ubuntu

I have a confession to make: IANAP (I am not a programmer) so when my technology breaks I struggle to fix it with a mixture of duct tape and google! Well ok, so no tape. Despite my lack of competence I have made several forrays into the wonderful world of linux, lulled by a mix of political correctness, can-do spirit and a philosophy I believe in. But, none of this helps when technology fails. No amount of feel-good philosophy can help me read my email which is the real reason for me having technology.

So last week when I was practicing with my new toy, a Samsung Notebook with Ubuntu, I came upon a wall of desperation when the menus disappeared. When turned on all I got was a background. Since I had not made any changes to the default it was still the brown boring background – and nothing else.

So I guessed, pushed and prodded the computer but it stubbornly refused to divulge any clues as to how it could be fixed. But never fear, the internet is here! The wonderful post:How to Reset Ubuntu/Gnome Settings to Defaults without Re-installing fixed everything.

Open terminal. Type

mv .config .old_config

hit return, then type

rm -rf .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity

restart the computer and it was as good as new. All the menus are back again and I am a happy ubuntu person ready to go out and rebreak my computer – frustration is, after all, a learning experience.

Last night I decided to install Ubuntu (HardyHeron) on an old mac as a small side project naturally any such experiment is only carried out under the delusion that “this will be easy”. The actual installation went quite well with only a few minor hitches – all solveable.

The rest of the night, and a long night it became, was spent adjusting, fixing, adapting and tweaking the new system. The main annoyances that still remain are the reactrion times on the keyboard and that the short commands are not installed in the way that I like them yet. Not to mention all the programs (and their settings) that I rely on still need to be installed.

But so far it’s looking good. I wonder if this may be the switch? My last times with GNU-Linux were just explorations.

I unbroke my ubuntu

Late night project