Linux Convert

[pikabuntu]

What tips/advice do you have for a somewhat new ubuntu convert?
(The experience has been great so far, esp the forums which are full of helpful people)

[pmlxuser]

What tips/advice do you have for a somewhat new ubuntu convert?
(The experience has been great so far, esp the forums which are full of helpful people)

Yeah Stay in The UBUNTU :)FORUMS

[stchman]

What tips/advice do you have for a somewhat new ubuntu convert?
(The experience has been great so far, esp the forums which are full of helpful people)

Don't give up. People give up way too fast. There is a learning curve with Linux and it is not going to happen in a few days.

[Sealbhach]

Don't be afraid of the Terminal.

It scared the crap out of me at first but now I love using it! Even though I don't need to, most of the time.

It's good to get a clear idea of the file structure - like this:

http://www.debianadmin.com/images/ldr.png

.

[drjonze]

What tips/advice do you have for a somewhat new ubuntu convert?
(The experience has been great so far, esp the forums which are full of helpful people)

Welcome!

I'm about a month in myself. What I've learned so far is back up all your important files and then don't be afraid to try anything. I've probably broken my system 4 or 5 times already and fixed it with the help of this forum. That's when I've really learned things.

[wolfen69]

just be patient and have fun with it. this is not life and death, it is an operating system. after a few months, it will start to be second nature. the feeling of freedom is incomparable. you will no longer be a slave to the machine.

[steveneddy]

Some of the links in my sig might help you get started.

[Kotjze]

What tips/advice do you have for a somewhat new ubuntu convert?
(The experience has been great so far, esp the forums which are full of helpful people)

Don't give up looking for a good alternative to your favourite Windows (or Mac) programs. I've been Windows-free since Hardy came out, and I didn't know what programs to use, but here are some I found:

-For WLM/MSN: emesene (http://www.emesene.org/)
It is designed to resemble WLM. I won't bother explaining much because the page tells all, but the screenshots there look ugly, so I will provide a screenshot of my setup (click for bigger):
http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/7936/screenshot1pt4.th.jpg (http://img224.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot1pt4.jpg)

-For iTunes or pretty much any audio player, I use Banshee (http://banshee-project.org/).
It's simply and clean. I'm using the version previous to the 1.0 because it has the internet radio feature that is still not included in 1.0.

-For Photoshop, I find GIMP to be perfectly fine. It should already be installed so I won't link it :p

...Well I can't really think of anything else that I really use a lot, so that's just a couple things ;)

[Sef]

Moved to Community Cafe.

[cprofitt]

Rule 1: Use the beginners forum (http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=326) for basic questions -- search first (though knowing the key terms may be difficult until you learn more)

Rule 2: Always check out the sticky posts -- they often contain gems of wisdom that will help.

Rule 3: Use the wiki (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/) for in-depth how-to articles.

Rule 4: Backup your documents on a second disk or flash drive so you are not afraid to 'break' things.

Rule 5 - 1,000,000,000 Stay with it... there is value in the effort.

oh... and Welcome!!

[RiceMonster]

1) Hang around here, you'll learn a lot.

2) Don't be afraid to try customizing things

3) Don't be afraid to try other distros and DEs/WMs

[tiachopvutru]

Along with the advises other already gave about not being afraid to tinker, if you like to customize your desktops, go to http://gnome-look.org to look for themes to apply for your desktop.

Also, if you only use Ubuntu for basic needs and don't have any hardware compatibility issues, there won't be much learning to do unless you tinker a bit. Try a different desktop environments from other variations of Ubuntu (or simply install them in Synaptic) to provide yourself with some more interesting experiences and find which one you like most. Mess around with Compiz-Fusion because of the eye-candy (which gets boring after sometime), but also because some features provide useful functionality. In addition, when you feel lucky, try browsing for applications in Add/Remove Programs or Synaptic just to look for something you may like.

After you get comfortable with Ubuntu and think you may want to try other Linux distros out there, do it. Then, if you start becoming hardcore enough and just trying distros aren't suffice, try building your own Linux From Scratch (http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/).

If you like system stuffs, you can always mess with the config files and ruin your Ubuntu installation along the way, and then reinstall Ubuntu again.

See how the amount of things you can do in Linux is simply amazing. And just as a side note on Ubuntu philosophy, you won't understand its philosophy or realize its importance unless you actually do some tinkering with your OS and find how many things you can do in it. :)

[Zlatan]

What tips/advice do you have for a somewhat new ubuntu convert?
(The experience has been great so far, esp the forums which are full of helpful people)

don't try to convert others, let them choose themselves:)