Help with installing 1.76 on Ubuntu

[Diziet Sma]

This is what im talking about. I don't like ubuntu. Don't understand it either. I've no use for a menu that offers me "Keep your Tomboy notes in synch." I'd much prefer to be offered a Mai tai. My goal is to figure out how to get rid of everything on this newly aquired old laptop and install just enough stuff to play oolite and do a little word processing. I just hope I can keep my save files, but if I can't I guess I can always manually restore the wealth the Commander has accrued through honest pains and deliberate slaying. What os's would you recommend for someone who is a do it yourselfer, hates when computers try to think for him, and is willing to keep learning the manual side of things, but is painfully, and I mean "I just figured out I can click and drag a file and move it, WHOOO HOOO" painfully, ignorant? I guess I should hit the internet up for some learning.

What make/model of "old laptop" do you have? How much RAM does it have? To some extent that may influence what would be the best choice of Operating System to install.

Without knowing just what your laptop is, I'd recommend going to Linux Mint 13, with the MATE desktop. It runs fine on this 9-year-old computer I'm using for playing Oolite, which only has an AMD Athlon XP 1100 CPU. (Admittedly I added more RAM and a 512MB graphics card)

Keeping your Oolite game-saves is easy. Just copy the entire "oolite-saves" folder to a USB stick, or burn them to a cd before installing Mint. I'd recommend you do the same with your AddOns folder as well, to save downloading a whole bunch of OXPs again, as well. Back up any other data/files/work you wish to save (like the Oolite installer, for instance) using the same method. After you've upgraded your laptop, it's easy to copy everything back.

[jeffron]

Great. I'm going to try that one. My Memory is 486.8 MiB CPU U1400 1.20 ghz. Thanks. I intend to spend a little money on this thing too when i figure out what it'll take for upgrades.

[Diziet Sma]

My Memory is 486.8 MiB CPU U1400 1.20 ghz. Thanks. I intend to spend a little money on this thing too when i figure out what it'll take for upgrades.

Looking at that, when you upgrade, go for as much memory as it can handle.. that will give you the biggest performance boost for the $.

[CommRLock78]

.... My goal is to figure out how to get rid of everything on this newly aquired old laptop and install just enough stuff to play oolite ....

If you go with Diziet Sma's advice and go with Mint 13 (that's what I use) you may need to add the xorg-edger repository to your sources.
Assuming you've installed Mint 13 (although these instructions will work for Ubuntu 11.10, just replacing "precise" with "oneiric").

- in a terminal type:

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$ gksudo pluma /etc/apt/sources.list

- next add these lines to the bottom of the file

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deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/xorg-edgers/ppa/ubuntu precise main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/xorg-edgers/ppa/ubuntu precise main

- save the file and exit the text editor, then update your package list and upgrade by typing in the terminal:

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$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

This will upgrade to the newest versions of xorg-edgers, which I had to do to my old laptop in order to run 3-d applications, including Oolite

[Diziet Sma]

- in a terminal type:

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$ gksudo pluma /etc/apt/sources.list

It should be noted that this line would only work on Mint. If you were trying this on Ubuntu 11.10 (which uses gedit instead of pluma for text editing), the command would be:

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$ sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

[cim]

Assuming the various Ubuntu variants have kept it from Debian, "sensible-editor" is an alias to some installed text editor, which one depending on what you have installed.

[Diziet Sma]

Assuming the various Ubuntu variants have kept it from Debian, "sensible-editor" is an alias to some installed text editor, which one depending on what you have installed.

Well.. I just learned something new.. thanks!

When I tried that in a terminal, I got:

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diziet@diziet-sma:~$ sensible-editor

Select an editor.  To change later, run 'select-editor'.
  1. /bin/ed
  2. /bin/nano        <---- easiest
  3. /usr/bin/vim.tiny

Choose 1-3 [2]: 

Very cool.

[CommRLock78]

Assuming the various Ubuntu variants have kept it from Debian, "sensible-editor" is an alias to some installed text editor, which one depending on what you have installed.

Well.. I just learned something new.. thanks!

When I tried that in a terminal, I got:

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diziet@diziet-sma:~$ sensible-editor

Select an editor.  To change later, run 'select-editor'.
  1. /bin/ed
  2. /bin/nano        <---- easiest
  3. /usr/bin/vim.tiny

Choose 1-3 [2]: 

Very cool.

Quite cool that is. I got:

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robert@Mint13-DX4860 ~ $ sensible-editor

Select an editor.  To change later, run 'select-editor'.
  1. /bin/ed
  2. /bin/nano        <---- easiest
  3. /usr/bin/emacs23
  4. /usr/bin/vim.gnome
  5. /usr/bin/vim.tiny

only, I can't change my choice once it has been made . I also did not see pluma on that list, which seems odd. Now the first time running this I chose emacs, but I actually prefer nano, if I can't have pluma...
Edit: Wow, I didn't see that at first To change later, run 'select-editor'.... geez . On the bright side my density allowed me a chance to learn a bit more about bash .

It should be noted that this line would only work on Mint. If you were trying this on Ubuntu 11.10 (which uses gedit instead of pluma for text editing), the command would be:
Code:
$ sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

So right, I forgot to tell him to change that, too .

[Diziet Sma]

I also did not see pluma on that list, which seems odd. Now the first time running this I chose emacs, but I actually prefer nano, if I can't have pluma...

That's because it's only for terminal-based editors.

Re emacs, you might get a kick out of an old joke.. "emacs, an editor that thinks it's an Operating System"

[CommRLock78]

I also did not see pluma on that list, which seems odd. Now the first time running this I chose emacs, but I actually prefer nano, if I can't have pluma...

That's because it's only for terminal-based editors.

Gotcha

Re emacs, you might get a kick out of an old joke.. "emacs, an editor that thinks it's an Operating System"

Haha - I have not heard that one. I'm pretty sure it was package that came along for the ride installing something else .

[Diziet Sma]

Emacs is pretty much the grand-daddy of all editors.. it grew into a huge, bloated, feature-overloaded monster.. you can even read your email on it.. hence the joke above.

[CommRLock78]

Emacs is pretty much the grand-daddy of all editors.. it grew into a huge, bloated, feature-overloaded monster.. you can even read your email on it.. hence the joke above.

I like nano a lot, but I've been using gksudo with pluma mostly lately, since I do like pluma a lot too (I like it infinitely better for writing Matlab scripts than it's default editor, and it has the syntax highlighting for Octave ). I noticed after resetting the default sensible-editor to nano that Ctrl+Q doesn't quit it - I had forgotten that you have to do Ctrl+X, but what I thought was so hysterical was the message at the bottom:

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[ XON ignored, mumble mumble ]

Emacs, btw, does seem to be a bit too bloated for my liking