m i being thick........ubuntu 7.10

[pup]

this has probably been covered before but i cant find it....

Ive got 2 hard drives in my puter, win xp home on main one (C:) and just installed ubuntu 7.10 on the other. Ive a number of issues i would like advice on....

1. when i turn pc on i get a list of os to boot (3 ubuntu and 1 xp) with the normal ubuntu first and xp last.  if i dont select one i loads the first one after a few seconds.  how can i make xp the first one?

2. my wireless keyboard works in ubuntu but not on the os select screen (above) how do i  make it work?

3 i downloaded firefox 3 beta5 for linux how do i install it?

any advice greatfully received

[Ted]

I don' use Ubuntu but it can't be that different
Look in your control panel or system configurator or something similar, go to the Boot section. Once here you should have something like the pic below, select XP and modify to be default
Not sure about the keyboard, could be a bios thing!
It depends on the type of file you downloaded as to how you install it. i.e. tar.gz, rpm. .deb etc?

[attachment deleted by admin]

[pup]

thanks ted, ill give that a go it was a tar file i downloaded

[Ted]

Open a terminal.
Navigate to where the downloaded file is.
Code:
tar -zxvf yourfile.tar.gz enter.
this will extract the the file to a folder called firefox in your present location.
Then just run the firefox file inside, no installation needed.
Don't forget to soft link your plugins to the firefox plugins folder or they won't work.

[pup]

Well i have got items 1&2 sorted 

i have  worked out how to extract the files using archive manager ill try again

[pup]

well its all working ok (usinging it now), but where would i normally extract to? is there a directory similar to windows  program files?

[Ted]

I think its normally /usr/lib could be wrong with Ubuntu.

[D-Dan]

To change the default boot:

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Assumes you are using the default Gnome desktop - if not - replace gedit with your text editor of choice
Enter your password

Close to the top you'll see an entry default=0

Scroll to the bottom, and you'll see several sections relating to the various boot options. The first is 0 (zero), the second 1 etc. Simply count to the Windows entry and replace "default=0" with "default=4" (or whatever).

Save - reboot - and you should boot automatically to your preferred OS.

As a sideline, you may want to change the timeout from 10 seconds, to maybe 3 second while you are there (less waiting)

Steve

[pup]

I think its normally /usr/lib could be wrong with Ubuntu.

that looks right, but it wont let me write to that folder

[Ted]

that looks right, but it wont let me write to that folder

You'll need to be root as its a system folder.

[pup]

You'll need to be root as its a system folder.

so everytime i want to install something i will have to download it, login as root (if i can figure the password) install it and then relogin as my normal user??

hmmmm i might just make a programs folder in the home folder

[Ted]

so everytime i want to install something i will have to download it, login as root (if i can figure the password) install it and then relogin as my normal user??

hmmmm i might just make a programs folder in the home folder

Why not just use the package manager? You may not get the absolutely latest version but its easy.
Not being able to access system folders as a user is one of the fundamental strengths in Linux.
Putting it in a folder in /home should work just fine.

[pup]

Thanx guys i seem to have  ff and tb working as i want them

when ff 3 comes out properly ill install it properly......

[Rik]

I know nothing about Linux, but if you're still having problems with the keyboard at boot time it's almost certainly a BIOS issue. I've often found that wireless, and sometimes USB, keyboards are not picked up by the BIOS, which makes it hard to get in there when you want to change something.

[pup]

Thanks rik, i found legacy usb support was turned off in the bios

[Rik]

Ah, that does tend to make a difference. (I wonder why they call it legacy when it affects keyboards??)

[cavillas]

as D-Dan says this is the easiest way and I have installed Ubuntu on many machines as duel boot and used this method without fail.

To get to the file you need to edit and to be able to write to it  open up a terminal window and type

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Find the "default" entry and change it to "4" instead of "0"

Save the file and you will then autoboot into windows.

[pup]

I thought id just update everyone  (if your interested  )

Im slowly getting the hang of this ubuntu and quite impressed.  Everything is pretty much setup as i want it, I just gotta find a why of "nicking " some of the C drive space for my files (i thought about partitioning it but i dont want to reinstall windoze (take forever to get the kids to back up all their stuff.....))
only prob i got at the moment is it dosent alwasy boot up properly, it comes up with grub loading please wait then error18??? and booting windoze comes up with cyc length too long for bios or something like that. 

[Ted]

Have a look at this Error 18

the cycle length looks like a ram setting, see Here

[Dangerjunkie]

(i thought about partitioning it but i dont want to reinstall windoze (take forever to get the kids to back up all their stuff.....)

Ubuntu should be able to shrink your Windows partition at install time without having to reinstall Windows. GParted may be of some help too.

Could be a good excuse to upgrade to Ubuntu 8.04. It's very slick on my machine.

Cheers,
Paul.

[pup]

Cheers guys,

For the time being im back to windoze only as she who must be obeyed complained about the time im spending on the pc......