Some Ubuntu help?

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Hey guys,

I decided to take the plunge into linux, I'm already a happy OS X as I use it on my MacBook. But I don't have a OS X desktop machine, and because windows well is windows I have decided to take the plunge and switch to linux full time.

I have installed Ubuntu 8.04 and installed a few programs like VLC, FileZilla, Amrok and SABnzbd (For usenet) I have all these working lovely. I have had a problems with Firefox 3 beta 5, but I have removed that and installed Firefox 2.0.0.14.

My first question is about Firefox, the text does not look very good at all. Is there a specific font you guys use for Firefox? also how do I install flash?

Next question is..... I've got three 250GB hard drives which I use for videos/music and stuff. They are empty at the minute but what is the best way to get these working in Ubuntu, to be specific whats the best file system, the best way to format them and how do I mount them into Ubuntu?

Other than that I'm really liking Ubuntu at the minute, I've even got a friend installing it use Wubi :).

So any help you guys can offer will be great.
 
You need to install a few packages to make Ubuntu look pretty.

Make sure you turn on all the extra repositories (inc restricted) then install all the restricted modules plus ms core fonts packages.

Also change the default font in firefox to serif should make a difference.

HD wise, ext3 is the filesystem of choice usually, or you may choose to software raid them using LVM.

Look for gparted as an app for managing disks/partitions etc - i've seen it as a bootable CD but i think you can install it in a running linux too.
 
For the fonts, I find using msttcorefonts (Microsoft True Type core fonts) works well... although strictly speaking you're supposed to have a valid Windows licence in order to use them. They're in the repository so can be enabled very easily... then either reboot or refresh your font cache to get them working.

As for the hard drives... either ext2 or ext3 will be fine. The drives should be automatically recognised by Ubuntu and will be mounted when you boot although you can mount it manually using the mount command if for some reason it doesn't recognise it.
 
Hey,

Thanks for the help guys, I've got Firefox sorted now and I have all three of my drives formatted and mounted. Now this may sound like a silly question but how do I rename my drives? at the minute they are called "250.1 GB Media" I have right clicked and click rename but I get an error saying "Operation could not be supported by back end".

Any ideas on how to rename these drives?

Thanks.
 
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