Hi everybody.

I imagine you get this quite often. I am finally fed up with windows and I decided to try linux. After looking around, I decided to try Edubuntu because my grandkids live with me and it looks like it might be just what I need.

I hope I have made the best choice. Now I need to find out how to use this operating system since i have not touched anything but windows for some time.

Any tips or how to's would be greatly appreciated.

I like how fast the system boots up on a cold start. 45 sec max.

I did figure out how to get my wireless adapter to work but that was because I still had a windows machine working so I could get online with it.

Now I need to get my printer (lexmark X7675) to work. The driver was a tar.gz file

This is going to take a little getting used to because I am used to installer programs. I know, windows has dumbed me down.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Paul

Welcome to LQ, Paul!

Edubuntu should be great for learning (for you and the grandkids)! For a fresh perspective coming from windows I suggest reading this: http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm

A few pointers:
Everyone was a noob at one point (many of us still are in certain areas *points finger at self*).
Do your best to research any issues as best as you can before you ask questions (google is your friend).
Provide as much pertinent information as you have (if we need more, we'll ask).
Have fun! (This one is the most important)

Is that a new printer? It's not on the Linux Printer Compatibility List for Lexmark (which includes incompatible printers).

Moved: This thread is more suitable in Linux-General and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

Lexmark site shows the driver for the printer to be a zipped form but in deb package. So you just need to copy it somewhere and then you can use GUI to extract it as well. Right click > extract here should extract the contents to some directory. You can then run the .deb installer by double clicking it.

I found that but I could not get it to work. Then I found a post that explained it and I was able to get it to uncompress but I could not get it to install.

Then I decided to try to get to the root dir and drag and drop the deb file there and it worked. I can now print to my wireless printer. ;-)

So, to keep you up to date, I have been able to get my wireless card working, and now my printer. Next is going to be my ATSC usb tuner.

I have not had any luck with that yet.

I decided to make a couple of hardware changes also. I just ordered a new 7800 mah battery to replace my failing 4400 bat. I also ordered a new 250g hard drive (the 30g drive I am testing everything out on is failing but it is a old spare drive I had laying around. (I did not want to destroy my win drive until I feel more comfortable. I am thinking about going to 2gig from my 1 gig mem.

So, has anyone been able to use a usb atsc tuner in ubuntu? If so, which software package did you use? Mine came with blazevideo but that was for windows.

It will take me some time to get adjusted to the new system but I hope the learning curve is short. I start classes June 1st and I want the system to be ready and able to use my hardware.

When my new drive comes in, I am planning on doing something a bit different. I am going to clone my win drive onto it (about 40g), after taking all my personal files and backing them up. Then I will install ubuntu (about 40g) onto the frive as a dual boot. Then I will leave larges drive for my personal files. Should I have the drive setup as ?

See, I want to be able to get to my files from both operating systems. Any ideas? My drive was ordered tonight so it should be here by friday.

So far, I am liking working with edubuntu even though I am a bit lost at times and I have to check with the win unit on how to operate this one.

Thanks everyone for the assistance. I am glad the not so noobs are glad to help the noobs with things like this.

Are there any ubuntu places (real or virtual) where I can go and speak with people about all the things they believe I will need to know to survive the transformation. Henderson KY

I am wanting to do a install on 4 machines, maybe 5. I have a couple of older laptops that I can setup for the grandkids and then teach them how to use them. They are young and they follow directions rather well.

Well, thanks again and I hope to hear from everyone soon.

I did find the printer driver on lexmark.com for ubuntu but it was a bit different to install but I think I am getting used to it.

Paul

A USB ATSC tuner is problematic, unless the chipset manufacturer has chosen to support Linux. I suggest you google on the specific make and model and see what you come up with.

If I were you I wouldn't destroy the Windows installation. What you are talking about - imaging it to a new HD then dual booting is a good place to start while you learn Linux. When you become sufficiently comfortable, you might rearrange again to deploy your Windows installation in a virtual machine in Linux. This'll give you the best of all worlds.

Linux reads and writes NTFS natively, and there is an ext2/3 filesystem driver available for Windows (no ext4 driver yet). So you won't have any problem accessing files from either OS. If you use ext4 for your Linux system, then you won't (yet) be able to access things on that file system from Windows.

Just remember that Linux Is Not Windows. Forget everything you know about Windows when you work with Linux, and don't try to compare them; they are very different. Take Linux on its own terms and by the time you're done, you won't ever want to do Windows again.

With Windows 7, Microsoft has come a long way toward making Windows a real OS. After another couple of releases, it's just possible they'll catch up to Linux.