Too many problems with Ubuntu 8.10

[furia_bhavesh]

I recently installed Ubuntu 8.10 on my friend's PC who has G41MB, 500GBHDD and 4GB RAM and 19" LCD. He has 5 partition as C,D,E,F & G. I installed Ubuntu using Wubi in F : partition, installation was fine.

Later when I tried to install VLC media player (.deb and tarball files) using both cmd line and inbuilt installer, it was giving some error something like 'ERROR:COULD NOT RESOLVE THE DEPENDENCY' whereas one of the software (AptonCD) installed without any issue.

Could any one tell me whats d problem. There are few more queries.
1>Do I need to install something else b4 installing VLC ?

2>How do i install Real player which is in .iso format in digit CDs ?

3>Is der any universal player which can play MP3 and all video files (even proprietary formats) ? If yes, plz send me the link and if possible the procedure to install it.

4>How do i navigate thru diff. partitions and parent directory using commands in Terminal. (cd.. cmd isnt working to go to parent directory)

5>I have heard that der is no virus problem in Linux then why the need for antivirus arises (ClamAV) ?

6>What other type of packages can be installed in Ubuntu (like rpm, deb, tar.etc)

7>Program to view MHT files that are saved in IE ?

Thanks in advance.

[khmadhu]

hmm dude why r u struggling hard to install ubuntu. i think u r new to linux!.

well if u want to learn linux
if u r friend system has 4 GB of ram then i suggest u to install vmware and then install ubuntu .

vmware player is available free.. http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

This will be safe.. as u can do anything inside vmware (will not affect u r windows settings).


about u r queries ..

1>Do I need to install something else b4 installing VLC ?

check whether u have gstreamer installed.?
try these
sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-good
sudo apt-get install lame
sudo apt-get install ffmpeg


install any other dependencies which are missing. use apt-get command

2>How do i install Real player which is in .iso format in digit CDs ?

well u need to extract the files from iso file. in linux do these

1) You must login as a root user, if not root user then switch to root user using following command:
$ su -

2) Create the directory i.e. mount point:
# mkdir -p /mnt/disk

3) Use mount command as follows to mount iso file called disk1.iso:
# mount -o loop disk1.iso /mnt/disk
or
mount -t iso9660 -o loop disk1.iso /mnt/disk

4) Change directory to list files stored inside an ISO image:
# cd /mnt/disk
# ls -l

check whether the istaller is .deb or is a source package..

3>Is der any universal player which can play MP3 and all video files (even proprietary formats) ? If yes, plz send me the link and if possible the procedure to install it.

yes there are many... lile mplayer (the famous one). but still i suggest u to stick to vlc , becoz they keep update.

4>How do i navigate thru diff. partitions and parent directory using commands in Terminal. (cd.. cmd isnt working to go to parent directory)

in linux its cd .. not cd.. to go to parent directory. learn more linux commands use man command name .

5>I have heard that der is no virus problem in Linux then why the need for antivirus arises (ClamAV) ?

yes, in linux virus are very rare.. becoz of its architecture.

antivirus is not needed if properly configured. there are some antivirus to prevent attacks from scripts,web related security and other fake packages.

6>What other type of packages can be installed in Ubuntu (like rpm, deb, tar.etc)

officially ubuntu supports only .deb and source packages. but u can install rpm also... (at u r own risk).

7>Program to view MHT files that are saved in IE ?

these are compressed HTML files that can be opened by most of the browsers

in Firefox install this plugin and try to open in Firefox

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8051

OR
try opera browser

apt-get install opera
www.opera.com.

[furia_bhavesh]

Thanks for such a detail help man and yes I m new to Linux.
I shall try all the solutions suggested by you 2day evening.

Regarding Gstreamer, is apt-get command used to download applications from net ?
My friend does not have an internet connection, so what must b done in this case ?

Hope you will help me in my further problems that I encounter while exploring Ubuntu Linux ?

[khmadhu]

yes "apt-get" is used to download applications from internet.
alternatively "aptitude" is also used.

when there is no internet connection there are two choices.

1)u have to get packages from u r ubuntu DVD.
2)if u have a local repository that contains all packages(from DVD).then u need to tweak u r "sources.list" file to point to u r local repository
"path=/etc/apt/sources.list".

but to get updates u need to have internet(or download & install packages manually).

sure i will try my best to help u.. some good sites to learn
1) http://www.unix.com
2)http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/

(but better use google to learn fast ).
thats how i learnt .

[Faun]

laudable reply by khmadhu. And your user title "change is the only constant" is impressive too.

Oh btw try smplayer (requires mplayer) for the sake of the awesomeness of the player.

---------- Post added at 12:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:51 AM ----------

also for codecs n players add medibuntu repository. Searh over google.


Remember it takes a little effort to reap the harvest. May the force be with you.

If possibe then try the latest version of ubuntu for best experience.

[Anorion]

@khmadhu: that's a very detailed reply. @furia_bhavesh: the dependencies are like .dll files, and there are bound to be more "problems"... just explore a bit. Also, there is something known as a package manager, you might want to look at it.

[furia_bhavesh]

Mr. khmadhu, what do you mean by 'antivirus is not needed if properly configured.'
What configuration is to be done after installing Ubuntu to protect it from viruses ?
And yes again, my friend does not have an internet connection.

---------- Post added at 01:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:57 PM ----------

Thanks Anorion, now my concept regarding dependency is somewhat clear when u related it with windows' dll files.

[khmadhu]

simple steps to secure linux.

1)enable firewall (iptables) such that to prevent any network attack.
some examples

# Drop all forwarded traffic (unnecessary traffic)
iptables -P FORWARD DROP.

#block all ping request. (by this no one can ping u r pc).
iptables -A INPUT -p icmp -m icmp --icmp-type echo-request -j DROP.

#drops null packets
iptables -A INPIT -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL NONE -j DROP

#Force SYN packets check
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp ! --syn -m state --state NEW -j DROP

and many more are there.. depends on what environment u r using.(server,desktop,etc..)

2)use TCP wrappers to allow or deny some hosts
/etc/hosts.allow
/etc/hosts.deny

3)enable SElinux (install if not there).

4)don't login as root in GUI (by default ubuntu does this)

5)install security updates regularly

6)rest are common ways like changing u r password frequently,password expiration,monitoring logs,keep an eye on system performance etc....

well these are some basic security measures.. and for this u don't need antivirus
u know more than 90% of Linux users don't use antivirus.

only lazy people use antivirus for linux .

[celldweller1591]

Try this : 'sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras' or search for ubuntu-restricted-extras in add/remove programs.
You can also try alsamixer. but i think gstreamer would do it .
'sudo apt-get install alsamixer'.