no stupid questions in the Linux world. I'm in my second decade of home Linux use and generally speaking know my way around Unix boxes, shell scripts and C, but still once a week on average I find himself staring slackjawed at the screen for a while waiting for some penny or other to drop. If it were easy it wouldn't be anywhere near as much fun.
 
Hey, since other people have answered the question you asked, I'd like to chime in with a recommendation to drop Firefox and try out Konqueror.

It rules, as the name would suggest.
 
I like Konqueror but it lacks extensions so I tend not to use it as my main browser. It is quite a supurb little system for file management though - far better than Explorer.
 
I will stick with Firefox and Gnome for now. I appreciate the input.

I managed to change the Gnome desktop background, installed an HP Laserjet 6L printer, and installed some of the precompiled packages that come with the distro. Fairly tame stuff.

I'm guessing a Degian package is another form of distributing software. The problem with the online Ubuntu documentation is that it's written by dweebs who assume you have the same level of experience that they do. They rattle off some mishmash of commands that make no sense whatsoever, and then say something to the effect of "if that doesn't work then..." and rattle off more gibberish. I suspect they all trained at Microsoft technical support, because they give you a technically correct but totally useless answer for the average user.

eta: I will admit that Linux has gotten a lot better than the last time I tried fiddling with it, but they still haven't got it to where it will appeal to people who want to USE a computer, and not spend a lot of time tinkering with it. For all its faults, Windows XP at least manages to make installing new software fairly painless.

Beanbag.
 
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Beanbag said:
eta: I will admit that Linux has gotten a lot better than the last time I tried fiddling with it, but they still haven't got it to where it will appeal to people who want to USE a computer, and not spend a lot of time tinkering with it. For all its faults, Windows XP at least manages to make installing new software fairly painless.
Click to expand...
Yes and no. I'm not a zealous Linux advocate and have pointed various family members towards cheap XP boxes when they wanted to get online, and I wouldn't wish dependency hell on anyone, but there are occasions when a Linux box or two is perfectly feasible for daily use.

A case in point concerns my mother-in-law, who runs a charity wanting to keep its admin costs down to a minimum. I blagged three early P3 boxes and a laser printer from local businesses and set them up a little network using Mandrake (as it then was). The key factor is use: all they need to do is a bit of correspondence and some record keeping, which are easy enough in Open Office, and a bit of stock management for which I wrote a little app. All the staff are retired ladies with no IT experience whatsoever but after couple of half-days spent showing them the ropes they've got on fine and I rarely get a support call. Admittedly they wouldn't have been able to set things up themselves, but there again they wouldn't have known how to plug a keyboard or mouse into any machine so that's not a Linux-specific problem. For these particular circumstances, I think we found an excellent and cheap (well, free really) solution.






I'm not going to let them loose with the root password, mind.
 
My mother (aged 80) uses a CD-based Linux system on her pc, with Firefox as browser.
This keeps malware to a minimum, avoids the need for complex firewall adjustments and if scrambled reboots as new in about 80 seconds.
 
So far, my only expense has been time. I had a spare 20 gig HD left over, so I just swapped it out for the original 40 gig drive that was in the box so I could go back to a Win XP box if I felt like it.

What I've discovered so far is that as long as you use the Synaptics package handler, the applications will mostly install OK. Audacity installed, but I got an error when I tried to bring it up, saying that I wouldn't be able to record or play any sounds (not very useful for an audio program). Tried getting the latest version of Firefox through some automated package handling system (not Synaptics). It installed something somewhere, but damned if I could find it. I ended up just dumping the system and reinstalling from scratch.

My big discovery is how to switch between virtual screens. There's something comforting to this old DOS coder when I see a plain text screen. Reminds me of a simpler time. Of course, most of my Windows programs are written as console apps.

I'm still a little bumfuzzled about file access at this point. Ubuntu comes with the root user disabled somehow. There's some cryptic mention about it in the online docs. They get around that by using the sudo command a lot, it seems. I'm guessing that I could log in as the root administrator if I knew what the default password is. For some reason, I haven't been able to find it. Gnome is nice for wandering around the file system and seeing what's there. Got to get used to the *nix naming conventions.

I freely expect to screw up the installation and have to reload it several (many) times. I dug out my copy of Linux in a Nutshell. 900+ pages, very intimidating. Lots of stuff to screw up. Should be fun.

PS: I've won about seven times playing Solitaire on the Linux box. Took only a few hours.

Beanbag
 
Beanbag said:
I'm still a little bumfuzzled about file access at this point. Ubuntu comes with the root user disabled somehow. There's some cryptic mention about it in the online docs. They get around that by using the sudo command a lot, it seems. I'm guessing that I could log in as the root administrator if I knew what the default password is. For some reason, I haven't been able to find it. Gnome is nice for wandering around the file system and seeing what's there. Got to get used to the *nix naming conventions.
Click to expand...

In linux, if a user exists but has no password set, it is impossible to log in as that user.

This is how Ubuntu creates the root user; it exists, but it has no password. (default password!! Are you kidding?! How insecure!! :P )

To set a root password, simply type:

sudo passwd root

The root on there may very well be redundant, but it'll do the trick. After you have set a password, you may log in as root normally. This is one of the first steps I perform on all my personal Ubuntu boxes -- sudo may be great in a lot of ways, but old habits die hard.

-Chris
 
Well, couldn't you start with tar -xf <filename>?
 
jj, that's like me setting you down in front of a mechanical watch movement and telling you that you need to adjust the slide and droplock on the entry pallet, and to check the endshake on the fourth wheel. Any experienced watchmaker would know what it meant. Most nonwatchmakers would be puzzled.

I know that tar does something for extracting or adding files from an archive. -x is the extract option, and f says to extract the files, all courtesy of Linux in a Nutshell. It's a start. Still not sure exactly what to do with the files once I get them out.

Beanbag
 
Finally got Firefox 1.5 loaded. Had to do it the hard way, peering down at a couple of printed sheets while typing in cryptic gibberish commands and trying to interpret the system response. A few things didn't go like the instructions said, I traced a few hiccups back to a missing space character lost when the instruction text spanned two lines, and probably because I don't have the same optional files on my system. The good news is it works and is a whole hell of a lot faster than the original version. I'm using it right now -- you may notice how much faster this posting appears on your screen :D.

Spiffy. I'm a junior-grade script-kiddie. I have no idea what I just did; I just know it worked.

Spent some time investigating AbiWord and OpenOffice Writer. I have a bunch of MSWord templates with custom macros to let me format screenplays correctly. I don't care for Word because it tries to be all things to all people, and doing something simple like changing paragraph styles takes some ridiculous behind-the-scenes macro juggling. Recording the macro is easy -- getting Word to assign it to a key sequence and remembering it is there the next time you open the template is an exercise in frustration.

What I have discovered is:
1) AbiWord does NOT do macros. Period. What's worse, it comes with a buttload of predefined paragraph styles that you can't get rid of (or at least the help file doesn't say how). Any user-defined styles get buried in the pile. Plus, AbiWord does not support ALLCAPS type style specification.

2) OpenOffice Writer handles macros in an entirely different manner than Word. This may be a good or a bad thing. More on that later after I've pounded on it a while. What I do like is the built-in print to PDF option. Saves me from having to bundle in a distiller.

I've used MS Word since version 2. Got a lot of relearning to do.

Beanbag
 
When a binary package tarball is extracted it generally creates a folder containing files and folders which represent the entire application. You can put this folder pretty much anywhere and run the application from the command line (and or create a shortcut icon to it). However as a user, you cannot put the folder anywhere but your own home. This would work fine unless you have multiple users on the machine who want to use that app. Window's ease of installation is one of its main security flaws. You'll get used to *nix rigidness like you get used to wearing seatbelts in a car.

LyX has a template for screen plays and is a vastly superior program to any word processor program ever made. That is only my opinion your mileage may vary. Chances are it is an Ubuntu package and may already be installed. I use Suse and Mandriva and am not familiar with Ubuntu's package management.
 
Beanbag said:
I know that tar does something for extracting or adding files from an archive. -x is the extract option, and f says to extract the files, all courtesy of Linux in a Nutshell. It's a start. Still not sure exactly what to do with the files once I get them out.
Click to expand...

Usually, there's a file called README in the extracted files from the tarball. which is more or less helpful. Remembering some of my own early experiences with Linux, I suspect that the instructions in the README might still be a bit confusing to you, although it might at least give you a better idea of what questions to ask.
 
Well, I was so impressed with Ubuntu Linux that I took my trusty HP Pavilion N5130 laptop, wiped the hard drive, and dropped Ubuntu on it as well. I tested it first with the bootable CD-ROM. I was a little worried because it uses a PCMCIA card for ethernet, plus laptops tend to be cranky b!tches as far as hardware goes. No problem with the boot CD, it found everything, so I went with the full install. Considered a dual boot, but thought better and went all the way with Ubuntu.

I was particularly impressed that Ubuntu recognizes all the laptop power management stuff. Didn't have to do a thing except wait for everything to get unpacked and dropped into place (800mhz Celeron -- not the speediest machine around).

One thing I have noticed is better multimedia player performance than with Windows Media Player. Movies play better, with fewer player spazz-outs (once I figured out where the codecs were and dropped them into place). The player ( I think it's Totem) may not have pretty skins or visualizations, but it's fast, stable, and doesn't keep trying to phone home and report on what I'm listening to.

Haven't seen a package for LyX, but now that I know the name, I'll see what's there. Windows has a free script-specific word processor called Cinergy, a free download to try to hook you on their megadollar production management package, The free version doesn't come with a spell-checker, and you're stuck with the extremely thin Courier font, which is hard on the eyes.

At this rate, I may end up with more tuxedo boxes than Brother Bill machines.

Beanbag
 
Well, lookey here: a full LyX package. Gee, it even installed correctly. Amazing what comes on a CD these days. Thanks for poinmting me in the right direction.

Beanbag
 
If you are going to give LyX a try I highly recommend doing the tutorial (I think it is in the help menu). LyX is a completely different paradigm from a word processor. You may find you hate it but I love it and think word processors suck hard.
 
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