Some things I had to do when I first installed Ubuntu.
As I plan to install it again at home these notes will come in handy (maybe only for me).
First off; I installed it on a new partition, keeping my old Slackware install on another partition.
The first thing to do is to set it up so that I can still boot back into Slackware – just in case.
Dual boot
Mount the old Slackware partition, I normally mount it on /mnt/old as I often need to refer to old config files etc.
Copy the slackware kernel image from /mnt/old/boot to /boot on Ubuntu.
Edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and add an entry for the old kernel.
Edit the entry so that it boots off the correct partition (note: grub partitions count from zero).
Nvidia
The next thing was to install the NVidia drivers so that I could run it at 1600X1200.
Luckily there’s a HOWTO for that – (I followed method 1).
http://doc.gwos.org/index.php/Latest_Nvidia_Dapper
After installation I edited /etc/X11/xorg.conf to add 1600X1200 as a resolution for the 24 bit colour depth line.
keyboard shortcuts
I’m very big on keyboard shortcuts and multiple workspaces so I then did the following:
Increase number of workspaces to 6
Right click panel; Preferences.
Map keyboard shortcut to each workspace (Alt-1, Alt-2 etc)
Run gconf-editor /apps/metacity
Edit Global keybindings.
Map keyboard shortcuts to arbitrary commands
Run gconf-editor /apps/metacity
Add command to “keybinding_commands”
Map key to “run_command_n” in “global_keybindings”
qmail
I then installed qmail by following http://www.lifewithqmail.org/lwq.html#installation.
Automatix
A friend (the one who gave me the Ubuntu CD) told me to look at Automatix.
It sets up lots of stuff for you with a nice installer tool.
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=80295
Stuff I installed
I also installed a whole bunch of stuff using the Synaptic package manager.
I got this list from the history feature in Synaptic.
vim-gnome
zsh
mutt
apache2
eterm
openssh-server
elinks
fetchmail
procmail
smbfs
binutils
cpp
gcc
make
xmms
That’s about it.
I still have a few things to sort out – mutt is playing up – so I’m having a play with Evolution.
xmms is skipping when playing music streams from home – not sure yet why that is.
But so much other stuff works better than it did in Slackware so overall I’m happy.