<Solved> Ubuntu on a newbie's laptop
 

I just installed Ubuntu on my Sony VGN-FS742/W and it's working great. I did have to update the firmware for my wireless card, but other than that, it's awesome.

My only issues are it created a desktop icon for my FAT32 partition that I use to share files between Windows and Linux. I renamed the partition in fstab, and that made the icon disappear. How do I get this icon back?

The only other thing I can think about is I need a Gnome tutorial. I't easy to use, but I'd like to learn the ins and outs. Also, how would I go about putting XCFE as my primary desktop?

F_M

What exactly did you do to rename the fat32 partition. What was the entry in your fstab before you changed it, and what did you change it to?

Gnome is super easy to learn. Just play around with it a little. If you are using gdm, xdm, of kdm to login you can choose to make XFCE your default desktop environment from the login screen.

Originally, the FAT partition was called /media/hda1. I renamed it to /fat32. I also created a directory called /fat32. The partition is accessible from a terminal window by doing a However, when I changed the fstab file and rebooted, the shortcut to the partition was no longer on the desktop. I'd like to create a new shortcut to this partition.

I've found that Gnome is really easy to use, but since I'm a Windows SA by trade, it's natural for me to want to know how to do just about everything in something like Gnome.

As for XCFE, would I need to install this from a tarball, or can I use the application adder to install it?

There is a file called /etc/fstab. It contains the names of partitions that are to be mounted and the name of the place where they should be mounted. For example:
/dev/hda1 /media/SEA_DISK vfat rw,user,auto 0 0
This is the entry for my external hard drive. The first part (/dev/hda1) is the actual device which is to be mounted. The second part (media/SEA_DISK) is the place where you want to mount the device and can be whatever you want it to be as long as the directory exists. Auto means that it will be mounted automatically at boot. Or you can choose noauto if you prefer. The command mount -a will mount all entries in fstab.

Most distros have a utility to install applications from binaries so you don't have to install from source. You have a lot of distros listed in your sig. I think mepis uses synaptic to install stuff. Mandriva also has a gui for software installation. I don't know about slack or vector.

<Solved> Ubuntu on a newbie's laptop
 

I modified my fstab already and that's why it disappeared from my desktop. I've managed to get it back. I brought up a terminal window and created a symbolic link to the partition. Works great. I does have a different icon, but that's no big deal.

As for my profile, I briefly used the first couple distros. I've put the majority of my time into Slackware based distros. I learned a lot from those distros. I decided to switch to Ubuntu because I use this machine for school, and I'm about to start a new semester, and I was having a heck of a time with my wireless. Installed Ubuntu and in about an hour, I was online.

Thanks to all.

If you want xfce you can install a package called xubuntu-desktop, this will then include all of the packages you need to get xfce to work. You can do this through synaptic or by typin apt-get install xubuntu-desktop

Great, I let Synaptic handle this. I really like the apt-get thing. Is there a way to get a listing of matching packages? For instance, I needed to install libstdc++.so.5 but I didn't know the exact name. I did a --help switch and looked at the man page, but that didn't help this time.

You can use apt-cache search to find packages. If there are too many matches, you can use grep to narrow it down. For example, if I wanted to know to find the flac plugin for xmms:
apt-cache search xmms | grep flac