Ubuntu Help

[Firefoxfanphill]

Heh, I'm a linux newb completely but I'm wondering, I want to have Ubuntu on a dual boot, though I have no idea how to do it, or how safe this is.Considering that my parents would in all respects kill me if I deleted everything.
Furthermore I'm wondering  how easy it is to do and how fast etc.If anyone can point me to the right way that would be great.

Also I have this common problem with the resolution settings and moniter settings but I'm wondering are these fixes for Ubuntu or the LiveCD to?

[Orethrius]

Heh, I'm a linux newb completely but I'm wondering, I want to have Ubuntu on a dual boot, though I have no idea how to do it, or how safe this is.Considering that my parents would in all respects kill me if I deleted everything.
Furthermore I'm wondering  how easy it is to do and how fast etc.If anyone can point me to the right way that would be great.

Also I have this common problem with the resolution settings and moniter settings but I'm wondering are these fixes for Ubuntu or the LiveCD to?

Don't do a dual-boot if there's any question about your ability to handle bootmanagers whatsoever, especially if your parents use the PC.  I doubt they'd appreciate a "99 99 99" error on every boot.  It would probably be a good idea to use the LiveCD here.  That being said, both LILO and GRUB are quite easy to set up for a dual-boot situation, but it might help to have you boot to a LiveCD anyway so we can figure out which partition (hda1, hda2, hdb5, whatever) hosts your OEM operating system.  A simple df command should help with this, but feel free to ask myself or WMD from another PC once you're logged in under a LiveCD (ask a friend or use a university PC if you just have the one PC).

What kind of trouble are you receiving from the monitor resolution settings?  Is the screen size incorrect, is the resolution too high or low, or something else?  It's not quite so straightforward to fix these issues, but it's definitely do-able.

[Firefoxfanphill]

Thank you for responding!

Unfortunately I am not a ahem student at a university in fact I'm going to start high school soon.Anyway. I have the all so usual problem of well Ubuntu not noticing my hardware (I guess?) and booting up in 640*468 (or something) and 60hz which is... unbearable. I did find a fix, I didn't read it all and was about to print it, then my printer got messed up and I can't find the site where I got the nice simple fix. So I looked threw the forums on Ubuntu and well, I'm extremely confused :-P.

[Jenda]

Sorry fffph, but I can't help you. I can point you to the Ubuntuguide.org, though, and that should be able to help you partly, and then I'm sure I saw a LOT of debate on resolution on the Ubuntu Fora.

[choasforages]

moniter and resolution problems? perhaps x11 is not setup correctly, please post your X11 config file, its typically in the /etc/x11 directory, but i cannot for the life of my remember its name. not to mention most of my machine are down save for one right now. so i can't exactly have a look, im going to be getting a spare toy machine within a week or so.

[Firefoxfanphill]

What i have to do is simple, change somthing from 24 to 32 and its fixed. But the files read only, is this cause I'm using a livecd? (its cdrw) Or do i have to go into dreaded (or however you spell it, I don't have spellbound :-P) terminal mode thing to change this? Heres my FULL log anyway

# /etc/X11/xorg.conf (xorg X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the /etc/X11/xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type "man /etc/X11/xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following commands:
#
#   cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.custom
#   sudo sh -c 'md5sum /etc/X11/xorg.conf >/var/lib/xfree86/xorg.conf.md5sum'
#   sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Section "Files"
    FontPath    "unix/:7100"            # local font server
    # if the local font server has problems, we can fall back on these
    FontPath    "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
    FontPath    "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
    FontPath    "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
    FontPath    "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
    FontPath    "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
    FontPath    "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/CID"
    FontPath    "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
    FontPath    "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
        # paths to defoma fonts
    FontPath    "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
    FontPath    "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/CID"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load    "bitmap"
    Load    "dbe"
    Load    "ddc"
    Load    "dri"
    Load    "extmod"
    Load    "freetype"
    Load    "glx"
    Load    "int10"
    Load    "record"
    Load    "type1"
    Load    "vbe"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier    "Generic Keyboard"
    Driver        "keyboard"
    Option        "CoreKeyboard"
    Option        "XkbRules"    "xorg"
    Option        "XkbModel"    "pc104"
    Option        "XkbLayout"    "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier    "Configured Mouse"
    Driver        "mouse"
    Option        "CorePointer"
    Option        "Device"        "/dev/input/mice"
    Option        "Protocol"        "ImPS/2"
    Option        "Emulate3Buttons"    "true"
    Option        "ZAxisMapping"        "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier    "NVIDIA Corporation NV18 [GeForce4 MX - nForce GPU]"
    Driver        "nv"
    BusID        "PCI:2:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier    "DELL P780"
    Option        "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier    "Default Screen"
    Device        "NVIDIA Corporation NV18 [GeForce4 MX - nForce GPU]"
    Monitor        "DELL P780"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth        1
        Modes        "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth        4
        Modes        "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth        8
        Modes        "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth        15
        Modes        "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth        16
        Modes        "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth        24
        Modes        "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier    "Default Layout"
    Screen        "Default Screen"
    InputDevice    "Generic Keyboard"
    InputDevice    "Configured Mouse"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
    Mode    0666
EndSection

[choasforages]

try knoppix, i don't know what to do with that configure file, other then tell the nv driver to ignore edid frequencys and generate its own.

[choasforages]

im sorry if im not as helpful right now, but my network is kinda fucked up, and yes, i was about 13 when i learned howto bend linux to my will

[MrX]

Firefoxfanphill:

Are you starting out on an OS other than windows? I would suggest BeOS as a warm-up to some sort of *nix because the file structure is basiacly the same but it is easy to migrate from and you will find yourself using the terminal alot (which is a bash shell) . There are some great BeOS live cd's just check out my site
http://beq2.beworld.info hit the 'learn about beos and what it can do for you' link and it gives you the info. Hopefully you will give BeOS a try, and not get addicted to its speed Then you can move over to ubuntu as you wanted too.

Mr X