Cautious possible new member/user

[Tim M]

On 12/9/07, Stephen Constantinou <stephanos at writeme.com> wrote:
> Dear All
>
> After lots of loyalty to Mandrake/Mandriva I have experienced more
> things not working out of the box as I have happily ungraded from
> earlier versions.  My level of skill is low, though I do know I have
> learnt a lot since Mandrake 8.5.  I know calculate four things that used
> to be working by default as not working now without user intervention.
> Even autofs was not working automatically, which means I will have to
> manually mount unless I use up some tech support to learn to overcome
> this.  I have never managed to get my onboard/soft dial up modem on my
> laptop working in any version of Linux.
>
> I have browsed the website but I cannot find an exhaustive list of
> applications that you included.  Since Mandrva was on a DVD and I am
> about to burn the ISO I want to check a few things so that I do not have
> an unrealistic expectation.
>
> 1) Can I expect to have openssh installed by default so that all I have
> to do is start konqueror and enter the ip/username of the other Linux
> (Mandriva 2007) computer on my network?
>
> 2) Can I expect SAMBA to be installed by default with an entry in the
> menu to start Samba when I want to connect to my Windows PC (which is
> also the Mandriva 2007 as it dual boots)?
>
> 3) Can I expect Openoffice to be installed by default?
>
> 4) Does the Ubuntu have any othe VNC tools, not VNC itself.  In Mandriva
> I was using a KDE tool the name of which might be like
>
> 5) Do I have to choose between Gnome and KDE or is one the default?
>
> 6) Are there any applications for watching DVDs?
>
> 7) Do you use CUPS
>
> 8) Every version of Mandrake/Mandriva I have ever had displys an error
> message during boot that slamer (or something similar) could not be
> found/loaded.  This I think relates to the soft modem.  Does Ubunto
> support soft modems?  Please say yes!
>
> 9) Will my PCMCIA external CDROM be supported?
>
> 10) Will USB flash disks/pen disks, floppies and DVD/CD ROMS be
> supported so that I only have to insert and they will be recognised?
>
> Hope to hear from you
>
> Thank you
>
> Stephen
>
On (1) openssh will have to be installed and configured. But it is no big deal.
(2) Samba I believe will have to be installed and configured.
(3) Open office is installed from the CD.
(4) VNC is installed but I haven't used it in the last couple of upgrades.
(5) Yup either KDE or Gnome . . . the default is Gnome unless you
install from a Kubuntu disk.
(6) Yup you can watch your DVD. I think when you click on Movie player
it will download the drivers automatically.
(7) Cup is used for printing
(8) If you are referring to a DUN I don't use one so don't know.
(9) Don't know but most likely. My USB card reader is picked up as
soon as I plug it in.
(10) see 9.

Now I will say I don't know a lot about Ubuntu or Linux but I really
like Ubuntu. Just yesterday I was reinstalling XP for someone. I lost
count of the number of CDs I had to find to get everything
reinstalled.

Tim