Just installed Ubuntu, and I'm lovin' it.

[Billt Joe]

I installed this lovely os last night. The process was slow and painful, mostly because the computer I use is a 1.3ghz celeron with 256mb ram. Terrible, I know. After the installation I logged in and less than 2 minutes later, the system is loaded and ready to go! (compared to 15-20 minutes for windows after logging in) Huge improvement. +1 for Ubuntu

now I have a few questions.

1. how can I change my user account picture?

2.I have a mouse with 3 buttons, the mmb isn't doing anything in Ubuntu. Is there something I need to download? The option for three-mouse buttons isn't in system preferences

3. I installed blender via add/remove programs. But when it opens I get a fuzzy screen and then it crashes. what's wrong?

[ratchetnclank]

Hi there.

The administrator (root) account is locked out by default in ubuntu for security reasons.

You don't need to be root at all. When you do you can just use the sudo command in terminal which will make you act as root for that single command.


The other two questions i don't know the answer to.

[lemur]

The administrator (root) account is locked out by default in ubuntu for security reasons.

In Ubuntu, "administrator" and "root" are two different concepts. A user is an administrator if he belongs to the "admin" group. The way Ubuntu is configured by default, being in the admin group gives a user the right to execute sudo. If the user is not in the admin group, he can't run sudo.

There can be only one root but there may be many administrators on a single machine.

It has been a while since I've done an installation but my recollection is that the first user created is in the admin group by default. I don't remember having to do anything special.

[ratchetnclank]

In Ubuntu, "administrator" and "root" are two different concepts. A user is an administrator if he belongs to the "admin" group. The way Ubuntu is configured by default, being in the admin group gives a user the right to execute sudo. If the user is not in the admin group, he can't run sudo.

There can be only one root but there may be many administrators on a single machine.

It has been a while since I've done an installation but my recollection is that the first user created is in the admin group by default. I don't remember having to do anything special.

What I meant was root was the equivalent to a Admin account on windows.

You are correct the first user is an Admin account.

[The Fire Snake]

ba da ba ba ba

I installed this lovely os last night. The process was slow and painful, mostly because the computer I use is a 1.3ghz celeron with 256mb ram. Terrible, I know. After the installation I logged in and less than 2 minutes later, the system is loaded and ready to go! (compared to 15-20 minutes for windows after logging in) Huge improvement. +1 for Ubuntu

now I have a few questions.

1.And while installing I chose to copy user files from windows. It mingled the files into one user and I cannot move any files to another user. any fix?

2.I have a mouse with 3 buttons, the mmb isn't doing anything in Ubuntu. Is there something I need to download? The option for 3 mouse buttons isn't in system preferences

3.I just downloaded firefox 3.5 through their website. Where do I save it to? and where is the ubuntu equivalent of "program files"?

4.How do I get flash player to work after its been downloaded off the website?

3.) With Ubuntu and Linux in general it is best not to download and install software from the Internet, as you would do in Windows. It is better to use a package manager and download and install programs from the Ubuntu respository. You should have a program in the your Ubuntu install called Synaptic. Check that out and use that to install the software you want, including firefox.

[Billt Joe]

ok, I'll try that. but I tried to install following someone elses instructions and now I get an error saying it "failed to execute child process(no such directory)"

they said to type something into the terminal so that you can get to the root folder. and then copy firefox 3.5 into the "lib" folder and make a shortcut to put in the "bin" folder and change the old firefox shortcut to "firefox.old". I cannot find this site again but I do not know how to undo this.

edit: I accidently deleted one of the two firefox links, one was "firefox" and the other "firefox 3.0" what should I do? And with my luck it wasn't in the recycle bin >.< should I delete everything firefox and reinstall?

[The Fire Snake]

ok, I'll try that. but I tried to install following someone elses instructions and now I get an error saying it "failed to execute child process(no such directory)"

they said to type something into the terminal so that you can get to the root folder. and then copy firefox 3.5 into the "lib" folder and make a shortcut to put in the "bin" folder and change the old firefox shortcut to "firefox.old". I cannot find this site again but I do not know how to undo this.

edit: I accidently deleted one of the two firefox links, one was "firefox" and the other "firefox 3.0" what should I do? And with my luck it wasn't in the recycle bin >.< should I delete everything firefox and reinstall?

Yes, get rid of all the firefox stuff you downloaded and try to undo any changes you have made(ex: remove any folders, files and links YOU created for firefox). The info you read was probably for people who want to manually install Firefox. Once you have backed out all your changes, start up synaptic and search for firefox and install it through that. This should fix your problems and have Firefox up and running for you.

Hence fourth install/uninstall all the software you want through Synaptic, which uses the Ubuntu official repositories. This will make your install clean and easy and it will really be very painless. This also means that your system will automatically tell you what updates you need to install for the software you have installed. It will make your life very easy.

[Billt Joe]

thanks you guys for all the help!

now in addition to the questions above, how can I get compiz to work? I've installed it and check any unwanted/wanted settings. But nothing happens and there is no apply button :/

[spookyu]

thanks you guys for all the help!

now in addition to the questions above, how can I get compiz to work? I've installed it and check any unwanted/wanted settings. But nothing happens and there is no apply button :/

Compiz, might not be a good option. Your machine doesn't sound like it has enough umph, though I don't know what (if there are any) compiz system requirements are, but I've seen it run sluggish on machines faster than yours :-/.

One more suggestion http://ubuntu-tweak.com/downloads that program I noticed is easy to use for newer users, has some things you might want. Either add the source (make sure you do it for your version of ubuntu) or get the .deb package. I wouldn't say I'm a linux guru (far from it) so someone here might have conflicting or better advice?

[Bog]

I installed this lovely os last night. The process was slow and painful, mostly because the computer I use is a 1.3ghz celeron with 256mb ram. Terrible, I know. After the installation I logged in and less than 2 minutes later, the system is loaded and ready to go! (compared to 15-20 minutes for windows after logging in) Huge improvement. +1 for Ubuntu

3. I installed blender via add/remove programs. But when it opens I get a fuzzy screen and then it crashes. what's wrong?

Blender is a 3D rendering program that can also make use of ray tracing, which is a pretty sophisticated and extremely demanding rendering technique. As such, Blender not only requires 3D acceleration (meaning that you need a video driver that enables 3D hardware acceleration), but it also has relatively steep hardware requirements. See here:

http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/requirements/

Good specs for Hardware

* 2 Ghz dual CPU
* 2 GB Ram
* 1920 x 1200 px Display with 24 bit color
* 3 Button Mouse
* Open GL Graphics Card with 128 or 256 MB Ram

Production specs for Hardware

* 64 bits, Quad core CPU
* 8 GB Ram
* two times 1920 x 1200 px Display with 24 bit color
* 3 Button Mouse + tablet
* Open GL Graphics Card with 768 MB Ram, ATI FireGL or Nvidia Quadro

As you can see, your computer is clearly underequipped to deal with this program. :-/