Gaming New to Linux

[Joey Ravn]

So... I was studying yesterday, when my PC started acting up. It filled the CPU to the max, causing it to get hyper-slow and crash. Probably a virus or something, but I couldn't scan it with an antivirus. So I said, "fuck you, Windows XP. It's the second time in less than a month I have to reinstall, and now I almost lose everything in the HDD." So I installed Ubuntu, yay. Now, I have some questions. Go easy on me, I'm a newb!

1. What's the best music player for Linux? I've been using Winamp all my life, I want something as easy to use as it.
2. What's the best DS ROM trimmer for Linux?
3. What's a good alternative to IMGBurn to burn Wii ISOs?
4. I've downloaded KMess because I don't like Pidgin much, but I don't know how to install it. I know it's design for KDE and I'm using Ubuntu under Gnome, but I'm sure it's possible to install it. Any idea how?
5. How can I make FireFox display bigger fonts than it currently does? This is extremely small. Back in Windows, things weren't like that...

6. Ubuntu comes bundled with Open Office. Although I've use it before, I don't know whether it's the best Office alternative out there. I intensively use Word due to the nature of my studies, but I do use PowerPoint from time to time. Open Office is a robust suite, I know, but I'd like to know if there are any slimmer, yet functional, alternatives that can cover my needs.
7. Any tip you can give me to make the transition easier?

Right now, all I want is to finish my work. I only need a word processor, which I already have, so there will probably be more questions in the future, when I get games and other apps, but, for the time being, this is it.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Arm the Homeless]

1. I like Songbird. http://getsongbird.com/
2. I don't know that one. But you can probably run it in WINE. http://winehq.org/
3. Brasero. It's probably already installed.
4. Instead of KMess, you could use Galaxium (http://code.google.com/p/galaxium/), Emesene (http://www.emesene.org/), or aMSN (http://www.amsn-project.net/). There's tons others.
5. System->Preferences->Appearance, click on the Fonts tab.
6. AbiWord is a great, lightweight word processor. http://abisource.com/
7. As in #2, WINE can run Windows executable files. It can also run games. (Check the App Database at http://appdb.winehq.org/)

 

[FAST6191]

So... I was studying yesterday, when my PC started acting up. It filled the CPU to the max, causing it to get hyper-slow and crash. Probably a virus or something, but I couldn't scan it with an antivirus. So I said, "fuck you, Windows XP. It's the second time in less than a month I have to reinstall, and now I almost lose everything in the HDD." So I installed Ubuntu, yay. Now, I have some questions. Go easy on me, I'm a newb!

1. What's the best music player for Linux? I've been using Winamp all my life, I want something as easy to use as it.
2. What's the best DS ROM trimmer for Linux?
3. What's a good alternative to IMGBurn to burn Wii ISOs?
4. I've downloaded KMess because I don't like Pidgin much, but I don't know how to install it. I know it's design for KDE and I'm using Ubuntu under Gnome, but I'm sure it's possible to install it. Any idea how?
5. How can I make FireFox display bigger fonts than it currently does? This is extremely small. Back in Windows, things weren't like that...

6. Ubuntu comes bundled with Open Office. Although I've use it before, I don't know whether it's the best Office alternative out there. I intensively use Word due to the nature of my studies, but I do use PowerPoint from time to time. Open Office is a robust suite, I know, but I'd like to know if there are any slimmer, yet functional, alternatives that can cover my needs.
7. Any tip you can give me to make the transition easier?

Right now, all I want is to finish my work. I only need a word processor, which I already have, so there will probably be more questions in the future, when I get games and other apps, but, for the time being, this is it.

Thanks in advance.

I tended to skip over ubuntu in favour of other distros but:

1) I have tried many and they all have their strengths, the main problem I see is people have spent ages over the course of things getting their winamp/similar playlist working well and changing apps tends to mess that up. Totem is quite nice.

2) Not sure, go with WINE as well.

3) The author of IMGBurn makes special effort to make sure it works well with WINE. For straight up image burning if the app supports your drive then go with it but for anything slightly more complex I have not found anything to rival IMGBurn.

4) That tends to be a slight problem as it is somewhat of a framework. I will skip this one.

5) This may have changed for ubuntu and was already done but edit -> preferences (note it is somewhat of a linux standard to have things under the "edit" pulldown menu where windows would probably use tools -> options) and then content or appearance where the font options are. Note this still largely browser CSS (the lowest form on the ladder: browser, site wide, page wide, inline is the order: http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_intro.asp ) but you can also make it work on all sites as standard by fiddling with the options under the advanced section/tab/button. This can mess some sites up though.

6) I like open office but abiword is good for me as well (I wrote the EZ5 review in it and did a good chunk of other work with it). Secondly "slimmer", if you managed to get the open office install bigger or indeed the MS office (assuming you were not still using the probably very functional office 95) smaller please share how you did it.

7) Some do not care for it but WINE for me it is good to have.
The multi user thing is somewhat daunting at first but bear with it and eventually it will work well for you.
Be prepared to read and fiddle with things by hand and when you start distro hopping be prepared to junk it however nice it sounds if stuff does not work. The main problem with this is most guides I ever read do a lot of handholding and do not explain things (this is especially annoying when distros change their command line install tools).
Learn the directory structure of your distro (they are largely the same but some have key differences): http://lowfatlinux.com/ is a good start.

 

[Joey Ravn]

Thanks guys for the replies. Right now I'm kind busy, but I'll make sure to try everything you said.

 

[CockroachMan]

1. XMMS.. it's exactly like Winamp Classic

3. K3B should do it.. but I never tried it

4. I never tried any of those.. I normally use aMSN or Mercury on Linux, both work well.

7. Learn how to configure and use apt-get.. it's one of the best things Ubuntu has to offer, makes your life much easier when you need new applications.

 

[Findecanno]

3. I have a program called iso master. Im pretty sure it can burn isos. I know it can make them
4. try synapse depending on what chat you use
7. instead of ubuntu try Linux mint 7. Its based off of ubuntu but is more user friendly. ubuntu comes with only opensourse programs but linux mint 7 comes with free but not open source things like adobe flash so It may make things easier. It also has other nice user friendly features.

 

[Arm the Homeless]

7. instead of ubuntu try Linux mint 7. Its based off of ubuntu but is more user friendly. ubuntu comes with only opensourse programs but linux mint 7 comes with free but not open source things like adobe flash so It may make things easier. It also has other nice user friendly features.

Distro recommendations?

Arch all the way!

 

[Athlon-pv]

Linux will take some time to learn.

Dont be worried everything you tend to need is there.

Imgburn even functions on linux you can google it.
Xmms is very much like winamp.
You can indeed try and go through a lot of messanger programs , i use KDE and Kmess is nice (beta).

Only if you keep hitting a brick wall i wouldnt swap to another distro.
Most of them are good enough to get going.

 

[Hardkaare]

Theres a linux version of tiny trimmer

 

[doz592]

You guys are forgetting something VERY important. Because Ubuntu is VERY picky about opensource, there is NO way he's going to be able to even play the MP3's! So, listen up!

1. Go to Applications > Install programs (or something like that... I'm in Windows right now...)

2. On the drop-down menu telling about "Canonical Maintained" and such, make sure you have selected "All" (or something like that...)

3. Search for the "Restricted" package (just restricted). You want the Ubuntu flavor, not Kubuntu.

Hope this helps.

Edit: Oops! Meant to say Ubuntu rather than Linux. So picky, they went insofar as to create Gobuntu - COMPLETELY Opensource

Edit 2: Why wasn't it included? Well, MP3's have heavy licencing to them, just look at the Wii and DSi - MP4

 

[Arm the Homeless]

You guys are forgetting something VERY important. Because Linux is VERY picky about opensource, there is NO way he's going to be able to even play the MP3's! So, listen up!

1. Go to Applications > Install programs (or something like that... I'm in Windows right now...)

2. On the drop-down menu telling about "Canonical Maintained" and such, make sure you have selected "All" (or something like that...)

3. Search for the "Restricted" package (just restricted). You want the Ubuntu flavor, not Kubuntu.

Hope this helps.
You're forgetting something VERY important. Linux isn't very picky about open source.
Linus TorvaldsAnybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested. 99% of that I run tends to be open source, but that's _my_ choice, dammit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu#Availa...-party_software
Licensing, mostly.

Plus, there's more than Ubuntu, you know.

 

[FAST6191]

You guys are forgetting something VERY important. Because Linux is VERY picky about opensource, there is NO way he's going to be able to even play the MP3's! So, listen up!
[install method for ubuntu]

This is not so much open source but software patents, fortunately they do not exist in most of the world so there are more than a few distros out there (such as linux mint) that include such things.

 

[dice]

Locked at OP's request.