Topic: Which Distro?

[Steve]

It's time to move on from Ubuntu I think. Aside from pretty much forcing on us this new Unity interface, the whole distro has gone too windows. It's more worried about clouds and social networking then giving the user a solid system and letting them do some configuring. I have had to do more fighting, removing, googling, and installing with 11.10 then any linux distro ever.

For christs sake they took away Synatic.

Any suggestions? Debian and Fedora come to mind first.

[Steve]

And where the fuck has to ability to edit Nautilus through gconf-editor gone?? God I HATE my close/max/down buttons in a wacky order with left side placement. I'm not on a fucking mac.

edit: gconf has been ditched for dconf in 11.10. But you still cant edit that option.

Installing and loading too gnome shell solved a few issues.....trying to adapt to unity. Not sure if i like the lack of control i have over my desktop and tool bars

[Govtcheez]

windows 7

[hans]

Um, I thought Debian and Ubuntu were pretty close to the same. You could try Fedora but I'm pretty sure you'll go back to Ubuntu. Even with the forced Unity, I still think it's the best one out there for desktop use.

Maybe you want to flip over to FreeBSD or something? Or maybe Mint?

[JaWiB]

I'm using scientific linux (based on RedHat) here at school. My biggest complaint is that for some reason it's missing some potentially useful packages that really should be included given the name of the operating system (Octave comes to mind). 

[Steve]

Ubuntu is based on debian but I'm pretty sure they are still seperate. I have been using it for about 24 hours now and its not *so* bad. I can't stand a few unity related things.....

Why can't I remove the mail icon from the toolbar?

Why can't I add shortcuts for my documents on the launcher?

Oh and where has all the user changeable settings gone? I feel like I'm on a eepc linux system because anytime I look for something it isn't there.

[hans]

You need to add a few packages to get some stuff you'd normally want.

Docky

compiz-config (or something like that)

There's a website out there that lists like 10 things to install to get more control of your Unity desktop.

[Steve]

I'll do some googling tonight and check that out. The system seems faster overall compared to 10.10. I still had to edit my grub entry from quiet splash over to nomodeset to make it play nice with my intel graphics but it's a HELL of a lot better then 11.04. I tried 11.04 a few times and it was a disaster each go round.

The only thing right now making me mental is my mouse pointer randomly blinks when hovering or clicking. I loose it every now and then, and nobody seems to have an actual fix that applies to me. The live cd didn't have that issue, and neither did 10.10.

Speaking of live cd, i found directions for making one out of a current running system. Totally doing one for backup once i get this all fixed.

[Steve]

Anyone want to help me track down some video drivers for my card? I'm pretty sure thats the mouse blinking issue, because some of my interfaces arent quite as fancy as all the screenshots I see. I'm getting nowhere finding them, and additional drivers is useless.

lspci

xxx@xxx:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation ICH9M/M-E SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
04:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM43225 802.11b/g/n (rev 01)
05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM57780 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe (rev 01)
xxx@xxx:~$

[Steve]

The mouse issue would only happen after a restart once FF was opened, and never went away. It's a glitch with FF and Unity 3D. Once chrome was installed it was all better.

[Steve]

tgm, you rule. you must have meant this:

http://www.webupd8.org/2011/04/things-to-tweak-fix-after-installing.html

It solved a bunch of my issues, and thank GOD i have the old scroll bars back. After a few days and many tweaks, I think I'm starting actually enjoy Unity. A custom live cd is an absolute must though, it took so much to get her going right.

[Steve]

Two questions:

My laptop has no indicators for num lock, caps lock, etc. I used to have an applet in 10.10 that told me when they were on. Any clue how to get that on unity? I have found information for other applets, but none for that one.

Also, anyone running their /home folder on a seperate partition? I want to move mine but i'm afraid to fuck it up. The main issue is I want to make a custom live cd, and i don't know if that can be done across multiple partitions?

[Steve]

I fucking love 11.10.

[Steve]

I really miss the Application menu. If I don't want to clutter unity launcher i have to search for everyhting i want to run, or launch it from terminal