Finding a torrent client

I have had to do yet another re-install. I tried to use Easy Ubuntu to get everything I needed, but I wouldn't initialize right when I selected everything I wanted. So I used Automatix to get the essential stuff and went back to Easy Ubuntu to get some codecs and a rar packager. It works great for ".rar" files (i.e. Winrar). So after getting that I set up my static IP. I put my custom firewall my buddy wrote for me on and opened the ports I wanted to. Once all was said and done I could only get BitTornado and Azeurus to transfer at any kind of respectable speed. I was hoping to use ktorrent, as it looked a lot like utorrent I love so much for windows. I couldn't seem to get that or utorrent through wine working right so I have gone with Azeurus. I wish it were just a little easier, like utorrent, but it works fine. Reading online Azeurus also seems to be the favorite of most other linux users, so I would say that is the way to go. You should get java anyway.

TALUG

Toledo Area Linux User's Group

It's a local group for people to meet and exhange linux know - how.

Easy ubuntu

Click on the title to this post for instructions on installing easy ubuntu, and what it's used for. Very handy, especially for n00bs.

Picking the right kernel for you

I found this looking through the ubuntu forums trying to look for tips to get firefox just a tad faster. I subled upon this guide, and I promptly followed the instructions. I installed the "k7" kernel seeing as I have an AMD Athelon 750 mhz. After an upgrade and restart it seems to be running fine. I was running the base i386 kernel, so pick whichever one best suits your processor and just follow the right "apt-get" line.

Crash!

A few days ago, the old monitor I had that had been getting less and less sharp finally took a crap. A friend of mine happened to have a dell monitor, and I hooked it up and was working great. The other day I went to restart the computer. It had been working fine, but at boot I got an error message. The X-server settings had somehow been changed. My hardware was not being recognized, and the graphical interface would not start. I had a linux buddy of mine look at the settings, and he said pretty much the best thing would be do do a complete reinstall. So here we are, a clean install and all my plugins and programs installed. I have truly realized just how good this wiki I posted a link to in a previous post is. It gives exact syntax for installing automatix, which is ESSENTIAL! It uses it's own sources.list file so there are programs I haven't seen under "apt-get". I won't mention them here, you'll have to see for yourself.

There is also walkthroughs for other programs you may want. The most useful other part I have found is adding extra libraries to your sources.list file. This will allow you to download and install even more programs with either "apt-get" or synaptic package manager.

If you haven't checked out the list of firefox extensions yet, you need to. There are many useful ones on there, no doubt you will be able to use one or certainly more. I have the "Forecastfox Enhanced", "Show IP", "Fasterfox", "Shazou", and a few others for email, etc. I use forcastfox for the radar to see if there is a storm coming so I know when to shut down my computers. Shazou is a nifty little icon I picked up just yesterday. Click on it and you will see the geographic location on a map of where the serever is of the page you are currently looking at. Show IP also shows the actual ip address in the statusbar of the page you are on. Pretty cool stuff, I suggest you check it out.

Smooth operation

I am so far really liking this OS. I have had very few problems with it, mostly only with firefox crashing. For that, I have installed an extension that will save a session when it crashes, so it will simply call up the pages you were at next time. There are many different extensions you can get, just click on "extensions" under the "tools" menu. Some are quite handy.

I have gotten a better monitor, so I can really see the detail of some of the programs on here. You can get many more types of applications on linux, from molecule contructors to a desktop planetarium, all free and open source. "Open source" refers to the availablility of the code for the application. Open source means that the source code (the code that makes up the program) is freely available for anyone to debug and edit, or do whatever you want with. It also (usually) means the program iteself is freely available (like freeware / shareware). There is a HUGE number of programs for download through Synaptic Package Manager (under system/administration menu), but if you know how to use the "apt-get" command you can download and install whatever you want, so long as you know the name of it. You can even use it to search. More on this as I learn it.

I am root!

As most basement linux kids know, to execute commands in terminal that change harware or file settings you must be logged in as the "root" user. Linux has users similar to the way windows 95 and 98 did, where you are prompted each time on log in for username and password. Root is a seperate name and password, very much like the "administrator" user in windows. You are required to make at least one username and password on setup of linux, but with Ubuntu I have been able to set it up to auto login so I don't have to enter my username and password each time and my wife doesn't have to remember it. It's pretty hard to forget your username, as it becomes your home directory, but DO NOT forget your password. You will still need it.

Ubuntu tries to make using root easier by eliminating the name altogether and using a command instead. In this way, you can be logged in as any user and do things requiring root access. Simply add the command "sudo" in front of any commands that need to be done as the root user. e.g.:

sudo mount -t vfat /dev/hdd /mnt/

A command line to mount my second hard drive (to "/mnt"). In linux, extra drives are "mounted" or simply attached to a directory on the main file system. Think about it like a tree. You are taking a new drive, or "branch" of information and attaching it to a larger tree that is your hard drive. Definately a switch for us windows users, and I still have more I need to learn about this command.