linux ubuntu help resetting computer to a new state
 

hi so i have an issue with my computer and im thinking of starting again as if it was completely new. Im not sure how it will work though, so if anyone could walk me through it id appreciate it, im a newb too so really simple walk through would help haha. Also will this work to reset everything on my pc, like it was a new pc? thanks for the help :D

jacko433,
Please clarify. Your computer is having and issue, but what your wanting to do is a ...factory reset...???

umm, the issue is with drivers and i just have a lot of junk on my pc, and im not good with linux so dont know how to unistall/delete a lot of files etc. but i have an issue with my drivers and no idea what the issue is and how to solve it. i have an issue where i cant run the game minecraft, apparently its something to do with opengl, no clue what that is and i dont know how to solve it so my best bet was to factory reset? haha

OpenGL has to do with your Video hardware and you may just need to update the driver.

However, if you looking to do a complete clean up a factory reset may be the best way to go. Before you go down that road, can you post some information on make and model of PC, operating system, was the operating system a custom install or did it come as is?

umm okay, and im not sure this pc was given to me so cant tell you everything, but i can tell you some of it :)

i think its a hp desktop pc
and im running ubuntu 12.04 LTS ---cant update some reason too---

think thats what your asking lol, im not good with computers especially linux haha, sorry :)

Ummmm, options will be limited...

Most likely whoever you got the computer from formatted the computer's hard drive in order to install Ubuntu. The "Factory Reset" options that are usually available for HP desktops would not be available.

Best recommendation I can could provide you with would be to upgrade your operating system to the latest version of Ubuntu and hope for the best. Realize, worst case scenario is your computer is rendered unusable. Best case is the latest version has a better chance of detecting your existing hardware. In the event your video card is an nVidia brand, you may still need to run the "restricted" drivers command to properly update the video driver, but "the odds may ever be in your favor".

If you have any personal files, definitely get you files backed up before proceeding. Read through the following and let me know. If you have any other questions. Hope you have a decent internet connection.

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/upgrade

oh, okay, well everytime i go to update it tells me theres an internet issue when theres really not, i stay connected 24/7 so not really sure whats wrong with it, i just think my pc is completely broken haha

Would you please copy and paste the exact error message you get when trying to update. It may be a bad source file and hopefully can be repaired.

i dont know how to update through terminal so i do it on update manager, and i get this message:

Failed to fetch

Fetching the update failed. There may be a network problem.

I realize this may be more then what you want to get into, but the below link may point you in the right direction.

http://askubuntu.com/questions/50484.../525524#525524

If Ubuntu is the only OS on that computer, then it may be easier to just do a clean new install of Ubuntu. Just backup everything you want to save to a external drive or usb-stick, and go for it.

Warning! Everything will be lost, so make sure you backup everything you want to save for later....

okay look nothing is working, should i just factory reset it? because its starting to get annoying and i dont mind resetting the whole thing tbh, i dont have anything important on here

What we are saying is that it's not sure you will be able to do a factory reset. If the person you got the pc from has formatted the drive an installed Ubuntu on it, chances are that he also has removed the recovery partition.

If not, then you probably are going to do a factory reset back to WINDOWS...

Instead, just download Ubuntu and burn it to a cd, or dd it to a stick, and boot from it. The isntall is pretty straight forward.

A "factory reset" will put the computer in the state it was when it left the factory. If it is an HP, then it almost certainly came with some version of windows pre-installed. If you still have a Recovery partition on the drive and you have the Recovery CD created, you may be able to do this, reset to a windows install. Pretty unlikely. Before anyone could give you a specific suggestion on the possibilities, we would need to know the drive/partition information.

You mention a problem with drivers but drivers for what?

Click the Dash icon in the upper left of the desktop. It is the circular Ubuntu logo. There is a search box there. Type terminal and when you see the icon for a terminal, click it. Then copy/past the commands below to update. Ubuntu 12.04 will be supported for two more years. You haven't indicated anything about the hardware, how old/new is it?

You should be prompted for your user password after entering each command and hitting the Enter key. Enter that and let it run. If it is not successful, you should get some detailed output on what the problem is which you can post here to get suggestions/help.

umm my computer is about 3/4 years old that i know of. But i put those commands in terminal and got 0 things to newly install and 0 things to upgrade. I dont know anymore, thanks for all the help, im giving up on linux now and gonna buy a new pc anyway, thanks for all the help and suggestions :)