[Scottish] time spent on Linux stuff...

[Kyle Gordon]

Hi Paul,

babaguy wrote:
>  Dear Mr. Ben and all, I think my problems have just been a series of unfortunate events...When I've tried to use the <tab> key to complete a file name in order to find/install it, the computer simply beeps at me - this may be a key mapping issue, I realise...
>
>   
It will beep every time there is no possible autocompletion. Hit tab 
once more and it will either display a list of all available commands, 
or prompt to ask if you really want to display the entire list.

> Even when using Synaptic last night to download & install back ports to Breezy, it downloaded them all right, but when it came to installing them I got an error message that another program like apt-get was also running (it wasn't) - I closed my terminal window, tried again and still got the same message...
>
>   
Don't use apt-get whilst running Synaptic. In fact, please try to stick 
to Synaptic alone. Like any package manager (even MSI in Windows), 
things can get twisted if you install more than one thing at once. This 
lock prevents that from happening. Synaptic is basically a nice frontend 
to apt, so even with Synaptic sitting there doing nothing, apt will 
still fail to run. Don't use apt unless you really really have to and 
the instructions _explicitly_ say so. Ubuntu is designed to use the GUI 
for everything, don't try to shortcut it when you don't understand it.

> I suspect that I just got a duff copy of Breezy (but the price was right! ) -  and I can't change the boot sequence in my BIOS to allow it to go from CD-ROM first - the options are there but there doesn't seem to be any way to enable them - so I can't load a new OS/distro....
>
>   
Breezy is horribly out of date. Free copies of 6.06 (Dapper) are 
available from shipit.ubuntu.com and I'm sure if you ask someone here 
then they will burn you a CD of 6.10 (Edgy) and post it to you. I doubt 
you enable or disable bootable devices in your BIOS. It's more likely 
that you use the pgup/pgdown keys or suchlike to change the boot 
priority. There is also the fact that a common default configuration for 
a machine with no OS installed is to fail over and boot from CD. I am, 
of course, taking a wild and miscalculated leap into the murky waters of 
assumption and speculation by guessing that your machine originally had 
no OS installed. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

> Since I *could* boot from CD-ROM when I loaded Breezy, I suspect that something in Breezy has disabled or frozen my BIOS settings, meaning I must simply donate my computer to the Electron Club in Glasgow and find another.......
>
>   
Getting BIOS update tools for Linux is hard enough. I doubt very _very_ 
*very* much that it hosed your BIOS by accident. It's even more unlikely 
that the assumed accident was miraculous enough to tickle that tiny 
ickle wee bit of data in the BIOS that prevents you from changing boot 
order, instead of blowing away your entire BIOS and leaving you with a 
machine that only functions as a glorified monitor power switch.

> Once again, thank you all for your cogent, patient help. I appreciate it! 
>
> - Paul 
>   
Double, triple, even quadruple check your BIOS settings. Get the manual 
out, have a look. A corrupt BIOS will manifest itself in 2 ways. It will 
work... or it won't. Once you get the BIOS sorted out, download and 
install a newer version of Ubuntu. Breezy is perfectly usable, just very 
old (Ubuntu wouldn't be where it is today if Breezy was as bad as it 
seems to be for you)


Let us know how you get on. Reply to this thread, as it's still on the 
same topic.

Regards

Kyle