A newbie's Linux fumblings.

Hi, I wonder if anybody out there can shed some light on what is going wrong
with my Newbie fumblings with Linux!


What am I missing here? Two or three days ago I had another go at running
Linux, I loaded Ubuntu 5.04 onto my spare machine and it asked me a few
questions and it set up reasonably well, I had a fiddle with it and things
sorta worked, network connection, internet, mail etc and it was looking o.k.

Then I decided to upgrade it to Ubuntu 7.04 and during the upgrade it did
not load two files. I then went to "Add and remove programs" or some such
utility and deleted the old two files that it advised me to do, well that
was fun, it proceeded to try and unload heaps of files, got halfway through
it and then just quit. So I rebooted and it would not start.
So I tried to do a full reload from the CD I had downloaded from the net, it
ran with a Ubuntu icon and after a few minutes came up with a login screen.
Now at no time did it ask me to set a password or any other type of setting,
so I do not know how to go any further, I mean not being psychic, or by now,
psychotic! so after trying a many passwords, including the ones I had setup
for the previous install and also trying "sudo" but all I got was wrong
password type messages,why was it asking for passwords in the first place.
So then I try and load Mint and basically get the same thing! it loads up to
a password screen after NOT asking me to set one!! So what is going on?,
what am I missing or have I not been chosen to receive the password in a
dream! (Excuse the sarcasm, it is born out of frustration)
So then I try and reload Unbutu 5.04 again, the one that worked before, and
it falls over during the install!
I have deleted partitons so that there is nothing lurking on the disk from a
previous install, although I have not done "FDisk Mbrs" on it, maybe that is
the problem. But what I REALLY want to know is why is it askng for a
password I have not set, as I asked before, what am missing?
I am going to try "fdisk mbr" and try and load something on it again.

That was a day ago, I have tried "Fdisk/mbr" etc on the drive, I have wiped
all partions hoping that Linux will partition it for me like Ubuntu 5.04 did
a day or so ago, I have wiped partions using Gparted etc, I seem to have
tried every combination of disk wiping apart from writing it full of zeros
and to be blunt, if I have to do that, I will give up on Linux and just not
bother.
Anyway maybe somebody can give me a bit of advise on where I am going wrong.
Thanks.
Wonko.

On 2007-08-10, wonko <wonko DeleteThis @wonko.com> wrote:
> Hi, I wonder if anybody out there can shed some light on what is going wrong
> with my Newbie fumblings with Linux!
>
>
> What am I missing here? Two or three days ago I had another go at running
> Linux, I loaded Ubuntu 5.04 onto my spare machine and it asked me a few
> questions and it set up reasonably well, I had a fiddle with it and things
> sorta worked, network connection, internet, mail etc and it was looking o.k.
>
[...]

> Anyway maybe somebody can give me a bit of advise on where I am going wrong.

If you liked Ubuntu 5.04 you will absolutely love Feisty! Can I make 4
suggestions?

1. I presume you are loading Feisty onto a disk that will only have
Feisty on it? If so boot on the Live CD and simply allow the
partitioner to partition automatically using the whole disk. This will
create quite reasonable partitions which you can adjust later if you
so wish.

2. Username and password will be asked for in the very early stages of
the install. Make a careful note of these

3. Have a look at the Newsgroup alt.os.linux.ubuntu as well as the
forum http://ubuntuforums.org/. These both have a wealth of Ubuntu
related information.

4. Stick with it: it is well worth the investment of time and effort!

BTW I assume that you have the live cd, not the alternate cd?? The
live cd is an easier proposition:

http://www.ubuntulinux.org/getubuntu/download

All the best,

Andrew

--
'Name him not!' said Gandalf, and for a moment
it seemed that a look of pain passed over his face,
and he sat silent, looking old as death.