Rar in Ubuntu... uhh... UnRar... oh no! It's not free!

Just today, at work, I needed to extract files form a Rar archive under Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon. So the typical me right-clicked on the file and selected Extract Here, then an error message box popped-up and told me the file archive is not recognized or whatsoever. In short, am stumped that I cannot extract Rar files.

Am from a Windows environment and WinRar is my favorite archive tool coz aside from good compression, it also allows me to append datetime stamp (e.g. yyyy-mm-dd@hh-mm) to the filename. Now, after a dedicated 10 minutes asking Mr. Google, I found out that I could use Rar and UnRar that are sharewares from rarlabs.com or choose P7zip that is an open-source project.

Well, I don't want sharewares on my Ubuntu box. So I installed 7-zip instead, did an extract of my Rar file, and forgot about Rar yet. Next time I want to archive files, am gonna use 7z.

The only thing left is how to append datetime stamp to my 7z archive files. Am gonna update this when I figure that out.

For now.

Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon

Today I finally found the time to install Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon on my desktop machine. Here's the specs for my desktop babe: Core2Duo E6320, 1GB memory, 160 GB Sata (2x80gb), Nvidia GeForce 7100 GS 256MB, and 2 Samsung 940bw 19" lcd monitors for dual-monitor setup.

I have Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn installed on dual boot with Windows XP Prof on it. I therefore have an option to either upgrade it or install a new one . I decided for the latter because it seems the easiest thing to do.

For those of you who are interested in Ubuntu, you may download a FREE installer at http://www.ubuntu.com.

Installation is a breeze and straight-forward. I have partitioned my disks in Feisty this way: 15gb for // (root), 10gb for home, 2gb for swap, so installing Gutsy is easy as I just remapped the mount points to my desire.

It took nearly 15 minutes for the whole installation. I was excited to configure dual-monitor as it is very hard in Feisty. I am surprised to find it was not that easy with Gutsy either. True, they have upgraded that with Gnome 2.2. Gutsy has Screen and Graphics option now at System - Administration menu but it wasn't as easy as I anticipated. I installed restricted drivers hoping it will work but to no avail. I installed Envy, and it did its job well of detecting and installing my graphics card but no dual-monitor still on Gutsy. Frustrated, I went looking at Ubuntu forums and haven't found anything of help.

It seems that I am left to tinkering my xorg.conf again as I did on my Dell D610 with Feisty.

Am I missing something else?