Re: Installing ubuntu desktop- I Give Up!

2011-04-07 Thread Guy Schlosser
Hey there Martin, do not give up yet.  Have you asked your wife to look 
at the volume levels once you have booted the Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick) 
live CD?  I'm thinking that your sound hardware is recognized, however 
your sound is muted.  I have seen this on occasion when installing 
Ubuntu from the live CD.  In the cases I've come across, simply unmuting 
the sound once is enough to get everything up and running normally. I 
hope this is helpful if you get the chance to try again.



Guy


On 04/07/2011 10:21 AM, Martin McCormick wrote:

After spending about two weekends and weekday evenings,
basically all spare time, trying to get ubuntu10.10 then failing
that, ubuntu9.10 with orca to install on a Dell Dimension system
running a Pentium4 processor, I am tossing in the towel. The
ubuntu live CD for 10.10 never once produced any sound although
it went through the most elaborate mime I have ever seen of the
booting process. You could hear the CDROM running and the laser
mechanism could be heard zipping back and forth, obviously
reading the disk, etc. At the end of about 5 minutes, things
would quiet down and I hit Tab, then Enter, then Alt-F2 followed
by orca and then Enter again. More rattling from the laser as if
something was happening, but more dead silence.

The Vinux3.0 and 3.1 CD's go through the same
time-wasting tease, making one think that a working system is
just minutes away, but the end result is the same as trying to
boot the ubuntu10.10 CD.

The sound chip set is good. Other disks such as the
older Vinux2.1 bootable CD come right up talking. The ubuntu8.10
live CD plays the melody and cricket sounds as it boots up.

The ubuntu9.10 live CD uses a different procedure to
start orca and one does hear Welcome to orca.

The running orca desktop is not quite healthy, however.
It will randomly freeze, maybe 30 seconds; maybe 5 minutes;
maybe an hour later, but at some point, one can hit a key, hear
no response and it's all over and darned if this P.C. has no HW
reset button. There are probably a couple of pins somewhere on
the mother board, but I will have to get somebody to help find
them and one shouldn't have to do a hardware reset often anyway.

I installed ubuntu9.10 on the hard drive and got orca to
talk after login, but after another random freeze, the system
wants to go in to rescue mode. None of that talks so I may just
end up giving up on orca for now, installing the old Vinux so as
to get some use from the system, and waiting to see if ubuntu11
has any better discovery mechanisms to get the audio and orca
running.

During one time when things were running, I installed
and ran memtester. There are 1.3 GB of RAM and a 2.7GHZ
processor and it all seems to be working like it should.

I know the hardware discovery mechanism is extremely
tricky and I think that is where things are breaking down. When
trying the ubuntu10.10 and Vinux3.x CD's which are based on
ubuntu10.10, I get the impression that the hardware discovery
mechanism reaches the wrong conclusion on my system and tries to
work based on that.

My dear wife has helped me go through the CMOS setup
several times and we have verified that the CMOS knows the sound
is on, that the hard drive is second behind the CDROM in boot
order, the video is set to use the onboard chips and we have a
8-meg video buffer. There is really no other way to set it other
than to choose a 1-meg buffer.

I think we've done everything we can do and ubuntu10.10
refuses to play. Ubuntu9.10 plays, but blacks out and can't
remember where it was, so to speak.




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Re: Installing ubuntu desktop- I Give Up!

2011-04-07 Thread Alex H.
Hi,

Yes, try seeing if the sound is muted when Ubuntu comes up, it's
happened on an old HP notebook I had. As for 9.10, it's a nightmare
with Orca. I had the most issues with that release and it should be
avoided anyways as 10.10 is out.

Alex

On 4/7/11, Guy Schlosser guyster...@att.net wrote:
 Hey there Martin, do not give up yet.  Have you asked your wife to look
 at the volume levels once you have booted the Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick)
 live CD?  I'm thinking that your sound hardware is recognized, however
 your sound is muted.  I have seen this on occasion when installing
 Ubuntu from the live CD.  In the cases I've come across, simply unmuting
 the sound once is enough to get everything up and running normally. I
 hope this is helpful if you get the chance to try again.


 Guy


 On 04/07/2011 10:21 AM, Martin McCormick wrote:
  After spending about two weekends and weekday evenings,
 basically all spare time, trying to get ubuntu10.10 then failing
 that, ubuntu9.10 with orca to install on a Dell Dimension system
 running a Pentium4 processor, I am tossing in the towel. The
 ubuntu live CD for 10.10 never once produced any sound although
 it went through the most elaborate mime I have ever seen of the
 booting process. You could hear the CDROM running and the laser
 mechanism could be heard zipping back and forth, obviously
 reading the disk, etc. At the end of about 5 minutes, things
 would quiet down and I hit Tab, then Enter, then Alt-F2 followed
 by orca and then Enter again. More rattling from the laser as if
 something was happening, but more dead silence.

  The Vinux3.0 and 3.1 CD's go through the same
 time-wasting tease, making one think that a working system is
 just minutes away, but the end result is the same as trying to
 boot the ubuntu10.10 CD.

  The sound chip set is good. Other disks such as the
 older Vinux2.1 bootable CD come right up talking. The ubuntu8.10
 live CD plays the melody and cricket sounds as it boots up.

  The ubuntu9.10 live CD uses a different procedure to
 start orca and one does hear Welcome to orca.

  The running orca desktop is not quite healthy, however.
 It will randomly freeze, maybe 30 seconds; maybe 5 minutes;
 maybe an hour later, but at some point, one can hit a key, hear
 no response and it's all over and darned if this P.C. has no HW
 reset button. There are probably a couple of pins somewhere on
 the mother board, but I will have to get somebody to help find
 them and one shouldn't have to do a hardware reset often anyway.

  I installed ubuntu9.10 on the hard drive and got orca to
 talk after login, but after another random freeze, the system
 wants to go in to rescue mode. None of that talks so I may just
 end up giving up on orca for now, installing the old Vinux so as
 to get some use from the system, and waiting to see if ubuntu11
 has any better discovery mechanisms to get the audio and orca
 running.

  During one time when things were running, I installed
 and ran memtester. There are 1.3 GB of RAM and a 2.7GHZ
 processor and it all seems to be working like it should.

  I know the hardware discovery mechanism is extremely
 tricky and I think that is where things are breaking down. When
 trying the ubuntu10.10 and Vinux3.x CD's which are based on
 ubuntu10.10, I get the impression that the hardware discovery
 mechanism reaches the wrong conclusion on my system and tries to
 work based on that.

  My dear wife has helped me go through the CMOS setup
 several times and we have verified that the CMOS knows the sound
 is on, that the hard drive is second behind the CDROM in boot
 order, the video is set to use the onboard chips and we have a
 8-meg video buffer. There is really no other way to set it other
 than to choose a 1-meg buffer.

  I think we've done everything we can do and ubuntu10.10
 refuses to play. Ubuntu9.10 plays, but blacks out and can't
 remember where it was, so to speak.



 --
 Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list
 Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com
 https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility


-- 
Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list
Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility