ubuntu is no fun

[cariboo]

@ratchetman, the only reason WIndows seems intuitive to you, is because you have probably been using it all your life. After finally getting tired of solving other peoples problems with Windows, I very rarely use it, and now it seems very unintuitive to me. I do have one system with Windows 7 on it, but I thinks it's been well over a year since I booted into it.

[buzzingrobot]

@ratchetman, the only reason WIndows seems intuitive to you, is because you have probably been using it all your life. After finally getting tired of solving other peoples problems with Windows, I very rarely use it, and now it seems very unintuitive to me.

Ain't that the truth.

I bought a new laptop last year. Windows 8 was preinstalled. I hadn't used Windows in several years but, for a couple reasons, I gave it a try. Found myself floundering around trying to do anything other than click on the cute little blocks Win8 puts up. Got the thing configured, and ran the updates (about a half-day affair). Had to keep the help file open to figure out how to do most everything. Mourned the absence of virtual workspaces and the need to keep minimizing and un-minimizing windows. And the habit of applications to assume I wanted an icon on the desktop.

After less than a week, I put Linux on the machine. (Font rendering was also awful. Broken. Still don't understand why it's so bad here in 2014. If MS has all those patents that keep FOSS from tweaking font rendering, how come they seem to do such a poor job using them?)

The point is, though, that no computing interface is intuitive. We need to learn to use them all. If we need to learn it, it isn't intuitive.

[david98]

I disagree I love ubuntu with unity it's simple and user friendly once you take the time to learn how to use it. I think if you need icon's for everything any linux distro is not for you just stick to windows that has a pretty user interface and icon's. As people have recommended lubuntu might be more your taste but if you use linux at some point your going to have to type commands and to be quite honest the quickest way to open a terminal is to use short keys ctr+alt+t that is if you are in gui mode but a lot of people like to boot directly to text mode it's a lot faster to do simple task's. Download a few versions play about find one oyu like if not keep paying for your operating system. But if you do take the time to ask people on the forums when you have a problem more often than not your problem will be solved quite rapidly. So don't slander something just because you don't know how to use it.

[PondPuppy]

Mourned the absence of virtual workspaces and the need to keep minimizing and un-minimizing windows.

Yes. I kept hitting ctrl-alt-arrow on my Windows 7 machine at work, which (by default) flipped the screen 90 degrees. I disabled those Windows keyboard shortcuts after about the third time it happened. You know, I tried a couple of Windows virtual workspace add-ons and neither worked well at all.

Upshot for me is that Ubuntu is very ergonomic.

[deadflowr]

You don't have to use the search box menu feature, though Ubuntu is very keyboard friendly in that regard.
You can still search for all you apps with nothing but the mouse if you want.
It is a wee bit slower, but doable.
The Unity menu system is divided into several subsections.
The home section, which is the default to open.
Then other subsections, like apps, music,video, folders, etc etc.
If you look at the bottom of the unity menu you'll see several icons, these are those subsection.
By default the unity apps menu system doesn't list apps by category but simply in alphabetical order.
Browsing apps is simple easy to do, just click on installed and all of the apps will be listed.

That said, if you asked if there was a program to view the physical drives connected to your machine, I would have simply stated look for the program called Disks, or in 12.04 release, Disk Utility.
I gives you a break down of media devices connected to your machine, as well as a breakdown of the partitioning of said devices.

Using Ubuntu is actually a lot easier to do than trying to explain it.
IMHO

[mips]

I was trying to identify physical drives and not logical ones.

To get a list of drives,

sudo fdisk -l

example,

[reon@obelix ~]$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for reon: 


Disk /dev/sda: 232.9 GiB, 250058268160 bytes, 488395055 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x0002c76e


Device    Boot     Start       End    Blocks  Id System
/dev/sda1             63 310394879 155197408+  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 *    310394880 349456383  19530752  83 Linux
/dev/sda3      349456384 475285503  62914560  83 Linux
/dev/sda4      475285504 488394751   6554624  82 Linux swap / Solaris

/dev/sda would be the physical drive whereas the partitions are /dev/sda1-4.


Want more detailed information about the drive,

sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda

example,

[reon@obelix ~]$ sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda


/dev/sda:


ATA device, with non-removable media
    Model Number:       ST3250310AS                             
    Serial Number:      6RY5GMSV
    Firmware Revision:  3.AAC   
Standards:
    Supported: 7 6 5 4 
    Likely used: 8
Configuration:
    Logical        max    current
    cylinders    16383    16383
    heads        16    16
    sectors/track    63    63
    --
    CHS current addressable sectors:   16514064
    LBA    user addressable sectors:  268435455
    LBA48  user addressable sectors:  488395055
    Logical  Sector size:                   512 bytes
    Physical Sector size:                   512 bytes
    device size with M = 1024*1024:      238474 MBytes
    device size with M = 1000*1000:      250058 MBytes (250 GB)
    cache/buffer size  = 8192 KBytes
Capabilities:
    LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
    Queue depth: 32
    Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific minimum
    R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16    Current = 16
    Recommended acoustic management value: 208, current value: 0
    DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6 
         Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
    PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4 
         Cycle time: no flow control=120ns  IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
    Enabled    Supported:
       *    SMART feature set
            Security Mode feature set
       *    Power Management feature set
       *    Write cache
       *    Look-ahead
       *    Host Protected Area feature set
       *    WRITE_BUFFER command
       *    READ_BUFFER command
       *    DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
            SET_MAX security extension
       *    48-bit Address feature set
       *    Device Configuration Overlay feature set
       *    Mandatory FLUSH_CACHE
       *    FLUSH_CACHE_EXT
       *    SMART error logging
       *    SMART self-test
       *    General Purpose Logging feature set
            Write-Read-Verify feature set
       *    WRITE_UNCORRECTABLE_EXT command
       *    {READ,WRITE}_DMA_EXT_GPL commands
       *    Segmented DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
       *    Gen1 signaling speed (1.5Gb/s)
       *    Gen2 signaling speed (3.0Gb/s)
       *    Native Command Queueing (NCQ)
       *    Phy event counters
            Device-initiated interface power management
       *    Software settings preservation
       *    SMART Command Transport (SCT) feature set
Security: 
    Master password revision code = 65534
        supported
    not    enabled
    not    locked
    not    frozen
    not    expired: security count
    not    supported: enhanced erase
Checksum: correct

Don't like the cli? install gnome-disk-utility, gsmartcontrol, gparted and they will also give you useful device information.

[Elfy]

If you have actual support issues then post threads for them.

Thread closed.