Debian to Ubuntu transfer difficulties
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From: Kevin Buzzard on 22 Apr 2010 10:51 OK so I've been using KDE and debian for years, and I bought a new netbook and put ubuntu on it because somehow I got the impression that that's what the kids use these days. More precisely, I put "ubuntu 9.10 netbook remix" (any distro containing the word "remix" must somehow be the trendiest thing around; I remember when they were all called redhat 6.0 etc). OK so I'm a bit lost---I just need some help working out how to do what I'm used to doing in this new point-and-click based environment. Let me say what my exciting new ubuntu install looks like now: there is a huge bar down the left saying "Favourites! Files and Folders! Accessories! Games! [etc etc]" and under Favourites I have some nice user-friendly things like a big button that says "Help" under it. I furthermore noticed that ubuntu appears to be offering me a free Nintendo DS emulator. A far cry from nethack isn't it. OK so that's all very nice. But I want my terminal. Under a standard KDE install I'd have a little panel at the bottom and I could drag a terminal icon to this panel and then click on it to get a terminal. I found the terminal icon under "Accessories" and have managed to put it in "Favourites", but whenever I fire it up it always starts up full screen, and when I "unmaximise" it it goes to 80x30 instead of 80x something smaller. Furthermore I can't seem to set scrollback to infinity (well, maybe 10 million will have to do for now). Second, I want root. I'm not sure I'm going to get it. Am I doomed to a life of sudo? I've already found two instances when root would have been better; once for example when I wanted to type in about 5 commands and got sick of writing sudo in front of all of them, when I could have just typed su - in the old days and then done it. Am I just out of touch here? I read on some web page "ubuntu has no root and that's great because now you only need to remember one password not two". If that's the reason there's no root, I'm not buying it! Oh---no---wait---I've just noticed that firefox also opens full-screen. Jeez---is this the window manager doing this? Hmm, perhaps my question is: where do I find a manual for the window manager that comes by default with remixed ubuntu? In fact, perhaps a better question is: can I have kde back? This isn't KDE right? Finally, with debian I was used to aptitude update aptitude upgrade Am I still to do this with ubuntu or is it going to do it all for me and woe betide me if I start running aptitude? Kevin "grumpy old man" Buzzard
From: Richard Kettlewell on 22 Apr 2010 11:16 Kevin Buzzard <buzzard(a)ic.delete.ac.uk> writes: > Second, I want root. I'm not sure I'm going to get it. Am I doomed > to a life of sudo? I've already found two instances when root would > have been better; once for example when I wanted to type in about 5 commands > and got sick of writing sudo in front of all of them, when I could > have just typed su - in the old days and then done it. Am I just > out of touch here? I read on some web page "ubuntu has no root > and that's great because now you only need to remember one password > not two". If that's the reason there's no root, I'm not buying it! "sudo su -" should produce the equivalent of logging in as root. -- http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/
From: chris on 22 Apr 2010 11:35 On Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:51:46 +0100, Kevin Buzzard <buzzard(a)ic.delete.ac.uk> wrote: > > OK so I've been using KDE and debian for years, and I bought a new > netbook and put ubuntu on it because somehow I got the impression > that that's what the kids use these days. More precisely, I put > "ubuntu 9.10 netbook remix" (any distro containing the word "remix" > must somehow be the trendiest thing around; I remember when they > were all called redhat 6.0 etc). If you prefer KDE is there not a Kubuntu netbook version? > > Second, I want root. I'm not sure I'm going to get it. Am I doomed > to a life of sudo? I've already found two instances when root would > have been better; once for example when I wanted to type in about 5 > commands sudo -s Gives you a root shell prompt. You can have root. I think it's a simple case of setting a password for the root user, but best double-check via google. [ sorry can't with the rest ]
From: Theo Markettos on 22 Apr 2010 15:32 Kevin Buzzard <buzzard(a)ic.delete.ac.uk> wrote: > OK so that's all very nice. But I want my terminal. Under a standard > KDE install I'd have a little panel at the bottom and I could drag > a terminal icon to this panel and then click on it to get a terminal. > I found the terminal icon under "Accessories" and have managed to put > it in "Favourites", but whenever I fire it up it always starts up > full screen, and when I "unmaximise" it it goes to 80x30 instead > of 80x something smaller. Furthermore I can't seem to set scrollback to > infinity (well, maybe 10 million will have to do for now). The point of UNR (Ubuntu Netbook Remix) is to make use of limited screen size on netbooks. When you only have 7" 800x480 to play with, many people are going to want apps maximised[1]. It's not really designed if you want to regularly have lots of apps onscreen at once. Probably better to install another window manager instead (just by installing a few more packages). [1] Yes we managed with 320x256 CGA back in the day, but people now assume pixels are cheap... (I'm quite practised at tabbing to invisible buttons to submit dialogue boxes that are too big for my screen and have no scrollbar) > Second, I want root. I'm not sure I'm going to get it. Am I doomed > to a life of sudo? I've already found two instances when root would > have been better; once for example when I wanted to type in about 5 commands > and got sick of writing sudo in front of all of them, when I could > have just typed su - in the old days and then done it. Am I just > out of touch here? I read on some web page "ubuntu has no root > and that's great because now you only need to remember one password > not two". If that's the reason there's no root, I'm not buying it! As well as the other solutions, there's also 'sudo bash' to get a root shell. Or 'sudo passwd' to set the root password and then you can 'su -' if you really want. > Hmm, perhaps my question is: where do I find a manual for the > window manager that comes by default with remixed ubuntu? > In fact, perhaps a better question is: can I have kde back? > This isn't KDE right? It's based on GNOME, I think. You can certainly have KDE back - just needs installing some extra packages (there will be a howto on the web somewhere) > Finally, with debian I was used to > > aptitude update > aptitude upgrade > > Am I still to do this with ubuntu or is it going to do it all for me > and woe betide me if I start running aptitude? Indeed you can, everything is still built on apt. You can disable the automatic update checker if you want. And it's far easier to type 'aptitude install foo' than mess with synaptic. Theo
From: Chris Davies on 23 Apr 2010 05:16
Kevin Buzzard <buzzard(a)ic.delete.ac.uk> wrote: > Second, I want root. I'm not sure I'm going to get it. Am I doomed > to a life of sudo? sudo -s sudo -H -s sudo -i Chris |