lots of ubuntu questions... im sure youll find one to answer
 

Hi all..(as u know this is about ubuntu version 6.06)
I figured out why clicking browse on a file attachment for emails windows closes it... you have to click inside the place to placen the text in first (i.e. there must be a blinking cursor) before you actually click browse...

anyway, my questions... I got VMware player installed but it doesnt actually open. When I click it, it shows something is happening (little clock appears) but after that, nothing.. its like i never did anything.. same for sound converter (which used to work at some point). No idea why or if i did something, and its hard to look for on google coz i dont know what i'm looknig for...

Also, i want to update the kernel which is 6.15 something... but im prone to accidents (really badly) and i cant afford any... help in anyway is greatly appreciated... maybe update the whole ubuntu.. ive seen 6.10 etc. or is that the samething as updating the kernel?

With concerns to the VMware issue:
Instead of clicking on the icon to launch it, launch VMware from the CLI (Command-Line Interface - ie. a shell/console). If it loads, then nothing happens when you click on the icon, more than likely it's throwing an error of some sort. Running it from the CLI will undoubtedly tell you what exactly is happening just before it craps out.

As for updating your kernel:
Download the kernel sources from www.kernel.org. And configure the kernel parameters as you see fit. Once you've downloaded the kernel source, copy the archive to /usr/src and then type "tar -zxvf linux-2.6.X.tar.gz" (if it is a .tar.bz2 extension, type "tar -jxvf linux-2.6.X.tar.bz2") - where X is the last digit in the kernel version. Then create a symbolically linked directory to the kernel source: "ln -s /usr/src/linux /usr/src/linux-2.6.X" (if this symlink command doesn't work, try switching the last two operands).
Go into the newly created /usr/src/linux directory: "cd /usr/src/linux".
And run "make oldconfig" to create a kernel config file that's almost identical to your current kernel, and then run "make menuconfig" to bring up an ncurses-based configuration screen, and pick and choose your kernel modules/parameters to your liking (NOTE: If you don't know what something is, typing a question mark "?" will give you a module description, and if the description doesn't help you, LEAVE IT ALONE). Once you've got your personalized kernel configuration done, type "make && make modules_install". Once it's finished compiling, copy the new kernel image from /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage to /boot - "cp -v /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/linux-2.6.X". Then add it to your GRUB or LILO kernel image list (if you're using LILO, remember to run /sbin/lilo after you've edited /etc/lilo.conf).
The joy of this, is that if the new kernel doesn't work, you can just restart your computer, and choose the old kernel. NOTE: Ubuntu may have newer kernel versions in its binary respositories.

Oh, and before I forget, do all of the above kernel tasks as root!

Hope that helps. :D

question #3: Updating the distro and updating the kernel are two completely different. Also, what accidents might those be?

ok... vmware..i tried to reconfigure it... and it keeps asking where my C header files are.. any idea of how you know that?

as for the accidents... quite embarassing ones... some due to beginners ignorance and others simply due to tiredness (that was a bad one - i deleted my etc file by mistake - moral.. dont work as root when you're half asleep..)

Well Ubuntu is Debian based so you should be able to update the distro and the kernel all at the same time. it's pretty simple really..

To upgrade from Dapper(6.06) to Edgy(6.10), just replace all instances of 'dapper' with 'edgy' within the /etc/apt/sources.list.

sudu apt-get update
sudu apt-get dist-upgrade


http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_d...xperimental.29

Quite simple

an even faster way to do the tasks in prev. post: