problems after installation

[Nathan Sprangers]

loom loom wrote:

> Hello all,
> here is my short experience with Ubuntu. And i would appreciate if you 
> would help me with some of the questions i have:
>
> My Configuration:Compaq Presario X1030US Notebook, 1.4 Ghz Centrino, 
> 512MB Ram, ATI radeon9200, 30GB HD, SoundMax SoundCard, Agere AC’97 
> Modem, Intel Pro Wireless LAN 2100 3b mini pci, Realtek RTL8139C fast 
> ethernet, PCMCIA ENE CB1410 Cardbus
>
> I have tried Suse and Mandrake in past(one year ago) on a different 
> PC, that has been my second attempt to try a linux distro. Here are 
> first impression I had after the installation.
>
> Cons. with Ubuntu
> - Since Suse 6.2 was my first distro, I didnt felt the lacking of a 
> graphical installer(well, never understood what those graphical 
> installer so special about, what extra easiness they add to 
> installation) so i was comfortable with Ubuntu’s installar.
> - Honestly, I was a bit suprised since the installation menus were not 
> as detailed or advanced as i expected them to be. I say that because:
> 1) During installation I wasnt able to set my root(su) password, I 
> still don’t have it and I dont know how will make the modifications 
> and changes without su user and password.

See http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/RootSudo. That was something that I 
was confused about at first as well. I think a link to that wiki page 
should be on the local homepage that Firefox loads by default.

> 2) Partition tool was simple and usefull, done its work fine and have 
> no complaints about it at all, but its a pitty of not having NTFS 
> option on formatting.
> 3) It might be my mistake, but I fail to find where installation files 
> were, so i wasn’t able to choose which files to be installed or not.
> 4) Autodetection was fine, but I have almost never been asked how i 
> would like to set my hardware etc. I mean there was no advance mode 
> avaible.

There is an advanced mode that allows you to install specific packages 
that are on the CD. Just be aware that there is a lot more available on 
the Ubuntu repositories than the CD. 
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ubuntu/components will tell you about the 
repositories available. To enable universe and/or multiverse run sudo 
gedit /etc/apt/sources.list and uncomment the appropriate lines.

>
> Pros. with Ubuntu
> - it booth directly to my desktop without a problem at all. Well, 
> while booting it gave several error|fail messeges, i think it was due 
> to some of the hardware not detected(no suprise), or detected wrong 
> such as my philips webcam.
> - My soundcard, ati radeon grap. Card was detected(it was detected as 
> ati radeon9000) and i can say i’m honestly impressed with screen 
> resolution even being detected properly.
> - I prefer using my taskbar at the leftside of screen(i find it more 
> usefull) however when i tried to place the taskbar on left, it didnt 
> resize properly and icons became huge and pretty unusefull(i think 
> thats most probably a problem because of GNOME not Ubuntu)

I think that gnome-panel is a bit buggy in warty.

> - During installation or afterwords, I have not been informed at all 
> to figure out where to make changes, and not being able to get a 
> ROOT(SU) password was not handy. I dont know how will i log as root. 
> Is there a generic password for firsttime installed systems? Otherwise 
> the system will became null

See the wiki mentioned above. Sudo is your friend =)

> - Unlike mandrake linux, it failed to mount my windows 
> partitions(well, hopefully I’ll able to manuel add them)

See http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/AutomaticallyMountMSWindowsPartitions

> - Without suprise my soft modem Agere ’97 AC was not detected, hope i 
> would find a way to make it work, otherwise OS with no internet 
> connection is pretty useless.
> - Music player fail to play my mp3, it gave an error like proper 
> plugins not installed and i dont know where to install additional 
> software(on suse there was YaST to deal with these kinda problems)

See http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/RestrictedFormats for the mp3 issue. 
Ubuntu's graphical package manager is Synaptic found under the 
Computer>System Configuration menu.

> - Since I can’t reach my windows partitions, I have copied my fonts 
> and some mp3 to test Ubuntu. However I wouldnt copy my fonts to 
> etc/x11..fonts folder since I can’t log as root
> - I dont know its another problem related to Gnome or linux in 
> general(cause there was the same problem in past), when i was copying 
> the media inside the CD to my desktop, the system slowed down a bit 
> and mouse curser moves bacame unstable and weird. (ohh by the way i 
> was really fascinated by my touchad pad detected properly)
>
> Question:
> - http://www.linux-laptop.net/
> http://www.x1000forums.com/index.php?showforum=8
> I’ll try the websites listed in order to make my modem work, however i 
> am not sure even i would succeed to install anything without being SU.
> - Is there a generic password for SU user on Ubuntu?

sudo sh will give you a root shell, just enter your own user password 
when asked.

> - From where I would update or configure my settings? How would I 
> reach the Ubuntu Setup menu on terminal? (it was possible to do that 
> on Suse simply typing yast as SU user.

Not exactly sure what you mean by "configure my settings". See what's 
under the Computer>System Configuration menu maybe. You can run sudo 
/usr/sbin/base-config for the questions asked of you the first time you 
booted Ubuntu to be asked again...

> - How would i mount my windows partitions?
> - How would i install or make my mp3 work?
>
> I just wanted to share my experience and first impressions with ubuntu...
>
> Thanks already,
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> 2 GB bellekle çok daha fazla e-posta saklama firsati için üye olun! 
> http://odeme.hotmail.com.tr
>
>