[ubuntu-uk] Norm's complaint

[norman]

Here we go again. During the final testing to make sure that Edubuntu
was working correctly before handing the machine to my granddaughter,
when a new problem occurred. All worked well, as administrator, but when
I logged out and then tried to log in as my granddaughter an error
message appeared telling me that it was not possible to start the ISD
server because some port or other was occupied and requested that I sort
things out. On closing this message, Edubuntu seemed to work OK logged
in to my granddaughter. When I logged out and then logged into
administrator the error message did not appear but, as soon as I tried
to log in as my granddaughter, back came the message. I repeated this
process a few times until, eventually, the machine refused to log in as
my granddaughter and the screen was just blank. 

Now, what to do? I know, I will go to my friend Google and, behold, the
error message was well known. It appears that an application called
'italc' was causing the problem and uninstalling 'italc' would cure the
situation. So, System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager
where I searched and found that, sure enough, the offending piece of
software was installed, The software was removed and the problem went
away.

The point I am making is that the software causing the problem was
installed by default, causing a problem which had been well documented
but that nothing appears to have been done to put things right. Is
Ubuntu or Edubuntu just there for those who are prepared to put up with
having to rectify things before the system can be used or are they there
for the general user? It seems that every time there is an update,
either something which worked well stops working or a new problem
occurs. I will not bore you with the many difficulties I have
encountered, please just accept that, because I like the ideas behind
Ubuntu, I am prepared to try to find ways around them. If I depended on
the use of the computer for my living I probably would not be so
patient.

Norman