Linux vs Windows vs Mac

We’re going to look at what may be a better way to do it. It’s certainly easier and from reports, NTFS-3G is a bit more stable as well. This Howto is written specifically for and from Ubuntu 6.10 - Edgy Eft but should work on any Debian based distro.

It should be noted that NTFS-3G may contain bugs and issues. Writing to NTFS from Linux may be unstable so you should use this at your own risk.

The first thing you’re going to have to do is install NTFS-3G. Let’s open up a terminal session and do the following:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g

You’ll be prompted to install this and several other dependancies as well. If you run into errors where ntfs-3g can’t be found, check out this article about adding extra repositories.

Now that NTFS-3G is installed, it’s time to tell your box to use it to mount your NTFS partition. Let’s find out where exactly that is. Back in your terminal type

sudo fdisk -l

You should get something that looks like this:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 2550 20480008+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 2550 7493 39707451+ f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
/dev/sda3 7494 9729 17960670 83 Linux
/dev/sda5 2550 7394 38911288+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda6 7395 7493 795186 82 Linux swap / Solaris

We’re interested in the partition that says HPFS/NTFS. Notice that on my machine it’s /dev/sda1. You’ll want to keep track of this for yours. I suggest spelling it out in leftover Halloween candy on your desk, or for a spooky effect, use fake blood.

Now that you have your info on the NTFS partition, let’s edit the fstab file in your /etc directory to use NTFS-3G.

sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak

Always make backups of stuff like this. Really.

Many Ubuntu users will find that the fstab already reflects their NTFS drive as mounted in the /media folder. This is standard but does not allow write access, only read access. We’re going to change this to use NTFS-3G. To see what you have do the following:

cat /etc/fstab

If you have a mount point already for your NTFS partition, it will look something like:

/dev/sda1 /media/sda1 ntfs defaults,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1

You’ll want to replace the bit that says ntfs with ntfs-3g, so it looks like this:

gksu gedit /etc/fstab

Now add:

/dev/sda1 /media/sda1 ntfs-3g defaults,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1

Replace the /dev/sda1 bit with whatever you wrote down from your fdisk -l output and save the file.

If you don’t have this listed at all, you’ll want to create a mount point in your /media folder. If you want to call it ‘windows‘ then you’d make a directory under /media called windows:

sudo mkdir /media/windows

Then add the below line to your /etc/fstab file:

gksu gedit /etc/fstab

Now add:

/dev/sda1 /media/windows ntfs-3g defaults,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1

Finally, restart your machine. Your Windows partition should now be on your desktop, and you can access it through your terminal by going to /media and then cd into the directory your using.

If you’re like me, then you’ve got a dual boot machine running both Windows and Ubuntu. heck, even if you’re not like me it’s entirely possible that you’ll have a dual boot machine. I’ll even allow for a triple boot machine if you like.

Here’s a guide to making the most of your NTFS partition while in Ubuntu. When you’re done you should be able to have your NTFS partition mounted at boot, be able to write to it and read from it and be able to lift three times your body weight without breaking a sweat.

It should be noted that writing to NTFS is still experimental. You’d best have a backup of your machine if you’re going to do this.

First let’s figure out where our NTFS partition is hiding. I’m going to assume that you’ve got an NTFS partition, an EXT3 partition and perhaps a FAT32 partition laying about. Open up a terminal session and type the following:

sudo fdisk -l

You’re looking for the NTFS partition, my output looks like this:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 2550 20480008+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 2550 7493 39707451+ f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
/dev/sda3 7494 9729 17960670 83 Linux
/dev/sda5 2550 7394 38911288+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda6 7395 7493 795186 82 Linux swap / Solaris

It’s /dev/sda1 that I’m interested in. Find out what yours is and write it down somewhere. A good thing to do is to write it backwards on your forehead in indellible marker. This not only allows you to see where it is every time you look in the mirror but I’ll also be able to identify my readers if you venture out into public.

So let’s install the stuff we’ll need to get this working.

sudo apt-get install libfuse2 fuse-utils libntfs8 ntfsprogs

Now let’s add fuse to the list of stuff that our kernel will load:

echo fuse | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

Now let’s add a group which we’ll use to control who can or can’t get access to the NTFS partition.

sudo addgroup ntfs

When this is done, you’ll get some output which will contain your GID (Group ID). It’ll look something like adding group ntfs (1001). Write down that GID, or add it to your backwards forehead list.

Now we’re going to create a mount point for our partition. This is a folder into which this disk will be shoved. Well, metaphorically speaking anyway. We’ll put it in the /media directory so it’ll show up on our desktop. then we’ll edit the fstab file to tell it to mount the NTFS partition on to the folder.

sudo mkdir /media/windows

sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak

gksudo gedit /etc/fstab

Now that you’ve got the fstab file backed up and open in gedit, let’s add the following line to the bottom of it.

/dev/hda1 /media/windows ntfs-fuse auto,gid=1002,umask=0002 0 0

Here’s where you’ll need a mirror to look at the info you’ve written backwards on your forehead. The first bit ‘/dev/hda1? is the location of your NTFS partition. If you’re is different, then change it in your fstab entry above. The second bit we’ll need is the GID of your ntfs group. If it’s not 1002 then change that as well.

Now, let’s add your user to the ntfs group. If you’re username is ‘slartibartfast‘ this is how the command would look. (If you’re username is not ’slartibartfast, then type your username in place of slartibartfast, or consider changing it to slartibartfast’).

sudo adduser slartibartfast ntfs

Now let’s do some quick removing and linking to fix a known bug.

sudo rm /sbin/mount.ntfs-fuse && sudo ln /usr/bin/ntfsmount /sbin/mount.ntfs-fuse

Now reboot your machine and you’ll come back up to the joy of being able to muck with your windows install while not actually booting into windows.

After no less than six Alpha’s the Intrepid Ibex aka Ubuntu 8.10 has now finally taken beta form. The release features GNOME 2.24, X.Org server 7.4, the 2.6.27 Linux kernel, Network Manager 0.7, Samba 3.2 and much more which will also make it into the final version. Speaking of that, the full and final Ubuntu 8.10 is scheduled for a October 30th introduction.

The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the beta release of Ubuntu 8.10
Desktop and Server. Codenamed “Intrepid Ibex”, 8.10 continues Ubuntu’s
proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source
technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution.

Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop Edition delivers the features you need for an
increasingly mobile digital life, including 3G wireless support and
guest sessions that lets users temporarily share computers without
compromising security.

Ubuntu 8.10 Server consolidates its support for virtualization with an
integrated Virtual Machine builder, and brings with it a fully-supported
Java stack and support for per-user directory encryption.

The Ubuntu 8.10 family of variants, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, UbuntuStudio, and
Mythbuntu, also reach beta status today.

Desktop features

Xorg 7.4 brings improved support for automatic configuration of input
hardware, such as keyboards and mice.

3G support: Network Manager 0.7 comes with a number of greatly anticipated
features, including management of 3G connections (GSM/CDMA) and PPP/PPPoE
connnections.

Guest sessions: the User Switcher panel applet provides a new option for
starting a Guest session. This creates a temporary, password-less user
account with restricted privileges - perfect for lending out your laptop for
a quick email check.

Please see http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/intrepid/beta for details.

Server features

Encrypted private directories: the installer now offers the option to
configure a secret encrypted folder for each user, to be unlocked and
mounted at login time, using ecryptfs.

Virtualization: Ubuntu 8.10 ships with a Virtual Machine builder that allows
complete Virtual Machines to be built from the command line in less than
five minutes, with support for scripting custom virtual images.

Java: a complete free Javaâ„¢ stack is supported in Ubuntu 8.10, including
OpenJDK and Apache Tomcat 6.0, making Ubuntu a great choice for Java
development and deployment.

Kubuntu features

Kubuntu builds on the groundwork of the Kubuntu 8.04 KDE 4 Remix to provide
a fully-supported KDE 4 desktop in Kubuntu 8.10.

Please see https://wiki.kubuntu.org/IntrepidIbex/Beta/Kubuntu for details.

Xubuntu features

Xubuntu comes with the light-weight Xfce 4.4.2 desktop environment for those
who want a desktop that is easy to use, but places particular emphasis on
conserving system resources.

UbuntuStudio features

Ubuntu Studio includes the updates to input hardware and sound device
management from Ubuntu Desktop, and includes a complete suite of tools for
generation of audio, video, and graphic content.

Mythbuntu features

See http://mythbuntu.org/8.10/beta for information about the Mythbuntu beta
release.

Other

* On the Desktop: KDE 4.1.2, GNOME 2.24, OpenOffice.org 2.4.1, X.org 7.4

* On the Server: Apache 2.2, PostgreSQL 8.3, PHP 5.2.6, LTSP 5.1

* “Under the hood”: GCC 4.3.2, glibc 2.8, Linux 2.6.27, Python 2.5

The full release notes can be found at
http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/intrepid/beta

About Ubuntu

Ubuntu is a full-featured Linux distribution for desktops, laptops, and
servers, with a fast and easy installation and regular releases. A
tightly-integrated selection of excellent applications is included, and
an incredible variety of add-on software is just a few clicks away.

Professional technical support is available from Canonical Limited and
hundreds of other companies around the world. For more information about
support, visit http://www.ubuntu.com/support

To Get Ubuntu 8.10 Beta

Download Ubuntu 8.10 Beta here (choose the mirror closest to you):

Africa:

* http://ubuntu.mirror.ac.za/ubuntu-release/8.10 (South Africa)

Asia:

* http://ftp.daum.net/ubuntu-releases/8.10 (Korea, Republic of)
* http://ftp.tcc.edu.tw/iso/Ubuntu/8.10 (Taiwan)
* http://tw.releases.ubuntu.com/8.10 (Taiwan)

Europe:

* http://ubuntu.mirrors.proxad.net/8.10 (France)
* http://ftp.uni-kl.de/pub/linux/ubuntu.iso/8.10 (Germany)
* http://nl.releases.ubuntu.com/releases/8.10 (Netherlands)
* http://se.releases.ubuntu.com/8.10 (Sweden)

North America:

* http://mirror.anl.gov/pub/ubuntu-iso/CDs/8.10 (United States)
* http://mirrors.gigenet.com/ubuntu/8.10 (United States)
* http://ubuntu.cs.utah.edu/releases/8.10 (United States)

Oceania/Australia:

* http://ubuntu-releases.optus.net/8.10 (Australia)
* http://planetmirror.com/pub/ubuntu/releases/8.10 (Australia)
* http://ftp.citylink.co.nz/ubuntu-releases/8.10 (New Zealand)

South America:

* http://ubuntu.c3sl.ufpr.br/releases/8.10 (Brazil)

Rest of the world:

http://releases.ubuntu.com/8.10 (Great Britain)

Please download using Bittorrent if possible.

To upgrade to Ubuntu 8.10 Beta from Ubuntu 8.04 LTS,
follow these instructions:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/IntrepidUpgrades

The final version of Ubuntu 8.10 is expected to be released in October 2008.

Known Bugs

There are a few key issues that users will want to take note of before
upgrading to this beta.

* The e1000e device driver (which provides support for Intel GigE ethernet
hardware) is currently disabled due to a serious bug. A fix for this
bug has already been prepared and will be released shortly as an update
to all users of the beta release.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/263555

* No real-time kernel variant is available for the Linux 2.6.27 kernel
included with Ubuntu 8.10 Beta. Users of Ubuntu“Studio 8.04 who need
real-time kernel support are advised not to upgrade to Ubuntu“Studio
8.10.

Alpha software of any sort tends to be pretty buggy. It’s basically the developers saying that they can make this work but need a bit more time and “watch this space”. Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid Ibex” Alpha 6 is no exception to the buggy rule. There are a number of things that don’t quite work. Saying that, it is not so bad as you might imagine, as I am writing this article quite happily from 8.10 “Intrepid Ibex”.

Alpha 6 is the last of the Alpha releases. The Beta release is due on the 2nd of October, and the Release Candidates will appear around the 23rd of October with the final release on the 30th of October.

I have had a look at the bug reports and the forums for Intrepid Ibex and things are being actively worked on. In the 24 hours since I installed, there have been a number of updates. I will be interested in logging onto this install and updating and seeing how things begin to work over the next few weeks.

It is interesting that the Free and Open Source Community is so open about the fact that things don’t quite work and how hard they are working to get them right.

So, after using it for a day or so, what doesn’t work?
The most obvious one is the wireless card that I have in this laptop. The Hardware Drivers sub-system comes up with the fact that the Broadcom 4318 card has been found and that there’s a driver available, however, the installation routine just doesn’t do anything. Dropping into the terminal and running the following command: sudo /usr/share/b43-fwcutter/install_bcm43xx_firmware.sh fixes it (just make sure you have a wired Internet connection).

I can then select my wireless network and it automatically selects the right encryption scheme. When I put in the WPA password it all connects correctly and I can browse my Local Area Network and the Internet (more on this on page 3).

However, I run into a problem when I restart. The system seems to forget the WPA password and I have to type it in again. Once this is done, it connects fine, so this is more of an annoyance than anything else. It has been reported as a bug and it is being worked on.

I want to listen to some music that I have on one of the shares, so I tell the music player, Rhythmbox, to go look there for the music. However, it doesn’t see any of the music files on the share. This is a Rhythmbox application issue and has been logged. I get around it by mounting the share in a different way (I want to write an article about how to do that soon) and I can successfully listen to my music.

I am sure there are more issues to be discovered, but that’s as far as I have tested so far.

My first impressions are that it’s all about the speed, the pretty and small improvements that make it more usable.

One of the generally accepted rules of computing seems to be that if you retain the same hardware and upgrade the operating system, then you can expect it to run slower. For example, Windows XP runs pretty well on my laptop, but Vista would be barely useable.

This seems to have been accepted as a fact of computing. But noone seems to have told the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community. They clearly don’t subscribe to this idea!

Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid Ibex” Alpha 6 absolutely flies on my laptop. It boots faster and generally feels more responsive than the 8.04 version, which again felt faster than 7.10 and 7.04.

At the same time, I have a lot more applets loading on startup (and software installed generally) in 8.04, so I will be interested to see what happens when I enable them in 8.10. I suspect that things will just be faster in 8.10 anyway as the quality of FOSS just keeps increasing.

The biggest difference is in the wireless speed. In Ubuntu 7.04 and 7.10, my Broadcom 4318 WLAN card used the bcm43xx driver, which had a maximum speed of 24Mbps (3MB/sec), although being wireless it was usually quite a lot slower. This was replaced by the b43 driver in 8.04, which usually connected somewhere between 11 Mbps and 36 Mbps (although due to a bug in Network-Manager which remains unfixed, it only ever showed that it was connected at 1Mbps). I was able to get about 1.2-1.5MB/sec when downloading off my ISP’s local file mirror.

However, in 8.10 I can get 2.3MB/sec, sustained, over wireless! I am quite close to the exchange and on ADLS2+ (theoretical maximum speed of 24Mbps), so I am pretty much maxing out that connection. Interestingly, this is faster than the speeds that the Vista SP1 machines in the house can achieve (about 1.5MBps for the same file).

Having a fast connection speed - Network-Manager tells me 54 Mbps at the moment - and good throughput on wireless is a very welcome change.

One thing to keep in mind is that (as far as I am aware) Broadcom themselves have not helped with this driver, it is the open source developer community that have improved it to this point.
The second good thing that I have noticed is that it is gorgeous to look at. Compiz (the 3D desktop) is enabled by default, so I get all the nice 3D effects. This is pretty incredible as I have an onboard video card which shares 128MB of the system RAM. Vista’s Aero would just laugh at this video card and tell it to grow up!

It also seems to be a lot easier on the eyes. If the Ubuntu team has selected new default fonts then I salute them.

Applications such as Firefox and Gedit (the default text editor, a bit like Notepad in Windows, but much more powerful) just look nicer. Enabling Subpixel Smoothing makes it even better (go to System, Preferences, Appearance. Under Fonts at the top, click on Subpixel Smoothing. Makes things look nice on an LCD screen).

It might not seem like much, but now I only have to have one file manager window open, and can open tabs and copy and paste files between the tabs. This is quite simply a time and screen real-estate saver saver. I wonder how long it will take Microsoft to incorporate a tabbed file manager?

Secondly, is the icons for safely ejecting removable media, such as CD/DVD drives and USB keys. This is a bit like Microsoft’s “Safely Remove Hardware” system, just straight from the file manager itself. I find this very useful as I use USB keys a lot to carry files with me.

All in all, this is shaping up to be an interesting addition to the Ubuntu line up.

As I type this, I have been notified that there are another 30.6MB of updates! Being Alpha software, it is under heavy development. I will be watching with interest to see how the developers and the community respond to the bugs that have been raised so far.

source

Ubuntu Christian Edition, also known as UbuntuCE.

Current version 4.0 and features the Gnome Desktop Environment. OpenOffice has been replaced with GnomeOffice (AbiWord, Evince, Evolution, Gnumeric). BibleTime has been added in this release; also you have more resources for BibleTime and Gnomesword.

The official release announcement has been posted on UbuntuForums:

"We are excited to announce the release of Ubuntu CE 4.0! Ubuntu CE has been on hold for quite a while for various reasons, but we are back up and running. This is a "back to the basics" release. We have discontinued most of the Windows program installers that we had a previous releases due to the difficulty in maintaining them and changes in some of the Windows programs that made it very difficult to install them automatically. We have added BibleTime as well as a bunch more resources for BibleTime and Gnomesword. We have replaced OpenOffice with GnomeOffice to keep the iso size below the 700mb threshold. For a complete list of changes check out the ChangeLog. We have also updated the site with a cleaner Web 2.0 feelCheck it out at UbuntuCE.com."

Zenwalk Gnome is using the latest stable Gnome 2.22.3 Desktop, with a familiar Zenwalk Desktop layout and beautiful Zenwalk artwork. Included in this release, are Linux kernel 2.6.25.4, the latest X.Org 7.3 suite of X servers and the next generation of the Netpkg package manager.

Zenwalk Gnome follows the "one app per task" Zenwalk philosophy and the Gnome Desktop comes with all default applications known to Zenwalk users: iceweasel and icedove for all your browsing and email needs, wicd for easy connecting to wireless networks, brasero for burning CD/DVD discs, abiword and gnumeric for your office needs, the GIMP for editing graphics files and photos, gtkam for managing your digital camera and gmusicbrowser for handling huge collections of music. Totem (using the xine backend), with its clean interface, is the multimedia player of choice, you can even find, browse and view youtube videos with it, even if you don’t have flash installed! Of course a propriatery flash package which works with iceweasel is included in the installation if the user decides to accept the adobe flash licence.

As usual, Zenwalk Gnome provides a complete programming environment for coders. Geany provides a fast and light IDE for developing code in a great number of different languages.

The complete collection of Zenwalk system tools is present in Zenwalk Gnome. The Zenpanel provides a centralized place for all system administration, such as user creation/modification, network settings, localization, kernel module configuration etc. All user settings can be easily reached from the Gnome Control Center, only a click away in the main Gnome panel.

Steve Langasek has announced the availability of the delayed first alpha release of Ubuntu 8.10, code name "Intrepid Ibex":

"Welcome to Intrepid Ibex Alpha 1, which will in time become Ubuntu 8.10. Alpha 1 is the first in a series of milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Intrepid development cycle. The primary changes from Hardy have been the re-merging of changes from Debian and the upgrade of the Linux kernel to a pre-release version of 2.6.26.

As with the beginning of any development cycle, the Intrepid one has seen the merge floodgates open once again. This merge not only brings in lots of new version of various packages, but also a fair number of totally new applications." Read the release announcement and release notes for further details. Only the "alternate" installation images have been made available with this release; download them from here: intrepid-alternate-i386.iso (698MB, MD5, torrent), intrepid-alternate-amd64.iso (697MB, MD5, torrent).

Also released: Kubuntu 8.10 Alpha 1 and Xubuntu 8.10 Alpha 1.

Clement Lefebvre has announced the release of Linux Mint 5.0, an enhanced and user-friendly desktop Linux distribution based on Ubuntu 8.04: "It is with great pleasure that I officially announce the release of Linux Mint 5 Elyssa."

Among the many new characteristics of this release the most notable are: miscellaneous improvements to mintMenu, mintUpdate and mintInstall; various feature enhancements on the GNOME desktop; performance improvements through reduced memory usage; improved usability compliant with the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines; more available software and better localisation; changes in default software selection (Transmission, Rhythmbox, Brasero…); upstream improvements, including the PulseAudio sound server and a new command-line firewall configuration tool. Read the brief release announcement and check out the comprehensive release notes for further information. Download: LinuxMint-5.iso (691MB, MD5). Besides the standard edition, Linux Mint 5 "Light", containing no proprietary software and restricted file formats, is also available.

Lucas Rocha, one of the developers at GNOME, has announced the release of GNOME 2.22.2, the latest update to the 2.22 branch of the desktop environment. The next stable device will be GNOME 2.22.3, due to be launched on June 30.

In September, we will see GNOME 2.24, which promises some interesting new features and improved stability. GNOME’s web browser, Epiphany, will be migrated to the WebKit web page rendering engine, that’s used at this moment by the Safari web browser and some minor web browsers like Midori. The GNOME 2.24 release will also offer better integration with PulseAudio and the GNOME Session Manager will bring more flexibility for Linux distributions makers on selecting their default session applications. The GNOME team also has big plans for documentation, as they want to record everything, including policies and servers.

The GNOME 2.22 branch is dedicated to Raphael Higino, a member of the GNOME translation team and GNOME Brazil, who died in a motorcycle accident at the age of 24.

Lucas Rocha said on the gnome-announce mailing list: "This is the second update to GNOME 2.22. Come and see all the bug fixing, all the new translations and all the updated documentation brought to you by the wonderful team of GNOME contributors! A lot of work has been done in the stable branch to make it even more solid than it was."

If you want to build GNOME from sources, you will need GARNOME, a tool that’s based on the GAR ports system created by Nick Moffitt. GARNOME downloads, builds and installs the GNOME desktop from the latest tar ball releases. Besides this, it also comes with some extra software for providing a complete and easy to use desktop environment.

SOURCE: softpedia.com