First of all I know this post may appear to be a repeat, and that there is a plethora of posts, blogs and help files available on this subject. However I’m find that something has changed between 14.04 and all other releases.
Sorry I need to express my frustrations before I ask a few simple questions, which I ensure you from a newbie’s viewpoint they are worth asking. So if you desire, to skip the rant, please skip to the questions.
This is my third day using Ubuntu 14.04 and so far I’m liking it over Windows XP/7 and really want to completely transition to Linux. Being a victim of Microsoft’s business model of “future sales through forced obsolescence” is proving to be a strong motivator. Having to update already purchased applications for XP due to the incompatibility with Win7/8 is looking to be very expensive for me and on top of that the added cost of a new operating systems. I have three computers at home that the family uses and having to update all of them is out of the question. Plus I’m the IT support for others in my extended family, which is nearly an additional 10 computers.
As a newbie with the hopes of using Ubuntu as a Windows XP/7 replacement these difficulties and indifferences are making it rather difficult in understanding Linux and seem to be clouding my perception a bit. So please help me to make the transitions and I will bring others over from the Windows side.
Anyway I apologize for expressing my frustration, but I feel it may help other new users to understand that there are some major challenges in learning Linux, and not to give up. That is why I’m asking these questions.
All these questions stem from the simple task of adding Skype to my “Applications Startup”.
Question 1) In more than one reference I have found that there was an “Options” in the “Startup Applications” that would allow me to check a box to start the applications already open on the next reboot/restart. But that seems to have been removed or moved. Is this true?
Question 2) One source mentioned just dragging the icon from the “Dash > search” to the “Applications Startup”. It didn’t work for me. So is there something setup wrong on my installation, is this something special that use to work, or was the post wrong?
Question 3) In the post “How do I make a program auto-start every time I log in?” (How do I make a program auto-start every time I log in?) one user posted a neat python script to show all the start commands for all the applications installed.
I like it and hope it does the job for me, but I would like to know what are my other options in Ubuntu 14.04, what is the correct way, is scripts really needed or is there other utilities I can use to view the commands that I need to add?
Question 4) Starting out to learn Ubuntu 14.04 I’m finding a lot has changed from the prior releases and all other posted information is not completely correct. Can anyone point me to an Ubuntu 14.04 for dummies, or great tutorials to help me move from Windows to Ubuntu?
Again I apologize for the rant and really appreciate the support of the Linux community.
