Ubuntu 12.4

[coffee]

Originally Posted by Trusted IT Solutions

Thanks for the explanation. Clears things up a bit.

Your more than welcome. I have been with linux since the old days of Redhat 4.01 (kernel 2.0.36) and all this desktop change has really rubbed me raw. Its basically the developers of the gnome desktop and Connicals (once again sp?) unity desktop telling you what you like. They are totally misguilded.

As others have noted here about mint, Im sure you will like it. Its quite polished and should do a good job.

Best Regards,

[SilverLeaf]

Originally Posted by coffee

If you installed the desktop version I recommend that you switch your desktop to something like xubuntu, LXde, Xfce as they are alot more friendlier than Unity.
coffee!

+1 for LXDE. My test bench runs Arch Linux with LXDE. It's a great lightweight environment. At start-up, ram usage is only around 60MB. This works out great, as my TBC is an older P4 with 1.5GB. I like having a bench machine with both SATA and IDE interfaces.

Aside from command line (dd, cfdisk, ddrescue, etc..), I use Gparted, Gsmartcontrol, Thunar (file manager from Xfce), and VirtualBox most often.

[codegreen]

Regarding ddrescue, make sure you installed the right one. In Ubuntu, "ddrescue" is the name of an older, less capable set of shell scripts. The package you want is called "gddrescue".

So, in addition to ddrescue and gsmartcontrol, you might want to look into:

• gparted - A GUI partition editor and filesystem tool
• ntfs-3g - full read-write access to Windows filesystems (not sure if this is installed by default or not)
• Testdisk and Photorec - a pair of partition and file recovery utilities

If you're going to use Linux regularly, I recommend you get comfortable with the command line. It has a higher learning curve than GUI utilities, but is very powerful. Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition is an incredible wealth of command-line information. Parts are outdated (such as working with floppy disks), but if you work your way through, you'll be a Linux expert.

[SilverLeaf]

Originally Posted by codegreen

Regarding ddrescue, make sure you installed the right one. In Ubuntu, "ddrescue" is the name of an older, less capable set of shell scripts. The package you want is called "gddrescue".

Interesting (and somewhat confusing for Debian/*buntu users as well). Evidently, "gddrescue" is built from the ddrescue source (from gnu.org). The "ddrescue" pkg, on the other hand, is based on the obsolete dd_rescue scripts. This looks to be inherited from Debian, and probably exists in any Debian-based distro as well. Thanks for pointing this out.

[ArtemusComputerTechnology]

I totally agree Gsmartcontrol and VirtualBox are my favorites too. There are so many different flavors of Linux that I enjoy. Ubuntu to start with installed on a workbench computer is great so you can get familiarize with it.

[trevm999]

Thanks for posting this question. I was wondering it myself. I use Ubuntu for personal use, but whenever I do any tech work I switch to windows, yet but I been wanting to get more familiar with Ubuntu. As for unity, I do not mind it for personal use, it was a bit hard finding the utilities at first though.

[PCX]

Originally Posted by trevm999

Thanks for posting this question. I was wondering it myself. I use Ubuntu for personal use, but whenever I do any tech work I switch to windows, yet but I been wanting to get more familiar with Ubuntu. As for unity, I do not mind it for personal use, it was a bit hard finding the utilities at first though.

Its ironic you say that, because our whole shop is run off Linux save for 2 computers, and they are rarely ever used. We do most all our tech work, with the exception of windows troubleshooting, on Linux machines. I honestly can't even imagine doing what we do on a daily basis on Windows.

[trevm999]

Originally Posted by PCX

Its ironic you say that, because our whole shop is run off Linux save for 2 computers, and they are rarely ever used. We do most all our tech work, with the exception of windows troubleshooting, on Linux machines. I honestly can't even imagine doing what we do on a daily basis on Windows.

It's just a matter of comfortability. I'm used to Windows and certain Windows tools. However, I want to move over to Linux. Thanks to this thread, I'm going to load myself up with some programs and try it out!

[kcooke1983]

I am just starting to look at Ubuntu for work. I have been using it in a personal capacity for quite a while.

It was mentioned earlier about using Avast for virus scanning. Does ClamAV do the same job or is there a reason you prefer Avast?

[codegreen]

Originally Posted by kcooke1983

It was mentioned earlier about using Avast for virus scanning. Does ClamAV do the same job or is there a reason you prefer Avast?

ClamAV is excellent as a mail-gateway scanner when used as part of a layered security plan, but it is simply not effective as an on-demand virus scanner. It is slow, misses too much, and has too many false positives when scanning a filesystem.