6 ms·

Case in point, right after posting this, my f*cking audio stopped working just like that. Awesome.

by jawngee 18y ago

Herring 18y ago
Sounds to me like you're having some personal problems, like maybe your graphics card isn't supported. Spend some time at ubuntuforums.com & see if they can help.
- jawngee 18y ago
  This is a pretty common dell laptop. If we're talking about prime time, and I have to ask on forums for help with something basic like this, then is it really ready for prime time? I don't hate ubuntu, I just hate when people say it's ready for prime time when it's most certainly not. Ready for netbooks? Sure. But not for a full-on windows laptop replacement. No way.
  - Herring 18y ago
    That doesn't necessarily follow, eg lets assume it's a hardware problem. Have you ever tried installing XP from scratch? After you spend hours hunting for drivers, do you conclude windows isn't ready for the desktop? Or look at all the people having hardware problems on the OSx86 forums. Try buying something from dell if you want to convince yourself about readiness for prime time. I don't particularly care, I've been using it for years & I have no problems with window decorations.
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
- quantumhobbit 18y ago
  This has always annoyed the crap out of me when using Ubuntu. There is a ton of great info at ubuntuforums.com, but it is not well organized and questions don't always get answered. Sometimes a problem will get considered answered without really being answered. A simple issue shouldn't require going to the forums, which can be considerable time investment. Maybe community efforts could be focused on a wiki for more common issues and reserve the forums for problematic issues among those doing real development work. Then again I could just be too lazy for Linux.
  - Herring 18y ago
    Hmm, I usually find answers to all my simple questions on google. There's so many of them I think you'd also have to google on a wiki.
  - etal 18y ago
    The wiki is here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community https://help.ubuntu.com/community Personally, I use Google and pick the link that goes to the community wiki, and avoid the forums. Most new users' Ubuntu nightmare situations seem to get started by reading a "this worked for me" sequence of commands on the forums, trying it, causing another chain-reaction of problems, spiralling to a hell of command-line operations and manual software installations that make no sense for the situation, forcing the user to finally reinstall Linux (perhaps another distro) and post angry messages online. A related problem is that the habits used for casual troubleshooting on Windows -- clicking through menus and dialogs and changing things until the system fixes itself, downloading fixes from a website and installing them -- are generally disastrous on Linux. I suspect this is where most of the land mines on the forums come from. Searching the wiki documentation is much better than the other two approaches for avoiding these problems.
- jbrennan 18y ago
  That's the thing about Ubuntu (or, Linux in general). When a user has a problem like this, it's not supposed to be his/her fault. And yet whenever a user says "This thing isn't working", Ubuntu supporters immediately say "Ubuntu is fine, your stuff isn't right". It shouldn't be the user's fault. Ever. If a user's system is unsupported, the OS should know this and fail gracefully. Don't blame the user. Especially if Ubuntu is designed for the "every-user", don't tell them to go to some website. To them, it's just broken and they'll gladly switch back to wherever they came from.
  - Herring 18y ago
    Fail into what? If the video card isn't supported, it's not going to fail into anything really usable. It's funny that that most people would be happier if you tell them something can't be done than if you gave them some obscure bash incantations. I'm hoping the linux community won't come to regret this influx of new users.
    - jbjohns 18y ago
      Odd comment in the thread about Ubuntu becoming mainstream. Do you want linux mainstream? It's understandable if not, being mainstream means taking on all those really computer illiterate and all their... special questions. But if people do want linux to be mainstream that means coming over the users, not the other way around. If you want people to use your product you can't go putting them down because they don't "get" your system. They're using the computer to make their lives easier/better, not to gain your approval.
tphyahoo 18y ago
If you are on ubuntu hardy I feel your pain. It completely blows. Perhaps this will help, the result of many many painful hours combing the forums. It seems to do the trick for me, anyway. I programmed this as a bash shortcut so I wouldn't forget. I don't really know what the fix is when things crap out, I have just kind of tried things blindly. http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-968697.html (?) sudo alsa reload sudo alsa force-reload also: look for a dialog that pops up, possibly in task bar, if it asks if reload is ok, it is. beh. also related https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/294859 also suggested: sudo killall pulseaudio sudo alsa force-reload also: rm /var/lib/alsa/asound.state (don't include the rm if googling for this post) sudo force alsa-reload http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:faaeSQtYS4cJ:pennsylvania.ubuntuforums.com/showthread.php%3Fp%3D6242032+gvfs+alsa&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=pl
- pg 18y ago
  Is there a new trick for making these wide comments not screw up the page width? The last trick users suggested stopped working in FF4, apparently. What is the latest?
  - sayrer 18y ago
    I think this page has nice technique, although it's a bit different than what your old CSS was going for: http://users.tkk.fi/tkarvine/pre-wrap-css3-mozilla-opera-ie.html http://users.tkk.fi/tkarvine/pre-wrap-css3-mozilla-opera-ie.... P.S. -- disclosure: I work for Mozilla P.P.S. -- I kinda hate CSS
    - lg 18y ago
      The "toggle word wrap" FF add-on just sticks this into whatever page you're looking at, I think. Works great.
- Prrometheus 18y ago
  This is exactly the kind of maintenance issue that makes me occasionally hate using Ubuntu. Oh look! My flash player suddenly stopped working! I get to do six hours of forum combing and troubleshooting, whoppee!

Case in point, right after posting this, my f*cking audio stopped working just like that. Awesome.

by jawngee 18y ago

Case in point, right after posting this, my f*cking audio stopped working just like that. Awesome.

Sounds to me like you're having some personal problems, like maybe your graphics card isn't supported. Spend some time at ubuntuforums.com & see if they can help.

jawngee 18y ago
This is a pretty common dell laptop. If we're talking about prime time, and I have to ask on forums for help with something basic like this, then is it really ready for prime time? I don't hate ubuntu, I just hate when people say it's ready for prime time when it's most certainly not. Ready for netbooks? Sure. But not for a full-on windows laptop replacement. No way.
- Herring 18y ago
  That doesn't necessarily follow, eg lets assume it's a hardware problem. Have you ever tried installing XP from scratch? After you spend hours hunting for drivers, do you conclude windows isn't ready for the desktop? Or look at all the people having hardware problems on the OSx86 forums. Try buying something from dell if you want to convince yourself about readiness for prime time. I don't particularly care, I've been using it for years & I have no problems with window decorations.
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
quantumhobbit 18y ago
This has always annoyed the crap out of me when using Ubuntu. There is a ton of great info at ubuntuforums.com, but it is not well organized and questions don't always get answered. Sometimes a problem will get considered answered without really being answered. A simple issue shouldn't require going to the forums, which can be considerable time investment. Maybe community efforts could be focused on a wiki for more common issues and reserve the forums for problematic issues among those doing real development work. Then again I could just be too lazy for Linux.
- Herring 18y ago
  Hmm, I usually find answers to all my simple questions on google. There's so many of them I think you'd also have to google on a wiki.
- etal 18y ago
  The wiki is here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community https://help.ubuntu.com/community Personally, I use Google and pick the link that goes to the community wiki, and avoid the forums. Most new users' Ubuntu nightmare situations seem to get started by reading a "this worked for me" sequence of commands on the forums, trying it, causing another chain-reaction of problems, spiralling to a hell of command-line operations and manual software installations that make no sense for the situation, forcing the user to finally reinstall Linux (perhaps another distro) and post angry messages online. A related problem is that the habits used for casual troubleshooting on Windows -- clicking through menus and dialogs and changing things until the system fixes itself, downloading fixes from a website and installing them -- are generally disastrous on Linux. I suspect this is where most of the land mines on the forums come from. Searching the wiki documentation is much better than the other two approaches for avoiding these problems.
jbrennan 18y ago
That's the thing about Ubuntu (or, Linux in general). When a user has a problem like this, it's not supposed to be his/her fault. And yet whenever a user says "This thing isn't working", Ubuntu supporters immediately say "Ubuntu is fine, your stuff isn't right". It shouldn't be the user's fault. Ever. If a user's system is unsupported, the OS should know this and fail gracefully. Don't blame the user. Especially if Ubuntu is designed for the "every-user", don't tell them to go to some website. To them, it's just broken and they'll gladly switch back to wherever they came from.
- Herring 18y ago
  Fail into what? If the video card isn't supported, it's not going to fail into anything really usable. It's funny that that most people would be happier if you tell them something can't be done than if you gave them some obscure bash incantations. I'm hoping the linux community won't come to regret this influx of new users.
  - jbjohns 18y ago
    Odd comment in the thread about Ubuntu becoming mainstream. Do you want linux mainstream? It's understandable if not, being mainstream means taking on all those really computer illiterate and all their... special questions. But if people do want linux to be mainstream that means coming over the users, not the other way around. If you want people to use your product you can't go putting them down because they don't "get" your system. They're using the computer to make their lives easier/better, not to gain your approval.

tphyahoo 18y ago

If you are on ubuntu hardy I feel your pain. It completely blows. Perhaps this will help, the result of many many painful hours combing the forums. It seems to do the trick for me, anyway. I programmed this as a bash shortcut so I wouldn't forget. I don't really know what the fix is when things crap out, I have just kind of tried things blindly. http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-968697.html (?) sudo alsa reload sudo alsa force-reload also: look for a dialog that pops up, possibly in task bar, if it asks if reload is ok, it is. beh. also related https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/294859 also suggested: sudo killall pulseaudio sudo alsa force-reload also: rm /var/lib/alsa/asound.state (don't include the rm if googling for this post) sudo force alsa-reload http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:faaeSQtYS4cJ:pennsylvania.ubuntuforums.com/showthread.php%3Fp%3D6242032+gvfs+alsa&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=pl

pg 18y ago
Is there a new trick for making these wide comments not screw up the page width? The last trick users suggested stopped working in FF4, apparently. What is the latest?
- sayrer 18y ago
  I think this page has nice technique, although it's a bit different than what your old CSS was going for: http://users.tkk.fi/tkarvine/pre-wrap-css3-mozilla-opera-ie.html http://users.tkk.fi/tkarvine/pre-wrap-css3-mozilla-opera-ie.... P.S. -- disclosure: I work for Mozilla P.P.S. -- I kinda hate CSS
  - lg 18y ago
    The "toggle word wrap" FF add-on just sticks this into whatever page you're looking at, I think. Works great.
Prrometheus 18y ago
This is exactly the kind of maintenance issue that makes me occasionally hate using Ubuntu. Oh look! My flash player suddenly stopped working! I get to do six hours of forum combing and troubleshooting, whoppee!