The update manager broke because Google Chrome failed to install. Spent hours (at least an hour or two) looking for the files to delete them. Deleted them, problem still continued. Deleted them several times, problem still there. Eventually fixed itself after messing around in Terminal.
Update manager broke in a different way then which then fixed itself eventually.
It could be google's problem. I don't use upgrade manager because it stops whenever one of the repositories (say Chrome) is not available due to server down or something. I always use synaptic. It is the best. You could have update or installation mess up in Windows as well, and when that happens you often have to mess with the registry and risk hosing your whole system if you are not careful.
Latest problem, Cairo Dock failed to install from software center and on their site they want me to mess about in Terminal to install it, which failed. Why don't they (program devs) just provide a straightforward download link and let something like Install Shield do it. Mac, Android, iOS and Windows all work in this similar way (iOS and Droid being their respective stores).
Why would you want the Cairo dock when you already have one? Kind of excessive. Anyway. Some software offers .deb installation, some only gives you the source code, it is up to the devs. But the Cairo-dock actually has two official ppas for Ubuntu, it says it on its download page. What is so difficult to just add one of it to your sources (gui way: use either synaptic or the software center) and install through the package manager and then you get regular updates? Windows' way isn't even comparable.
I can't find my installed programs (other than software center which is prone to breaking by itself), I can't locate where files are saved (in the case of Cairo Dock it part installed and then errored, now I can't find where the files are to remove them). The over-reliance on Terminal is really something I don't like, why can't I use Ubuntu entirely from the GUI (I probably can, but I'm no longer bothered to find out)? Why can't I change my mouse theme either? Last I read about it it involves entering code into Terminal. Why? Just put it as an option in settings
Well usually you don't need to find files to remove manually unless you compile something with make install.
Whole Ubuntu experience has just left a bad taste in the mouth really. Will probably just end up uninstalling it and maybe come back with 14 when it releases, but at this point, believe it or not Windows kind of just works (until I get my hands on Mac OS, if I ever do, then I will probably think the same about Windows). Ubuntu was just a series of problems and over-complicated things and only really used for web browsing in the end. I'd like to use it, just the way it functions and I do not agree.
Well if you think Ubuntu (or any linux distro) is just free Windows for cheapos and intend to use it the Windows way then you are bound to be disappointed. By the sound of it your problems are more or less trivial and someone could have helped you if you just bother to ask. You posted two threads (one on cairo-dock the other on updare manager) in both cases with no detail descriptions (how is the doctor supposed to help you if you just say I don't feel good in the head?) and you started your update-manager thread by threatening to go back to Windows. Now that is the attitude to try to get help.
Last edited by monkeybrain20122; December 11th, 2013 at 06:47 AM.
It could be google's problem. I don't use upgrade manager because it stops whenever one of the repositories (say Chrome) is not available due to server down or something. I always use synaptic. It is the best. You could have update or installation mess up in Windows as well, and when that happens you often have to mess with the registry and risk hosing your whole system if you are not careful.
Why would you want the Cairo dock when you already have one? Kind of excessive. Anyway. Some software offers .deb installation, some only gives you the source code, it is up to the devs. But the Cairo-dock actually has two official ppas for Ubuntu, it says it on its download page. What is so difficult to just add one of it to your sources (gui way: use either synaptic or the software center) and install through the package manager and then you get regular updates? Windows' way isn't even comparable.
Well usually you don't need to find files to remove manually unless you compile something with make install.
Well if you think Ubuntu (or any linux distro) is just free Windows for cheapos and intend to use it the Windows way then you are bound to be disappointed. By the sound of it your problems are more or less trivial and someone could have helped you if you just bother to ask. You posted two threads (one on cairo-dock the other on updare manager) in both cases with no detail descriptions (how is the doctor supposed to help you if you just say I don't feel good in the head?) and you started your update-manager thread by threatening to go back to Windows. Now that is the attitude to try to get help.
Are you referring to the stock dock? I want to get one down the bottom and I heard Cairo Dock was better than Docky (which I currently have)
I was getting help over Fb when I posted the other thread up
I will most likely come back to Ubuntu (hopefully it'll work )
Are you referring to the stock dock? I want to get one down the bottom and I heard Cairo Dock was better than Docky (which I currently have)
I was getting help over Fb when I posted the other thread up
I will most likely come back to Ubuntu (hopefully it'll work )
The Unity Launcher is permanently affixed to the left edge of the screen. If you add Cairo or Docky or Plank or AWN or any other third-party dock, you will be able to position it along the bottom. However, without resorting to unsupported trickery which may or may not work from one release to another, you can't get rid of the Launcher. From that perspective, then, running two docks simultaneously does some redundant. You might look at Ubuntu derivatives if dock position is critical. Unity is Unity. If it isn't pleasing, it make a lot more sense to use something else.
Ubuntu, with Unity or with XFCE or MATE or KDE or Gnome Shell or Cinnamon, works rather well for many, many people. Logically, then, your problems must stem from something specific to you and your environment. Folks here will be happy to try to help if only given sufficient information.
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Ok, Ubuntu is working a lot better for me now. I've been sat down for the past 1.5 hours after watching a few videos just customising it with things like Compiz, My Unity and KDE Settings. I've got a dock that functions (standard launcher is there too, some eye candy (wobbly windows and transition effects for opening and closing windows and they close to the dock so it doesn't look awkward). Managed to move the close window buttons etc to their windows position, got the top of the window see through and got it to step up to seriously high resolution for a 720p screen. Anyone know anything else I can do with this?
Is there a mouse theme changer or a program that allows me to see installed apps?
EDIT: D: But my brightness control doesn't appear to be working, it broke somewhere along the line
Last edited by ballistic turtle; December 12th, 2013 at 12:01 AM.
Whole Ubuntu experience has just left a bad taste in the mouth really. Will probably just end up uninstalling it and maybe come back with 14 when it releases, but at this point, believe it or not Windows kind of just works (until I get my hands on Mac OS, if I ever do, then I will probably think the same about Windows). Ubuntu was just a series of problems and over-complicated things and only really used for web browsing in the end. I'd like to use it, just the way it functions and I do not agree.
I understand where you are coming from man. It can be difficult in the early days. However, don't give up on it. Go into the softwere centre and install "Gnome Desktop Environment, with extra components".
Once installed, you will find the next time you switch on your PC and are faced with the logon screen, there will be an option to change from the Unity GUI to Gnome. Depending on ther power of your machine, with gnome, you can choose several flavours. I would choose the "gnome classic- no effect" one in the first instance. I personally use this even though my machine can easily handle the fancier version of Gnome, I just prefer the classic version.
Gnome is extremely stable. You can also add several tweaks to it as well to increase functionality. Check out my other posts on the Ubuntu forums for some tutorials. Just click on my username.
Below is a screenshot of my own setup with Ubuntu 12.04 with a modified Gnome GUI so you can see what it can be made to be like.
Also, I have included a couple of videos, below, to show this type of setup in action. The first one just shows how easy and intuitive it can be made to use, particularly if you are an ex-MS Windows user. The second one shows the use of something called "Virtualbox". This is a program that allows you to install a virtual MS Windows OS inside your Ubuntu OS and run your old MS Windows programs if you need them. I installed an old copy of XP inside Virtualbox and an old copy of MS Office for the odd time I needed to use it. As it turned out, I have barely used it at all it in the last year because Libre-Office is so consistently good at pushing out files in MS Office format when necessary. The only types of files that Libre Office can't handle are Access, Publisher and FrontPage. However, Publisher and FrontPage have been discontinued some time ago by MS anyway.
Putting issues many people have found with Unity to one side, I can assure you (as someone who has been with Ubuntu for just over a year now) that Linux in general and Ubuntu in particular, is vastly superior to windows. You've just got to stick with it and get over the initial learning curve.
Good luck with it man.
Last edited by stevecook; December 12th, 2013 at 11:22 AM.
Why would you want the Cairo dock when you already have one?.....
Well if you think Ubuntu (or any linux distro) is just free Windows for cheapos and intend to use it the Windows way then you are bound to be disappointed.......
By the sound of it your problems are more or less trivial....
mmmm....
Busy condecendingly blaming users again if they dare to complain eh, M? If I was a more cynical or paranoid person, I would suspect your were a rebbutal-sock-puppet put on here by bruised Unity developers.
In any event, your posts don't help people M. Particulary new users who are perhaps wavering and need support. Instead, your posts (or, at least, the ones I have read to date) merely serve to alienate them
Last edited by stevecook; December 12th, 2013 at 03:19 AM.
Gnome Shell is extremely stable. You can also add several tweaks to it as well to increase functionality...
That is not even gnome-shell. If you complain about Unity for its unfamiliarity I can't see how you would like gnome-shell because it is more radical than Unity both in terms of appearance and behaviour and IMO even less configurable (first two screenshots are gnome-shell 3.10 on Fedora, the dock in gnome shell is also unmovable btw, but can be made to dodge window with an extension)
Your screenshot is gnome fallback/flashback (aka classic) You can easily install it on a default Ubuntu by
Code:
sudo apt-get install gnome-session-flashback
and switch between it and unity at login. See the third shot. All your complaints and bellyachings are about nothing
Last edited by monkeybrain20122; December 12th, 2013 at 09:02 AM.
You are right, i stand corrected, it's not Gnome Shell but is, in fact, "Gnome Desktop Environment, with extra components". Whether or not that is Gnome Fallback I don't know and care even less. The fact that there are now so many variations of gnome floating around only serves to illustrate futher that, for new users, the Ubuntu developers could simply have included the Gnome Desktop Environment on board as a login option right from the off whilst still leaving the Unity GUI as the default if that's what they wanted to push.
Anyway, this thread is about helping a new user out...remember?
Last edited by stevecook; December 12th, 2013 at 12:47 PM.
The update manager broke because Google Chrome failed to install. Spent hours (at least an hour or two) looking for the files to delete them. Deleted them, problem still continued. Deleted them several times, problem still there. Eventually fixed itself after messing around in Terminal.
This kind of thing almost never happens, but when it does, the way to resolve the problem is to get it to install, not try and remove what has installed. That is, assuming the failure came while actually installing the software.
Latest problem, Cairo Dock failed to install from software center and on their site they want me to mess about in Terminal to install it, which failed.
I just installed Cairo Dock from Software Center on 12.04, it has installed perfectly. I'm thinking your earlier ill-informed hacking around may have stuffed something up drastically, because usually the repositories just work.
Why don't they (program devs) just provide a straightforward download link and let something like Install Shield do it. Mac, Android, iOS and Windows all work in this similar way (iOS and Droid being their respective stores).
Say again? Windows is the ONLY one of those operating systems where it's normal to use a binary installer. On the Mac, you download the software from the program's website, and it comes as a disk image. You mount it and drag the disk image's contents to your Applications folder. On Android and iOS it's normal to use the app store - like Ubuntu Software Center. Even Windows and Mac OS have a repositories system ("App Store"), which is exactly like Ubuntu Software Center. Except USC allows you to add extra repositories so you can get software from other locations.
The binary installer approach on Windows, where you trawl the web for software and download it as a binary installer, is flawed and silly. Firstly, you've got no way of trusting that the software you downloaded is not a trojan. Secondly, you've got no way of trusting that the software has not been modified in transit to become malicious. Thirdly, the download is bigger than it needs to be because of that "Installshield" wrapping it. Fourthly, every program must manage its own updates, which usually involves keeping a program running in the background at all times to check if there's a new update, and then bugging the user to update on every boot. Multiply that by ten, and you've got the makings of a small nightmare.
I can't find my installed programs (other than software center which is prone to breaking by itself)
Right-click the Ubuntu logo on the top-left corner of the screen, click Applications. Or left-click the Ubuntu logo and then click the second icon from the left on the bottom of the Dash. Admittedly it was more difficult to find in 12.04 than in later versions.
The over-reliance on Terminal is really something I don't like, why can't I use Ubuntu entirely from the GUI (I probably can, but I'm no longer bothered to find out)? Why can't I change my mouse theme either? Last I read about it it involves entering code into Terminal. Why? Just put it as an option in settings
You can use Ubuntu without touching a terminal window or modifying a plain text configuration file. If you choose to do so, and choose to follow instructions that state terminal commands, then you can't really complain. If something goes wrong you might need the terminal to fix things, but that's the same as Windows and Mac OS. It can be desirable to learn the terminal because sometimes it's so much quicker than clicking around the GUI. If you do get a set of instructions that involve using the terminal, you can usually just copy and paste them verbatim into the terminal; that's hardly difficult. Currently, the only "end-user" task I don't know how to do in the GUI is add a PPA - and as PPAs are usually used to install bleeding-edge versions of software, it's highly debatable whether this is something the average Joe Bloggs user would do. They're more likely to stick to the repository version, and actually so am I.
Cursor themes are easy to install. You just extract the .tar archive, and copy the contents into a particular folder (/usr/share/icons/) and then select the cursor theme you want from the Gnome Tweak Tool program (available in Ubuntu Software Center). Let me guess: You've seen a set of instructions like this:
Code:
HOW TO INSTALL IT
0- Download cursor pack
1- Run this in the terminal: tar -C Downloads -zxf Downloads/161763-RareArrow.tar.gz && mv Downloads/RareArrow /usr/share/icons/
2- Run this in the terminal: sudo ln -fs /usr/share/icons/RareArrow/cursor.theme /etc/alternatives/x-cursor-theme
3- Select RareArrow cursor theme with MyUnity, gnome-tweak-tool, ubuntu-tweak, or another Desktop Setting Tools.
4- Reboot.
Oh my god, you NEED to use TWO different terminal commands to install a mouse theme? No. If the theme creator wanted to make things easier, they would have wrapped their theme into a .deb package that you could simply double-click to install; it would take them a couple of minutes to create. Even without a .deb package, all you have to do is double-click the .tar archive and extract the files (using the GUI) to a convenient place. Open a file browser as root, navigate it to /usr/share/icons/ and then drag and drop the extracted files into that folder. Use Gnome Tweak Tool (which is a GUI program) to select the theme.
You don't know how to open a file browser as root? You can run the "gksudo nautilus" command OR you can add a simple menu item that allows you to open a root file browser. All without using the terminal. I'll attach one for your convenience, with GUI-only instructions.
I'd like to use it, just the way it functions and I do not agree.
I think you've got the wrong idea about Ubuntu. In fact, I think if you reinstall Ubuntu (to ensure you've got a fresh, unmutilated package management system) and give it a chance, you'd very much like Ubuntu. It certainly lets me just do what I want to do instead of making me work for it. It gets out of my way and doesn't force me to **** around with it. Don't get me wrong - I can compile software, use a Linux system entirely from the terminal and find my way around the filesystem, but I choose not to. And Ubuntu supports my choice.
I try to treat the cause, not the symptom. I avoid the terminal in instructions, unless it's easier or necessary. My instructions will work within the Ubuntu system, instead of breaking or subverting it. Those are the three guarantees to the helpee.
Originally Posted by ballistic turtle
Anyway. Some software offers .deb installation, some only gives you the source code, it is up to the devs. But the Cairo-dock actually has two official ppas for Ubuntu, it says it on its download page. What is so difficult to just add one of it to your sources (gui way: use either synaptic or the software center) and install through the package manager and then you get regular updates? Windows' way isn't even comparable.
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