Small help and recommendations

[Les Gray]

On Friday 13 July 2007 19:23:25 Trias wrote:
> Ok i'm going ok so far here's my current focus.  Just humour me.  Pretend
> you were a noob once :D

<entering pretentious mode...now> (or should that be pretending?)
>
> 1) Whining on Wine?  Wine does in fact have a 64 bit version i got that
> much going it seems.  There's a reference to a fake c:/ to put the windows
> apps in which *seems* to be in my 'aaron' user folder but when i look it
> isn't there.  Also if I do a seach under file system for winecfg nothing is
> found even though typing 'winecfg' in the terminal brings up the config.  I
> know getting wine to work with an app may take some effort so i'm not too
> impatient here.

your fake c:\ drive is actually in a hidden directory  
in /home/<yourname>/.wine . All hidden directories have a '.' in front of 
their name. To view them in a file browser, just switch to 'view hidden files 
and folders' (or similar...it varies) in the 'view' menu. Or just type the 
directory name in a terminal - cd .wine (if you're in your /home, or the full 
path if you're somewhere else).

winecfg is an executable located in /usr/bin . I don't know what you're using 
to search files but you could try this in a terminal - sudo updatedb (which 
updates what's called the 'locate' database - another way of searching files 
on your linux system). then type 'locate winecfg' and the path to winecfg 
will be displayed, as well as paths to any other files or folders which 
contain those characters.

>
> 2) Is it possible to install java (not just the firefox plugin) in the 64
> bit ubuntu?  When i tried the official pages download i got a message
> saying it was the wrong version, a 32 bit one.  I can't seem to find the 64
> bit one on their site.

yes, there is 64-bit java if you want it, but as you know, there's no browser 
plugin yet. the easiest method is to go to add/remove programs or synaptic 
and look for 'sun-java6-jre' and install it. This is the Sun Java packaged by 
the Ubuntu team, so it's included in the package management system (which 
allows you to keep an easy track of what you have installed on your system)

you can also go to java.com, click 'free download' and choose 'linux x64' 
which will download the latest Sun Java release to your hard drive. Then it's 
a matter of following sun's instructions on how to install it. when done, you 
should run in a terminal 'sudo update-alternatives --config java' which will 
set the default Java version to Sun (so programs which need Java can access 
it readily).

>
> 3) When i used MSOutlook i used calender contacts tasks and mail.
> Lightning/sunbird was recommended but the lightning file does not install.
> I would like recommendations for the others ie contacts, tasks.  I am using
> thunderbird for email at this time.  Evolution which does have all those
> was said to be fairly poor.

I use Kubuntu, which is Ubuntu with the K desktop environment (KDE). This has 
a suite called 'Kontact' which has what you're looking for (I think), but I 
don't use that feature. It is possible to install this in GNOME Ubuntu, but 
it means installing a lot of other stuff along with it. To integrate Kontact 
properly into GNOME might take a bit of fiddling around, so you might want to 
avoid that at this stage.

Perhaps another GNOME user could help with this one?

>
> 4) When i type ls which is one of the very few commands i remember from
> unix i get coloured file names.  Is there a place to find out what these
> colour codes mean?

I think you can set them in the terminal's preferences, but don't quote me on 
that. It's really more about eye candy, I think, but it does help you easily 
identify how the access permissions are set on your files eg. bright green 
usually means all users can read/write/execute that file.

>
> 5) When i try to access my windows partition it asks for a password and
> it's mostly hunky dory except that it doesn't remember it and later on i
> have to do it again to see the 'disk' (eg in 'places' and the file browser)
> and it's contents.  It is also set to read only.  Can that be changed or is
> writing to a windows partition from linux error prone?

see ubuntuguide.org section 'windows' on how to mount (access) your windows 
partitions easily within linux.

>
> 6) How do i safely change the partition so the windows one shrinks and
> linux one grows?

can't help with that one, sorry. never tried it.

>
> 7) Is there a good cd/dvd burning program you could recommend?

yes. k3b, by a *mile*. It's designed for KDE but will integrate quite easily 
into GNOME (meaning all the functions should work 'out of the box' without 
having to do much setup). you can do heaps with it plus it's the most 
reliable linux burning tool I've ever used.

another one is Gnomebaker which has improved its features but can still be a 
little buggy.

for very simple burning operations you can also just use the Nautilus file 
browser. just look up the Nautilus help from the 'Help' menu up the top.

Nero also has a Linux version but you'll have to shell out for it. I used the 
trial version a year or two ago and it seemed to work OK. There weren't that 
many features, though.

>
> That'll do for now :)

Glad to be of service. :)