I am an absolute newbie who is getting incredibly frustrated!! Time and time again, usually when there is a video and/or audio plugin missing, after I click on the button saying to install it, I am TOTALLY lost. First of all, I'm not even sure where it wound up. Worse than not knowing the path (?) of where the plugin or program is, I am finding it impossible to run the ****** thing.

This truly is one area where this newbie does NOT think Linux shines! No simple to find and just click on desktop or Explorer icon to get things running. It seems like you're forever having to hunt everything down to find out where it is and then having to type all kinds of additonal commands just to get the "installed" plugin/program to run. It sure is much more pleasant to just install, know exactly where it is quickly, and then just click on it to run and use.

What is probably painfully obvious to all of you (even newbies) is that I haven't even been able to install Hardy Heron 8.04.1 on my Acer desktop. When I try to do a manual install, there isn't even any choice under the drop-down partition list to create a swap partition!! What is going on here? Also, one person says to create a swap partition 1 1/2 or even 2X your RAM and another says to make it only half. Good grief, when are people even on the same page?

Finally, can somebody reliably recommend a good, basic Linux (not Unix) tutorial on how "installed" plugins/programs fit into Linux's hierarcy? Not even sure of that and don't even go near telling me to RTFM, thank you. I DID and am still very confused.

One final note. No, I am not a MS fan or lover. Vista is the worst piece of s**** or crap of an OS that any company has ever come out with. Period. Only multi-billionaire Gates would think of shoving it down consumers' throats. A sincere thank you to anybody or everybody who can provide some help or clarity here.

First off, please only post once - multiple identical posts will pro bably be ignored by many.

Sounds like you're having a rough time! Sorry to hear that. I can tell from your post that you're pretty exasperated, but there is little in it to give me a clue what you have or have not done, and as such technical help you fix your problems is difficult.

You say you had problems installing Ubuntu Hardy... Did you complete the process (despite the lack of a swap partition), or are you running from the cd?

If you're not comfortable with the partitioning yourself, you might consider choosing "guided", and let the installer do it for you automatically.

Bear in mind that installing any OS is often a frustrating task - last time I installed Windows, I was hunting around for drivers for hours before I got everything working. A pre-installed system is usually a hassle free way to go, but if you are not buying a new system, that is probably out of the question.

Please try to described what you have done, what you want to achieve, and what has happened.

Your answer perplexed me a little. Are you implying that you don't see any swap partition option if you choose to do a "Manual" partitioning scheme in the table that shows up? Also, what did you mean by more than one post? Sorry to ask such dumb questions, but if I don't know something, I ask. What is the best or "optimal" size for the swap partition that you recommend and how did you create it - after letting Ubuntu automatically partition your drive? Thanks for replying.

Craig

WOW! Big words in this thread "perplexed" and "exasperated"... just kidding, let's lighten the mood a little.

Anyway, I would choose the "Manual" option and configure you're root drive and swap yourself... don't worry I'll help! First, if you're computer has a lot of RAM (more than a gigabyte), you might not even want to make a swap partition; even when I had 512MB for RAM Ubuntu (and Debian, Fedora, etc) never touched the swap partition. If you have less then 512MB of RAM, usually it's suggested your swap partition is 2 times the amount of RAM you have installed.

If you want to use features like suspend (useful for laptops), you'll need a swap partition regardless of the amount of RAM installed. It's going to need to be a safe and conservative 1.5 times the amount of RAM you have installed.

So the skinny is if you have lots of RAM, there's no need for a swap partition unless you want to use suspend.

As a unrelated side note, if you configure manually, use ext3 as the filesystem for your root drive. Any other questions, just ask!

firefox plugins can be "fun" sometimes for video
some of it depends on your video player you want to use
mplayer with gmplayer or smplayer front ends
totem player
vlc player
xine player
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but you will need "adobe flash ", and a plugin for your default media player
I do not know if Ubuntu uses the "gecko-mediaplayer" plugin or not
if it dose then totem is covered

Dear John VV and KommanderKaos, thanks so much for your helpful answers. I appreciate you taking the time and interest to help me.

cbarnes