I have a brand-new Toshiba Tecra A7 portable that was giving me nothing but problems when it was running under Windows XP. The screen would go blank for no reason, and wouldn't recover, forcing a reboot. The entire system would lock up when I inserted a USB device, again forcing a reboot. I was about to throw the thing out (or at least return it to Toshiba) when I decided to give Kubuntu a try. I downloaded the Kubuntu ISO, burned a CD, deleted my Windows partition, and proceeded to install Kubuntu in its place. (I kept the Toshiba disk recovery partition just in case...)
The installation went without a hitch. I set it up with a root, home and swap partition. After the first boot, I immediately had internet access through my office network (ethernet). I also could see both wireless access points that exist here in the office, although I couldn't successfully connect to either of them. (More on that later)
I used the Adept package manager to update everything, and then proceeded to start setting up the system. It's easy to feel overwhelmed when things don't work right initially, but I found plenty of help here in the forums and elsewhere. By doing a web search about a particular issue, I was able to find plenty of information and assistance. Since I wasn't the first person to have the problems I was having, it was pretty easy to find the solutions.
I installed Firefox for browsing, obtained codecs for several audio and video formats that weren't supported 'out-of-the-box', and even found a good replacement for Quicken, which I use for my own personal financial recordkeeping. (Take a look at KMyMoney if you're interested)
I have gotten around the problem with the wireless networks, but I wouldn't call it a permanent solution yet. They were both set up with WPA security, and there is a lot to read about getting past that. Maybe some other time. In the meantime, I reset the security level on the WAP that I needed, and am now happily connecting using WEP128, with no further changes or additions needed on the Kubuntu side of things.
One last comment - the system hasn't blanked out, locked up or complained about a USB mouse either! I'm calling this experiment a success at this point, and I'm going to keep it around for awhile.
Greg
The installation went without a hitch. I set it up with a root, home and swap partition. After the first boot, I immediately had internet access through my office network (ethernet). I also could see both wireless access points that exist here in the office, although I couldn't successfully connect to either of them. (More on that later)
I used the Adept package manager to update everything, and then proceeded to start setting up the system. It's easy to feel overwhelmed when things don't work right initially, but I found plenty of help here in the forums and elsewhere. By doing a web search about a particular issue, I was able to find plenty of information and assistance. Since I wasn't the first person to have the problems I was having, it was pretty easy to find the solutions.
I installed Firefox for browsing, obtained codecs for several audio and video formats that weren't supported 'out-of-the-box', and even found a good replacement for Quicken, which I use for my own personal financial recordkeeping. (Take a look at KMyMoney if you're interested)
I have gotten around the problem with the wireless networks, but I wouldn't call it a permanent solution yet. They were both set up with WPA security, and there is a lot to read about getting past that. Maybe some other time. In the meantime, I reset the security level on the WAP that I needed, and am now happily connecting using WEP128, with no further changes or additions needed on the Kubuntu side of things.
One last comment - the system hasn't blanked out, locked up or complained about a USB mouse either! I'm calling this experiment a success at this point, and I'm going to keep it around for awhile.
Greg
Comment