I’ve been meaning to try Linux for years now and just never got around to it, in fact I decided to try it after watching Jurassic Park (although that was Unix).
Anyway after switching to an Android mobile device it reminded me that I still had to try Linux so I DL Ubuntu 10.10 and put it on my laptop, wow what a difference.
Installed from inside Windows and running as a dual boot for now but will be getting a new HDD and running Linux as my only OS.
Then I remembered that desktop with a bu**ered HDD, so new drive and installed Linux and, well, kinda hey presto.
Turned out everything was OK but…
It works ok on my LCD TV via VGA, but on my CRT monitor I can only get a thin strip down one side and the rest of the screen is black on black as far as I can tell. If I click the correct places the menus are there but not visible. As I would like to use this monitor if possible any suggestions for a cure would be most welcome.
Back to the Laptop, everything works fine except the sound.
I have 3 speakers, left, right, and a little one underneath (sub I guess) but all audio comes from the sub and none from the L + R.
Now for something most embarrassing as I feel I should know how to do this but it turns out I don’t even know where to start.
As stated above I now have Ubunto running on my laptop and desktop.
The desktop for now is connected by cable while the laptop is running wirelessly.
What I want to do is use the desktop as a kind of server and access it from my laptop.
A kind of home network if you will but I’ll be bu**ered if I can get it working.
Could the CRT monitor problem be a refresh rate/resolution issue.
Laptop sound… this has me a bit baffled, how do these speakers connect to the PC, a single mini jack ?
You could try installing gnome-alsamixer and see if anything is muted in there.
sudo apt-get install gnome-alsamixer
You’ll then find it in Applications>Sound & Video>GNOME ALSA Mixer.
Networking… what are you trying to achieve?
Just simple file sharing?
On the desktop PC, go to any folder you want to share in your “Home” folder, right click it and select “Sharing Options”, then put a tick in “share this folder” (you will probably be asked if you want Ubuntu to install samba for you… say yes)… at this point, you may have to log off and on again, or reboot.
If you want others to be able to be able to save to this folder and delete things in it… tick the box.
If you don’t want them to be prompted for the username and password, tick “Guest Access”
It should now be visable (on the Laptop) from the “Network Servers” folder on your desktop, the “Network” folder in the Places menu, or the “Entire Network” folder in the left hand panel of the nautilus file manager.
Sorry, didn’t make it clear, the speakers are built in to the laptop, will try your suggestion tonight when I get home.
Will also try the networking solution.
As for the CRT, it was working fine when the PC was running windows, so in what do do you mean a refresh rate issue. Is there a parameter I need to change in Ubuntu?
CRT Monitor… go to System>Preferences>Monitors and set:-
Resolution: 1024 x 768
Refresh rate: 60Hz
And click Apply… if these settings work (and they should, pretty much all monitors can handle those settings), make them the default settings.
then you can experiment with other settings.
Speakers… if there is nothing muted in gnome-alsamixer, can you let us know the make and model of the laptop, along with the output from these commands:
sudo lshw -C multimedia
and
cat /proc/asound/car*/co*/*|head
Right, getting somewhere now, monitor is working on 1024x768 and the file sharing is showing as working (not tried using it yet though).
A big thanks for your help so far.
I’ll spend some time on the sound problem over the week end and let you know how it turns out.