Various niggles with 10.04

[melmerby]

Hi All
Several questions from a complete novice in Linux!!:

Can anybody tell me how to check whether serial (COM) ports are correctly set up as I have two peripherals that require them and both report "No serial ports found"

When loading new software how due you ensure it is correctly loaded?
e.g. I am trying to load an FTDI driver and also upgrade Java without success with either.

Open Office seems to be a couple of apps short, e.g. I do not have the "Base" app when I check the office programs section.

Is there any way to check the staus of computer hardware similar to device manager on windows XP?

Thank you
Keith

Kubuntu 10.04 clean install on HDD (no Windows) Athlon XP2500+, 80GB HD, CDrom, DVD RW 512Mb memory, FX5200 graphics

[GreyGeek]

Re: Various niggles with 10.04

Hi All
Several questions from a complete novice in Linux!!:

Can anybody tell me how to check whether serial (COM) ports are correctly set up as I have two peripherals that require them and both report "No serial ports found"

If you are running on a laptop you will need to get a USB-to-Serial adapter. IF you are running on a desktop and you can see two serial ports (DB9 or DB15 or DB25) in back then try listing your hardware in a Konsole:
lshw
and see if they are listed.

When loading new software how due you ensure it is correctly loaded?
e.g. I am trying to load an FTDI driver and also upgrade Java without success with either.

If you use KPackageKit to install Synaptic and then use Synaptic from now on to install software from the repositories (and ONLY from the repositories) then apps will install correctly and leave icons in the menu. A couple versions of Java are in the repository.

If you download a .deb file from a TRUSTED website then you can use Dolphin and right click on that deb file and choose "Open with --> Gdebi Package installer".

If you download a tar or binary file then you are on your own, especially if it is from "Honest John's Trusty Apps" website. If you have to ask how to install tars and binaries you are ready to install them. IF you want to practice then install VirtualBox from the repository and use it to install a copy of Kubuntu 10.4 as a guest OS. Take a Snapshot of the guest OS. Then do you test installations of tars and binaries in it until you get it figured out. If you mess up restore to your snapshot and try again.

Open Office seems to be a couple of apps short, e.g. I do not have the "Base" app when I check the office programs section.

Not everyone needs the lesser used components of OOo so they aren't in the default install. Open Synaptic and in the search textbox put "openoffice". In the app listing panel you'll see the OpenOffice.base and other peripherals and tools. Install all that you want.

Is there any way to check the staus of computer hardware similar to device manager on windows XP?
...

In KMenu --> Settings --> Systemsettings, on the General Tab, at the bottom, are the basic hardware devices.

In a Konsole you can run

sudo lshw

and

sudo lspci

to get listings of your hardware and pci devices. If a device doesn't show up it's not being detected, which may mean it is not working.

You can also check KMenu --> System --> KSystemLogs to see the various log messages for the system, kernel, daemons and xorg (video). If there are error msgs in those logs they MAY mean trouble or they may mean that something was looked for but wasn't found. You'll have to decide which.

[melmerby]

Re: Various niggles with 10.04

Thanks for those tips. I'll get onto it.

The PC is a desktop which runs Windows XP but I had a spare 80GB drive which I have installed Kubuntu 10.04 on seperately and boot up from BIOS with that drive instead of Windows.

Keith