About the ipod thing, you may want to try Songbird. Visit getdeb.net for a Ubuntu package or check out their site for a more recent version.

Thanks! Actually, I have my iPod working like a champ now in Amarok. It took LOTS of work with my playlists, but I found a script to import my iTunes library and all my playlists after editing the XML file. The instructions are here:

http://thedarkmaster.wordpress.com/2...ps-and-tricks/

I've actually switched to Mandriva now, because Ubuntu doesn't really support WM5 devices. I haven't set it up yet, but so far I like Mandriva better than Ubuntu. I should note, for all of you out there following this with no clue about linux: don't recompile your kernel until you have some freaking clue what you're doing!

Yeah. I was following a tutorial on how to get my WM5 device working in Ubuntu, and part of it was to recompile the kernel. DON'T DO THAT, PEOPLE!! I had no idea what I was doing, nor did I understand that recompiling the kernel is not a trivial task. I completely screwed up the drivers and probably a lot of other stuff too. So, since all my data is still backed up, I just went with Mandriva. No big. (Er, if you have issues with copying your data from hard drive to hard drive and your folders being read-only once you've done that, use the chmod command to set folder permissions)

Note how I'm casually ignoring the jackass who commented on my gender. I think I'm growing as a person.

Since you've gone with Mandriva, check out http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/ - the site will help you to set up your urpmi sources which will make installing programs a breeze.

It's most unfortunate that most people end up with a reaction like this to kernel compiling. It is not inherently trivial at first look, but once you understand how to switch kernels back and forth, you can mess up plenty with little recourse, if ever any.

If you're skeptical, just wait until a distro gives you a new kernel during an upgrade and you reboot to a grub menu with 2 kernel choices. It's that simple, if the new one doesn't work, you can go back to the old one and try again.

It's probably easier and better documented than most of the other tasks you're completing/attempting with data migration from Windows! Don't let it stop you at any point: http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Compiling_a_kernel goes hand in hand with the info here: http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Grub

Also, for the whole WM5 issue, http://www.synce.org/moin/FrontPage allows you to "use one's computer to browse files, install applications and synchronize contacts, calendar and tasks with their PIM application of choice." Seems they have packages for the major distros and FreeBSD. (Searching without specifying a distro can be a huge help sometimes, found that on LQ searching "WM5": http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...?highlight=wm5)

Thanks for that; I was already trying to follow the instructions for syncing a WM% device in Mandriva that's found at the end of your link. I'm having a problem, though: The Mandriva instructions tell me to install the task-wm5sync-kde package, and I installed synce-kpm on my own. The Mandriva instructions assume that the synce PDA manager (sitting in the systray) will auto-detect my device, and it's not showing any information in the information screen for synce. However, when I unplug the device with the synce manager running, I get a disconnected device popup--though no notification when I plug it back in. Am I missing some packages or something?

Hey, all:
My last syncing problem seems to be that Kitchensync can't find the plugin for a Windows Mobile device. I watched the nifty video...

http://www.happyassassin.net/2008/03...ization-video/

...but the metapackage that the guy is talking about...I don't know what he means. I've installed kdepim-kitchensync, and every other plugin I could find, but there's no option to add a Windows Mobile device in Kitchensync when I try to add a member to my syncing group. In the tutorial...

http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/2008.1_Synchronization

...under the Kitchensync header, it says to: "To create a synchronization group using KitchenSync, start up KitchenSync. Click on Add Group. Enter a name for the group (this is for your reference, so make it something that you will remember easily). You can select exactly what you would like to synchronize by checking the appropriate boxes. Then, click Add Member.... Select Plugin to synchronize with Windows CE device and click OK. You can name the device, if you like, but you don't need to. Click Add Member... again. "

The problem comes in where it says "Select Plugin..." There is no option there to select that plugin; the only Plugin present was for KDE desktop (my Kontact, etc). What do I do?

Aha! The problem was that I was missing the opensync plugin for synce. Apparently, that was the metapackage the guy was talking about. Anyway, I've successfully synced!!!

Onward to the next problem; Azureus will start just fine, but it won't restart. It gives me an error message "can't restart without the azupdater plugin." I've googled til I just cain't google no more, and I can't find any solutions for this other than a reboot. That seems ridiculous; any ideas?

That's odd. I just opened my copy to see if I could find anything out about the updater plugin. And the plugin updated as soon as I opened Azureus! My version of Azureus is 3.1.1.0 and the updater is version 1.8.8. Which versions are you showing?

Yes, try the site directly rather than google. http://azureus.sourceforge.net/plugi...ugin=azupdater
The plugins that are part of the core are all available there.

I have 3.0.4.2; that's the version of Vuze that is available in the RPM (I installed it through Mandriva's Add/Remove Programs utility). I'm too scairt to try compiling it from source; the last time I tried to compile anything I blew my Ubuntu installation. Is there a way to install the plugin directly? I couldn't find the plugin by itself anywhere, or I would have tried that (I could prolly find the Vuze plugins directory).

Vuze does not need to be compiled. If you go to their site, you can download a binary. Extract it and that's it.

So, how do I clean up my root partition? I'm getting out of memory errors and assorted other problems...when I deleted the stuff in my home/tmp directory, I started getting errors when opening Firefox. I'm not used to having an 8GB program/installation partition and a 737GB storage partition on one hard disk. There doesn't seem to be the equivalent of "Disk Cleanup" in Mandriva; what are some good habits to develop here? Good tools to learn?

You shouldn't remove tmp files, they get cleaned up when you reboot. If you do, you will experience all kinds of issues, like certain applications not remembering their settings etc.

Also 8GB seems a bit tight. I tend to use 10 for /, 4 for /var (servers), 4 for /opt (has my netbeans, tomcat, etc.) and the rest for /home.

Package files are often stored somewhere in /var (on Debian, /var/cache/apt/archives) - you might get a little space back by deleting the package files since the packages are already installed.

refer to the post prior to that: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...81#post3263081

I linked directly to the azupdater's plugin page. The plugins are jar and text files. It's as simple as going into the azureus directory, finding the plugins directory, creating a new directory called "azupdater" and dumping the contents of the zip in there.

Or, to make it even easier, Azureus has an option under the "Plugins" menu called "Installation Wizard". You can select "By file", hit next, and browse to the location of the zip. Hit next again and let it put it where it needs it.

If it was that easy, I would already have done it ;-) My problem was that the installation wizard wasn't even finding the relevant plugin, and that (come to find out) the azupdater plugin wasn't actually NAMED "azupdater"; I was apparently expected to know that it was part of the core plugin set (though that's not anywhere that I googled).

I'm over it. I'm using Ktorrent now anyway.

In KDE 4.1, I have a funky thing happening with the menubar. (BTW--KDE 4.1...WOW, what a GUI!) Does anyone know how to get rid of the history of open windows in the menubar? It's really annoying. There's little shaded icons lined up in my menubar at the bottom of the page, and they don't go away even after I reboot. It's the history of every window I've had open on the desktop, and they keep squinching together and shading out on the menubar; clicking on them doesn't do anything cuz they're not open windows any more.

Hi, all:

This is the last post for this thread. What I hoped to accomplish for my fellow geek girls is a sort of blogged experience of the transition from Windows to Linux, and I think it's worked out well.

Here's what I've learned.

(1) Linux is addictive. I tried a few live cds, installed Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Mandriva 2008.1 with KDE 3.5, and Mandriva 2008.1 with KDE 4.1. Though the last choice isn't as well configured and easy to work with as Ubuntu, it's the one I've settled on. I LUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRVVVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEEE Compiz Fusion; it's absolutely beautiful!

(2) You had better know how to ask questions properly in forums and how to search for answers on your own before asking anyway.

(3) Installing stuff is hard. I still haven't figured out how to compile and install programs on my own, though I'll get around to it. (Dude. Don't believe people who tell you just to run the ./configure, make, make install commands, it never works like they tell you to, and there's apparently about six OTHER things you're supposed to know about before you can actually do that, like about your shell, path variables, and other stuff).

(4) Installing stuff from repositories is easy. On Mandriva, using RPM is much easier than you'd think, after you've got RPM set up properly. Ubuntu's apt-get thingy is also full of awesome.

(5) Don't panic if you think you've just screwed yourself by installing something or compiling something. The worst case scenario is that you wipe your root partition and reinstall your chosen OS, which is pretty easy, and takes very little time.

(6) BACK YOUR $#1% UP! Have another drive, and be CERTAIN you've got everything you need on ANOTHER drive from the one you're installing your OS on--another DRIVE, not just another partition.

(7) I haven't found too many things I can't do in Linux that I CAN do in Windows. There are only a few programs that I miss, like TimeLeft and Aquarius PC Alarm Clock Pro. KAlarm seems to work just fine as a substitute, but I DO miss the ease of use of those programs.

(8) I have ZERO pirate guilt right now. (We aren't talking about tv shows, though...LOL. Better not expect me to give up Grey's Anatomy and The Shield).

(9) If you're going to switch to Linux, be prepared to join a community of users. That means that not only do you have the need to find solutions to your usage, like how to play your music and write your papers, but you also have the responsibility to post your solutions to the problems you've solved in the proper place. When you figure out how to port your data and it took you forever and reading other people's solutions to do it, POST your solution in the same place you found help, so that other people can read about your travails. This also means that you need to give feedback to the people who take their time to write free software for you to use. If you don't ever develop anything for Linux, at least tell people who are in a position to do so about what worked and what didn't for you, so that they can incorporate solutions to problems.

(10) Men are dumb. If you're a girl switching to Linux, you will get jackasses all over the web who will condescend to you and tell you to go buy a Mac. Two solutions: change your avatar name from "LOLKittyLurveHeart17" to "BadAzzComedian69" and watch the attitudes change instantaneously, or: learn your $#1% and bask in the power of root when you tell them to buzz off. I have chosen to implement both solutions; the second one is taking longer, but is--so far--immensely emotionally satisfying.

(11) If you have screwed your partitions and can't access your data, here's what to do: download and burn a copy of the Ubuntu live cd. Use that to boot your machine. When you've done so, open a terminal window, type in "su" to get root permissions, and recursively use the "chmod" command to change the directory permissions on everything in your partitions (so you can copy and move stuff around away from the root partition you've screwed and are about to format for a fresh OS install), cuz you don't get automatic root permissions for fiddling with your data when booting from a live cd. This is where it is GOOD to have a backup drive like a USB drive or something so you don't lose stuff. It took me HOURS to figure this stuff out, so hopefully it helps you all. (Obviously, go read up on su and chmod to understand how to use them) You might have to use the mount command to mount internal or external drives and partitions to get access to your stuff; the partitions and drives are found in the /dev/ directory. My second internal hard drive is called sdb1, and I mount it by using this command as root (and after having created the /media/secondDrive directory with the mkdir command): "mount /dev/sdb1 /media/secondDrive". Don't use the quotes. You can actually mount the hard drives or partitions anywhere you want, though I haven't gotten all the bugs worked out of that one yet. Hopefully, that will save you if you get into trouble.

(12) http://xkcd.com/149/ And now you actually GET the joke!!

(13) Seriously. Though there are dumb men out there, there are also many nice geeks who have begged me for my number, cuz smart chicks are hot. May the OSS be with you, chicas!

The last post? Oh well as I missed the fun I hope I'm allowed a few lines. Great thread, illegal software is stealing and that would be (and was for me) enough reason to switch. So much ground has been covered that it should be essential reading for Linux beginners or perhaps recompiled into a wiki. All I can contribute is suggestion on building from source: there's plenty out there in the repositories but not absolutely everything. When you get your tarball, unzip from GUI with a rightclick, and then immediately open the readme. Make and make install are very common (although there are a few self-installers); but not everything starts with "configure". Occasionally the process will identify a requirement for a different compiler, that will probably be in the repository. Enough said (by me at any rate). Long live real computing !

One thing that is often overlooked is that the configure step checks for the libraries that are required to compile the package in question. What that means is that you cannot run make until you have installed all the libraries that configure has not been able to find. Nine times out of time, those libraries are in your repositories. After adding a library, run configure until until it is fully satisfied.