Rather than start a new thread - possibly something of interest to some Ubuntu users - Kubuntu - Ubuntu-based with the KDE desktop

I've been using Debian Sarge on my home workstation and on a file and print server at work. They both work great, the print server serves almost three hundred thousand jobs a year and has been running steady for 2 1/2 years now. Sarge was hard to get working on my HP Omnibook Xe3 laptop though. Specially tweaking the synaptics touchpad took some time to figure out. I changed it to Ubuntu Warty and everything was detected and auto configured right away. The only exceptions were the internal modem and the sound control buttons on the front of the machine and a few other of this kind. I never used them when the machine was running Windows a few years ago either, so I didn't care :-)
BTW chrisstooss, SMB stands for Server Message Blocks and is a transport protocol used in LANs by Windows machines and other machines that are running the Samba server for interconnection with Windows servers.
Hans

Just a note for everyone, the SMB protocol was originally designed by IBM and Microsoft later adopted it and renamed it CIFS. Just incase you didn't know, Samba supported SMB before Windows NT did, and was originally designed to talk to DEC servers, which also implemented the SMB protocol.

I have begun using Ubuntu and I find it to be very clean in look, the only issues I have with it is that my network connection seems to die and come alive from time to time, as well as some modprobe error (hw_random) and the bios warning at the beggining of the boot. Booting nobiospnp doesn't work and adding it to the /boot/grub/menu.lst doesn't work either. Other is the gtkpod thing, I can install it but I cannot mount my ipod mini, and I know because of my Mandrake 10.1 HDD that EFI has nothing to do with it. Other then that its a well rounded distro. I find it to work better under VMWare though, if I can't solve these issues that might become my Ubuntu Distro's fate under Windows, I hate to think that a good distro like this can only work under Windows... ugh!

if i install ubuntu, and i want to try kde without installing mepis or knoppix, can i dl kde with apt-get and switch from gnome to kde? can i then switch back if i want? also, gnome 2.8 came out recently (didn't it?). can i use apt-get to update the version of gnome being used?

is there any way to use my ipod under linux? i don't want to have to be in windows to listen to my music, etc. (whihc is in itunes), nor do i want to have to use windows to put songs on the ipod.

For I pod Use rhythm box

And for KDE DL Kubuntu at http://www.kubuntu.org.uk/index.php

If your mum is that much of a newbie then get her an Apple computer with OS/X on it or even better, an older PowerPC, which you can get for mere pennies these days, and let her play with MacOS 9.2 or some other older thing. At least she'll be one step closer to Linux and many steps farther away from Microsoft!

With the Mac you can get Linux on it later because ubuntu made the jump to Apple Computers too.

http://www.ubuntulinux.org/support/d...lation-powerpc

In the old days it was LanManager/NetBIOS, Primary & Backup Domain Controllers, etc. SMB was an after thought.

I was working with Compaq in the days of Windows NT 3.5/3.51 for Digital Equipment Corporation AlphaServers, etc.... those boxes had no prob communicating because that NT was not the same NT that other systems had. It was for AlphaServers only.

I have two AlphaServer's myself. One just like the one that DEC gave the company I worked after CPQ to beta test for Microsoft in conjunction with a contract with Compaq. A DEC Alpha 1000A. My web pages are messed up as I forgot the "A", for "A-Team".

If you use a PowerPC with MacOS on it, you don't need Samba because Mac's can mount Windows partitions if they are shared from the AppleTalk Server on Microsoft Windows NT. If it's internal, such as a LAN and not a WAN, which is outsite Internet and not Intranet like a LAN is, then you can just ftp to your Linux boxes or ssh2 to them and forget Samba altogether.

so there's no way to have both kde and gnome on the same ubuntu installation and switch between them?

ubuntu kicks ass!

that is all

binkgle Yes you can. apt-get install kde there are more apt get packets that helps you to fill up your KDE but I dont know execly which they are. Try at www.kde.org and there which packets exists.

Try these links http://www.ubuntulinux.org/support/d...tation/faq/kde http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-2612.html

Or try this http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/InstallingKDE

Ubuntu is good but it is destined to be under Windows via VMWare, after playing around with it and spending pretty much a whole weekend trying to do the things that I need it to do, I have come to a conclusion that it is better off under VMWare, the internet is faster, no bios erros, no hardware errors and i can just use it that way to get stuff to work.

Why bother? If you have to run Windows to run GNU/Linux, I don't see the point in even doing it. Your hardware works under Windows, you can do the things you want/like to do under Windows and now you need Windows to run Ubuntu?!