Computer knowledgables, Assemble! (Jeff!)

Now that I've got my new machine running, and all of my family photos and music is backed up on external HD and the new computer's HD, I'd like to take the old notebook computer and get it running fast as a web surfer, and convert it to Ubuntu linux.

The first thing I've been doing is uninstalling applications, running disk cleanup, and now running disk defrag.

But there are numerous, numerous files and folders that don't have an uninstall available. What's the best way to go about cleaning up a computer like this? I would just start deleting folders, but there are system processes and other things that need to be removed.

Should I consider a hard disk format, followed by booting to ubuntu disk?

By the way -- I'm going to double the RAM on this little notebook as well.

Yes Jay, if you've got your personal data backed up, you don't need to uninstall anything or defrag anything. The Ubuntu installer will simply format the disk and you'll have a clean and fresh Linux install.

One note, I use Kubuntu rather than Ubuntu, because it has a different (better to me) user interface. All the rest of the functionality is the same. Something to look into at least.

I think I will just skip directly to that step. I think all of my performance issues are from hard disk issues and gremlins in the background running in memory.

Kubuntu it is.

And I assume no problem upgrading RAM after the Linux upgrade? It looks like I will be just plugging in the the two two 512k's in the back, and relying on the system to detect it anyway. I think memory detection occurs at an even lower level in the architecture than operating system.

I don't use GUI Linux much, but I trust Jeff's judgment of Kubuntu to be a good replacement for
a Windows user. Even when I have run GUI Linux, though, I found it to to use less RAM than
Windows, so maybe you could forsake the RAM upgrade. I'm sure Kubuntu will make good use
of it, though, if you do upgrade.

I'm a big fan of multiple partitioning, though, of a Linux system. At the very least, create a "/"
partition for your system, and a swap space. I would also have a separate partition for /home.
Maybe Kunbuntu auto formats respectable sizes automatically (Jeff?).

Kubuntu automatically makes one partition for swap and one for everything else. I have never seen any need to create separate partitions for /home or other things.
If you add the additional RAM later, it will be automatically recognized, yes.

The best thing with Linux distributions is they come with all the software you need already installed, and automatically updated at the click of a button, including drivers, OS updates, everything. Office apps, web browsing, media players, all good to go from the start.

My main reason for separate partitions is so that I can umount them and make repaires
and changes to them while still being logged in to the regular system. That, and I like
having my users on a separate partition so that they are unable to fill the / paritition to
capacity and drop the system. Not all that important on a a single-use machine, no doubt.
Still, I find it useful to have a partition formatted to FAT32 for easy transfer to/fro Windows
systems.

Not an issue with samba. Additionally, the KDE file browser lets you browse your Windows network shares transparently, just like you can do in Windows. There's no reason to use FAT32. You're thinking like a network admin and not a home user.

Yes. As I alluded to earlier with the single-user reference.

Booting from Ubuntu book disk now . . . (on other computer, not this one).

Jeff -- I agreed with your choice of Kubuntu and went for that. But by the time I downloaded and everything, the screens were all calling it Ubuntu 8.10. But the use of the "Ibex" name for the release makes me think I got it.

Oh wait, it's booting up with "kubuntu" on the screen. So I got that interface.

Sounds good, Jay. Let us know your experience after you get it working.

Having trouble connecting it to internet. It doesn't seem to have a good "autodetect" utility to use the built-in wireless device of the notebook.

It's also not got Firefox pre-installed. I'm having to install it. I want to see if it at least surfs with Firefox before I switch from boot disk to full install.

All right. Posting this from the Linux computer, using the Konquerer browser that is pre-installed. When I plugged in the ethernet cable and booted again off of the Kubuntu disk, it found an internet connection. I'm pretty confident I can get the wireless.

I am about to try and unlock Firefox.

Li'l Jay masters Linux. Read the True Story Now! ONLY AT IMWAN,
and wherever fine distros are distributed.

Still doing a bunch of upgrades after install. (Posting from Linux laptop now).

The Firefox install is counterintuitive. Consider they tout Firefox as the "default" browser, I think the Konqueror thing is a bait and switch.

Then when you go to "unpack" and install it Firefox, it refers to the package as "the Firefox branding." I'm tempted to grab it off the Mozilla site as a fresh download, instead if the internal install. But the Mozilla site calls it i686, which throws me off in my thinking.

I've got it going pretty good now. Firefox is humming along. And one of the benefits of using gmail, google bookmarks, and google docs is that a configured Firefox is pretty much all I need for 95% of my needs.

I'll keep it real lean and mean for a week or two, just to get the feel of it.

The 686 is not a big deal -- it looks like "x86" is the lingo for the family of linux I'm in. Just so happens I was used to seeing the 386 number. I think that distinguishes the ubuntu family from the red hat family, etc. All I have to remember is something with an 86, and 32 bit, and that's the types of software downloads that are for me.

I just broke my lean and mean rule and installed Google Desktop. I love the sidebar gadgets, and I have an unshakeable desire to use Rich Internet Applications instead of the things that come with the operating system.

I removed Google Desktop. It was not nearly as feature-rich as the Google Desktop for XP. It added very little value.

Surprisingly, the uninstall was not intuitive -- I blame Google for tending to install apps in a non-traditional way. I had to run sudo from a terminal to remove the "package." I can already tell this package approach is one of the inherent strengths of Linux, but I am surprised the K interface didn't have a right-click way of doing it. And Adept installer had nothing to do with installing Google Desktop, so it saw nothing in the way of removing it. Google Desktop was invisible to it.

But the bash prompt is so powerful, one single command sent Google Desktop to the cornfield.

Well done, Jay. Wireless depends on your wifi adapter. You may have to install some special drivers. Mine worked right out of the box. Strangely, Firefox was my default browser instantly, as I recall.

I'll probably give it a while, since the ethernet cable is right here anyway. I read some inquiries on the Kubuntu forums, and wifi is one of the early bugs with Ibex. I'll let others struggle through until it gets easier.

If you're seeing your adapter in the network connection configuration, then it's been detected correctly and you have only to deal with the wireless network detection. I had to install an application called Knetwork manager or I'd have problems getting connected to my home network correctly. It kept trying to hit my neighbors or not finding any networks at all. If your adapter is not detected, then you're going to have a little work to do.