I tried out Ubuntu Linux the other day and was really impressed... until I tried to access my hard drives. One is a Vista NTFS partition and the other is FAT32. On a laptop. And Linux didn't want to know- it knew they were there but woldn't mount them.

Was I doing it wrong by expecting something as basic as hard drive access to work out of the box? Or was Vista to blame?

I havent used ubuntu in a long time, but im sure you can find some info on ubuntuforums.org if you search for fstab.
You can also fix it temporarily in some sys conf screen, but you'd have to do that with every reboot, so my advice would be learn the syntax of fstab, or ask someone for his fstab file.

Running 7.04 here and no probs at all. All my harddrives are listed nicely on my desktop out of the box. I hadn't used ubuntu in ages, but overwrote a vista install after being thoroughly unimpressed. Beryl blows vista out of the water on eye candy and is a hell of a lot less taxing.

But as mikey said learn about fstab and you'll be fine, plenty of help on the forums.

Been using Ubuntu for almost two years now. On my Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz, 2048Mb ram, 120Gb 12" widescreen little laptop right now with Ubuntu fired up and running like a dream. Beryl is brilliant, impresses everyone that ever sees it!

My hard drives mounted straight out of the box also, had a little problem with some hardware issues. Ended up using alternate disk and removing some drivers (MMC, SD, MS PRO and MS) for card reader to work. Stupidly if these were not removed, it buggers the whole install and will not boot!

I like my desktop with gDesklets, looks a bit mac'y actually!
Attached below.

Edit: I have to destroy my old windows partition, its mucked up and is also taking up about 90Gb or so! Neither have I even mounted it because its full of junk, *gets out GNOME Partition Editor*

Yeah my team mate (Barros) suggested Ubuntu to me and I have to say its pretty bloody cool, compared to Debian and Slackware . It didn't have any trouble reading from my NTFS partition but I think it couldn't write back to it.

Id really like to use this more as my primary OS, but alot of stuff just doesn't work well or at all. I'm not a heavy programmer/web developer and I like to play games, so Windows for now is the best solution for me.

James : If you want it to look like Mac why not run OS X?

I've had Vista installed (suffice to say, it was only temporary), and have Kubuntu 7.04 installed as well, with no problems at all when it comes to reading drives or creating fresh disk mounts to usefully named folders.

Ubuntu doesn't have built-in NTFS writing support, because MS did something with it so it's pretty hard to create a writing system for it. Although there are ways of bypassing this, just google "ubuntu ntfs write support" and...
_ttp://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=217009
By the way, Ubuntu pwns Vista's ass for good, it boots from a slow flash drive (usb1.1) FASTER than Vista from a SATA HDD , and visually it's a lot better with Beryl... Ahh, the Cube ...

But I'm on XP now, because
a) Gotta work in 3Ds
b) My MBR is a mess
C) No GRUB installed correctly yet
d) Too busy to fix it

Blah, Ubuntu POWAAA!

to write to ntfs drives you can apt-get install ntfs-3g (in ubuntu) then change /etc/fstab from ntfs to ntfs-3g, theres also a little app that does this for you, just apt-get install ntfs-config.

Quote from TiJay :

I tried out Ubuntu Linux the other day and was really impressed... until I tried to access my hard drives. One is a Vista NTFS partition and the other is FAT32. On a laptop. And Linux didn't want to know- it knew they were there but woldn't mount them.

Was I doing it wrong by expecting something as basic as hard drive access to work out of the box? Or was Vista to blame?

well how about some useful info on what you did like how you tried to mount them ?

Speaking of Linux in relation to Vista and OSX: Does Linux have anything like the file indexing/search/"smart folder" functionality that OSX has got and Vista has attempted?

All of my work ends up on Linux servers, ultimately, so working with Linux on the desktop wouldn't be a bad idea for me. The Mac OS appeals because of its advanced filesystem features which I know would be incredibly useful organisational tools for the way I work, but if I can get that functionality under Linux then I'd prefer it, rather than spending a fortune on Mac hardware.

Edit: Just found libferris but it looks a bit wobbly. Anything more mature? Indexable mailbox files (and a threadable mail client) would be nice too - I use email for everything.

some quick gooling turned this up
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beagle_search_tool

Quote from Shotglass :

some quick gooling turned this up
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beagle_search_tool

Yeah I just came up with that too. Again, though, it looks a bit wobbly. Linux stuff always tends to look a bit too wobbly for my liking (pretty rich, coming from a Windows user! )

actually it looks plain ugly like most things in linux do
for the most part linux has some of the ugliest icons and colour schemes ive ever seen in an os

ive tried ubuntu, i like it, but my stupid cable modem wont work so i get no internet ive looked things up on how to solve it but nothing makes any sense, its getting anoying!

the good thing is you can change everything in the OS, if its ugly to you then get on the net and dl icons, themes and whatnot.
as for indexing i use tracker, and if beagle is ugly take a look at this, its tracker running with the newly developed affinity app. most people use beagle in the deskbar, like this
@robt: a cable modem connected with the ethernet card shouldnt need to be configured as it just uses dhcp and your up and running, if your modem doesnt have a ethernet port then usb is unknown to me but i hear there are some scripts to help with specific modems as the software is usually made for windows.

It uses both at the same time, can work without the USB though i think, maybe if i just unplug the usb from the pc itll pick it up? its a motorola SB5100 modem if that helps. ill have to give it another go later in the week

Quote from Barroso :

the good thing is you can change everything in the OS, if its ugly to you then get on the net and dl icons, themes and whatnot.

in theory yes but i just dont want to spend that much time just to get an os with a look that doesnt turn stomachs
thing is with windows i just switch to classic and im off it looks ok without overdoing on fancyness trouble is so far none of the distris ive tried had a preinstalled theme that did

Quote :

most people use beagle in the deskbar, like this

hm this actually looks kinda good

edit:
speaking of uglyness this is some nice example
http://www.gnome.org/projects/ ... for_pearl_jam_and_ten.png
youve got darf barf coloured mp3 icons a bright barf coloured next arrow and way too cold greys

Because that's not exactly like spotlight at all... but looking at tracker, I think I'd get on with it better than Beagle.

I would actually use Ubuntu again if I didn't already have the Mac OS on here, and if I were one day stupid enough to make my PC into a linux one, I'd take one of the more customizable distros (Gentoo anyone?) and customize it to be what I need, AKA a fileserver/teamspeak box, but heck, even Windows Server 2003 could do that, and I'd even be able to play some games on it when need be.

shotglass those colours come from the theme which is being used, you can make it look like whatever you want, and no it doesnt take ages, take a look at http://gnome-look.org, i agree the pic might have some weird colours but hey its what shakes his boat...ill post a pic of my desktop so you can judge mine
@robt: you are not supposed to use both at the same time, either use the usb cable or use the ethernet port, usb means drivers have to be installed (in windows world), ethernet is plug and play.

Quote :

Speaking of Linux in relation to Vista and OSX: Does Linux have anything like the file indexing/search/"smart folder" functionality that OSX has got and Vista has attempted?

Argh, spotlight was the worst idea ever. If you've ever had it foxtrot up whilst indexing you'll know why... Oh, and there's always the problem of spotlight returning zero results when searching on a server unless the share path happens to be in a particular root, oh ... and the fact that the standard find system no longer works without integration of spotlight, and ... oh god dont get me started... The list of my spotlight woes just goes on and on. Advanced? No. Better than Vista? Maybe.

*files spotlight under 'gimmick' alongside Dashboard*

Quote from MonkOnHotTinRoof :

Disabling indexing service is the first thing to do when installing Windows... I can find my files myself, thank you very much for random HD trashing.... :chair:

for some inexplicable reson my xps always do that even with indexing turned off

Hmm, I would love to use Ubuntu as it does everything I want (3D in Blender, Cinelerra for video, GIMPshop to replace Photoshop), it supports my WiFi... I'm thinking of Ghosting my HD to another PC, formatting the laptop then installing Ubuntu. And if it doesn't work I can always restore the image.

@barroso: thanks, i can be a bit of an idiot sometimes! ill try that later

Quote from Rooble :

James : If you want it to look like Mac why not run OS X?

Cos it is poo compared to Ubuntu?

Ubuntu does everything I need, all my windows applications from simple Internet explorer (no I don't use it, only when doing some web design to see if I have destroyed its compatibility in IE) to Dreamweaver etc.

Isn't ubuntu a little insecure? Theres no root password...