So. Karl was fiddling with Ubuntu on his Desktop PC last night and after stealing my wireless key managed to get it working on Linux. Wooh. I took the mega scary oh-my-god my-laptop-is-going-to-die step this afternoon and HOORAH! I am now a linux n00b! My wifi key picked up the network straight away, and well.. here I am. Blogging. On Linux. Who’d have thought it, eh?
All I need to do now is figure out how to get Apache up and running so I can use that for my website (so used to Abyss on Windows). Ooh, so many new toys. I’ve not been this scared of an Operating System since my Windows 3.1 days about 8 years ago when I deleted a load of system files and it stopped working…
ETA: I’ve got Apache2 running, PHP running and MySQL is probably doing something somewhere but I’m not quite sure yet because I fiddled with the user permissions earlier and haven’t had chance to test it yet. All is well, you’d think.. but no: I’m having an issue with permissions. I cannot create files in the /var/www/ directory. I used sudo chmod [permission] /var/www to change the permissions on the directory and it worked.. but then suddenly all of the files/folders inside “changed” and didn’t seem to be associated with anything, So, how do I un-root this directory? Un-root. Hah, coming up with my own terms already. :p
21 Dec at 4:59 pm
Spiffy, Jem! I’ve been using Ubuntu on my desktop and am about to install it on my laptop, too. Oh, I look forward to dealing with the frustrations of wireless!
21 Dec at 5:01 pm
*jumps around* Yay! Another Ubuntu-convert, hehe :)
21 Dec at 5:15 pm
Well. I got Apache2 running.. and php, but I am not sure about mySQL yet. It’s all very confusing..
21 Dec at 5:20 pm
thats what swung it for me…Ubuntu 5.10 worked with my “cheap n nasty, no name” wireless keys. It hates my Linksys WUSB11, and it hates my PCMCIA AM1172 wifi card, but these 2 keys it likes (even if I have filled 1 with blu-tack). Anyone got a clue how to get permissions to create files in the apache directory, for web viewing? ROOT owns it.,..the swine. I can’t create anything in it!
21 Dec at 5:34 pm
I’d partition my hard drive and install Linux (someone even gave me a cd of it a while back but I lost it -_- ) but 1) I have no idea how to; and 2) My hard drive is probably too small anyway (30GB). I’d get rid of Windows and go Linux but so many programs only work on Win that I’d lose out and stuff. Meh. Excuses XD
21 Dec at 5:55 pm
too small? Hah. My laptop has an almighty 6(!)GB drive, and I’ve got Windows XP in 3, Ubuntu in the other 3… and they both work..:D
21 Dec at 6:00 pm
Woo for linux! I used to dual boot Fedora Core 1 but then that got boring and didn’t seem geeky enough. Now I have my backup/test PC running debian and I mainly use it for VPN/server/wannabegeek purposes. :P I haven’t spoken to you for aaaaaggggggeeees wut iz up?!?!?!11loolololz!1eleventy
21 Dec at 6:10 pm
Wow, that’s weird… On my Ubuntu system (also 5.10), /var/www is usually accessible by everyone by default, so that’s weird that you can’t access it. I know you tried chmod, but maybe if you tried sudo chown -R yourusername:yourusername /var/www, your username would own the directory and you would get write permissions. Good luck with it all!
22 Dec at 1:33 am
I adore ubuntu on my linux machine. I actually use it on my desktop and laptop, my desktop is duel boot with MS Windows XP. I found ubuntu to be super easy to use, install, and run without any hiccups.
22 Dec at 4:17 am
I’d love to give Linux a try, but I’d need extensive help in setting it up and I don’t have anyone to help me.
22 Dec at 1:20 pm
tis not too bad..:) I’ve always been too afraid to try it…”oh my god, it’s too complex..”. Ubuntu is actually about as friendly as Win98 I reckon..:) The command line isn’t too bad for me, but I grew up pre-Windows, and indeed Pre-Microsoft! It’s just a case of getting back into the swing of it. to be honest, in most of the Ubuntu reviews I’ve seen, the phrase “it just works” fits quite well..:) Ubuntu is about the only one of 8-9 I tried that worked with my wireless as well, which is great.
22 Dec at 3:37 pm
What do you mean by un-root? Do you want to change your HTTP root? If you edit httpd.conf there should be a part in there that lets you change your document root. # # DocumentRoot: The directory out of which you will serve your # documents. By default, all requests are taken from this directory, but # symbolic links and aliases may be used to point to other locations. # DocumentRoot “W:/” But then of course I use Apache w/ Windows :P What version of Ubuntu are you using? I’ve tried Breezy Badger and it never picked up my wireless adaptor :/
22 Dec at 3:44 pm
Oh, and for MySQL you might want to look into installing PHPMyAdmin, it’s a lot easier to work things out that way :) If you have any questions about webservers and such you can ask me because you know I’ve been running an apache server on my compu for years now and I’ve reinstalled it so many times you wouldn’t believe XD; I might not know something about how it’s done on Linux but I’ll just sit here and assume all the principles are the same.
22 Dec at 3:51 pm
There’s not a sentence of that entry that I understood . . . XP But yay for you. You’re so much smarter than I. :P V xx
22 Dec at 4:54 pm
Kachii: She was talking about changing the ownership of the folder. In unix-like systems, folders are owned by certain users, and only they can set permissions (chmod) and add/edit files. Jem wanted to make it so that she could both a) have write access to the folder and b) still have ownership of the files in it, so she has to chown (change owner) of the folder so that both of those things happen… It’s kinda confusing…
22 Dec at 5:45 pm
Ah, ok. It was just the way she said un-root that made me assume she didn’t want it to be the document root anymore :P Jem, you shouldn’t make up words.
22 Dec at 6:12 pm
Katy (kachii): I’m using Breezy Badger, I believe. :) You’ll have to talk to Karl about how he got the wireless to work, he sorted that. Oh, yes.. and I installed phpmyadmin already. I’m a fast learner, and seem to be getting on just great. ;)
17 Feb at 12:10 pm
I am planning to duel boot my machine with XP and Ubuntu, what was the process did you have to go through to get your system up and running?
03 Jul at 7:04 pm
I am using breezy badger too, on an alienware are51m 766. Everything worked out of the box except the nvidia drivers, but editing /etc/X11/xorg.conf solved the prob: the system thot to use a “sis” driver instead of “nv”. Now i can switch designing my webpages between windows and ubuntu – yes, its a dual boot: i have to play some windows games :)