NuStubun2
February 7th, 2010, 08:08 AM
Hi,
I decided to run ubuntu on my new netbook for the usual reasons, and especially security.
While I like the UI in general I am finding it more difficult to use than expected. Here are some of the issues so far:
1. when installing it gave the options of formatting the whole hard drive with no partitions or manually setting it up. The manual setup required choosing settings that i didn't understand - file system, etc. - so i just did the simple whole-disk option, which is not as i would like. I used Paragon HD manager to make an image of the HD then partition it as I wanted, but could not install that image on the partition, perhaps because it was not big enough. Nor could I set the partitions using Paragon but maybe i wasn't doing it right.
2. I set up Firestarter but it doesn't seem to give as much protection or tunability as Windows FWs like Comodo, which can be set to Paranoid mode to require permission for virtually all activity, but are still pretty easy for novices to use. I don't understand enough about IP tables to work directly with those.
3. I tried installing Tor using some instructions i found here: http://www.torproject.org/docs/debian.html.en, but there was apparently no file in the /etc/apt/sources.list folder so I couldn't add the necessary code.
4. Other software such as TrueCrypt seems hard to install too. It won't just run by double-clicking and following the instructions like in Windows. I have never really used commands before so even though i am a fairly quick learner I find it hard and time-consuming. There is also a much smaller range of software available.
5. The keyboard Function for turning my wireless on and off doesn't work in Ubuntu, though all the other ones, like turning sound on and off, do.
6. Not really an Ubuntu Q but maybe you can help: after these problems I re-installed XP from my own disk (the shop didn't give me one) but everything is 'stretched' horizontally (or squashed vertically, depending how you look at it). Windows 7 does the same.
7. Maybe insignificant: whenever I boot from disk, either an OS or Paragon, it fails first time after the BIOS password but before the list of OSs. I forget the error message but it is something like 'cannot read from disk' and suggests checking the connection and retrying. It always works second time. When loading Paragon (on any machine), after accepting the user agreement, the menu comes up briefly then goes off and 10-30 seconds later comes back. It also says 'Microsoft Corporation' with a little timer for a few seconds before loading, whether or not there is Windows loaded on that machine, which seems odd given that Paragon is not, as far as I know, a MS company.
Thanks,
Stu
I decided to run ubuntu on my new netbook for the usual reasons, and especially security.
While I like the UI in general I am finding it more difficult to use than expected. Here are some of the issues so far:
1. when installing it gave the options of formatting the whole hard drive with no partitions or manually setting it up. The manual setup required choosing settings that i didn't understand - file system, etc. - so i just did the simple whole-disk option, which is not as i would like. I used Paragon HD manager to make an image of the HD then partition it as I wanted, but could not install that image on the partition, perhaps because it was not big enough. Nor could I set the partitions using Paragon but maybe i wasn't doing it right.
2. I set up Firestarter but it doesn't seem to give as much protection or tunability as Windows FWs like Comodo, which can be set to Paranoid mode to require permission for virtually all activity, but are still pretty easy for novices to use. I don't understand enough about IP tables to work directly with those.
3. I tried installing Tor using some instructions i found here: http://www.torproject.org/docs/debian.html.en, but there was apparently no file in the /etc/apt/sources.list folder so I couldn't add the necessary code.
4. Other software such as TrueCrypt seems hard to install too. It won't just run by double-clicking and following the instructions like in Windows. I have never really used commands before so even though i am a fairly quick learner I find it hard and time-consuming. There is also a much smaller range of software available.
5. The keyboard Function for turning my wireless on and off doesn't work in Ubuntu, though all the other ones, like turning sound on and off, do.
6. Not really an Ubuntu Q but maybe you can help: after these problems I re-installed XP from my own disk (the shop didn't give me one) but everything is 'stretched' horizontally (or squashed vertically, depending how you look at it). Windows 7 does the same.
7. Maybe insignificant: whenever I boot from disk, either an OS or Paragon, it fails first time after the BIOS password but before the list of OSs. I forget the error message but it is something like 'cannot read from disk' and suggests checking the connection and retrying. It always works second time. When loading Paragon (on any machine), after accepting the user agreement, the menu comes up briefly then goes off and 10-30 seconds later comes back. It also says 'Microsoft Corporation' with a little timer for a few seconds before loading, whether or not there is Windows loaded on that machine, which seems odd given that Paragon is not, as far as I know, a MS company.
Thanks,
Stu