new to ubuntu; have a few questions

[Constantine Evans]

Here is my attempt to answer your questions:

1) This is an ACPI-related error (the Root System Description Pointer 
can't be found). Since your system still is able to boot, it most likely 
means that your computer doesn't support ACPI, and thus the error is 
unimportant.

2) This is probably also unimportant. The LiveCD is designed to work on 
a diverse set of hardware, and sometimes gives error messages when it 
tries to see if certain operations need to be carried out on your 
specific hardware.

3) In the default configuration, pmount only allows the mounting of 
removable and hot-pluggable media. For an IDE hard drive like yours, you 
need to mount the drive in a more traditional way. In 6.06 LTS, I 
believe you can use the Disks tool in the System->Administration menu to 
do this, which, if it worked, would be the easiest way (I'm running a 
development version, where this has been removed, so I'm not quite 
sure). Alternatively, you can use "sudo mount /dev/hdb1 
/path/to/place/you/want/drive/to/show/up". If you have formatted the 
drive with a Linux-oriented file system, you will probably want to 
change permissions on the folder where you mount the drive as well, 
which will allow you to manipulate data on the drive without have root 
privileges.

4) There are several methods. In the terminal, the most commonly used 
method is to prefix sudo to every command you want to run with increased 
privileges. For example, "sudo mv file1 /var" would move file1 into the 
/var folder. Alternatively, if you have many commands that you need to 
run, you can use sudo -s to get a shell where all commands are run as 
root, and can then exit out of it with Ctrl-D on an empty line or the 
exi command. To use the file manager as root, use gksudo nautilus in a 
terminal or in Run Application.

5) This depends on what you need a PDF editor for. Creation of PDF 
documents in Linux is very easy and does not require extra software; 
most programs where are able to export to PDF when doing so would make 
sense, and every program that allows printing can print to Postscript 
files that can be converted with the ps2pdf command. If you need an 
actual editor, however, I am afraid that we are quite lacking. For 
extremely simple annotations, there is a flpsed (which is in the 
universe repository, and only works on Postscript documents), but that 
is the extent of our current non-technical PDF editing capabilities (I 
am assuming that scripting language libraries for PDF editing don't 
interest you).

Don't despair, however. I expect that you likely have a copy of Acrobat 
or Nitro for Windows, and it is quite likely that you will be able to 
run it in Linux using Wine (see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wine). 
There is an application support database, which covers a small portion 
of the Windows applications which will run with Wine, at 
http://appdb.winehq.org/. Acrobat 7 is listed as running somewhat well 
(apparently, Save *As* (not Save) and printing do not work). Nitro is 
not listed, but most normal Windows apps that are not overly complex 
(eg, not Acrobat) work rather well. You might also want to note that 
Foxit Reader is reported as working as working nearly perfectly, so you 
might want to look into using that or Foxit's PDF Editor software in Wine.

For learning suggestions with Linux, it is somewhat dependent on what 
you want to learn. As a heavy command line user, among other things, I 
am probably the embodiment of many things that Ubuntu is trying to move 
Linux away from, so I fear that I am not the best person for pointing 
you toward such material. If you aren't a developer, and aren't heavily 
technically inclined, there is The Official Ubuntu Book, which I have 
not read, but has garnered reasonably good reviews at Amazon. If you are 
highly technically inclined, I do not know of any single good book.

For online resources, there are the official help resources are located 
at help.ubuntu.com, and the community contributed documentation at 
help.ubuntu.com/community. The official documentation covers normal 
tasks, while the community documentation covers a diverse range of 
matters, from descriptions of useful software to using various hardware 
devices, with the disadvantage of sometimes containing questionable 
advice, often due to users who do not understand the rationales behind 
some development decisions.

One particular page there which you will probably find helpful if this 
is a home computer is the RestrictedFormats page in the community 
documentation, which will tell you how to play videos and music which 
are in patent-encumbered formats (most commonly used formats today are), 
and also how to play DVD videos. Unfortunately, doing so is illegal in 
the United States. In fact, it appears that under certain circumstances, 
playing DVDs in Linux in the United States is a criminal offence, 
punishable by up to 5 years imprisonment, due to the absurdities of the 
DMCA. However, there have been hundreds of thousands of people who have 
done so, and to my knowledge, there has not been a single individual who 
has had legal trouble for doing so (several have been sued or threatened 
with arrest for distributing the software to do so, however).

I hope this information is somewhat helpful to you.

Yours,
Constantine Evans

Dwain Alford wrote:
> greetings from upper alabama,
> 
> i switched from windows 2000 to ubuntu 6.06.1 lts yesterday.  i like the 
> feel, but i've got a few of questions.
> 
> 1. when i ran the live cd i received the message "unable to locate 
> rsdp".  the os seemed to function ok; i really can't say properly, 
> because i don't  know what properly is at this time.
> 
> 2. during start up with the lice cd i also received the message mount: 
> function not implemented.
> 
> the cd i imaged verified, but after install on the hdd i still get the 2 
> messages.
> 
> 3. i have another hdd installed where i will keep data.  i formatted it 
> to extended 3.  the drive will not mount.  i get the following error 
> messages:
> error: device /dev/hdb1 is not removable
> error: could not execute pmount
> 
> 4. how do i allow myself full access to the computer to make changes, 
> add and delete, move files, copy from one place to another and etc.?  
> this is a tad bit frustrating, but i welcome the linux plunge.
>
> 5. is there an open source pdf editor akin to acrobat (full version) and 
> nitro pdf?  i need more than a viewer.
> 
> finally, i have many more questions.  would someone be so kind as to 
> point me to online references and book suggestions as i begin a new 
> computer chapter with linux?
> 
> cheers,
> dwain
>