Dell Inspiron missing essential desktop icons

[meddyuk]

Hi guys,

A friend of mine, who doesnt understand computers at all, had a virus on her Dell Inspiron 6000 (2-GHz Pentium M processor, 1GB of DDR400 DRAM) laptop. She was unable to boot it up.

So i advised her to boot up Ubuntu 10.10 netbook edition. I was instructing her over emesene, so it was quite difficult at times, however, she complained that when she loaded up and went through all the instructions as per the netbook "how to", she only got a purple screen.

After a while, we managed to get her to the actual ubuntu screen, however the icons down the left hand side were all missing. I have a feeling this is something to do with the Graphics Processor: integrated Intel GMA 900 graphics, or ATI Mobility Radeon X300.

I asked her to try and get online but she couldnt so i asked her to find the drivers for her network card and she couldn't find them.

I then asked her to update drivers but they wouldnt update and no drivers were found.

I really want her to get up and running with ubuntu and convert her, but its really frustrating, not getting her online and up and running. But she wants to load XP professional.

Can anyone assist in getting my friend up and running?

Meddy.

Meddy.

[mörgæs]

Can she get online using wired internet access?

[meddyuk]

She's not tried, but she's got a Cat 5 cable so she will be able to. What should she do once she's online

[mörgæs]

First of all download and install all upgrades.

10.10 is getting a mature system, and a lot of the initlal bugs are fixed now.

[tails29]

First of all download and install all upgrades.

10.10 is getting a mature system, and a lot of the initlal bugs are fixed now.

That should do the trick as the other night i loaded the 10.10 onto my dads Dell Inspiron 6000 (while connected to the internet via a wired connection) and done all the updates all works including wireless connection.

[tails29]

Any luck with the laptop?