[Wylug-discuss] Trying to use Linux at home.

[Andy Coulson]

Nick,

based on Ubuntu I can suggest the following:
> 1.   System fonts. The Ubuntu fonts were horrible on my 14" LCD screen. Its
> such a shame, because if you do not like
> Reading stuff on the screen you do not feel inclined to use it. 
>   
Go to System>GNOME Control Centre>appearance and select the Fonts Tab.  
This allows you to change the way fonts are displayed, or indeed select 
which fonts are displayed.  On My LCD screen the font is Sans or Sans 
Bold and all the rendering options are on and the result is nice and crisp
> 2.   Installing a decent Email program such as Evolution. Without tearing my
> hair out.........
>   
Evolution should just install as the default..  I have swapped it for 
Thunderbird and Lightning as I prefer these and again they just worked.  
I'm not sure why things aren't working, but I suspect that as your 
wireless card is not working with Linux some of these problems may be 
that the system needs to pull stuff off of the internet and is not able 
to do that.  Perhaps someone else can suggest how to get this sorted.  
Are you installing off of a disk?  Are you setting up to dual boot with 
win XP?  Are you setting up any Partitions?
> 3.	Upgrading the Firefox Beta to Firefox 3 final
> 4.	Get flash to install easily, no loss of hair.
>   
Again both of these just worked for me - I do suspect that these may be 
symptoms of another problem, possibly relating to your wireless card
> 5.	Is there a better Office Suite than Open Office?
>   
Not that I'm aware of - What is it that Open Office doesn't do that you 
want to do? Or is it just down to Compatibility with MSOffice?.  If the 
latter then you could run a copy of MS Office under Wine.
> 6.    Getting the Linksys Wireless card to work.
> 7.    Getting Java to work so I can use logmein.
>   
Again Java is something that just worked when I Installed, so hopefully 
if we can get to the bottom of what has loused up your installation your 
issues 2,3,4,6, & & should be resolved
> 8.	Is there an equivalent to Picasa? I have loads of photos and I like
> Picasa which links in with Flickr.
>   
Yes - Picasa for linux.. One of the Liux mags just reviewed the update 
and were pretty impressed.  I use a package called F-spot that comes 
with Ubuntu for photo management and It's pretty good and desktopflickr 
organizer to upload and  manage my pictures. It's a pretty simple system 
that mounts your flickr account as a drive and makes managing your 
flickr collection very simple.
> 9.	Is there a way to get a desktop sidebar, preferably google gadgets?
>   
Probably - Google are pretty Linux friendly, so there may well be linux 
versions, but it's not something I have used.
> I'm not trying to knock Linux, I'm just trying to explain why its not as
> widely used as it should be.
>   
I understand that I just wwanted to persuade you to have another go As I 
think something has gone a bit haywire with your install.  Did you say 
that you had tried running a live distro?  If so did this pick up your 
wireless card?
-- 
*Andy Coulson*
Ryburn ImageWorks
Email: andy at ryburnimageworks.co.uk <mailto:andy at ryburnimageworks.co.uk> 
* www.ryburnimageworks.co.uk <http:%5C%5Cwww.ryburnimageworks.co.uk>