OOPS, Successful Dual Boot Laptop (Kubuntu 9.1 and XP) with two questions

[ransompendragon]

Greetings,

I am brand new here and thought I would briefly post my experience and some small questions. I first got the taste of Linux with my eee pc a year or so ago (the 7" running custom xandros--I switched from easy mode to "advanced" which is a kde desktop).

Anyway, finally got around to buying a Linux magazine with Ubuntu 9.04 with various flavors to try Live (I know I didn't have to buy anything but I am old and like to touch things and it had some good advice). Since I had put a second hard drive in this laptop (Toshiba satellite) ages ago I installed Ubuntu 9.04 there so XP is safe on its own physical drive. Had a headache getting the wireless sorted but did (a little google is a wonderful thing). Didn't really like the feel of gnome so switched to kde.

Then I let it sit for the last few weeks and when I booted up it was telling me 9.10 was available so I started the upgrade process which totally borked things up (it hung and I cancelled which the warning box said could cause instability).

So I downloaded and burned the iso for Kubuntu 9.1 and did a complete do over last night and this am. I was getting some weird error messages that would fly by but once I got the wireless sorted again I think most are cleared up.
My questions:
1. can I capture messages that are flying by when I boot up or logoff?
2. does anybody use konquerer? I installed firefox--the included firefox installer would not work so I installed synaptic and got it that way.
(I found the answer to my other question here (http://kubuntuguide.org/Karmic) --how to see sizes and other information about my disks).

Finally, this topic window is really a hassle to post in--it is like I reached some max length and the scroll won't go to the bottom so I can't see what I am typing. :P

and if anybody has any reason to want more details from a newbie (like how I sorted the wireless connection, let me know).
cheers, all, happy new year and thanks to the open source community.
ransom

ps. Am I cooler if I say Jaunty and Karmic instead of 9.04 and 9.10?

[askrieger]

Re: Successful Dual Boot Laptop (Kubuntu 9.1 and XP) with two questions

1. can I capture messages that are flying by when I boot up or logoff?

It's already done for you. Using Konqueror as a file manager, or Dolphin, look in the directory /var/log/. The messages that fly by at boot are in the file "dmesg", but there are other equally (un)informative (unless you have a problem) messages in the other files in that directory.

2. does anybody use konquerer?

Yes. I use it as a file manager (often) because I don't like Dolphin, and as a browser (occasionally) because it uses a different rendering engine than Firefox. Websites produced by and for Mac users tend to look better in Konq than in Ff, because Safari (the Mac browser) uses the Konqueror rendering engine.

[ransompendragon]

Re: Successful Dual Boot Laptop (Kubuntu 9.1 and XP) with two questions

Thanks for the response. I have a long way to go in deciphering most of this stuff, but I am not seeing anything problematic now when I boot up or shut down, so that is a good thing.

I haven't been doing this long enough to have my own opinion on this or that app over another but thanks for the tip on using Konquerer as a file manager. I didn't know about the Safari thing.

Anyway, looks like there is plenty of documentation to be had for those willing to read!

Cheers,
ransom

[ransompendragon]

oops, Re: Successful Dual Boot Laptop (Kubuntu 9.1 and XP) with two questions

Well, maybe I spoke too soon. I am now in a situation where I can't really launch any KDE applications, including:
system settings and konquerer


This is what I did today:
1. Installed Citrix so I could login to work (and successfully logged in a few times)
2. changed the display resolution a few times
3. accepted and applied all the updates from the kpackage bug fix (?) update (130 of them!) which updated to kernel 2.6.31-16.

I can't get system settings to open under either 2.6.31-14 or 2.6.31-16 and have no idea how to fix it. I will start looking for answers but certainly any suggestions are appreciated.

Also, in general--should I take the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" approach or do updates that are labeled as bug fixes?

cheers,
ransom

[Snowhog]

Re: Successful Dual Boot Laptop (Kubuntu 9.1 and XP) with two questions

What messages are displayed if you attempt to run systemsettings from a console?

systemsettings

The same should be done for konqueror:

konqueror

If neither launch, the error messages should be useful.

[ransompendragon]

Re: OOPS, Successful Dual Boot Laptop (Kubuntu 9.1 and XP) with two questions

Hi, Snowhog,

I would love to tell you but since I can't leave well enough alone I was fiddling around in hardware manager and installed the nvidia display driver. Now I can't get to a gui under either kernel. I get to a command prompt but that's it.

The joys of learning! Thankfully, this is just all for my edification at this point. Clearly I need edifying!

[askrieger]

Re: OOPS, Successful Dual Boot Laptop (Kubuntu 9.1 and XP) with two questions

At the command prompt, try either or both ( one at a time) of the following commands:"startx", and "startkde". If you get any error messages, copy them down and report them here for clarification (if, necessary).

[ransompendragon]

Re: OOPS, Successful Dual Boot Laptop (Kubuntu 9.1 and XP) with two questions

Hey, well, since there wasn't really anything to lose I just reinstalled. (I actually did try startx which did not do anything). I did find some tips about nvidia drivers--and decided that whatever kubuntu is using by default is fine.

I must say, I am getting faster at setting up the wireless and getting synaptic and firefox. I don't have a real need here, although the citrix so I can log in to work is a great thing--and using a faster booting OS to get there has its appeal. In fact, I have it all done in just over an hour. I was playing with display resolution for two reasons, everything looks small and getting the citrix desktops to open and a reasonable size is being tricky for some reason.

Anyway, I am good now but, of course, have another general (compound) question--
>install all bug fixes? ignore all bug fixes?
is there a way to ignore things which modify or add another kernel? I am not saying it was 2.6.31-16 that caused my problem--I probably caused my problem but I haven't yet figured out the equivalent of "set a restore point" to go back to when things get wonky.

cheers,
ransom

[askrieger]

Re: OOPS, Successful Dual Boot Laptop (Kubuntu 9.1 and XP) with two questions

The essence of wisdom in fooling around with any Linux distro (or windoze, for that matter) is to backup your valuable stuff before you make changes. Personally, I make daily backups of the files I use all the time (e.g. accounting type spreadsheets, daily diaries, etc.), and weekly or monthly differential backups of things that change more slowly, like my entire /home/... directory tree. Where a "differential" backup is a copy of everything that has changed since the last backup.

Moreover, I do a full backup of my entire /home/... directory tree (plus a few other things like /etc) before I do a semiannual distribution upgrade. I keep these on offline storage, so that all is not lost if the system crashes. With these precautions, I have no misgivings about keeping my system up to date with security and bugfix updates when they become available.

I believe (I don't use windoze), that this is what happens when you set a restore point. This is not as difficult as it sounds because there are backup programs that do all of this for you (once you set them up) in the Kubuntu repositories. Just search for "backup" in your favorite package manager.