Ubuntu Help?

[Aloone_Jonez]

First I want to get some shit off my chest that's been bothering me for sometime about Ubuntu so I'll get the whine and bitch over with first.

I've installed the latest Ubuntu release and it's slogen "Linux for human beings" is a fucking joke, it isn't intuitve or easy to administer, "Linux for geeks" would be far more appropriet. Windows is far easier to learn I don't care what you say if you say otherwise then you're wrong and no it isn't because I'm used to Windows, I've used Acron Risc OS and that was easy, then I used MS-DOS which was harder and now Ubuntu which is just as difficult.

An intuitive OS would allow you to download a package, click on it and it's install for you, may be after prompting for the root password.

An intuitive OS would allow you to easilly configure the application launcher using the GUI.

An intuitive OS would allow you to setup the user access permissions for a dirve via the GUI.

Right so we've established that Ubuntu isn't intuitive or user friendly, that doesn't make it a bad OS. I wasn't expecting Linux to be intuitive or user friendly and it doesn't have a reputation for being easy to use I'm just annoyed that thay make this claim when the reverse is true.

Finally why to so many distros come with old software?

This seems to be the case with almost every distro I've tried, why?

The worst was Knoppix which still ships with OOo 2 beta I mean aren't beta releases not supposed to be suitable for production use as they are usally full of bugs?

Right now for the help part.

How do you install the rpm manager?

How do I go about upgrading all the software?

Ubuntu came with OOo 2.0 (well 1.9.129 actually) and I want to upgrade to OOo 2.0.2, Firefox 1.0.8 and I need the lastest version infact I'd like to upgrade even further to Opera if it's possible, (I've downloaded the package and I don't know how you install it).

Also I'd like to have another go at fixing the codec problems to, has anyone thought of anything new I could try?

[Refalm]

Have you tried Synaptic yet?

[GenuineAdvantage]

In ubuntu there is no RPM manager, I don't think. There is a converter to debian package called alien. Like he said, go to the synaptic manager and search for 'alien' and install it. No gui for it though, but it's fairly simple to run. Just type alien (rpm name), then you'll usually get a .deb file. the run

dpkg -i file.deb

with sudo at the beginning of course. This is no guarantee that the package will install though. Usually because of dependency issues. For instance, on ubuntu 5.10 I tried to install a deb I made from an rpm but the sound libraries on 5.10 were too old and not in the repositories (i.e. synaptic). the new beta version of ubuntu seems to be able to handle it but I didn't get it, and doubt I will until its out of beta. Trying other distros till then.

Btw as far as Firefox, I recommend to just install the true newest version 1.5.0.2 since it's faster than the ubuntu one.
If you want to do it, it's not that hard with directions:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FirefoxNewVersion?highlight=%28firefox%29
Somewhat of a read but as good as done if directions are followed.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

An intuitive OS would allow you to download a package, click on it and it's install for you, may be after prompting for the root password.

An intuitive OS would allow you to easilly configure the application launcher using the GUI.

An intuitive OS would allow you to setup the user access permissions for a dirve via the GUI.

Fedora can do all 3 of these

Right now for the help part.

How do you install the rpm manager?

How do I go about upgrading all the software?

Ubuntu came with OOo 2.0 (well 1.9.129 actually) and I want to upgrade to OOo 2.0.2, Firefox 1.0.8 and I need the lastest version infact I'd like to upgrade even further to Opera if it's possible, (I've downloaded the package and I don't know how you install it).

Also I'd like to have another go at fixing the codec problems to, has anyone thought of anything new I could try?

RPM MANAGER & UPDATE

Get RPM if you don't already have it:

http://packages.ubuntu.com/cgi-bin//search_packages.pl?version=all&subword=1&exact=&arch=any&releases=all&case=insensitive&keywords=rpm&searchon=names

might wanna look at yum: (this will let you update things too as long as you have repos to update from, just run "yum update")

http://packages.ubuntu.com/dapper/admin/yum

or apt (never used it but they say it's good, just run "apt-get update")

http://packages.ubuntu.com/cgi-bin//search_packages.pl?version=all&subword=1&exact=&arch=any&releases=all&case=insensitive&keywords=apt&searchon=names

OPENOFFICE2.0.2

Ok, well download OpenOffice from the official site, it should contain lots of rpms. Extract the tgz, then go into "RPMS" and delete "desktop-integration". Now you have 2 choices on how to install this, through rpm or manually:

RPM: Open a terminal, cd into RPMS and type "rpm -Uvih *rpm" (no quotes) then go run "/opt/openoffice.org2.0/program/soffice" no quotes. If you want better integration make a launcher for it.

Manually: Open a terminal, cd into RPMS and extract all the rpms into one folder by running the following in the terminal:

ls *.rpm > /tmp/InstallOOO.txt

then run:

while read line
do
 rpm2cpio "$line" | cpio -id --quiet
done < /tmp/InstallOOO.txt

and finally:

rm -f /tmp/InstallOOO.txt

move the newly made "opt" folder anywhere you want and run soffice inside "/PATHTOTHEOPTFOLDER/opt/openoffice.org2.0/program/soffice"

MPLAYER
Ok, go to:

http://packages.ubuntu.com/cgi-bin/search_packages.pl?keywords=mplayer&searchon=names&subword=1&version=all&release=all

and install the mplayer packages for ubuntu, I never got mplayer to compile properly so I dunno how to help you compile it Make sure you get the gui version or gmplayer.

Now for the codecs download them from here:

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/all-20050412.tar.bz2

untar them and put them in /usr/lib/codecs or /usr/lib/win32 either one should work, but if it doesn't try the other.

OPERA

goto http://www.opera.com/download/?platform=linux

choose Ubuntu and your version, it's a .deb and should install just fine. If not check the "Download this package in TAR.GZ format" option, untar, and run locally.

FIREFOX 1.5 (it has better support for plugins even though it tends to crash a lot more often ... I recommend crash recovery extention)

goto http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

download, untar, run locally.

Good Luck

[Duo Maxwell]

Aloone, theres also these options automatix http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=77 and easybuntu http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=86

Theres some interesting 3rd party projects going on over there, I'm just waiting for Dapper to be released officially, tho I am running the current version on my old PC, I just don't use it often enough, the iBook may be slower but I still like it so much better...

[Aloone_Jonez]

The EasyUbuntu thing worked, I can now watch porn on Ubuntu thanks!

H_TeXMeX_H,
I'll have a try tomorrow, it looks kind of long winded but it's wort a shot.

EDIT:
I've lost the OOo download when I upgraded so I had to download it again and I'm pleased to see it now comes in .deb flavour too, this saves me from messing around with rpms but I might give the rpm thing a go as other software might not give me a choice.

[piratePenguin]

The EasyUbuntu thing worked, I can now watch porn on Ubuntu thanks!

Perhaps you should try Lesbian GNU/Linux, but perhaps all of us should.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Uhhhh ... right ...

[piratePenguin]

Uhhhh ... right ...

Just to clarify: I said "perhaps all of us should" just because Aloone isn't the only person here who uses his computer to look at porn...

nothing.. else....

BTW I've never used that distro. It's probably shit. That is if it's not a joke...

[Duo Maxwell]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_operating_systems#Fictional_operating_systems

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Hah ... it is a joke ... (it fooled me) it isn't all that far-fetched if you think about it

[Aloone_Jonez]

I've seen it before and it fooled me too.

I've extracted the files in the OOo .tgz file and there're so many of them:

openoffice.org-base_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-calc_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core01_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core02_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core03_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core03u_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core04_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core04u_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core05_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core05u_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core06_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core07_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core08_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core09_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core10_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-debian-menus_2.0.2-5_all.deb
openoffice.org-draw_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-emailmerge_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-gnome-integration_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-graphicfilter_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-impress_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-javafilter_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-math_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-pyuno_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-spellcheck_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-testtool_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-writer_2.0.2-5_i386.deb
openoffice.org-xsltfilter_2.0.2-5_i386.deb

Which packages do I need to install and is there a specific order in which I need to install them?

Is dpkg -i *.* ok or do I need to do something else?

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Just do "dpkg --install *.deb" (no quotes) that should work. (the order you install them in is not important)

Really I liked it better when they just made a simple archive you could extract and run right away, now I gotta extract all the rpms and then archive it back into a .tgz, too much of a hassle I say.

[Orethrius]

Portage.  Yet another reason why I use Gentoo.  

[Aloone_Jonez]

Thank you for all your help I've finally well nearly got it set up how I want it, Opera and OpenOffice both work fine,all that's left is Firefox (which I don't really need except for the odd Opera unfriendly page) but it shouldn't be aproblem - I've done it beofre so I'll do it again.

H_TeXMeX_H,
I agree with you about OpenOffice, I preferred the binary installer to fucking areound with packages, yes it maybe a Windows-like way but it's much better.