Test & possible migration from XP to Ubuntu

Ye' old general discussion board. Basically, for everything that isn't covered elsewhere. Come here to shoot the breeze, shoot your mouth off, or whatever suits your fancy.
This forum is not for asking programming related questions.

Moderator: General Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
JAB Creations
DevNet Resident
Posts: 2341
Joined: Thu Jan 13, 2005 6:44 pm
Location: Sarasota Florida
Contact:

Test & possible migration from XP to Ubuntu

Post by JAB Creations »

Instead of hijacking someone else's thread I thought I'd start my own in regards to seriously testing Ubuntu in hopes of possibly migrating to it as a system (versus emulated) OS.

First thing is first, software. Most of you know or could suspect from my posts that I'm much more interested in using software for productivity purposes then anything else...I rely on the GUI to keep a fast pace too. Naturally there are a few Windows applications I've grown very fond of such as Advanced Find & Replace and CuteFTP 6.0 as they seriously increase the efficiency and speed of my work environment. I fiddled with Wine and wasn't sure how to approach it...though I installed it in Ubuntu's package manager (which is a design credit to the Linux community) and by chance copied from XP to Ubuntu the installer for Advanced Find & Replace (AFR). It not only installed though it also works as far as I can tell...though I do need to test it in a LAMP environment...more later, first a screenshot! :mrgreen:

Image

Yes...I'm doing this in an emulated environment right now...it's a serious test though because since I have the two most critical Windows programs running I should be able to work with everything else just fine more or less.

The issue I have right now is that I don't know where applications belong nor do I know how to get XAMPP working.

I downloaded a copy of XAMPP for Linux and naturally it runs without the need for installation...the thing is where do I move the lamp folder to on the file system? I'm sure as heck not going to run it from my desktop! :lol:

Also how do I get Apache and MySQL services running with XAMPP? I have to do more reading on this I guess though if any one knows off hand it would speed things up...towards a direct install. :D

There are other issues on my mind of course...

1.) If (and I hope) I install this as a system level OS (versus emulated) is Linux going to start tinkering with my hard drives in RAID and mess up the file system? I presume it won't but want to avoid any unnecessary headaches.

2.) Drivers...I'll be upgrading from my 8800GT (which runs hot) to an ATI Radeon 5xxx series card for gaming (and cooler case temps) in a couple of months...though I've read about a lot of ATI driver issues...what should I know ahead of time?

3.) I need access to nTune or another application to adjust the fan speed on my 8800GT which runs at only 20% with the card idle at 185F/86C so I absolutely have to make sure I turn the fan speed up (until I replace the card) so this is mission critical (if I don't want a dead video card from the oh-so-intensive task of idle!) *dramatic music goes here*

4.) Video games...I don't play them too often and I can't test out 6GB installs with the small partition I've allocated to Ubuntu...my friend said he got World of Warcraft running so I'm curious about the general realm of popular 3D games (I also play some old school stuff, currently Diablo II and Pharaoh of late until my replacement PSU arrives).

For now I'm going to keep tinkering with Ubuntu and see what I can figure out on my own. Hopefully it's a more viable option then I previously thought it would be. :)
User avatar
Benjamin
Site Administrator
Posts: 6935
Joined: Sun May 19, 2002 10:24 pm

Re: Test & possible migration from XP to Ubuntu

Post by Benjamin »

Apache, MySQL and PHP all run natively on Linux (on Windows too, most people don't bother learning how to configure everything though), so you don't need a package such as XAMP or whatever. You can install pretty much anything you could possibly want to install via the ubuntu package manager. And yes, it has a GUI Jab :)
User avatar
JAB Creations
DevNet Resident
Posts: 2341
Joined: Thu Jan 13, 2005 6:44 pm
Location: Sarasota Florida
Contact:

Re: Test & possible migration from XP to Ubuntu

Post by JAB Creations »

I don't see LAMP, Apache, MySQL, or PHP listed in the package manager nor did I see any mention of those things in any of the menus in Ubuntu...I am presuming it's not already installed though? I think I've seen "server" editions of Ubuntu or some other distro...I could be wrong though. With XP I use it for everything, games, development, surfing the web, etc...so if I switch I want to be able to do all the same stuff naturally. I have done a fair share of tweaking Apache and PHP to enable or change things though I wouldn't say I've done an outright installation (gotta love XAMPP) though I'm open to trying whatever to get it working in Ubuntu?
User avatar
Benjamin
Site Administrator
Posts: 6935
Joined: Sun May 19, 2002 10:24 pm

Re: Test & possible migration from XP to Ubuntu

Post by Benjamin »

It's in the "Synaptic Package Manager". You should be able to access it via the menu, or type "sudo synaptic" from a terminal.
User avatar
JAB Creations
DevNet Resident
Posts: 2341
Joined: Thu Jan 13, 2005 6:44 pm
Location: Sarasota Florida
Contact:

Re: Test & possible migration from XP to Ubuntu

Post by JAB Creations »

Thanks, I followed your instructions and I managed to find, install, and confirm the install (localhost in Firefox) of Apache 2. :)

However I can't figure out where in the file system it was installed to in order to edit the configuration (change htdocs, etc).

Also does Ubuntu have a way to show the file path in search results? The default way it displays results is horridly really confusing. :|
User avatar
Weirdan
Moderator
Posts: 5978
Joined: Mon Nov 03, 2003 6:13 pm
Location: Odessa, Ukraine

Re: Test & possible migration from XP to Ubuntu

Post by Weirdan »

JAB Creations wrote:However I can't figure out where in the file system it was installed to in order to edit the configuration (change htdocs, etc).
Configuration files are in /etc/ folder (Apache's in /etc/apache2/)
User avatar
JAB Creations
DevNet Resident
Posts: 2341
Joined: Thu Jan 13, 2005 6:44 pm
Location: Sarasota Florida
Contact:

Re: Test & possible migration from XP to Ubuntu

Post by JAB Creations »

Thanks, I found it however the configuration file is empty! How is Apache able to run like that? 8O

More importantly I have no clue how to configure the directory paths compared to XP. If I switch I'll keep the OS on it's own RAID 1 and all my files, personal and web on my other RAID 1.

I did find the htdocs folder...the directory structure is really wild and doesn't make any sense. I found it by mimicking some tutorials though they seemed only useful to a limited extent.

I tried editing the file though I was denied permission to...so I have no clue about that. There is a user and a var folder...so why aren't they contained in a single parent directory if it's for the same user?

Thanks for the help so far. :)
User avatar
Weirdan
Moderator
Posts: 5978
Joined: Mon Nov 03, 2003 6:13 pm
Location: Odessa, Ukraine

Re: Test & possible migration from XP to Ubuntu

Post by Weirdan »

JAB Creations wrote:Thanks, I found it however the configuration file is empty! How is Apache able to run like that? 8O
I could be wrong here, but as far as I remember main apache config file on ubuntu is called /etc/apache2/apache2.conf (not httpd.conf, even though it's present in the same folder).
JAB Creations wrote: More importantly I have no clue how to configure the directory paths compared to XP. If I switch I'll keep the OS on it's own RAID 1 and all my files, personal and web on my other RAID 1.
I'd advise to mount that other raid as /home (and store your work in /home/<your-user-name>).
JAB Creations wrote: I tried editing the file though I was denied permission to...so I have no clue about that.
That's normal. You shouldn't be allowed to edit system-wide files as an ordinary user. After all on Windows you do not edit anything in /Windows folder, do you?
JAB Creations wrote: There is a user and a var folder...so why aren't they contained in a single parent directory if it's for the same user?
They are not for users per se. /var folder contains files that are normally changed or created during normal system operation. Those are logs, various spools, mysql database files, etc. It's daemons who generally write there (cron daemon, mta daemon, apache daemon, ...).

/usr (not user) contains files that makes the computer useful to its users. Those are programs, dynamic code libraries, some static data files needed by programs. Back in the days when disk space was precious it was normal to have only one /usr folder for entire network of computers. It was mounted into each individual computer's filesystem via NFS (like shared folder in windows network).

Now back to the question where you, as a user, should store all your files that you produce (like your code, your documents, your pictures, etc). It's /home/<your-user-name> folder. If you follow this advice, you would have only two folders to backup: /etc (machine configuration) and /home (user generated files), the latter being more important. Everything else could be restored by re-installing the system and packages you need. Ok, you might want to backup /var/ as well.
redmonkey
Forum Regular
Posts: 836
Joined: Thu Dec 18, 2003 3:58 pm

Re: Test & possible migration from XP to Ubuntu

Post by redmonkey »

I've always been of the opinion that if I have 'must have apps' that I rely on and use daily or even frequently then I'll stick with an operating system that can run them natively. Emulation layers, virtial machines etc... are handy things but I personally feel that using them for everyday apps can become quite clunky. That being said, and although I'm not familiar with the two apps mentioned here, I would suspect that there are viable alternatives to both these apps that will run natively under Linux.
Post Reply