Hi ive just installed linux on my computer and have fallen in love with it instantly, except for the following:

1. Music that sounds fine in w*****s XP souns naff in linux (and wma's dont even play!)
2. Drive partitioned, 1 for linux, 1 for w*****s, and some swap space. Linux reads its partition (e) but w*****s partition (c) isn't on desktop. W*****s cant see linux's partition.
3. Not the fogyest on how to uninstall/install anythinf w.s.e.
4. Screen resolution HUGE and not all suported modes are displayed in list (under system/preferences/screen resolution)
5. 2. doesnt matter if the answer to this question is yes. If i put a new 250GB HD in (1 in atm is only big enough for w** and linux anyway), will both OS's see it and write/read to it in harmony (i use w** for dreamweaver and fireworks and fash)

Sorry if I confused you!

Help apreciated!

p.s. W*****s has been reinstalled here so many times now that it has now become a swear word, hense the ***.

Hi

Welcome to LQ! Let me see if I can answer a couple of your questions.

1. WMA codecs have to be downloaded and installed to play in XMMS and other media players. You can get them from a number of sources (not sure for Ubuntu, but googling will get you there pretty easy. Need a little more info about sound to try to help there (what card, on board, etc. using alsa-config)

2. You will not have the windows partition on your desktop unless you create a folder for it and mount it there. Also, if it is XP and NTFS, you will need that support in your kernel to read NTFS file systems. Windows will not recognize linux partitions.

3.Installing and uninstalling presents you with some choices, but in Ubuntu (which is Debian based), apt-get is the command. You can also use the GUI called Synaptic for installing/uninstalling software. You can also install source code. If you need instruction on that, it is available here.

4. To help with your display, we will need to know what your graphics card is. For example, if it is nVidia, you will need the nVidia Linux drivers to properly control your display.

5. Windows and Linux will be on separate partitions, so it does not matter what you do individually in each separate system. They do not interact, unless you want to read NTFS file by mounting them.

Hope this helps,

Bob

I am VERY confused. My motherboard is a gigabyte ga-7vaxp. No. 2 is np to be left as it is because if they will both read and write off another HD happily then thats fine. What file system will they both work with? graphics card is ASUS V9480/TVD Ti4800SE (copied off box)

If I am correct about what you are asking, i.e. will Linux and Windows read and interact with their own partitions without interfering with each other, the answer is yes. There will be no problem there. You can mount Wndows partitions in Linux and read the files from Windows, but Windows (as far as I know) will not read Linux files. FAT32 is a filesystem that both OS will write to just fine.

Bob

So if I add another Hd to my computer and format in in FAT32 then it will mount on desktop (like when i insert cd usb drive etc) and show in my computer? What about getting display drivers and making music sound better? I have both install CDs but no linux drivers on them. Sorry for being such a n00b. Windows for 8 yrs, installations are so simple and 'automatic', allthough this is exactly what makes it venerable to spyware etc!

http://www.ubuntulinux.nl/source-o-matic

this link will help you et the repositories needed for installing the w32codecs so you an play wma files.

To get the right resolution on your monitor from a terminal type:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure x-server-xorg

then when you get to the page asking about monitor sizes, what ever you choose as the biggest will become the default.

synaptic is the tool you used for installing/updating/removing software, its in the gnome menu with all your other programs.

this guide will help, its made for an older version of ubuntu but the majority of it will be applicable to the version you are using.

just a note about playing wma's...
goto synaptic and open it...
in settings tick the depositories for universal and (dam stuck in win) its ? got it multiverse...
then ok it..
that will give you access to the depositories for wma codecs...
i use rythmbox and am able to play any music i like...
setting up 5.1 sound can be tricky and wont go there but stereo works fine...

If your Linux is on an ext2 filesystem, you can still get read/write access on your linux partitions through windows. A driver is need for this purpose. Here's the link
http://www.fs-driver.org/index.html

If you want to see your windows partitions on linux, you need to run following commands
this command will show you the hard discs in your system what partitions do you have on your hard discs
Now you can mount any partions to any directory on your linux
For eg: Suppose you have some hard disk which linux identifies as hda in /dev directory, then you can mount any patition (say a fat32 partition named /dev/hda5) using command similar to thsee.
1) Make any directory where u would mount a partition
2) Mount a partition
3) See it's contents
If you want to install any package, suppose XMMS, you can use apt-get to install it from the Ubuntu repositories
apt-get will take care of all the dependencies and install them if they are available on the repository.

As far as I know, there should be no sound problems, if ubuntu has identified your hardware and installed proper drivers for it. Mine works fine.

I don't know about the screen resolution problem as I haven't faced it with Ubuntu yet.

I too am a newbie to ubuntu and am really impressed with it, I installed it a couple of weeks ago and have managed to set up lots of great features now using this guide http://ubuntuguide.org/

Id recommend having a read through there as it covers a lot of the basic stuff that new users would want and explains it very clearly

Hope this is as helpful to you as it was (is) to me

Uni

"Unofficial Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger) Starter Guide"
http://easylinux.info/wiki/Ubuntu

Try http://easyubuntu.freecontrib.org/

What about windows - you can try http://www.fs-driver.org/

Thanks for that link, I just added it to my Learning Linux webpage.

Kinda takes the place of the old add-on cd.

Package `x-server-xorg' is not installed and no info is available.
Use dpkg --info (= dpkg-deb --info) to examine archive files,
and dpkg --contents (= dpkg-deb --contents) to list their contents.
/usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure: x-server-xorg is not installed
will@ubuntu:~$

Sorry I am very lost. I am in synaptic package manager and cannot see any depositories

I get to 2) Mount a partition and get the following

will@ubuntu:~$ sudo mkdir /media/windows
will@ubuntu:~$ sudo mount -t vfat -w /dev/hda1 /media/windows#
mount: mount point /media/windows# does not exist
will@ubuntu:~$ sudo mount -t vfat -w /dev/hda1 /media/windows
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda1,
missing codepage or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so

will@ubuntu:~$