Ubuntu noob needs help

AHarvey

AHarvey

AHarvey

Soldato
Joined
6 Mar 2008
Posts
10,084
Location
Stoke area
Hi all,

After speaking to the IT guy at work about licence costs for windows/office and the company updating to Win 7 I suggested Linux.

He said "if you can prove everything works then we may consider it" so I took it as a challenge :D

Few problems though:

1) Not being an admin I can't install it on the HDD so I have just put it on an 8gb USB pen drive and it's slow. Would a normal USB hdd be faster or is there a faster alternative to an internal drive?

2) We use a java based chat program for work that we launch via a shortcut on the desktop. Shortcut target location is a web address and I can't get it to work. Unfortunately I can't give the link out but does anyone have any suggestions?

3) We use a windows network and roaming profiles. I need to be able to connect to the windows network/shared drives and keep my priviledges, is this a problem?

Using the latest Ubuntu.

Using the GUI for the moment until I feel more confident to start using the console. Any good linux for noobs sites that cover all the basics?

Thanks :)
 
2) We use a java based chat program for work that we launch via a shortcut on the desktop. Shortcut target location is a web address and I can't get it to work. Unfortunately I can't give the link out but does anyone have any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Java is cross platform compatible so it should work on any OS. Just make sure you have the Java Runtime Environment installed. Guide for installing JRE
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/install-java-runtime-environment-jre-in-ubuntu-9-10-karmic.html
 
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AHarvey said:
1) Not being an admin I can't install it on the HDD so I have just put it on an 8gb USB pen drive and it's slow. Would a normal USB hdd be faster or is there a faster alternative to an internal drive?

2) We use a java based chat program for work that we launch via a shortcut on the desktop. Shortcut target location is a web address and I can't get it to work. Unfortunately I can't give the link out but does anyone have any suggestions?

3) We use a windows network and roaming profiles. I need to be able to connect to the windows network/shared drives and keep my priviledges, is this a problem?
Click to expand...
It shouldn't be massively slow on a USB stick, is it plugged into a USB 2.0 port? If it is then your only way to get something faster without having physical access to the box, would be to use an e-SATA drive (if you have an e-SATA port on your box) or a firewire based drive (assuming your BIOS can boot from firewire drives).

The Java chat program is likely to be distributed as a JAR file. To run it from a terminal the command is java -jar mjarfile.jar
For some reason the Java version distributed with Ubuntu and other Linux distros by default is gcj which can have problems with some jar files (I've had this in the past) switching to Sun's JRE (you can do this via the Ubuntu Software Center) should fix this.

You should be fine accessing windows shares, when you click "Places" --> "Network" you should see "Windows Network", you can browse and connect to shares that way very easily.
 
1. I think you will notice it to be a little bit faster on a HDD

2. Java based chat program? What is it called? Why does it have to be java? You could use pidgin - java and linux are not a great combination I spent a long time trying to get them working.

3. easy as pie you will be able to configure this

have you thought about e-mail? Calendars? address book?
 
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