learn linux

Rhythmbox stores it’s ratings in a local database – not as a global variable in the files themselves!!!!

There had better be a way to export them as it has taken me a long time to rate al ~7,000 tracks.

I’m having some problems upgrading my laptop from Edgy to Feisty. Seems to be a dbus error. Not found a fix yet but as /home is on a separate partition and I have all my configs in /etc backed up I could just reinstall from scratch. Would rather not though.

I’ll try their solutions first though.

Just added Feisty to my removable HDD as I’m back in the UK at the moment. Amazing hardware support. So much quicker than Edgy (which was quicker than Dapper). Roll on the Gibbon.

I’m using Rhythmbox to organise all my music and have added a star rating (* to * * * * *) for most of the tracks. Only 3,000 more to rate. This is great as I can just get it playing my * * * * and above to always get music I really like or * * * and above to get stuff I don’t mind and above.

Fantastic.

I installed Edgy on a partition on a spare hard-disk I have for my work laptop. This way I will be able to take Linux with me over the Christmas holiday and have my work computer without having to lug around two machines.

I leave the apartment at 23:00 tonight so I’d better make sure all my favourite programs are installed before I leave…

I’ve really taken to Ubuntu – even if getting the nonfree plugins and DVD playback installed is an extra step…

You need this. A fully customisable, world coverage TV listings guide, with reminders, favourites and regular updates!

It’s opensource and platform independent; so you can run it on Windows and Linux.

Give it a try…

Okay, so I was getting frustrated with some of the main programs I used in “Dapper Drake” being older versions. For example FireFox 1.5 rather than 2.0. It was making my browsing experience rather annoying. Solution? Upgrade to Ubuntu 6.10 “Edgy Eft” and while I’m at it, restructure my partitions to have a play partition to try different flavours of Linux at the same time. (I’m really getting into this now!)

Backed up my /home partition
sudo cp -a /home/username /mnt/backupdrive/homebackup

Downloaded “Edgy Eft” from Ubuntu.com

Decided on my new partition structure:
/boot

/

/home

Spare for other Linux dist

Linux-Swap

Installed and restored my /home data:
sudo cp -a /mnt/backupdrive/homebackup /home/username

I’m lucky that I have a close friend who is into all things Linux. Not only that but he is a Hacker (in the programming sense) so has been around the block a few times.

We had a chat about my previous experience with Linux (he had originally put me on to Mandrake 9.0) and he suggested either Fedora or Ubuntu. I jumped on the Ubuntu bandwagon. Downloaded Breezy and started defragging my hard disk. Partitioning is nothing new to me so within an hour of the defrag finishing I was booting into Breezy!

1st mistake; I should have installed Dapper. Dapper was a near stable release when I did this and was released as a stable release not long after I installed Breezy. It had newer versions of the programs I wanted to use and more support. Not to mention it was the long term support release.

I couldn’t face downloading another ISO there and then, so I ordered the FREE CDs and decided to use Breezy as my playground until they arrived.

I had a dabble with Mandrake 9.0 a few years back in my final year at Uni. I was forced to dual boot as I was using some software for my degree which meant I had to run Windows. I guess I was using 2K at the time. The problem I had back then was three fold:

1)I didn’t really have the time to be learning something new (see point 2)

2)Although red-carpet made it easier for a Newb like me to get started, there was still a lot of compiling stuff to learn just to get everything working how I expected it.

3)As I was dual booting, if I hit a problem I wasn’t forced to stick with it as I could just reboot into Windows. It’s a comfort zone thing!