wnieuw
January 7th, 2006, 10:28 PM
Hi, this is my first posting on this forum.
I first installed Kubuntu in November 05 on a 1 GHZ Pentium III desktop PC, after downloading the iso files. The installation went smooth but I could not get all the programs I needed to work correctly. I wanted to be able to do obvious stuff like e-mail, internet, office programs and rip music CD's to mp3 (my player doesn't know ogg) but I didn't know how to install the Lame encoder, and after connecting a camera to the USB port, my PC didn't recognise my mp3 player any more. I could not record sounds with the microphone.
As a beginner I messed up some things in Kubuntu, so I decided to install it again, having learned from mistakes and from lots of interesting things I found on forums.
Now I am the proud owner of a Kubuntu PC and I would like to share the most useful advice and threads I encountered for making things work:
- upgraded KDE to v 3.5.0
- installed Automatix:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=105343&highlight=automatix
This was specially useful for installing Skype, Acrobat, and I could have installed missing codecs although I already had installed Lame by then otherwise
- Initially there were problems with Skype:
- after a call there would be a problem with the sound system, which meant I had to close Skype and restart it every time. I found a creative solution here: hiding the Skype's sound files! http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=607.0
- the microphone didn't seem to send any sound to the system. I installed Alsamixer where I could activate another microphone input that I could not see in Kmix. Then it was OK.
I hope this post helps people having similar newbie problems and that it shows them it can be done.
I first installed Kubuntu in November 05 on a 1 GHZ Pentium III desktop PC, after downloading the iso files. The installation went smooth but I could not get all the programs I needed to work correctly. I wanted to be able to do obvious stuff like e-mail, internet, office programs and rip music CD's to mp3 (my player doesn't know ogg) but I didn't know how to install the Lame encoder, and after connecting a camera to the USB port, my PC didn't recognise my mp3 player any more. I could not record sounds with the microphone.
As a beginner I messed up some things in Kubuntu, so I decided to install it again, having learned from mistakes and from lots of interesting things I found on forums.
Now I am the proud owner of a Kubuntu PC and I would like to share the most useful advice and threads I encountered for making things work:
- upgraded KDE to v 3.5.0
- installed Automatix:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=105343&highlight=automatix
This was specially useful for installing Skype, Acrobat, and I could have installed missing codecs although I already had installed Lame by then otherwise
- Initially there were problems with Skype:
- after a call there would be a problem with the sound system, which meant I had to close Skype and restart it every time. I found a creative solution here: hiding the Skype's sound files! http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=607.0
- the microphone didn't seem to send any sound to the system. I installed Alsamixer where I could activate another microphone input that I could not see in Kmix. Then it was OK.
I hope this post helps people having similar newbie problems and that it shows them it can be done.