The_Doctor

lemme start off by saying woot! Kubuntu 9.04 goes from off to my desktop in like 20 seconds. Das amazing.

But now i'm faced with a ton of dilemmas: Even just the basics of Linux.
I have 0 clue what I'm doing for all my experience with Windows its doing me no good at all here.

I tried spooling through about 3 pages of these forums looking for specific knowledge and did some of the FAQ but there's soooo much that after a few hours of reading so late my eyes couldnt take it anymore so I just dropped it.

I'm having a lot of trouble installing ANYTHING like firefox and the flash player. i only recently learned that every linux program comes in a source package that I have to compile to make bootable. But all i know how to do is make the tar.bz2's Executabe in their properties.

I tried to follow guides on using the console to make them work but I don't think im getting close at all. File Manager Dolphin has them in a Documents folder within my Home Folder and thats as far as i get for being able to install anything. The only other close attempt, I forgot what I did but the window saying i am about to install this-or-that came up but when I hit ok there's some Source Read Error or whatever it is.

Anyway for now what I really need help with is understanding how to compile packages within Linux to make them usable and run them through the Konsole or whatever I use to do it. (Btw what good is ARK anyway?)

Also i have no understanding of security on Linux. Do i need to worry about viruses and whatnot? I never had to on Vista ult 64 because I had that locked down tighter than Fort Knox.

Please help with my basics, been trying but I'm just not grasping it from guides =/ my end goal here is to have Steam and TF2 running, some mod here said he had it working. So yeah, thats the end thing here.

OH! This Linux Kubuntu is a x86 OS, while my motherboard and stuff is built for x64, but I seem to be ok. Is this going to cause any worry? On that note, whenever I reinstalled Vista i would have to pop in my motherboard's disc to install the SATA driver thing and GigaLan before i could connect to the net, but with this I was on immediately. Do i need to worry about using this disc at all? Linux is absolutely unfamiliar ground for me x_X

EDIT: One more thing, I heard i might have some issues with USB devices? Well i have a USB headset for listening, but it's just not working. The system recognizes there's a USB device in there but even when I switch the Master Channel to the USB "speakers" i'm getting nothing. How it looks for me is when I open up the mixers:

- HDA Intel
- Audigy 2 Value (this won't work because I don't have analog headphones)
- USB Device 0xd8c:0x0x <-- This has to be my headset. But i don't know how to set it so that this is the device that gets used. Or if I DID do it, it's not working.

There's no Voice Comm for Linux far as i know so fixing the mic is a non-issue but i really need my headset to work =/

Thanks as usual fellas!

update on sound: I stumbled onto the device list where HDA, PulseAudio, and the USB blahblah is in. I hit test on one of the USB's and i DID hear the jingle.. but i'm still at a loss as to why everything is still mute. i'll keep checking back here as I keep trying to fix some of this.

Btw, why is it only 30 minutes to edit? I really don't want to post each time I can check something off my problem list.

UPDATE: Got music and other audio clips working, but the Internet is still mute. Music quality on Amarok seems a bit down from WMP too :P

wmorri

Hi,

Welcome to the wonderful yet very different world of Linux. I am here to answer any question that you might have as a beginner or find a person that will have the answer for you.

On that note let me start by answering your questions that you have so far. It looks like you have a couple, The first thing that you need to do is know how to install software and packages in Kubuntu. There are a couple of different ways.

First, you can install them using Synaptic Package Manager. This is a program that links to a database with all the ubuntu programs in it. You can do a search for a program and then you can install it. That I probably the easiest way to do it.

Second, you can install things through the command line, or CLI (Command Line Interface). There are a couple of things that you need to know. For starters you need to understand what Sudo is. Essentially it is the way that you become a super user that has more power than a normal user. Powers to add and remove things and change files, etc. After you understand about sudo you need to learn about the command line tool for installing software apt-get.

To install a piece of software you would want to type the following into Terminal: The next thing that you ask about is flash. If you haven't already got flash for your broswer you can go to here and then click on the .deb file for Ubuntu 8.04 and up.

Yeah my TF2 just finished downloading. Sorry I digressed here. I can discuss this with you later on. :)

Ok next on the list is security. Now you said that your windows system is locked down tight. That isn't needed as much in linux. I have found that all you need is a good firewall, and gui to understand what is going on. I would recommend that you take a look at Iptables for a firewall and Firestarter for a gui.

As for viruses you don't have to so worried about them as of yet, but we can cover that down the road when the time comes. Most people don't even run a virus program on linux.

Running a 32bit OS on a 64bit mobo isn't bad considering there are some issues with Ubuntu 64 at the moment.

I think that pretty much covers all of it for now. I am sure that you will have a lot more questions to come but for now I will leave you with that.

Cheers!