i'm lost and I haven't started

[neil]

I am not making a good start
I have downloaded Kubuntu 7.10
I have burned a CD from the iso image
I have booted up my old laptop (Dell Inspiron 1100) with it (it still has a WinXP partition on it which I am happy to dump)
Then all I get is a prompt - unbuntu@ubuntu:~$

what do I do now?

[monte48lowes]

Re: i'm lost and I haven't started

Have you updated the bios? I have an 1100 that I installed kubuntu onto. The first thing I had to do was update the bios. I don't remember the link, but there is a bootable cd-rom that you can download the will update it for you.

Additionally I had problems with the boot screen, mine shows black until KDM comes up.

Mike

[neil]

Re: i'm lost and I haven't started

Thanks for that Mike
I updated it from A30 to A32 (which is still very old - 21/10/2004)
but unfortunately it made no difference.

All I still get is the prompt

Is there a command line option I can type to get things going again?

[klerfayt]

Re: i'm lost and I haven't started

I am not making a good start
I have downloaded Kubuntu 7.10
I have burned a CD from the iso image
I have booted up my old laptop (Dell Inspiron 1100) with it (it still has a WinXP partition on it which I am happy to dump)
Then all I get is a prompt - unbuntu@ubuntu:~$

what do I do now?

you mean livecd never loads the desktop itself? have you tried booting with "safe graphics" (I don't remember the exact name) option?

[neil]

Re: i'm lost and I haven't started

Correct - the livecd never loads the desktop

I tried booting using "Start Kbuntu in safe graphics mode" but the result was no different

I also tried the "Check CD for defects" and it returned "no errors found"

[monte48lowes]

Re: i'm lost and I haven't started

I did mine a couple of months ago, and I'm not at home right now. I do remember some issues getting X to work correctly, but don't remember what. Sorry.

Mike

[klerfayt]

Re: i'm lost and I haven't started

looks like others can boot into desktop though:
http://timothyli.wordpress.com/2006/...inspiron-1100/

#edit:
maybe this helps:
http://ubuntu-utah.ubuntuforums.org/....php?p=3821096

[neil]

Re: i'm lost and I haven't started

Thanks
The ubuntu forum helped.
I had to change the video memory from 1mb to 8mb and then run the live cd in safe graphics mode.

Now the next problem.
I have a D-Link DWL-G122 usb wireless adapter which Kubuntu has picked up without a problem.
I have configured the interface wlan0 (dhcp, activate on start and the correct wireless settings)
I have the default gateway set to the router on wlan0
running iwconfig picks up the correct ESSID (I can't make much sense of anything else it reports)
But the Connection Status window says "no active device" and of course there is no network connection

A further problem
I downloaded a copy of Firefox which I would rather run than the Konqueror but how do I install it?
It is a compressed file - what do I do with it?

Thanks

[Fintan]

Re: i'm lost and I haven't started

I don't know about wifi but:

I downloaded a copy of Firefox which I would rather run than the Konqueror but how do I install it?
It is a compressed file - what do I do with it?

open a terminal and do:

sudo apt-get install firefox

[neil]

Re: i'm lost and I haven't started

Thanks but this is the response:

Package firefox is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package firefox has no installation candidate

I also tried to install VLC and got totally confused. I couldn't even figure out what to download.

[Fintan]

Re: i'm lost and I haven't started

Okay, open up adept package manager (kmenu->system->adept). Search for firefox it should be there. rightclick and choose install.

[neil]

Re: i'm lost and I haven't started

I would go and look but I the computer is now doing a distribution upgrade (well it says it is) but it has been sitting on 0% of Installing the upgrades for an hour now.

Should I restart the computer?

[dibl]

Re: i'm lost and I haven't started

It should not need to be restarted, but something is definitely wrong with either your Internet connection or your sources list. You can just close Adept Manager, or the terminal, or however you started that dist-upgrade.

Are you trying to use a wireless connection for this operation? Reply #7 seems to say you don't have working wireless -- that's not gonna work for installing packages. Can you use an ethernet patch cable, at least until you get past the initial configuration problems? The Linux package manager kind of assumes a solid Internet connection -- you're not going to sort this situation without one, I'm afraid. :P

[neil]

Re: i'm lost and I haven't started

No I could't get the wireless adapter working so I plugged in an ethernet cable.

I closed the upgrade application and then I opened it again to see if it would continue. It did for a while and then came up with

Error: Unable to get exclusive lock
This usually means that another package management application (like apt-get or
aptitude) already running. Please close that application first.


So I rebooted the computer and attempted the upgrade again and the same thing.

So I thought I would trash it and I booted on the livecd and reinstalled from scratch.
(Previously when I installed I didn't have an internet connection so it said it would do the updates later)
This time it started the updating straight away and still ran into the "exclusive lock" error.

So it doesn't seem to matter what I do it can't do the upgrades because of this exclusive lock problem.
(BTW there is no problem with the broadband connection)

[klerfayt]

Re: i'm lost and I haven't started

No I could't get the wireless adapter working so I plugged in an ethernet cable.

I closed the upgrade application and then I opened it again to see if it would continue. It did for a while and then came up with

Error: Unable to get exclusive lock
This usually means that another package management application (like apt-get or
aptitude) already running. Please close that application first.


So I rebooted the computer and attempted the upgrade again and the same thing.

So I thought I would trash it and I booted on the livecd and reinstalled from scratch.
(Previously when I installed I didn't have an internet connection so it said it would do the updates later)
This time it started the updating straight away and still ran into the "exclusive lock" error.

So it doesn't seem to matter what I do it can't do the upgrades because of this exclusive lock problem.
(BTW there is no problem with the broadband connection)

adept locks because of this bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...pt/+bug/158043
run:

sudo dpkg --configure -a

in konsole