Idiot Classes

martin1016

As the title says - is there anywhere where a thicko like me can go for a few weeks of night classes to get the basics.

Running Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy and like it but am getting annoyed. I spend too much time searching for fixes on forums, all I want it to do is work and get familiar with the basics. I don't want to be an expert, write my own code or hack McDonalds servers yet.

I feel like any time I turn it on I spend hours looking stuff up, get fixes and then spend ages figuring out how to install them. I just don't have the time.

History to date:
New Toshiba NB100 with Ubuntu installed
Downloaded updates
Sound disappeared
Two days later get sound back, lost shut down from Gnome and boot into shell so use startx. Sound and mic start muted.
Installed Skype - grand
Setup sync with Evolution mail via Schedule World to sync business laptop and this one so all data stays current - grand
Installed and setup tsclient to manage / access windows server in office and manage remotely - grand
Started playing around on it again this evening -and Skype has decided not to run, starts loading then nothing.

Am I totally thick, why when I think I have it all sorted, something else just gives up. I think I could do with some basic instruction and don't have the time to spend on the forums which in fairness are excellent.

Please don't send me back to windows for failing. I bought this machine to travel with as a business system. I need email, web, remote access and OO.o. Would be nice to have radio feeds from Newstalk or Today FM while in the middle of nowhere in China. Need Skype to talk to the western world when I am over there. Surely this should be possible, even for a muppet like me.

So anybody know of any classes, looks like the Dublin sticky for group died away.

JimmyCrackCorn!

martin1016 wrote: »

As the title says - is there anywhere where a thicko like me can go for a few weeks of night classes to get the basics.

Running Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy and like it but am getting annoyed. I spend too much time searching for fixes on forums, all I want it to do is work and get familiar with the basics. I don't want to be an expert, write my own code or hack McDonalds servers yet.

I feel like any time I turn it on I spend hours looking stuff up, get fixes and then spend ages figuring out how to install them. I just don't have the time.

History to date:
New Toshiba NB100 with Ubuntu installed
Downloaded updates
Sound disappeared
Two days later get sound back, lost shut down from Gnome and boot into shell so use startx. Sound and mic start muted.
Installed Skype - grand
Setup sync with Evolution mail via Schedule World to sync business laptop and this one so all data stays current - grand
Installed and setup tsclient to manage / access windows server in office and manage remotely - grand
Started playing around on it again this evening -and Skype has decided not to run, starts loading then nothing.

Am I totally thick, why when I think I have it all sorted, something else just gives up. I think I could do with some basic instruction and don't have the time to spend on the forums which in fairness are excellent.

Please don't send me back to windows for failing. I bought this machine to travel with as a business system. I need email, web, remote access and OO.o. Would be nice to have radio feeds from Newstalk or Today FM while in the middle of nowhere in China. Need Skype to talk to the western world when I am over there. Surely this should be possible, even for a muppet like me.

So anybody know of any classes, looks like the Dublin sticky for group died away.

Sounds like your doing ok to me. You managed the harder stuff
Google helps and what your asking to add isnt hard

VLC is a good media player and works fine for todayfm streams.
Try un-installing and re-installing skype

An Fear Aniar

Hi, would suggest the usual, remove skype and re-install. It's not officially supported by Ubuntu.

Did you install the Skype in Synaptic or the one of the website?

http://www.skype.com/intl/en-gb/download/skype/linux/choose/

I got the one off the website and it works grand for me.

So is it just Skype now that's the problem or is there other stuff? You don't sound like a thicko to me judging by how much you've done.

There's an Ireland subforum in the Ubuntu forums, might be worth a gander:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=548449

One other thing, this multimedia how-to will set you up to play just about anything there is. Well worth while installing the list of plugins and codecs they give:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766683

The main thing to do from that guide is to copy and paste the command given into the terminal - so assuming you're 8.10 32-bit you would copy and paste this into the terminal and sit back and relax:

sudo apt-get remove gnash gnash-common libflashsupport mozilla-plugin-gnash swfdec-mozilla && sudo apt-get install alsa-oss faac faad flashplugin-nonfree gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse gstreamer0.10-pitfdll libavcodec-unstripped-51 libmp3lame0 non-free-codecs sun-java6-fonts sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin unrar

(will probably blow away your sound again, lol!)

P.S. I had about six weeks of pain before I finally got some clue about how to go about fixing things. You'll find that whatver problem it is - someone on the Ubuntuforums has had it too and usually someone has written back with a solution. These days when I Google for information on Ubuntu I add the word ubuntuforums to whatever I'm searching for.

.

Orion

You're doing ok - it's a new OS for you so you're going to have teething troubles. But based on what you've said a night class would be of little use to you. Maybe get a book on beginning in Linux or read some of the very good user guides online.

stereo_steve

Seeing as you have spent so much time on it anyway would you consider installing Intrepid (v8.10?) 8.04 implemented Pulseaudio badly which could be the cause of many of your problems.

martin1016

Thanks for the feedback - its running 8.04 Hardy. Considering upgrading to 8.10 as it seems to be the most logical step for the couple of years. Must look into what that involves as it may be better to do it all now rather than get things working and find things obsolete in 12 months. This could be some version Toshiba have as it has a toshiba logo on it.

martin1016

Tried to upgrade to 8.10 but manager is showingno upgrades available - followed some of the online guides.

Removed skype and reinstalled so its working again. Have browsed some of the online guides and there is a lot of info there but would still like a basic class as I thinks the basic are the biggest hurdle to get over. Having the basics would help in getting more from the forums, bit like knowing the basics in DOS which I am sad enough to be comfortable in :rolleyes:

velocirafter

here are the instructions on how to do the upgrade, you've probably read them already but just in case
http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-upgrade-ubuntu-8.04-to-ubuntu-8.10-desktop-and-server

those upgrades never really work anyway, the best thing to do is just a fresh install of 8.10

martin1016

Cheers - thats exactly waht I did but it did not show 8.10 as available for install. Wonder if this is because its a packaged version on the Netbook?

It has the Toshiba logo on the Gnome.....

An Fear Aniar

martin1016 wrote: »

Cheers - thats exactly waht I did but it did not show 8.10 as available for install. Wonder if this is becau

se its a packaged version on the Netbook?

It has the Toshiba logo on the Gnome.....

You mean you got Ubuntu pre-installed but still had all this trouble? Not good.

Take a look in your Software Sources - maybe you've only got Toshiba repos at the moment. You can change that easily though.

If you don't know where to find them try this in the terminal:

cat /etc/apt/sources.list

and paste the results here.

.

martin1016

Results - yes it was pre-installed


deb http://netbook-remix.archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ hardy main universe multiverse restricted
deb-src http://netbook-remix.archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ hardy main universe multiverse restricted

deb http://netbook-remix.archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates main universe multiverse restricted
deb-src http://netbook-remix.archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates main universe multiverse restricted

deb http://netbook-remix.archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ hardy-security main universe multiverse restricted
deb-src http://netbook-remix.archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ hardy-security main universe multiverse restricted

deb http://netbook-remix.archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ hardy-netbook-base main universe multiverse restricted
deb-src http://netbook-remix.archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ hardy-netbook-base main universe multiverse restricted

deb http://netbook-remix.archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ hardy-netbook-remix main universe multiverse restricted
deb-src http://netbook-remix.archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ hardy-netbook-remix main universe multiverse restricted
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy universe main restricted multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy universe main restricted multiverse #Added by software-properties
deb http://www.estamos.de/download/apt stable main

An Fear Aniar

That explains it I guess. These are not the general repos that all Ubuntu users get their software from. It may be, I can't say for certain, that they do not permit an upgrade to Intrepid.

In other news, someone else had your sound problem after updates as well:

https://answers.launchpad.net/nb100/+question/53970

.

martin1016

So - should I go format c: and start again with a clean install of 8.10 Kind of guessed that it would be a packaged version.