BleepingComputer.com: Edubuntu works but not the Apps

Hi Everyone,

Hope everybody had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. However, I kind of sorta didn't. You see, I got this old Pentium III 866 on an Asus Board with 1gig of ram and a 40gig HDD. I loaded Edubuntu 7.10 on it in workstation mode not server mode. But my problem does not stem from the loading and running of the OS, but more like the apps that come with it. I am having a problem with. Say for instance, if I try to open the Gimp, well I click on it and it goes through it's normal process of getting up on the screen to run and then a few seconds laters it just disapears from the screen and it will look like I never clicked on it. same thing goes for the firefox browser or any other app I try to run. Can anyone help me on this? I am running out of ideas. I did think about upgrading the OS or possibly replacing it with somethings else but I don't want to load anything else considering that I only have a small HDD. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I highly recommend upgrading to 9.04. It only takes up 2.69GB on my drive, updates included.

Is version 9.04 in anyways going to be too much for my old pc? Will it change the Edubuntu that I have and will I be able to add the educational software that Edubuntu comes with?

Edubuntu releases coincide with Ubuntu releases, so you can get the latest version of Edubuntu (9.04). It should work on your old hardware; 1GB of RAM w/ 40GB of HDD space and a Pentium III processor should be a pretty comfortable running environment for the OS. I've run Ubuntu off of a school computer with 8GB HDD space, 512MB of RAM, a Pentium II processor.

MadDawg, on May 27 2009, 07:27 PM, said:

Thank you I just downloaded the ISO for Edubuntu and Kubuntu only because I was enticed by the KDE desktop environment. Now I am going to burn those ISO into CDs and see what we got. Thank you once again.

When I was downloading Edubuntu, I noticed that the Edubuntu ISO was an addon to Ubuntu. Now, I did download Ubuntu as well when I noticed this. But, will I be able to use the addon with the KUbuntu distro? Or, should I just stick to using Ubuntu? I also got a copy of PCLinuxOS and a copy of Freespire. I haven't tried any of the others yet but I am looking into getting a copy of OpenSuse. Has any one tried Elive? I kind of stumbled upon it when I was searching for the many distros out there as well as Gentoo. I think I am going to get a Linux overdose. In either case I still want to use Edubuntu on my spare PC so that my son can use it for himself. You know, I am weening my family from Windows and my son is my first target. Anywho, I got a solution from a buddie of mine who claims to be an adept Linux user and he suggested that I log in to the terminal and run the following processes to fix my problem;

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Waited for this to finish and he also recommended to do this;

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Well, I must say that the end result was very undesirable. I should have just upgraded the way you recommended. Now, should I just reload the new Ubuntu with Edubuntu addon and do away with the old as if I was loading a new distro in a new machine or should I just try to upgrade from the LiveCD that I made? I am so frustrated right now but I am not giving up on Linux because I probably would have similar if not worse problems if I was just loading Windows Vista. Any additional suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated and I will keep coming back for more here and stop relying on un reliables. Thank you Oh by the way the undesirable result was a blank yellowish beige screen with a white cursor.

Those two commands are actually what I would have typed, but since little worked beforehand, I wouldn't expect too much from them.

I'd recommend just reinstalling the OS.

I have read Edubuntu's download page and was interested in this quote:

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I would open a terminal and type (sudo if needed):

apt-get -y install edubuntu-desktop-kde

Please note, I got this command off of this site, so it may not work as expected. I should also add that I do not know if Edubuntu should already be installed, but I would recommend first installing it from the CD (installing Ubuntu first, then the Edubuntu layer), then typing the above command. This will hopefully ensure that you get Edubuntu's applications along with the KDE environment, instead of just Edubuntu with a KDE environment with none of Edubuntu's apps.

This will take up extra space on the drive, but you should still have plenty of room for everything you want.

I cannot test this myself due to a serious lack of HDD space, so I apologize ahead of time if this does not work.

Thanks for your help, I will try that after I reinstall the OS. Before I start. Do I need to reformat the HDD or do I just run the LiveCD and let it do it's thing? Now I did try to run the Kubuntu liveCd and I got the following message;

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Now, is this do to the error already pre-existing in my PC or is this something new altogether? Then I guess my question should be, how do I reformat an already Linux parttioned HDD? Thanks again for all your help.

Fat2000, on Jun 6 2009, 12:47 AM, said:

Fat2000, on Jun 6 2009, 12:47 AM, said:

I'd personally reformat to avoid any future issues. This can be done from the LiveCD, and, in fact, it's actually the only way I know how to do it. If I remember correctly, the installer will give you an option to reformat the drive, but you can also use GParted.

Using the installer - Simply go through the installer and when you get to the Prepare Disk Space (after the Setting up Partitioner window), you'll see something similar to this window. Choose Use Entire Disk and continue with the rest of the installation.

Using GParted - Boot from the CD and choose Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer. When you get to the desktop, go to System > Administration > Partition Editor. You will see GParted open, and display a list of partitions. Right click on the partition you want to format, and click Format to. I'd recommend picking ext3, but you can also choose ext4 if you're willing to risk possible data loss. After that, you can close GParted and click Install, located on the desktop. Note: these steps were done using the Ubuntu LiveCD

Fat2000, on Jun 6 2009, 12:47 AM, said:

I think this may actually be a CD issue. I would run the "Check CD for Defects" on the next boot.

Also, you should check these two links out:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM *
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CDIntegrityCheck

*MD5SUM for Windows is painfully slow, and it slows down the computer. I've read that it takes about an hour and a half to finish.

You know I want to thank you for all your help. I burned the ISO of Ubuntu on CD and when I tried it on the PC I did an integrity check like you recommended. Well, the CD came up with the message;

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Now, I got the ISO from the Ubuntu site and I burned it with CDBurnerXP with my wife's machine. I cannot use Nero due to some other issue that is going on with my wife's computer but that is a story for another day. Anywho, I tried a fresh CD and still the problem persist. I think this is the cause of all my problems, so I went and ordered the CD from the Ubuntu site. Only problem now is the wait. Is there any other Burners out there that I can use with Linux or Windows, preferably Linux?

Could this be a problem based on the media I'm using? Now, I'm using the HP cd-r 52x 700 MB/80 min blank discs for recording media. Burning with an HP LightScribe CD/DVD burner. I don't know, it seems that everytime I take a step forward I fall back 3 steps. Anywho, thank you for all your help and suggestions.

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I use CDBurnerXP all the time with no issues, so that's unlikely to be the problem.

I recommend getting Ubuntu ISOs from here. These are less likely to be faulty (if that's the problem).

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CD-Rs are the best type for the job, from my experience.

From the info given, I see these possibilities:

- Faulty ISO image
- Bad CD drive (on the destination computer)

It may be the burner, but I doubt that.

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No problem

MadDawg, on Jun 6 2009, 03:39 PM, said:

You know I got the ISO exactly from the same place that you recommend. However, I redownloaded it and it is downloading now as I write this.

MadDawg, on Jun 6 2099, 03:39PM, said:

You know I never considered that the CD drive on the destination computer could be faulty. I think I may need to check on that one. It is an old HP CD-Writer Plus 7200 series. I mean old. Now as for the burner that I am using, I haven't had any other problems burning anything else. I just burned a fresh copy of Starwars the Clone wars for my son which I purchase from the net with all the trimmings including any and all trailers but that's neither here nor there. I think maybe it could be the destination drive. I am going to check it and maybe install one of the other CD-Rom drives that I have. I have an old 52x drive in my garage along with a whole lot of other parts that I need to stop hording. Anywho, that is a good idea about the bad drive. Thanks again Dawg.

Well, here I am again. I have checked the cdrom and it seems to be working properly. I have changed the speed while I burn the ISO into CD from 40x to 16x and even down to 8x. This time I got as far as the menu and then when I select the Live CD process I am back to the old "CRC error" again. Now when I try to run the install I get this message too;

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I checked the integrity of the disc and it checks out except for the second copy it just gave me the error message which I assume is that disc that is bad. So, Where can we go from here now? I am running out of options or am I just repeating my mistakes and creating a whole new set or just a different set of problems. I burned another disc with the same burning program and I am not having any issues with those discs. I don't want to say what I burned but trust me it works. Heck I created a backup on CD of my wifes computer or should I say CDs and they all work great. So, I am ruling out the burner that I use to make those Lived CDs with. I am making some blue frees-bees to through around so far I have eight that do not work. Perhaps a different distro? I did try PCLinuxOS and it gave me the same message as the one I mentioned above. I was wondering if I missed something. Thank you in any case for any help that you have and will probably continue to provide.

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Alright, 3+ distros with the same error. Just to bury my ISO suspicion, try booting the CDs on a different computer. If they boot, it's definitely not an CD/ISO image issue. I should have mentioned this earlier, as it could have saved you a few CDs.

Also, have you swapped the CD drives yet?

MadDawg, on Jun 6 2009, 11:28 PM, said:

Hey buddy, I did swap the CD drive and I must say it moves faster than the last drive. Care for a game of freesbees? Or perhaps a coaster for your coffee or tea or beer? Anywho, I think trying it on a different computer is a great idea and I will try that in the morning. I have been at this all day today and I really do appreciate all your help. Well, I am going to shut this computer down and try those discs and see what my end result will be and perhaps come back tomorrow with something to share. In the meantime I am going to do some final internet surfing and then I am going to bed. I need some rest from this undertaking and it is an undertaking. Considering the situation. Have a good night and I will keep you aprized on this thread. Thanks again.