Hi all, I'm not sure if this is the right thread or whether I should start a new one, but I'll try here first

I'm just discovering the delights on Linux and have Mint 12 kde installed at the moment (also tried LXDE). PC is connected to a HD Ready TV via d-sub to d-sub and audio from line out of motherboard audio to back of tv via 3.5mm jacks.

I seem to be having a big problem with sound in that there is much crackle, enough not to be usable. Actually sometimes its ok, but not sure why. When it does work I can play something in VLC for ages and it will be fine but if I reboot the crackle seems to return.

I can't seem to find anything on the net can anyone assist? I've tried headphones from the line out, crackle is there, connected ipod to tv via the 3.5mm lead and all fine there. So TV and lead seem okay. Scratching my head here??? Help!

Well to rule out youre hardware\tv could you please tell us if works ok with windows, im presuming you had windows on it before\or still have?
and did it play up when using LXDE?

Thanks 1saintly. I have windows but on my other machines. It did play up when using LXDE but I installed KDE over it. I found I prefered LXDE though so I went back to that last night. I read somewhere that some people have problems with Pulse Audio and VLC so I tried to edit a line which didn't actually write as it said something about non permission to change the file. However, it was working afterwards! I'm not really sure why it happened but its working right now.

Decided to download the Ubuntu 12.04 beta 2 today, and give a whirl live. Somewhat predictably, I really like it, though there are one or two decisions I'm not sure about.

Firstly, I love that the Unity bar on the left is always visible now. I switched my 11.10 install over to this too, and it works really well for me. Not a single instance of accidentally triggering the dash or anything else, because you can clearly see where you are clicking and you don't have the launcher bar popping up out of nowhere now if you happen to mouse in the wrong area. Much better, though no doubt some won't like it because it takes room up on the left permanently, but I just shrank the icons down a bit and it's only as intrusive as the Windows task bar at the bottom imho.

But what I'm not so sure on is the empty home page in the dash. There used to be the main eight buttons in previous releases: Media - Internet - More Apps - Find Files, and then Browse the Web - View Photos - Check Email, and Listen to Music. These buttons were a bit big and pointless for the most part, because the main programs were already in the left side launcher, and didn't need replicating in the dash. However, I'm not a fan of *nothing* there at all by default. It populates over time when you use the system. The apps you use start to place themselves in there, but for anyone new, you're just faced with blankness and four obscure icons at the bottom of the dash.

To me, all the home page in the dash had to be would be something a bit like this. It's clear to see how to use it. Your filters are clear and obvious, and it looks attractive and useful imho.

Otherwise, the new release is looking pretty good so far, though there are one or two bits of bugginess yet to fix. Fun to play with live at the moment, but I wouldn't install it yet.

But I will when it's finished.

I Agree, a better option.
Drove friends mad with the old setup.
Just wish it was still easy to move it around the screen.

Ive got a 24'' widescreen so on the left or right it wouldnt take off too much of the screen, but it is something people still want, to be able to move it.


What i have been reading that people say Linux the likes of mint\ubuntu\opensuse\fedora should have by now is a pop up wizard, or the bubble info pop ups on 1st install or couple of uses or a link to a youtube vid demo, that tells new users to there linux OS of choice what it does.


Im just waiting for final release, then i can stick Cinnamon over it

This is better than any of the other lame April Fool's gags that went out. Really genuinely funny.

Try the simple stuff first. Fire up the mixer and mute everything you don't want. I had a crackle too, it turned out to be a loose input connection from my Skype microphone.

I use Ubuntu (which is similar to Mint) and you can disable pulseaudio in the Startup Applications dialog. You might have to tell VLC to use ALSA.

PS I use ALSA instead of pulseaudio so I'm not just saying this to be clever, it was that easy to switch. It turns out that the problem I was trying to solve wasn't actually the fault of pulseaudio, but hey.

Do you find your index finger hurts from using the mouse wheel to scroll, or perhaps you find that scrolling using PageUp/PageDown is too coarse.

Put this snippet in your .xbindkeysrc, kill xbindkeys and restart it for it to take effect.

What it does is issue the mouse wheel command corresponding to one notch of wheel rotation up or down each time you press the corresponding key. I know this might sound underwhelming, but it's really nice to use.

It works in some places where arrow keys don't is why I came up with it. For example, in a terminal, the arrow keys take you up and down the history, this approach still scrolls.

In the interests of fairness, I decided to give the Gnome 3.4 Live CD a spin both yesterday and a bit today, and compare it with Ubuntu 12.04 and Unity. First impressions are really very much better than Ubuntu 12.04 imho. Gnome 3.4 hasn't changed a great deal over 3.2 however, though it is somewhat speedier even with the supplied Nouveau driver. Both the shell and the driver must have seen some improvements.

Unity in comparison seems so much more clicky and fussy. They've changed some of the dash behaviour that beggars belief. If I had one complaint with the dash, it's the constant searching through the menus. Click to reveal the dash, click the category, click the filter, click the drop arrow to reveal all apps installed, find app, click to launch. I got pretty quick with it in 11.10, but they've changed some things to demand more clicks, when people are asking for less, and totally borked my approach. Now when you select a filter, say, accessories, you have to deselect that filter if you then wish to search another, otherwise you are browsing both filter selections rather than the last one you clicked. This might be useful in some instances, but for the most part it's a pain, as you might imagine.

The Gnome 3 Shell approach is so much more elegant and considerate. Mouse top left, Applications, all filters are on the right. There. I don't think it matters what type of hardware you put that on, it works.

Both Live discs are showing a lot of general bugs at the moment though. I had the Web program in Gnome 3 just shut down on me several times, having to manually relaunch it. In Ubuntu Firefox was painfully slow, and went to the dark grey pause screen constantly, rendering it inoperable. The new Web program in Gnome 3 though, replacing Epiphany, is very minimal but very attractive. And when it worked it was incredibly fast.

There's a general feel in Gnome 3.4 that they are really nailing their look, as a lot of elements feel much more together and consistent, and the whole thing just looks gorgeous imho. I find it very elegant, but I know many find it hard to use.

And all this makes my next choice of desktop really difficult! There's bugs in both at the moment, but when they're ready I don't know what I'll do. I'm erring more to Gnome again at the moment though...

Mint finally dump Gnome 2

http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1949


quote..
Clem, thanks for clarifying. I hope it will be shown somehow that two DE’s are available. Judging by what goes in the forums, I suspect that people still know almost nothing about MATE’s existence mostly because it’s not available in live mode in Mint 12, and it’s installed silently, and unless you know where to click on the login screen you might never know you have another DE on your system.

Edit by Clem: Good point. In the upcoming ISOs though, MATE is the default (not Cinnamon) so it’s Cinnamon that is harder to find. It’s probable both of these desktops will eventually get their own separate editions going forward.... end qoute

Wow These guys are very busy, dont know how they do it with such a small set up compared to other distros.

Other than Cinnamon and Mate, can you still use Gnome's own shell with Linux Mint?

Never tied it, but according to
http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_lisa_whatsnew.php

quote ...You can disable all components within MGSE to get a pure Gnome 3 experience, or you can enable all of them to get a Gnome 3 desktop that is similar to what you’ve been using before. Of course you can also pick and only enable the components you like to design your own desktop. ..end..

Dont know if the definition of a ''pure Gnome 3'' experience is what you mean.
Would presume it would still keep all the media\codecs etc that Mint uses by default enabled.

looking forward to trying fedora 17 next week. haven't tried 'owt in a while, but it seems as if they might have gnome 3 working out of the box.

although you know that it'll probably crap out for me though

Thanks only just seen your reply. Yep I have it working now but unsure how I got there lol. But one of the things I did do was change that setting to ALSA

I am still amazed how lean lxde is. Probably cos I'm so used to Windows. It barely uses any memory and bar the problem I had with the sound after installation from the LiveCD it has everything I need. I haven't had to install anything else, no firewall, virus checker etc.

hhmmm .. it appears the beta of the beefy miracle (which is still the best name for any release, ever ) is already available ..

http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/...ta.RC3/Fedora/

Wow i didnt know KDE had all this by default, no extra stuff to install
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXI9k...eature=related

You may want to mute the sound

I've only tried it a few times and didn't give it a chance

Maybe i should try again, i had read its very configurable but never given it a chance.


No resist Jason, dont do it

Haha!. Too late, I tried .

Didn't try too hard though, just a quick download and stuck it on a USB stick. Didn't work but what the hey. Tried it while I was watching the Spurs game earlier on so didn't really suffer too much - one of the advantages of having a wireless keyboard and mouse, I could sit on the settee watching the footie and still faff around with the PC on the other side of the room

Will wait for the proper one to come out in a few days and give it a whirl.

Tried that one as well. Installed and booted just fine. Installed the ATI driver. Rebooted and locked up on the boot. Oh well

Decided to bite the bullet and install the new Ubuntu 12.04 ahead of schedule today. Thought sod it, I'll let it have all the space I have spare rather than spreading two installs out on it. It's still not a great deal of space, but more than enough for the OS.

Well it's just brilliant. My previous comment about Unity being a bit fussy in the menus still stands, but they've gone to lengths to make the dash home page contain all your stuff so you seldom have to plough through it. So far, it's proved much quicker to get about than previous editions, and is just simply much nicer to use. And I'm very happy they decided to keep the launcher bar persistent. It's much better to shrink it a bit in the Appearance settings than to have it popping in and out all the time, though you can select autohide if you want.

Nothing more to add really. Oh, I'm finding the Ubuntu Software Centre to be excellent now. It's quick enough to use all the time now, though you can't queue up programs to install like in Synaptic...yet. But yes, over a week to go to final release, but it's ready imho. They haven't added the new login sound yet though.

Love them or hate them, its still great news..

http://www.extremetech.com/computing...oliant-servers

Forgot about this thread, I currently have xubunutu on my netbook, which I like but one major problem is driving me mad if the lid is closed it stays awake and does not suspend. So it's eating the batteries all the time. Any recommendations for a distro that's more battery friendly with a light desktop manager.

I quite like the look of Arch but not sure if my understanding of how everything works is that far yet.

Also, I have Ubuntu on my media server and it always hangs at shutdown on ACPI power service shutdown, any got the same problem? Seen a fix?

Haven't installed it yet but I'm using the live cd to post this because I'm so far impressed

12.04 Appears to be the only one thats worked for me since they started using unity.
Will have to make some room now to install
I have a Mint 8 partition that I hardly use now but it does have its uses some things still work on mint 8 that don't on up to date versions such as pingtest.net packet loss test.

would you adam and eve it ?

fancied having a fart around with some distros tonight and installed opensuse 12.1.

tried the ati drivers from the repository and it didn't work - gnome 3 crapped out.

redid everything and re-installed and downloaded the official drivers from the ati site as i'd noticed in google that they were apparently 'properly' compatible with suse 12.1. selected the option to build a distribution-specific package, and after installing stuff like gcc, make e.t.c... and rebooting, i installed the generated package and it's only bloody working.

and properly as well - it's quite smooth with no flickering so far. but even saying that, i remember the last time i got gnome 3 "properly" working with drivers installed, i think i ended up running banshee or one of the other music players and it completely crapped out on me.

but for now, for tonight, i'd say it's a "win"

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is out. Not announced on the Ubuntu front page yet though.

I'll wait until at least 12.04.1 or 12.04.2 - did the same with the move from 8.04 to 10.04. "Always wait till after Service Pack 1"