[Gloucs] 'home' users of Linux: sources of help

[Steve Greig]

Hi, thanks for your replies. I have got a Toshiba Satellite 1110 lap top
and am running Fedora Core 3. I am not sure if Fedora would be
considered as multi media oriented or not.

Thanks Christian for suggesting I might drop round with the lap top and
you have a look at it. I would really like to take you up on that at
some point especially if I am headed that way (I live the other side of
Swindon from Glos so it is a bit of a trek). Will get in touch over
that.

So much of the system is going well that I am quite reluctant to change
the distro. This is also partly because I did try Ubuntu at one stage
and (I am sure it was me not Ubuntu) but I found it really
disappointing: I couldn't seem to download and install applications and
had loads of other problems. So I am keen to stay with Fedora at the
moment and try and work on the problems which I have got with it.

With regard to the sound card I imagine that because I can play CDs and
listen to radio on line that there is no problem with that and it is
just the microphone input or something. The microphone did work with
Skype on the same computer.

Fortunately none of the glitches I have got is stopping me do anything
vital but I feel I need to get to a source(s) of information to help me
with general maintainance and improvements to my computer.

I will check out the links you sent.

Best wishes from Steve


On Wed, 2006-04-26 at 20:38 +0100, Quentin Wright wrote:
> Hi Steve,
> 
> Maybe you could be more specific about the model of laptop and
> distribution that you are using.
> 
> With the exception of winmodems, most laptops "just work" with most
> current linux distributions. In particular Ubuntu/Kubuntu seems to work
> quite well.
> 
> A good place to look for the experiences of others with specific models
> is:
> http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/
> 
> However you must bear in mind that things have changed quite a bit where
> sound, USB and currently PCCard support is concerned, so older write-ups
> may be misleading.
> 
> Where Alsa is concerned you might look at:
> http://alsa.opensrc.org/faq/
> 
> Cheers, Q.
> 
> 
> On Wed, 2006-04-26 at 16:49 +0100, Steve Greig wrote:
> > Hi, I enjoyed the LUG on Friday. Thanks for putting it on. Unfortunately
> > I live too far away to come to them regularly.
> > 
> > I have just been doing google searches to find help with sorting out
> > problems with my Linux lap top and have not managed to find a site which
> > seems to be pitched at the right level.
> > 
> > This particular problem is that I can't record sound: I open up 'sound
> > recorder' plug in the microphone and start recording but when I play
> > back I don't hear anything.  I have tried raising and unmuting all the
> > volume controls (hoping that this won't be wrecking any other
> > applications that may use them for example Skype).
> > 
> > Over the year or so that I have been running Linux I have struggled to
> > solve problems like this and still have not found a really good source
> > of tutorials aimed at the sort of level I am at.
> > 
> > As well as solving the specific problem I would be really interested if
> > you had any suggestions for good sites for explaining Linux issues to
> > people who have a very limited ability to use the command line like me
> > and are a bit out of their depth but want to continue to use Linux.
> > 
> > There are many things I don't do like connect directly to other people's
> > computers; use video; record sound; print from the gimp; OCR scan etc
> > etc simply because initial attempts to sort them out have failed (many
> > things have worked!)
> > 
> > I am really reluctant to go back to Windows or Mac but I really need to
> > be pointed to some good information for my level of use if I am going to
> > be able stick with Linux.
> > 
> > Sorry for the length of this. Any ideas would be very much appreciated.
> > 
> > Best wishes from Steve 
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > gloucs mailing list
> > gloucs at mailman.lug.org.uk
> > https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gloucs
> 
> 
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