Jonny's great big gnoob/knoob move from Windows to Linux thread

Jonny69

Jonny69

Jonny69

Man of Honour
Man of Honour
Joined
3 May 2004
Posts
17,718
Location
Kapitalist Republik of Surrey
Hi all, you might have noticed I'm posting quite a bit in LOS recently as I'm playing about with Linux a bit more. I thought that instead of opening a whole bunch of small threads with (what are) basic questions which clutter up the forum I'll keep all of mine in one big thread which might be useful for other gnoobies/knoobies to refer to. Perhaps a passing mod (Beserker :D ) could kindly tidy my threads from the past week into this one?

The background to this thread is I'm quite knowledgeable about Windows as I troubleshoot it for a living but I've never diversified to another operating system other than an early MAC OS. One of the frustrating things about the swap is just the basics, like how the operating system places itself on the disk and small commands that you use all the time in Windows but are different in Linux. Examples are ipconfig -> ifconfig, del -> rm and so on. Finding these through search engines can be tricky, as can finding out the Linux equivalent program for say Outlook Express.

What I'm going to be doing is moving my entire Windows setup on my laptop over to Linux so that I can use either. There may be some pretty basic questions about the merge which is why I see this thread may be of use to the newer user.

So far I have Ubuntu installed as a second boot option using grub as the boot manager. I have the internet set up via my router from which I am posting now, and I have my email accounts set up in Evolution and set to leave the messages on the server so that Windows can download them too. I have KDE installed into Ubuntu with gdm as my login manager and have the choice of using Gnome or KDE as my desktop. I have my two Windows NTFS drives mounted on my desktop for easy access and will be looking at mounting them with Captive for full read/write access. Both my Linux and Windows drives are imaged with Acronis through Windows so disaster recovery is covered.

So I'll kick off with my first question: How can I import my Outlook Express mail boxes, email and addressbook into Evolution? I can't seem to get it to recognise the Windows .dbx files.
 
Cool, worked a treat.

How about the address book file (.wab) as I can't get anything to Google up for that. Short of turning every contact into a vCard I can't seem to figure out a way. There are a few pay proggies but the free trials only do 15 contacts which is, well, not much use :D
 
Export it as a .csv file. I did that when switching from thunderbird to outlook. (I was going the other way round, but cant see why it wouldnt work your way round)
 
There was an app called lookout (See what they did there? :D) but it seems to have disappeared off the face of tuxedo.org.
 
Ah well I guess if the worst comes to the worst I can right click on all my emails and add sender to address book. The rest I can merge over with ONE MILLION vCards.
 
Just using KDE here instead of Gnome. Got two questions;

The fonts on the internet in Firefox (especially in forums) are a funny font and very small which makes typing out, clicking etc very fiddly and difficult to read. Buttons etc are fine, but the default font is something strange. What can I do to resolve this? I'd prefer it to be clear and sharp as it is in Windows because it's easier to use.

Second up is can you shut down the computer directly from KDE? I seem to only have a 'log out' option in the K menu which takes me back to gdm and then I have to click shutdown afterwards. Is this because I'm using KDE with gdm?

Edit, just playing with font sizes in FF it seems to be anywhere you can insert or read inserted text that is tiny, so that's all the forum pages and the search box in the likes of Google search pages.
 
Last edited:
Open the control center in KDE, then use the font options which should be evident on the left of the panel.

Shutting down is as above, sudo reboot/halt.
 
Bah, I have to put my password in to shut down from terminal. That's a shame because otherwise I like KDE. Maybe I'll skin up Gnome to look like it :D
 
you can of course just use the KDE menu > Logout > Shutdown as you would in Windows.

Failing that, create a shortcut for it in the KDE menu.
 
Firstly, try kontact/kmail for email. Evolution isn't regared that well even by gnome users who seem to favour thunderbird. Kontact is the kde PIM and is really a modular frontend to individual programs. You can either select the programs you want and use them through the all in one kontact interface or just use them as individual progs ie kmail. I seem to rember kmail is good at importing other formats but I can't remember how well it handles MS propriotory formats.

Secondly, I think you are right that the lack of direct shutdown is because you are using kubuntu with gdm. If you use gnome with kdm you get the same problem. Either that or it is what you have as your default session. TBH I can't remeber as I have been on pure kubuntu for a while now.

It is quite easy to install kdm instead of gdm but I would recomend if you like kde and have just installed to wipe your partition and just install kubuntu. Perhaps keep trying for a couple of weeks and then reinstall kubuntu only when edgy goes final (due sometime this month). There are lots of arguments for and against either desktop but I think it comes down to applications, if you use mostly kde apps use kde if you are a bit dim and prefer gnome apps use gnome ;)
 
Kool. I have kdm installed as well but I prefer the gdm login, so I have it set to log in with gdm and go onto either desktop, with kde currently as default. when I had kdm with gnome it did still shutdown from the desktop. This is fantastic being able to choose between a couple of desktops though, I guess I'll settle down when I'm more used to it.

Thanks for the tip with kmail, I'll look it up when I'm next in there. I have Evolution fully set up now except for my contact list and it syncs with my Outlook Express on Windows via the POP3 account. I guess it'll be easier to import it from Evolution rather than from Outlook Express. I have to admit it is a little slow to load compared to OE so the lighter weight the better for me.
 
If you want a really lightweight mail client (text only) use mutt, its really good once configured properly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom