A few weeks ago I installed Lubuntu and not all the menu options were there (system, administrator, etc.). I've no idea why, but it was obviously a bad installation. Maybe sometimes it happens with Ubuntu, I don't know. You could try out some other distros based on Ubuntu, such as Mint.

I'm not sure what you are looking for but, Ubuntu with the default Unity doesn't have the tabs it did where you could go to System then Admministration. Changing most settings can be done from System Settings which is the gear icon on the left panel. If you can't find what you are looking for then post what you want to change and someone might be able to help.

Again, I'm not sure what you are looking for. If you are looking at a Linux partition on windows, the most you can expect is to see it as a partition and you won't be able to read/write with a default install and it won't tell you anything about the filesystem. I think you would need third party software to access a Linux partition from windows but again, not sure what you are looking for.

If you want to check partition info, there are a number of simple commands to do that.

well, in windows i cant use usb 3. and in ubuntu i can only use usb 3. im also missing ethernet driver for windows. and i just read in another forum ( http://askubuntu.com/questions/20771...administration ) that there is no system or administration in ubuntu versions later than 11.04. mine's the latest version.

do i need the specifics of the Gigabyte motherboard to install the correct usb and ethernet drivers?

i could open the physical computer or call frys to see if they have it in their records, but i was wondering if there's a way of viewing the device specs on screen.

in windows device manager in the control panel, it only says it's a gigabyte, not the model, serial number etc. and in debian i think it would be found under system>administration.

is there a way to view the specs of the gygabyte motherboard in ubuntu?

Well, you can see the specifications in BIOS (the model name that you can search on the internet). Usually in Windows you've got the motherboard components listed in the device mananger rather than the motherboard model itself.

You can try http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z...s-history.html

This is a very basic software that tells you everything you need to know about your computer.


On the other hand, if you cannot identify a certain component in windows (acpi, peripherals, whatever), you can go to device mananger - click properties on the unidentified component (usually there's a yellow question mark next to it) - go to details - select hardware lds and there you have the vendor id and the device id.

For instance Intel Pro Network Device: VEN_8086&DEV_100E

You can go here http://www.pcidatabase.com/ and type in 8086 (to identify the manufacturer) or 100E (to identify the exact component). That's been very helpful for me especially when I had to deal with laptops that could have had many different manufacturers for network cards, video cards, bluetooth and what not (and there was no specification).

# dmidecode -t 2 should tell you the exact model of the motherboard. You can also use: # lspci or # lsusb for various devices.

First of all, I'd suggest you install the chipset drivers (these are the most important to begin with), then search for usb drivers and so on. And yes, you need the motherboard specifications in order to install the correct drivers.