Xubuntu = love

[innerslytherin]

I've had an Acer AspireOne D260 netbook for two and a half years, and it came with Windows 7 Starter Edition preinstalled. The netbook has 1GB of memory and a 1.66 GHz processor, but it was never quite enough enough to handle the load of web surfing and Microsoft Word. I took the netbook on our trip to Trinidad and Tobago, and it was adequate for downloading pictures and uploading them to Tumblr, but not truly satisfactory.

Recently, I've had a horrible time making myself sit down at my desktop computer to work on revising the novel. I have an iPad that's okay for actual writing, but horrible for editing and revision. I haven't found a writing app that doesn't mess up the formatting in Word. Not even QuickOffice, which ought to be perfect. But it turns tabs into spaces instead. So annoying.

Anyway, I finally bit the bullet and installed Xubuntu Linux on my netbook. It's like having a brand new computer all over again! I can't quite figure out how to make it as pretty as I would like (I know, I know) but considering the fact that my real complaint with the netbook was that it has always run painfully slow, even while only word processing...

I've decided I love Xubuntu. :)

Comments

[kerravonsen]

Yay!

[innerslytherin]

Thank you so much for your suggestions! I don't know if I would have had the courage to take the plunge without your encouragement. And so far I'm VERY happy with it!

[kerravonsen]

Double Yay!

I actually made myself an Xfce4 theme a while back (in the period when I was using Xfce4 myself). It's a kind of frosted-glass look, and if I recall correctly, it adjusts itself to one's GTK theme. Would you be interested in me sending you a copy of it?

[innerslytherin]

I would absolutely be interested in that, as long as it's not too much trouble! :)

[kerravonsen]

I'll see what I can do. It may end up being simpler to get off my rear and make a "themes" section on my website. Stay tuned.

[kerravonsen]

Done!
See http://www.katspace.org/computers/themes/Xfce/Gleam/

[innerslytherin]

Oooh, thank you! :D

[innerslytherin]

Okay.... some of my old computer programming skills are slowly recalling themselves to me. At least, a lot of the terminal stuff seems familiar, and I'm pretty sure it's from back when I took programming in high school and when I was using the DOS prompt on our first IBM compatible. BUT.

*sigh*

On the website, you have this:

mv Gleam-0.1.tar.gz ${HOME}/.themes
cd ${HOME}/.themes
tar xzvf Gleam-0.1.tar.gz

Which, the first line works great. It moves it to the .themes directory. But then when I try the second line, I get this:

bash: cd: .themes: Not a directory

And that's all the further I can go. I can see the .themes when I do the "ls -a" command, but it tells me it's not a directory, and won't let me get any further. I can't seem to get beyond this, and consulting the two Linux books I brought home, and doing web searches, aren't helping me.

>.<

Just what you wanted, to become my personal Linux troubleshooter, huh? Do you have any idea what I'm doing wrong?

(And this reminds me why I didn't go on with any further computer programming classes. I got terribly frustrated when I was certain I had done everything properly, but it still didn't work. But goodness, when it did work, I loved it so much... I want to be able to work in the terminal. I'm already planning to introduce my dad to Linux, since he has an Associate's Degree from the 90s in computer programming. He seems to miss all his C+ and BASIC stuff, and I'll bet he would get into this!)

Um, anyway. >.< All this trouble to prettify things. LOL

[kerravonsen]

Oh dear, the fault is mine. I made an incorrect assumption. I assumed that the ${HOME}/.themes directory already existed. The symptoms you are getting point to this case.

Bash is telling you that ".themes" is not a directory.
This probably means that the command "mv Gleam-0.1.tar.gz ${HOME}/.themes" which you trustingly did, merely renamed "Gleam-0.1.tar.gz" to the file called ".themes", rather than moving it into the directory called ".themes", because said directory did not exist.

To extricate yourself from this situation (yes, it is possible, yay!) do the following:

mv ${HOME}/.themes Gleam-0.1.tar.gz
mkdir ${HOME}/.themes

At this point, you can double-check that the Gleam-0.1.tar.gz file is what we think it is, by using the "file" command:

file Gleam-0.1.tar.gz

This tells you what type of file it is. It should say something like "Gleam-0.1.tar.gz: gzip compressed data, from Unix, last modified: Tue May 15 08:06:22 2012" (probably with a different date)

If that worked, you can procede as with the original commands.

mv Gleam-0.1.tar.gz ${HOME}/.themes
cd ${HOME}/.themes
tar xzvf Gleam-0.1.tar.gz

Just what you wanted, to become my personal Linux troubleshooter, huh?

You, my dear, are no trouble to troubleshoot for. You are willing to try, and you explain clearly exactly what you did and what error messages you got. That makes things so much easier. \o/

All this trouble to prettify things.

Prettifying is a good goal!

[innerslytherin]

ARGH! See, and this is something I should have realized! One of the Linux books I got is Linus in Easy Steps, and helpfully its examples are all drawn from Ubuntu in particular, and one of the steps I read in the book was that the mv command renames an existing file.

>.<

I have a feeling this is why I was never the best programmer--I have a stunning ability to overlook that something applicable in one situation is also applicable in my own situation. *sigh*

I'll try this again, and THANK YOU for pointing this out to me. Maybe now I'll remember the mv command can move something, but it can also just plain rename something. LOL

I've spent a lot of time hanging out with IT professionals on a social level, so I learned how to at least help pinpoint a problem and describe what steps I've taken. :P So I'm glad that at least this hasn't been too painful for you! :D

[innerslytherin]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH!!!! IT WORKED!

Thank you! It is also very pretty! :D

[kerravonsen]

Yay!
I'm glad you like the theme! \o/

[nebula99.livejournal.com]

I have Ubuntu 10 on my desktop and I love it - it is so fast! I keep meaning to partition the HD on my laptop and install it on there as well.

[innerslytherin]

I really liked how Ubuntu (I believe I installed 12?) looked, but it was just a bit slow on my limited resources. I think I'm going to put Ubuntu on my mom's laptop when I have time to read a "For Dummies" type book about the *buntu distributions. I want to be a little smarter about it before I commit her to it. :D