Linux question - AR15.COM

Posted: 12/26/2006 8:26:02 AM EDT

I just installed Ubuntu linux on one of my spare machines and I have no idea how to get to the "desktop". I start the machine, log on and all I get is a friggin' command line. How do I get to the wonderful linux desktop environment?

Posted: 12/26/2006 8:45:42 AM EDT

[#1]

startx at the command line should bring up your X windows system.

I think with Ubutunu it is Gnome by default.

Posted: 12/26/2006 8:51:00 AM EDT

[#2]

Quoted:
startx at the command line should bring up your X windows system.

I think with Ubutunu it is Gnome by default.

So the command that I want is "startx"?

I will give that a try. Thanks a million.

ETA I just started up my linux machine and it seems that I have forgotten my login or password so I am reinstalling it now and will try again when it is done....

Posted: 12/26/2006 9:36:21 AM EDT

[#3]

Why do you need the desktop? get cracking at the command line.

Posted: 12/26/2006 9:48:26 AM EDT

[#4]

Quoted:
Why do you need the desktop? get cracking at the command line.

LOL
I want to use linux as a Windoze substitute. I don't want to have to learn a whole new language.

Posted: 12/26/2006 9:49:58 AM EDT

[#5]

Quoted:

Quoted:
Why do you need the desktop? get cracking at the command line.

LOL
I want to use linux as a Windoze substitute. I don't want to have to learn a whole new language.

You're going to have to anyway... good luck, you're going to need it. Not a dig by any means, but it's a whole other beast, and the chances of getting it to work how you want without digging into the real OS are pretty small.

Posted: 12/26/2006 10:23:08 AM EDT

[#6]

The "startx" command just freezes Ubuntu. I am going to try a Red Hat install now. If all else fails I will install Win 98.

Posted: 12/26/2006 10:33:07 AM EDT

[#7]

Quoted:
The "startx" command just freezes Ubuntu. I am going to try a Red Hat install now. If all else fails I will install Win 98.

Try "init 4"?

Posted: 12/26/2006 10:51:21 AM EDT

[#8]

If you are giving up and trying to install different versions just to get x-windows running... yeah, you might want to rethink linux entirely.

Posted: 12/26/2006 11:13:37 AM EDT

[#9]

I see all these cool screenshots of linux desktops and that is what I was hoping to see. I just don't know how to get there and the "startx" command seems to fail.

Thanks for the advice to just give up. You are very helpful.

Posted: 12/26/2006 11:24:42 AM EDT

[#10]

Quoted:
I see all these cool screenshots of linux desktops and that is what I was hoping to see. I just don't know how to get there and the "startx" command seems to fail.

Thanks for the advice to just give up. You are very helpful.

I see windows 98 in your future......

Really, though, why are you trying to get linux working? New desktop machine? Just to look at a pretty desktop UI? Trying to learn Gimp and become an open-source artist? Programming?

It will require some DIY bits on your part to get where you want to be whatever it is you're trying to do.

Posted: 12/26/2006 11:31:13 AM EDT

[#11]

try fedora

i bet it will work

Posted: 12/26/2006 1:23:48 PM EDT

[#12]

Quoted:

Quoted:
I see all these cool screenshots of linux desktops and that is what I was hoping to see. I just don't know how to get there and the "startx" command seems to fail.

Thanks for the advice to just give up. You are very helpful.

I see windows 98 in your future......

Really, though, why are you trying to get linux working? New desktop machine? Just to look at a pretty desktop UI? Trying to learn Gimp and become an open-source artist? Programming?

It will require some DIY bits on your part to get where you want to be whatever it is you're trying to do.

Windows 98 is far in my past. I consider myself proficient with the Windows OS and this is my first journey into the linux world and I am just looking around to see what is there. A friend at work got me interested in trying linux and he lauded their desktop GUI so I want to try it. This is a "retired" desktop machine that I throw different stuff on to try.

Posted: 12/26/2006 1:40:10 PM EDT

[#13]

Quoted:

Quoted:
I see all these cool screenshots of linux desktops and that is what I was hoping to see. I just don't know how to get there and the "startx" command seems to fail.

Thanks for the advice to just give up. You are very helpful.

I see windows 98 in your future......

Really, though, why are you trying to get linux working? New desktop machine? Just to look at a pretty desktop UI? Trying to learn Gimp and become an open-source artist? Programming?

It will require some DIY bits on your part to get where you want to be whatever it is you're trying to do.

Windows 98 is far in my past. I consider myself proficient with the Windows OS and this is my first journey into the linux world and I am just looking around to see what is there. A friend at work got me interested in trying linux and he lauded their desktop GUI so I want to try it. This is a "retired" desktop machine that I throw different stuff on to try.

.. if it's an older system... Get reduced media XP.... probably find it the same place you can get linux distros.. if you know wnat I mean..

Posted: 12/26/2006 2:11:51 PM EDT

[#14]

Quoted:

Quoted:
I see all these cool screenshots of linux desktops and that is what I was hoping to see. I just don't know how to get there and the "startx" command seems to fail.

Thanks for the advice to just give up. You are very helpful.

I see windows 98 in your future......

Really, though, why are you trying to get linux working? New desktop machine? Just to look at a pretty desktop UI? Trying to learn Gimp and become an open-source artist? Programming?

It will require some DIY bits on your part to get where you want to be whatever it is you're trying to do.

Windows 98 is far in my past. I consider myself proficient with the Windows OS and this is my first journey into the linux world and I am just looking around to see what is there. A friend at work got me interested in trying linux and he lauded their desktop GUI so I want to try it. This is a "retired" desktop machine that I throw different stuff on to try.

Start with the command line environment then. It's no bullshit that you won't last 10 minutes in the GUI before you have to do something with the commandline, so you better know how. If you're not interested in it, then that's fine, and Linux just isn't for you.

Your friend is probably something of a "Zealot" anyway. Windows is light years ahead of X (The generic name for the GUI used on Linux and other OSes) as far as GUIs go, and will probably remain that way for quite some time. I'm posting this on a laptop running FreeBSD running XOrg + KDE3.5 and Firefox.

Use it if you see it doing something you want to do, or if you want to "fight the man" and get rid of MS. Don't use it if you don't want to take the time to really learn it, or if you expect it to be better than windows for a workstation/desktop.

Posted: 12/26/2006 2:21:24 PM EDT

[#15]

Quoted:

Quoted:
I see all these cool screenshots of linux desktops and that is what I was hoping to see. I just don't know how to get there and the "startx" command seems to fail.

Thanks for the advice to just give up. You are very helpful.

I see windows 98 in your future......

Really, though, why are you trying to get linux working? New desktop machine? Just to look at a pretty desktop UI? Trying to learn Gimp and become an open-source artist? Programming?

It will require some DIY bits on your part to get where you want to be whatever it is you're trying to do.

Windows 98 is far in my past. I consider myself proficient with the Windows OS and this is my first journey into the linux world and I am just looking around to see what is there. A friend at work got me interested in trying linux and he lauded their desktop GUI so I want to try it. This is a "retired" desktop machine that I throw different stuff on to try.

Start with the command line environment then. It's no bullshit that you won't last 10 minutes in the GUI before you have to do something with the commandline, so you better know how. If you're not interested in it, then that's fine, and Linux just isn't for you.

Your friend is probably something of a "Zealot" anyway. Windows is light years ahead of X (The generic name for the GUI used on Linux and other OSes) as far as GUIs go, and will probably remain that way for quite some time. I'm posting this on a laptop running FreeBSD running XOrg + KDE3.5 and Firefox.

Use it if you see it doing something you want to do, or if you want to "fight the man" and get rid of MS. Don't use it if you don't want to take the time to really learn it, or if you expect it to be better than windows for a workstation/desktop.

That is what I was looking for. I wanted to use it because my friend tries to tell me that is is MUCH better than Windows. If that is not the case, and it is going to require me to learn some new stuff (that doesn't apply to my day to day job) then I am not going to bother with it. I was hoping that Ubuntu would be a "plug and play" distro, but that does not seem to be the case. I am looking at my Ubuntu machine right now and it is frozen up tight after trying to run the "startx" command. The only reason that I was trying it was pure curiosity and hope that it would be a better OS.

Thanks for the help gentlemen. Now to install Windows 98 on that old machine...

Posted: 12/26/2006 2:27:50 PM EDT

[#16]

Linux is very user friendly. It's just picky about who its friends are

-Foxxz

Posted: 12/26/2006 2:30:25 PM EDT

[#17]

I wouldn't go with 98 either. Seriously. Run NT4 or Windows 2000 Pro if you need something "old" but, how old is old? I've run XP Pro on this laptop before and it's hardly a speed demon. Pentium-III 1.2GHz, 256MB.

I ran Windows 2000 Pro on everything all the way back to my K6-2 350MHz. If your machine is at least that fast, just don't do Windows 9x. Seriously. Every time somebody boots up a Win-9x box, baby Jesus cries.. right before he crashes in a 16bit nightmare.

Now, a link for all the "X-haters" like me, even those of us that use it daily are haters. Read on kids, read on. ;)

A chapter from the book "The Unix Haters Handbook"

The X-Windows Disaster

And an excerpt just to get you started..

How to make a 50-MIPS Workstation Run Like a 4.77MHz IBM PC

If the designers of X-Windows built cars, there would be no fewer than five steering wheels hidden about the cockpit, none of which followed the same principles -- but you'd be able to shift gears with your car stereo. Useful feature, that.

- Marus J. Ranum, Digital Equipment Corporation

X-Windows is the Iran-Contra of graphical user interfaces: a tragedy of political compromises, entangled alliances, marketing hype, and just plain greed. X-Windows is to memory as Ronald Reagan was to money. Years of "Voodoo Ergonomics" have resulted in an unprecedented memory deficit of gargantuan proportions. Divisive dependencies, distributed deadlocks, and partisan protocols have tightened gridlocks, aggravated race conditions, and promulgated double standards.

X has had its share of $5,000 toilet seats -- like Sun's Open Look clock tool, which gobbles up 1.4 megabytes of real memory! If you sacrificed all the RAM from 22 Commodore 64s to clock tool, it still wouldn't have enough to tell you the time. Even the vanilla X11R4 "xclock" utility consumed 656K to run. And X's memory usage is increasing.

Posted: 12/26/2006 2:40:13 PM EDT

[#18]

I tried using linux and and found out it wouldn't work unless I compiled a custom kernal.

Yeah, fuck you linux. Back to the moron box.

Posted: 12/26/2006 2:51:15 PM EDT

[#19]

Quoted:
I tried using linux and and found out it wouldn't work unless I compiled a custom kernal.

Yeah, fuck you linux. Back to the moron box.

compiling kernels are fun. it took me 2 days to get my first linux box up and running 100% cause the f'ing kernel compile took forever on my wimpy 486

and if compiling a kernel isnt interesting to you, you shouldnt be using linux. i would never use linux as a GUI system, always use it for servers. none of my linux boxes ever even HAD a monitor except during inital install.

Posted: 12/26/2006 4:21:32 PM EDT

[#20]

Man, you guys are harsh. I foud out about LINUX a few months ago while researching the idea of building a new computer. Every one was saying how it was much easier to use and faster. This was a skill I wanted to build since I didn't know shit about computers. After a lot of reasearch on the net I bought my parts and got a few distros'. Once I got every thing assembled I couldn't decide which distro to use. So I just started installing them one after another ( I didn't want to do partitions. PCLinuxOS was tried first since I heard good things. I wasn't ready for all the comand line shit. It didn't have very much usefull software on it, I wanted to organize music and burn CD's. So I installed Free spire. After I got it installed I started looking at all the programs and found what I wanted. L-SONGS,very close to I-tunes. I havn't used it much except for ripping and burning CD's. However I do need to get a program to play and burn DVD's.
xxxx

Posted: 12/26/2006 4:26:43 PM EDT

[#21]

Quoted:
I tried using linux and and found out it wouldn't work unless I compiled a custom kernal.

Yeah, fuck you linux. Back to the moron box.

How long ago was that? Most stuff is all LKM nowadays.

Posted: 12/26/2006 4:59:43 PM EDT

[#22]

Something doesn't compute here. Ubuntu installs with a default graphical boot.

Do you have the Ubuntu live CD? Will it boot to ubuntu from the CD drive?

Jim

Posted: 12/26/2006 5:03:13 PM EDT

[#23]

Quoted:
Something doesn't compute here. Ubuntu installs with a default graphical boot.

Do you have the Ubuntu live CD? Will it boot to ubuntu from the CD drive?

Jim

I'm guessing he either changed the default to something other than runlevel 5 or the X server doesn't like his hardware. It happens.

Posted: 12/26/2006 5:08:21 PM EDT

[#24]

Quoted:
Something doesn't compute here. Ubuntu installs with a default graphical boot.

Do you have the Ubuntu live CD? Will it boot to ubuntu from the CD drive?

Jim

I have tried the Ubuntu live CD also and it doesn't bring me to a GUI either. It may be the machine hardware or something. I will have to try the live CD on a different machine to see how/if it runs.

Posted: 12/26/2006 8:08:14 PM EDT

[#25]

Not to go off on a tangent, but I really miss the good 'ole days - the ones hunkered over the Bell Labs UNIX reference manual, telnetting into the campus's Sun. And going to the engineering lab to log onto a coveted SPARCStation 5... These young whippersnappers nowadays....

Posted: 12/26/2006 8:10:26 PM EDT

[#26]

Buy a Mac.

Then you get all the power of Unix, a GUI that works, and no Windows.

Woot!

Posted: 12/26/2006 8:12:17 PM EDT

[#27]

Quoted:
Not to go off on a tangent, but I really miss the good 'ole days - the ones hunkered over the Bell Labs UNIX reference manual, telnetting into the campus's Sun. And going to the engineering lab to log onto a coveted SPARCStation 5... These young whippersnappers nowadays....

Don't get me started. At my first job I was in charge of a couple of SPARC 5s. We were thrilled when we finally got a 10 and 20.

Uphill both ways, etc.

Posted: 12/26/2006 9:22:55 PM EDT

[#28]

Quoted:

Quoted:
Something doesn't compute here. Ubuntu installs with a default graphical boot.

Do you have the Ubuntu live CD? Will it boot to ubuntu from the CD drive?

Jim

I have tried the Ubuntu live CD also and it doesn't bring me to a GUI either. It may be the machine hardware or something. I will have to try the live CD on a different machine to see how/if it runs.

Huh, give us some specs on this spare machine. Now you have me curious.

The only computers I haven't been able to get Ubuntu to work on right off the bat have been an old P-233 and a PII-266, both with 128 megs ram. Havn't figured out the 'trick' on those yet.

Jim

Posted: 12/26/2006 10:05:57 PM EDT

[#29]

Quoted:

Quoted:
Something doesn't compute here. Ubuntu installs with a default graphical boot.

Do you have the Ubuntu live CD? Will it boot to ubuntu from the CD drive?

Jim

I have tried the Ubuntu live CD also and it doesn't bring me to a GUI either. It may be the machine hardware or something. I will have to try the live CD on a different machine to see how/if it runs.

Huh, give us some specs on this spare machine. Now you have me curious.

The only computers I haven't been able to get Ubuntu to work on right off the bat have been an old P-233 and a PII-266, both with 128 megs ram. Havn't figured out the 'trick' on those yet.

Jim

I'll take unsupported video card for 200, Alex.

Posted: 1/1/2007 12:40:33 AM EDT

[#30]

Quoted:

Quoted:
Something doesn't compute here. Ubuntu installs with a default graphical boot.

Do you have the Ubuntu live CD? Will it boot to ubuntu from the CD drive?

Jim

I have tried the Ubuntu live CD also and it doesn't bring me to a GUI either. It may be the machine hardware or something. I will have to try the live CD on a different machine to see how/if it runs.

I've heard good things about Mepis, people say it deals with hardware even better than Ubuntu.

Jim

Posted: 1/2/2007 1:27:29 PM EDT

[#31]

Ah well Ubuntu isn't something I've spent a lot of time with but you could try the various X configuration tools. Run it through xorgconfig and tell it to use the "vesa" driver.

You could try the automatic "Xorg -configure" command but that only works sometimes. Also xorgcfg is similar and gives you some more options I think.

It's hard to say really because configuring X Windows is a set of knowledge in and of itself. Ubuntu forums might be of assistance.

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