Linux is hard, Linux is easy
Jan. 3rd, 2010 04:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sally_mariaWell, installing Ubuntu NBR didn't take that long at all - an hour or so, maybe? On the other hand, getting it to boot properly has been a rather more challenging task.
To start with, it wouldn't show the Grub menu at all, and I wound up having to boot into Linux using its command line. Once I'd run grub-mkconfig, there was a slight improvement - now, when I turn the computer on, after sitting around for six or seven minutes, hey presto! Grub menu.
After that point, the whole thing works fine, and will boot into NBR or Windows as requested. Still, we used to think that it took Windows forever to boot, and that was only 3 mins or so. The only advantage is that NBR only has one user at the moment, so you don't have to sit over the computer to click on icons part way through the boot process - turn computer on, go away for 10 mins and come back to a computer booted and ready to play Frozen Bubble.
People on the Ubuntu forum have been trying to help, and there are some very useful web pages out there, with instructions that are straightforward enough for a relative newbie like me to use. The current state of play is that we think it may be a known bug - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/420933.
I am going to try swapping the drives round, so that NBR is on the master drive, rather than the slave, as it's possible that that is part of the problem. *fingers crossed* But it may be a question of waiting for a fix for the bug - we shall see.
On the other hand, my brother, who has as far as I know never touched a Linux computer before in his life turned my desktop on, which boots into Ubuntu by default. He happily loaded Firefox and generally found his way around, with no instructions from me at all. Admittedly I've changed it to one panel at the bottom, with one menu on the left, in the standard Windows way - but still. If anyone tries to tell you that using (as opposed to installing/administrating) a Linux desktop is that much more difficult than Windows, they really aren't trying.
To start with, it wouldn't show the Grub menu at all, and I wound up having to boot into Linux using its command line. Once I'd run grub-mkconfig, there was a slight improvement - now, when I turn the computer on, after sitting around for six or seven minutes, hey presto! Grub menu.
After that point, the whole thing works fine, and will boot into NBR or Windows as requested. Still, we used to think that it took Windows forever to boot, and that was only 3 mins or so. The only advantage is that NBR only has one user at the moment, so you don't have to sit over the computer to click on icons part way through the boot process - turn computer on, go away for 10 mins and come back to a computer booted and ready to play Frozen Bubble.
People on the Ubuntu forum have been trying to help, and there are some very useful web pages out there, with instructions that are straightforward enough for a relative newbie like me to use. The current state of play is that we think it may be a known bug - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/420933.
I am going to try swapping the drives round, so that NBR is on the master drive, rather than the slave, as it's possible that that is part of the problem. *fingers crossed* But it may be a question of waiting for a fix for the bug - we shall see.
On the other hand, my brother, who has as far as I know never touched a Linux computer before in his life turned my desktop on, which boots into Ubuntu by default. He happily loaded Firefox and generally found his way around, with no instructions from me at all. Admittedly I've changed it to one panel at the bottom, with one menu on the left, in the standard Windows way - but still. If anyone tries to tell you that using (as opposed to installing/administrating) a Linux desktop is that much more difficult than Windows, they really aren't trying.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-03 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-03 04:58 pm (UTC)Before I started using Linux, I'd never touched the boot menu on any of my computers - I just used the drives as presented to me. So this is all new as far as I'm concerned.
I'm finding it very interesting, but it gets a bit demoralising after a while when nothing you do seems to make a difference.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-06 09:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-24 05:03 pm (UTC)I didn't even have to fiddle about with making drives bootable, or whatever.
The parents are very happy.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-03 06:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-03 06:36 pm (UTC)Thank you - I'd feel more convincing if I'd actually managed to get it to work. On the other hand, it's a bit of a comfort to know that it's a general bug that other people are having problems with, and not just me being incompetent.