Sigh ... Well, I thought I had things pretty well in hand when I went off yesterday afternoon to meet up with MAL and head for the Big City. Alas, once again I was overconfident.
In recounting my computer adventures to MAL—and yes, griping about a few things—he reminded me that the install from the live CD is a lean version of Kubuntu. To get more functionality, I’d need to upgrade many files. That didn’t seem too daunting; after all, I’ve become accustomed to using Adept and Synaptic. (For the non-Linux-using readers out there, Adept or Synaptic are software-management programs. One can choose to download and install—or remove—one or many programs per session. It’s a very handy and easy way of managing files—when everything in the process works as intended.) So, I awoke this morning, happy and cheerful after a nice evening with MAL and another dear friend and optimistic I would get my USB problem fixed.
Then I looked at the list of upgradable files ... Yowza. Where to start? It isn’t a simple matter of clicking on the “upgrade all” button—that would get us FAPped. We need to pick and choose from the files, trying to keep the upgrades on the smallish side (say, under 50 MB), while also trying to prioritize them. And—alas yet again—I am not enough of a Kubuntu geek to know which system files should be upgraded first, and which can come later.
So ... I choose my 50 MB worth, and click “apply changes” ... and wouldn’t you know it, our satlink, which had been working well up until that point, started flaking out. Several files were stalled for a long time in their downloads, and at least one file failed to download completely. I wasn’t sure what it did, and I didn’t want all that bandwidth to be wasted, so I opted to allow the install to finish (unfortunately, the choices a user has are to proceed or to cancel all the processes). Then, cautiously, I shut down the system and rebooted ...
And got a “file not found” error. Ouch!!
So, I reinstalled Kubuntu again this morning! The good news is I’m getting better each time—I didn’t have to muck about with two monitors this time, as I knew how to get around that pesky bug; and it’s now a straightforward matter for me to change the graphics and monitor configurations, as well as the menu.lst file. The bad news is I wasted loads of bandwidth in that failed upgrade, so I probably should wait another day to get the software I need to access the hard drive temporarily holding my data.
And as for me ... well, I’m going to go outside. It’s a gorgeous, sunny spring day here; I need the Vitamin D and I also need to burn off just a wee bit of stress.
Another Day, Another Install ...
Was that in big, friendly letters?
Submitted by Sunni on Fri, 2008-04-04 15:31.
I have been partial to Synaptic for some time, but I didn’t know that. In playing around with it just now, I also see that it’s more flexible than I realized in other ways. Not sure I see a reason to bother with Adept.
Yes!
Submitted by Presto on Fri, 2008-04-04 16:21.
Just be sure to have your towel with you, and don't listen to Vogon poetry!
Seriously, when doing a Kubuntu install, the first thing that I do after the basic install is set up Synaptic. I don't care for Adept much at all.
Don't panic!
If you're using Synaptic, next time a download craps out on you, don't panic. The files you downloaded, including the one partially downloaded are cached. You can try the download again, and it will pick up where you left off. It happens to me all the time, and I almost never have to re-download the files.