Where's a sticky for Ubuntu noobs?

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kingrob

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I just recently installed Ubuntu 9.04 and loving it! The OS detected everything on my laptop perfectly and everything I have plugged into it (my HP Deskjet 1220C printer, Seagate 750GB external hard drive, flash drive, etc) just works. Really scary. :)

BUT....now that I've got the basics right, I want to do more. I'm still a noob and trying to install Firefox 3.5 on Ubuntu is giving me a headache.

Can someone please hold my hand and help me step-by-step?

Thank you in advance!!
 
The easiest way would be to go through the Add/Remove Software, select firefox and install. it does everything for you.

Or, go into the terminal and Type:

sudo apt-get install firefox

type in your password,and press Y to install.

Package download will occur and it will be installed :)
 
Also visit Ubuntu Forums. A wealth of useful information can be found there.

You can also install the latest version of Firefox, branded "Shiretoko", through the PPA repositories.

B
 
blaaislaai said:
The easiest way would be to go through the Add/Remove Software, select firefox and install. it does everything for you.

Or, go into the terminal and Type:

sudo apt-get install firefox

type in your password,and press Y to install.

Package download will occur and it will be installed :)
Click to expand...

But AFAIK that is for 3.0.whatever, not for 3.5 which is what kingrob is looking for.

Sorry kingrob, can't help atm. I'm not at my home computer, will look later.

Ubuntu noob sticky. <-- :D Good idea, Bismuth.
 
Yeah I agree an ubuntu noob sticky would be nice..

But like blaai said, add/remove is a where you go to install everything you need, but synaptic package manager is much more useful because if you need the flash plugin it will install from their and it also it shows the versions of firefox.

I prefer using synaptic rather than terminal because I can see if the latest package is available rather than find out after typing the command.


Why is it scary that it detected everything though? :confused:
 
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Easiest way to get to 3.5 (if you don't want Shireteko) is to download FF 3.0.x from the repositories. Once it's loaded, open a console and start firefox in root mode:

sudo firefox &

Under the help menu, check for updates now becomes available. After updating, there are sometimes problems with permissions which affect bookmarks and history, but that's easy to fix.
 
The best thing a newby can do is to get very acquainted with the wiki of his chosen distro, nowhere is there more, to the point and correct information to be had.

A sticky for Ubuntu, rather bookmark the Ubuntu wiki!
:)
 
To see what is available

apt-cache search firefox | grep 3.5

then when you decide what is it what you want to install

sudo apt-get install [your choice]

Otherwise, GUI style Applications -> Add/Remove ... and install Shiretoko or abrowser
 
Heh, I know the feeling, I used to be a complete Ubuntu noob till about 4 months ago when I walked into a sys admin job, now, two departments are comprised of about 50 Ubuntu PC's, oh and about 20 something Ubuntu 9.04 notebooks... all of them I loaded baby :D
 
saffakanera said:
Heh, I know the feeling, I used to be a complete Ubuntu noob till about 4 months ago when I walked into a sys admin job, now, two departments are comprised of about 50 Ubuntu PC's, oh and about 20 something Ubuntu 9.04 notebooks... all of them I loaded baby :D
Click to expand...

Nice :D
 
saffakanera said:
Heh, I know the feeling, I used to be a complete Ubuntu noob till about 4 months ago when I walked into a sys admin job, now, two departments are comprised of about 50 Ubuntu PC's, oh and about 20 something Ubuntu 9.04 notebooks... all of them I loaded baby :D
Click to expand...

LOL....I still have the noob feeling.

It's hard to start from scratch again, cos my career started in the Microsoft world (my first OS was MS-DOS 5.0) .... and since then everything Microsoft could throw at me. :)

But I really like Ubuntu and can see a very bright future for it....and that's why I want to learn it.

*Bought myself Mark G. Sobell's book, ''A Practical Guide to Ubuntu Linux'' today and busy with page 28. Still got 992 pages to go. ;)
 
Why do people love Ubuntu? I tried 9.04 on my laptop today and it still seems like 6.06 but a bit more polished. I will still recommend it for any noob but it's really not the alpha & omega.
 
ponder said:
Why do people love Ubuntu? I tried 9.04 on my laptop today and it still seems like 6.06 but a bit more polished. I will still recommend it for any noob but it's really not the alpha & omega.
Click to expand...

I've done a lot of reading about Linux and Ubuntu and after reading Keir Thomas' ''Ubuntu Pocket Guide & Reference'', he reckons it's because of the following (I just copied it verbatim from his book in PDF format) :
What makes Ubuntu special

Three things make Ubuntu stand out from the crowd:

1. Its focus on desktop users;
2. The Ubuntu philosophy and community;
3. Ease of use
Click to expand...

Also, Easy Peasy Linux, that's running on all/most of Asus's netbooks, is essentially Ubuntu. Guess that must tell you something about how popular it really is.
 
kingrob said:
Also, Easy Peasy Linux, that's running on all/most of Asus's netbooks, is essentially Ubuntu. Guess that must tell you something about how popular it really is.
Click to expand...

Linux Mint is an even better example :D

After fiddling with various version of RedHat, Mandriva and flavours of Suse, Ubuntu's recent releases have really impressed me with the ease of use. For an essentially free OS (barring the cost of downloading or copying it), it works well and there is a massive user community.

There are still times when one needs to tinker around in config files and use the CLI (which may put Windows mouse users off), but this aspect has improved impressively.
 
ponder said:
Why do people love Ubuntu? I tried 9.04 on my laptop today and it still seems like 6.06 but a bit more polished. I will still recommend it for any noob but it's really not the alpha & omega.
Click to expand...
It's the easiest, I've been using Ubuntu for almost a year, I've tested out the other distros but ubuntu has more tutorials on the net and I prefer it's software sources app, but really distros are not that different.
kingrob said:
I just did a search and found that Ubuntu was already the most popular desktop linux in Desktoplinux.com's 2006 survey.

http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT5816278551.html

Didn't even know there was an OS called Ubuntu in 2006. :)
Click to expand...
It's still the most popular, if you look at the page hit ranking per distro here it's a good picture of distro popularity.
 
Bule said:
To see what is available

apt-cache search firefox | grep 3.5

then when you decide what is it what you want to install

sudo apt-get install [your choice]

Otherwise, GUI style Applications -> Add/Remove ... and install Shiretoko or abrowser
Click to expand...

sudo apt-cache policy <package name> will show you the installed version and whether there is a higher version in your repositories
 
milomak said:
sudo apt-cache policy <package name> will show you the installed version and whether there is a higher version in your repositories
Click to expand...

Is that package name the name for the app you see when pressing ALT+F2 above the "run with file" command?

*Dont flame noobs. Motivate and encourage them. :)

EDIT : LOL....I just found it....Synaptic Package Manager.
 
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