Getting tired of being hostage to Microsoft, I bought a laptop from Dell with Ubuntu 7.10 loaded on it. It came with Mozilla Firefox as its browser, which is cool because I was already using Firefox on my Windows XP machine. Last week I responded to a prompt to allow an automatic upgrade to Ubuntu 8.04. After the "upgrade", Ubuntu/Firefox would no longer access the 'Net, so I can neither try to upgrade Firefox, nor try to go back to 7.10. In fact, if I didn't have my older XP beast, I wouldn't have been able to send out this call for help. I'm trying to convert to Linux rather late in my life; much of my computer experience was with IBM 3090s, PL/I, DB2, etc.

Hi Everybody,
Recently I had a problem with my MS Exchange server, and I'm tired of windows crashing every two days so I installed Ubuntu Server ver. 10.04. But I'm new for Linux so I wanted to install The GUI part But every time I tried it has an error message of 'E: Package could not found.' I even tried all the commands that are avelabel on the net like " sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop" AND EVEN I TRIED sudo apt-cdrom add, but still the error appears.

any body has an idea what is the problem?

Thanks in Advance for the Help.

i got a toshiba.
with vista on it. D:

vista froze during an update and quit working so i but ubuntu on it.
karmic koala.

now ubuntu has quit working
it won't boot.
it brings me to a list of different modes and recovery modes i can use.
and when i try any of them, the get stuck and just dont load.
the regular ubuntu just goes blank after being stuck at the logo for over 30 seconds.

ANYWAY! i want to put vista back on because nothing i do with ubuntu seems to be working.
but my recovery discs arent doing anything!

is there any reason this could be happening?

i tried turning my computer on first, then putting the disc in.
and i tried turning the computer on with the disc already in.
i also tried telling ubuntu in recovery mode that there's a cd. but i dont know enough about computers to know how that would work..
my lap top gets really loud for a bit, so it's recognizing that there's a disc.
but nothing else happens.

.
any suggestions?

i went to turn on my computer and it was acting normal until it got the the ubuntu logo.
it showed only the circle with the 3 circles on it, stayed there for a while, then the logo disappeared and the screen stayed blank.

so i turned it off and tried again.
this is the list it gave me to choose from.

2.6.31-21-generic . (this is normal i assume. i tried it and the same thing happened)

2.6.31-21-generic(recovery mode) (tried this and it just gave me a bunch of commands that i could use. but i dont know enough about computers to know how to use them)

2.6.31-20-generic (i think i tried this one too)

2.6.31-20-generic(recovery)

2.6.31-14-generic

2.6.31-14-generic(recovery)

memory test (memtest86+) (i tried this, let it run until it started over again. then pressed esc and it rebooted and brought me back to this list)

memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)

My name is Tom Ghormley
I live in Sacramento, CA
My email address is tom1024@comcast.net

I purchased a new Windows 7/HP laptop specifically to install and learn about Ubuntu.
I downloaded 10.04 on my iMac, burned it to disc and spent an hour
trying to get my HP to recognize it.
No luck, so I used a 9.10 disc from a magazine.
I get the initial screen, choose a language and select either "try it"
or "install it".
The CD drive chatters happily for a while, all the time the screen is blank.
After several minutes and several sessions of head chattering, it
becomes quiet.
The screen is still blank and the power light is glowing.
I've tried it several times and I always get to this spot but no
further, even if I leave it for an hour.
Since I know of no one locally to help with this obstacle, I wonder if I might impose upon someone on the web to assist me with my installation.
My Linux experience is just north of nil.

looked at several forums, but got no solution thus far.
After I did the upgrade from Ubuntu 9.10 to the 10.04 version, grub lists, but won't load windows xp any more - nothing, just a flashing underscore. It also lost the DHCP connection). It also forced the suse boot to safe mode. I have an Unbuntu 9.1 CD, but that's useless now, of course won't work with the repair-install option. The windows partition is all there and readable, so I backed it all up [XP repair disk won't work after the SP2 upgrade, another, even more lengthy process to go around]
I saw other posts having similar problems, obviously I should have not upgraded directly.

It seems 5.1 surround sound on Ubuntu 9.10 either does work or it doesn't end of story. Mine doesn't! I have trawled the universe for help and nothing works. I have an external usb 5.1 sound card made by Trust (thats what it says in the base speaker) I have no other info on this. So far I have followed some instructions and changed a command in somewhere to read default-sample-channels =6. Then rebooted and met with silence when I tried to do a speaker test. My 9.10 doesn't have the screen many instructions refer to. When I left click on the speaker at the top of the screen I get a thin volume slide bar, if I right click on the speaker I get a small box offering me Mute or sound Preferences. This and its sub screens just don't match the instructions. I don't seem to have a Volume Manager or Volume Control screen.I think this external sound card is possibly pants but I cant be sure.

Any help most welcome.