Playing with Windows 7 Beta

Those of you who know me (which, as far as I know, are all my 3 readers :-)), should know by now that I am a geek who likes to play with the newest and shiniest operating systems. No, I didn't try to run Apple's OS X on my computer, though I had thought about it in the past. I decided to come back to Microsoft, who had just released the beta version of the newest 7, available for download here.
What can I say about it so far?
First of all I would like to mention that my veteran laptop, which has been the playground for so many versions of operating systems (Windows XP SP1, SP2, SP3, Kubuntu 7.04, 7.10, 8.04, 8.10, and the KDE version of OpenSuse 11). It is almost 5 years old, and as such it has 1.5 GHZ CPU, only 750 MB of RAM, and an old ATI Radeon Mobility 9200 video adapter. The latter two specifications are much less than the minimum required to run 7. Nonetheless, the setup procedure went quite smoothly. I am happy to say that, finally, this Windows is probably the fastest, and simplest, version of Windows to install. Everything take about 20 minutes and you're done. Unfortunately, unlike Linux, the distribution does not come with extra packages like an Office suite, antivirus, and other useful packages. Still, for Windows it's pretty nice, and it's free (after all you are a Beta tester) to use until September.

After the installation has ended (it took two reboots in the installation process, plus two other reboots for updates after the installation, which is stupid, because the entire system was ready for download only a day ago) the system loaded up. The GUI looks nice and slick. Very similar to the Vista one, only with the new taskbar showing only icons and not window's names. The Aero glass could not load on my machine, because my video adapter is not capable of doing it. Still, most of the features work, and it can run Gadgets. I tried the CPU/Memory gadget and it showed a surprisingly low CPU and memory usage. Surprising, because the 750MB on my machine are less than the required 1 GB and the memory used was in the range of 50%-75%.
The system was fast to respond on this archaic machine as well. I would say that it was almost as quick as a fresh installation of Windows XP if only I could remember how a new installation of Windows XP runs on that machine.

As far as drivers are concerned I had two problems. One was solved by the automatic driver update that Windows 7 ran on the computer. The other one was with my video adapter. This card has not been supported for Vista by the manufacturer, and Microsoft added a Vista driver capable of running Aero by themselves. This driver, once installed on my computer, has caused the display to flicker without end, and I had to roll-back to a default VGA driver, which lowers the display resolution. Finally, I have decided to try my old XP driver from the package that had come with my laptop when I had purchased it, and voila, it works. So it doesn't support Aero, but it still enables me 1280x800 resolution. I think that it caused the CPU usage to rise, but I haven't had time to check that out.

In conclusion, so far the system have shown a relative stability and agility that are impressive for a beta version running on hardware that is not intended to run it. I think that Microsoft has finally come up with a good version of Vista. As always, it's Service Pack 2 that does the work.
I am not sure if I will keep it or not, and anyway the Beta expires in the summer, so a new operating system will be required, or I will dump this old laptop. However, if you have the time and the proper machine to spare (Microsoft strongly advice against using 7 on the primary machine) I suggest you give it a try.

How to Restore Your Kubuntu

Well, upgrade didn't go well so I decided to restore my 7.04 version.

However, Kubuntu 7.04 doesn't come with all the features I like out of the box. This is the place to explain how to restore important features after installation.

Step 1: First, let adept_notifier prompt you to install all the updates since the version has been released. Fetching all the updates is roughly 200-250 MB, so be patient.

Step 2: If you have a backup disk of your files, this is a good time to restore it to the correct places. Make sure you edit all the folders from read only to read-write for you and other programs that make use of them. Failing to do so may cause crashes down the line or just some programs to fail. For example, if you configure Thunderbird (see step 4) then Thunderbird will not be able to write mails to all your mail folders.

Step 3: After the updates are installed, I like my browser to be Firefox instead of the default Konqueror supplied with Kubuntu. To do so, use adept. It will install the last tested version of Firefox. Usually it is not the last one Mozilla released, but it is close enough.

Step 4: Quit adept before this step. Use this outstanding script: "installnewthunderbird_3.2.0.sh" from SourceForge to get and install Thunderbird and its dependencies. BTW, there are newer version that I didn't try, so if they are good, feel free to update me. When you have the script ready, open a Konsole using Kmenu->System->Konsole. Go to the directory where the script is and then run the command: "sudo bash ./installnewthunderbird_3.2.0.sh -install". Enter your sudo password and answer the questions made by the script.

Step 5: If you hate the way some fonts are used in Linux, use adept to install MS truetype fonts, e.g. Arial. To do so, simply search in adept for the token "mstt" and install the msttcorefonts package that comes up.

Step 6: You would probably want to have some important features, especially the ones you have in MS-Windows. Media playing is one of the most important things. So get back to adept and do the following:

• Install helix for real player. Make sure you install the plugin to Firefox.
• Install mplayer. Make sure you install the plugin to Firefox.
• Install xmms to get support for asf files.
• Install avidemux to get support for avi files.
• Install totem while you are at it.
• In adept, search for xvid and divx and install any package that seems to add support for these file types.
• If you are using Amarok to play media files test its ability to play mp3 files. To do so, simply try to engage a last.fm stream, provided that you have an account there. If Amarok can't play it, it will request your permission to install it. Make sure you close any adept window before you do so, as it requires access to the packages database.
  

You can test your settings by trying to view clips posted in Ynet. If everything works fine you press the "play" button and somehow it plays the clip. It may takes a few remove / install of the above before everything works.

Step 7: If you want to have Hebrew subtitles you downloaded when playing movies, do the following (from the following link):

• Create a folder in your home/user (~) folder named ".mplayer".
  
• Use a text editor (e.g. Kate) to create a file named "config" and add the following rows to the file:
  

• flip-hebrew=yes
  fribidi-charset=ISO8859-8
  slang=he
  font=/usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts/Arial.ttf
  subfont-encoding=ISO8859-8
  subfont-text-scale=4

• Make sure that the font line really points to an existing file with the same name in that folder.
• Close the file.

Step 8: Java is an extremely important tool. Many pages have applets that require Java runtime environment. To install a working updated Java runtime environment use adept. Search for sun-java and install the latest version (currently, 1.6.x). Make sure you install:

• bin, the package itself.
  
• fonts, just in case.
  
• jre, Java runtime environment.
  
• plugin, this is used by Firefox and other browsers to run applets using the jre.

You can test this by trying to run a Java applet from the web. If everything is configured correctly, the applet should work.

Step 9: Localization and languages. I use Hebrew in many cases. To have multiple selection of languages in Kubuntu, do the following.

• From the Kmenu select System Settings.
• In general tab, select Regional & Language.
  
• If the list of languages does not have the language you want, select install new language.
• In the new window that opened find the language, select it and install it.
• Use the list of languages to select which language is default.
  
• In the same window select the Keyboard Layout sub-window.
  
• In this menu make sure all the keyboard layouts you want are listed. To add a missing one simply find it in the available layouts list and add it to the active list.
  
• If you have more then one layout it is advisable to have an icon which tells you which layout is used. To do so, go to the "switching options" tab, select "show country flag". While at it, see if the "switching policy" matches the one you like. I prefer that each window has its own policy, so I selected the last policy.
• I guess you would like to be able to switch layouts using a keyboard "hotkey". If so, return to "System Settings" and select "Keyboard & Mouse". Select "Keyboard Shortcuts" and in the first tab scroll down to "Keyboard" (last one). Select it and modify the default (alt+ctrl+k) to whatever you want. Note that the MS-Windows alt+shift can not be used. I use alt+<, which is the one closest to the left shift in my keyboard.

Step 10: Additional extras:
I like to have some non-Ubuntu packages. I installed the following:

• Skype, the free voice over IP phone. Simply go to Skype webpage, select download and download the package. Then make sure that the adept manager is closed and using right-click select the downloaded file. Select the Kubuntu packages install, approve the required password and that's it. You'll find the Skype installed and ready in your internet menu entries.
• Picasa, the pictures album manager, from Google. Use this link to select the download. When the file is ready, simply do as written above for Skype.
  

Step 11: Evolution and exchange. I guess that you are using some kind of exchange server, probably in work. You may have exchange over the web access, but you hate the way it is managed by Firefox. The solution is named Evolution, from Novell, but it is a bit tricky to configure and run. Do the following:

• First, in adept search for evolution, select evolution and its exchange plug-in.
• Now, evolution is a bit tricky sometimes to run in the first time. Try to run it from the Kmenu->Internet menu. If does not load, open a Konsole using Kmenu->System->Konsole.
• In the Konsole write "evolution" and press enter. If the last line is "segmentation fault (core dumped) run: "evolution --disable-eplugin" instead. Most probably that you are able to run evolution. In evolution window, use "edit-preferences" and add an e-mail account. It does not matter which one of your accounts you add.
  
• Now, close evolution, exit the Konsole and open evolution from the regular Kmenu.
• In evolution, add your exchange account. When selecting server type, select Microsoft Exchange.
  
• Enter your user name. Note that user name is not email address. User name is the one you use to log in to the network.
  
• Enter your over the web access URL. It would probably look like: https:\\owa.company.com\ecxhange\
• Authenticate it using your login password and now you have a window of properties.
• In "identity" tab enter your required information.
  
• In "receiving mail" tab make sure everything is correct.
• In "receiving options" tab you configure how often to check for mail in the server and other staff. Select whatever you like. The most important thing is "Global Catalog server name". This is where the server saves the global directory of email addresses. Look in your outlook address book settings in MS-Outlook to find that out.
• Defaults tab usually needs no adjustments.
• In "exchange settings" you can add "out of the office" auto-reply or set passwords.
• In "security" tab I have nothing crossed, so probably everything is not required there.

Congratulations, Kubuntu is configured now. If you think the time to configure it was too long, ask yourself how much time it took you to configure Windows correctly, does it work properly and quickly and are you happy with it? If the questions you answer are pro-Windows then don't bother switching to Linux.