Ubuntu on Dell Recovery Partition?

Woo! Proud of ya, pal!

IIRC It automatically mounts all partitions by default.

First get internet up and running (Wireless). You'll need it for everything. Like for example the restricted drivers package - when you enable it, it connects to the internet and downloads teh latest driver in the repository.

Hope that got you started (=

 

It's a relatively simple thing to tell Ubuntu not to automount a partition, I just don't remember how

Here's an overview - there are many others, and probably clearer.... This one suggests editing fstab, and replacing auto with noauto in the line describing the unwanted Dell partition.

Here's what you would type into a terminal to access fstab.

Code:

sudo gedit /etc/fstab

It'll ask for your password, then let you in. I always make really simple passwords

I'm not sure where exactly to put the "noauto" command, or if it really matters. Take a look at this Ubuntu thread I plucked out of the huge return from a search on Ubuntu forums
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=676950

You'll see "noauto" in the last two lines, the ones for floppy and cdrom.

So this is not a complete answer to your question, but points in the right direction anyway. I know it's just a matter of making a small change to fstab, but I don't have the detailed answer. Sorry

 

Hey, thanks for the replies, guys. I actually tried to get it to boot with my MediaDirect button, and ended up screwing Windows and Ubuntu, so I used the LiveCD to recover some data from my Windows partition, and reinstalled Ubuntu, then Windows. Only now, the GRUB boot screen doesn't show up first, and I'm not sure what to do about it, but I can always install Ubuntu again, as it's not so intense to get working as Windows is, or at least not for me, because I don't have so many things to optimize and update, because I don't know how too.......

 

Lol. You live and learn, don't you? Well I'm sure that by now you have garnered enough experience to install both Windows and Ubuntu and dual boot. After that you have to get wireless to work. Then it becomes serious business .

 

If it's just an Internet connection, I can use a wired connection.

But I do have a question about wireless: what do I use to see available networks? When I click on the wless icon, it gives me the option to connect to a network, but I have to know the SSID?

In linux do you use another program to connect? Fill me in.

 

Hmm, if you have a wireless network floating around, then you should be able to see it in the wifi networks section. It's pretty straightforward, really. If not you can use the command line. To use that, you'll have to know the interface of your card - it can be eth0, eth1, wlan0, etc. once you know the interface just type "scan < interface >" and you should be able to see the list of all networks.

And yes you can also manually enter the SSID.

No, you don't need another program for wireless .

 

Oh. K, thanks. I'll have to work on it some more.....perhaps I need a driver for my card.

Is there somewhere in Ubuntu like device manager in Windows, where I can see the devices?

 

To see your devices try typing "lspci" in the command line (=

Sometimes your card is detected but it refuses to see your wireless network - like I have the Intel 3945ABG but it refuses to connect to my WEP encrypted network. I've tried 5* distros, none of them worked.

*Not an exact number =<

 

Thank, you. Most helpful. lspci, huh? Cool beans.....

 

ls stands for list (similar to how you type "dir" in DOS).
pci is well, pci.

pretty much asks it to list all pci devices .

 

Hi, pix -
What happened here is easy to explain. I'm not going to bother with qualifying the next few sentences; there may be exceptions for the uber-geeks but the following is true for the rest of us...

Windows cannot boot up without the Master Boot Record, a small packet of data placed during installation at the very beginning of the HDD that tells Windows specific data about itself; where it is, what it is, etc.
Linux doesn't need an MBR but it does need some sort of bootloader. There are two dominant bootloaders in the Linux world, GRUB and Lilo. With Ubuntu it's GRUB.
Most everyone installs Windows first. That's because when you install Windows, then Linux, the GRUB bootloader is capable of tweaking the Windows MBR so that 1) Windows will still successfully boot, and 2) you get the choice of booting Linux instead. Everyone's happy.
If you install Linux to a HDD, then install Windows second, Windows will write its MBR to the beginning of the disk regardless of what was there. Linux gets broken.

So you might want to start over AGAIN and install Windows to the front (left-hand side of the drive in the graphical representations we can see), then install Linux second and allow GRUB to install to hd0. That's the default install location for GRUB. If everything goes well (it should) GRUB will tweak the Windows MBR and you'll be back in the saddle.

EDIT: I've seen posts where people went in and fixed GRUB but my brain went into vapor lock trying to follow. For you, with fresh installs and nothing to lose but some time, it might be easier to just start over.

Regarding wireless, here's a quick and easy test if nothing else is making sense right away. Does your library or Staples store or some other place offer unencrypted wi-fi hotspots? When I turn my Ubuntu 7.10 lappy on near a wi-fi hotspot I'll get a little blue and green spinning thingie in the upper right corner. When it stops spinning you should see an icon with bars in it like the typical cell phone connection strength icon. Click on the icon and it'll give a quick description of the hotspot. Don't go to Synaptic or "Add/Remove" immediately - open Firefox and hopefully some sort of window from the hotspot provider will pop up asking you to read the user agreement and click "Accept" at the bottom of the page. Once you click that you should be online.

If that works and you can't connect at home, at least you know it's probably related to your router or some sort of encryption complication you'll have to work thru..

 

Actually I just had to reinstall Ubuntu, and that fixed it. So we're good to go.

Except I don't know squat about Ubuntu, and so I'm running into errors left and right.

Can't install Adblock Plus or Adobe Flash plugins for Firefox, the first wasn't supported by my hardware, and the second couldn't find new-plugin module or some such foolishness.....

I'll try just installing all the updates, but the download speed is acting funny....

And I think I know why the sound didn't work before - I downloaded the generic stuff instead of the i386 stuff...

 

If you couldn't install the extensions/plug-ins yourself, try dragging and dropping the xpi into the browser window.

I don't remember how I got flash to work

 

I tried downloading the flash player several times from Ubuntu repos. On dial-up even.
The download finished and I got a quick error message - md5sum did not match.

Then, a coupla weeks ago while doing the latest update I saw it install flash player so maybe it's working now.

What's a good website to test flash player anyway? Being on dial-up my web browsing is somewhat restricted.

Glad to hear you were able to get Ubuntu going again by just reinstalling it! I didn't know if you had the partitions ready or what...

Adblock Plus not supported by hardware?? Weird

Saw your other thread where you got wireless working. Good job

 

To test Flash, you could go here:

http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/about/

 

Thanks, Amol -
According to the link you supplied, Flash is installed. Even tells me the version!

"Version 9,0,115,0 Installed Successfully"

Don't know why the download from repo didn't work but appears someone figured it out and fixed it.

Appreciate the help, and I apologize for wandering off-topic...

 

I got it working; I just had to enable repositories.

But I still haven't been able to install things from the console (i.e. sudo apt-get install) but I can install from the package manager....

And sound still isn't working!

 

hmm, what app were you trying to install? What error message do you get?

If you haven't installed mplayer, do this in the command line:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mplayer

Lemme know what happens - typing mplayer in the terminal should open up mplayer.

 

pix -
Take look at this guy's blog and see if his two-step directions do anything for your sound.

 

Starting a new thread. Check there for more.

\\edit

I won't start that thread yet; the link Telkwa posted looks promising.

But I still can only install stuff from the package manager; not a major problem.....

 

Glad to see you reply to the guy's blog

 

Hey, and my sound is working!!!!!!!