The support team have asked me to put together some flowchart questions and answers for diagnosing and solving common problems folk have with the webbook. I figured it would be best to post them here to help people solve their own problems and chip in with corrections and other suggestions
I keep getting prompted for a keyring password when connecting to my wireless network
Something is wrong with your gnome keyring file, try deleting the keyring file. Open a terminal and type rm ~/.gnome2/keyrings/login.keyring
My webbook shows the Ubuntu logo on bootup but then goes to a black screen
This has happened to a few people, I am not sure why.
When precisely does it go black? Before login or after login? Do you hear the drums at the login page and the startup sound after the login page?
Try plugging in an external monitor and see if that works (obviously not a solution, but it would tell us something about what is going on) if the external monitor works, what resolution is it running at? 1024×768 or 1024×600?
Go to the recovery root shell from the grub menu and edit or replace the xorg.conf file.
cd /etc/X11 sudo mv xorg.conf xorg.broken sudo wget http://webbookblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/xorg.conf
If that fixes things then I would be quite interested in seeing what the xorg.broken file looks like.
I can’t connect to my mobile broadband connection
What dongle are you using? The E160 does not work so well on Hardy Heron, but it does work much better on Intrepid.
What network?
Prepay or Pay as you go?
If it is pay as you go do you have any credit? (try browsing to three.co.uk, if that is the only site that works then you need a topup)
Have you upgraded to Wader 2.3? Open the mobile broadband application and go to help-about and look at the version number. If it is not 2.3 then do an update and restart the webbook.
Check the profile. If you have connected to a different network in the past it is probably using the wrong profile and trying to roam onto a network for which you don’t have roaming privileges. You should never roam on mobile broadband, if you are abroad buy a local pre-pay SIM card – make sure the thousand pound bills happen to other people. The only exception to this is if you have a Three SIM card you can roam onto Orange GPRS as three don’t have their own GPRS network)
If you do have the wrong profile simply delete it and try to connect, it will pop up a new profile with all the correct details filled in.
For more in depth diagnosis start the mobile broadband client and open a terminal window. Type tail -f /tmp/wader.log now plug in the dongle and watch the messages go by as you connect. The messages do actually mean something although they can be a bit cryptic. If someone has an interesting connection issue I would want to see the contents of /tmp/wader.log.
Please totally ignore and do not use the Windows drivers that are on the pseudo CDROM on the dongle. The installer might sort of run under WINE, but it is not going to connect or do anything productive. Just use the Wader mobile broadband client.
Gcompris doesn’t work
start it with alt-F2 gcompris -x we need to get a patch out to fix this.
I have messed up lots of things
Deleting your home directory and starting again might fix things if you have got corrupted firefox/thunderbird/gnome profiles (you can delete them individually, but it can be simplest to just start again)
I have totally hosed my webbook/I accidentally bought one with XP on it
Ask for a USB webbook Linux restore wristvault. This is a 1GB USB drive with a partition image of a clean webbook build. You need to go into the BIOS to change the hard drive order to boot from it, then back into the BIOS when it is finished to re-enable the SATA hard drive.
So what other FAQs should I add to this list? Any problems I have missed?
@mutunekk it is all about Software Freedom, I don’t think Windows supports that as a feature
Reading all these posts, I am a bit mystified by the apparent attraction of struggling up Mount Everest with a long-suffering webbook in pursuit of the Intrepid Ibex when the creature has such a short lifespan, unlike the Hardy Heron!!
I hope those of us – surely the vast majority of webbook users – who are sticking with the Heron will not begin to feel like second class citizens…
After all, the Ubuntu webbook is a small cheap computer that, with appropriate marketing and support, has huge potential appeal for NON-EXPERT computer users, especially those of us who have glimpsed the ugly face of Microsoft behind the familiar façade.
LOL, we climb mountains because they are there!
The Heron will work just fine for ages (supported to April 2011) and the Ibex will go on for a couple of years (through to April 2010) so the longer lasting one is indeed the Heron.
@Sue,
Yeah, if CPW had brains (cough cough), they would clone Alan’s USB drive and sell them for £10 each…
@Alan (from other thread),
Saying that, I think they would winge if I tried to down a gig at once, too!
It would be nice to learn how to do torrents, yeah. I’m all for learning new skills! But it won’t help the t-mobile webbook user – because they throttle all bittorrent traffic, and therefore I can’t download from it!
Anyone for mail order linux USBs – handcrafted by Alan? Lol.
@mutunekk,
I’ll do it properly, tomorrow, in college.
Regards,
Matt Dinnery,
Webmaster,
Medical Admissions – Getting you in…
http://www.medicaladmissions.co.uk
flogging USB drives mail order is a suggestion I have made. It might still happen. I would like to set up a store so you could order them, not just the Ubuntu image, OpenSUSE, Debian, Fedora, Kubuntu, Linux from scratch (you have a kernel, a command line and a compiler and lots of source code, carry on . . .)
I would be prepared to pay for a tailor-made usb recovery drive. I think it would also give people who want to have a go at programming some confidence – if everything goes wrong, you can just rebuild the Webbook.
I think a post on how to create oneself a USB recovery stick would be good.
That way, people such as Sue & I would be able to setup our webbooks how we liked them (settings, programs, etc) and restore to that state if/when we messed them up!
It would also mean that we would periodically re-create one after a few updates have been applied…
I assume in linux that /home is not affected when you restore programs and the os?
A restore disk would not be too difficult. you would simply need to create a custom iso image (http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu-linux-mint-livecd-with-remastersys) and save/copy to USB and make it bootable with Syslinux or something more user friendly like unetbootin or isotostick (my favourite!)
a remastered CD would work, but I am taking a different route at the moment and using Partimage Is Not Ghost. This has the advantage that all you have to do is shove it in, boot from it (by changing the bios settings unfortunately) then wait. It simply writes out the partitions to the disk and leaves the webbook in factory state ready for the oem-config wizard to start. Because of the way we have partitioned the drive (we just left the Ubuntu defaults) it does unfortunately trash /home. We didn’t really need to do that and could have put /home on a different partition but also didn’t want to depart much from an Ubuntu standard install.
If my grand plan of offering multiple operating systems comes about I will partition it differently, probably 70GB for /home and 10GB for the operating system.
I hope you don’t mind me posting a question here, I’ve used Ubuntu before on a pc that I put together out off old bits and pieces and had it working fine running most audio and video formats so I could use it as a media centre type pc.
But with the webbook I can play music fine but with video I only get sound.
I have searched high and low for a solution and in the process have installed so many players and codecs that I now know longer what I am doing, I seemed to have blindly installed everything thats ever been suggested and unpacked this and that and have got nowhere.
Is there a simple way to uninstall what I have added and start afresh and play a video with picture and sound?
I have tried VLC, Gstreamer Mplayer Totem (saw an error there saying that Xine was not suitable for my machine because its of 386 architecture) and Kaffeine
many thanks
Allan (I only want to watch Father Ted on my Webbook)
please post as many questions as you like, that is why we are here. I think you probably need to turn off XV in gstreamer-preferences as described here http://webbookblog.com/video-killed-the-radio-star/ let me know if that doesn’t work.
oh and do join our new social networking site, you just about qualify for free lifetime membership
http://thealans.com
Question: I’m trying to install the Thunderbird email client/program, and before hand I need to find out if i’m a 64 or 32 bit Ubuntu. I’ve tried using the run command with “uname -m” and nothing comes up as is apparently supposed to. It’s the standard Ubuntu thats shipped out of the box from the original CPW versions, although I am currently upgradeing to 8.10.
Could the upgrade be interrupting the command line? Or am I typing the wrong command line (taken from http://ubuntuzilla.wiki.sourceforge.net/)?
Help appreictaed.
It’s 32-bit.
But just use synaptic, type in Thunderbird, click the checkbox, install, and then click apply all marked changes…
Hi,
I’ve been getting to grips with my new webbook, however, I have a question. When installing and setting certain things up, the dialog box goes off the bottom of the screen and I’m unable to set any options at the bottom of the box. like NEXT etc. resolution is set to 1024×600
Thanks in advance for your help
if you hold down the Alt key you can click and drag anywhere on the window, basically the whole window acts like the title bar when you hold alt.
Aaah. Many thanks!
hi,someone can help me!!im italian and i dont speak english very well…i bought my webbok 2 months ago and i like it very much…but today i try to switch on it…and nothing….just the power led is on….i try to connect to an external monitor,i try to change hhd an memory…but nothing…no logo and bios….just the power led….please help me..:(
Hi Francesco,
your English is fine, but it sounds like your webbook is not very happy at all. All I can suggest is leave it for a few hours at room temperature and try again, but it sounds like you have tried that and more already. Sounds like one to take back to the shop I am afraid.
hi and thanks for your reply…..i tried to leave it at room temperature..and nothing,i opened it to try to reset the bios unplugged the bios battery…but nothing have changed……i bought it in newcastle carphone,in september but after moving to london i lost all “documents”…i have just the box…..do you think that i can send it back to assistance??if i can….is possible to one london carphone?
you can always try, I have no idea if they will swap it out for you.
HELP!
I did a system restore on my webbook with windows xp installed and now when it tries to boot up I get the following error:
Fatal Error:
An error has been encountered that prevents setup from continuing.
Windows is unable to start because the registry could not be updated. To address the problem please contact your computer manufacturer. Windows must now shut down.
I have emailed Elonex but to no avail……
I made a bootable sd card (4gig)with windows xp on it but when I try to boot from the sd card it says disk error.
Has anyone got any suggestions before I throw it out of the window????
Oh I’m currently in Africa so popping into Carphone Warehouse isn’t an option.
Which bit of Africa? I am afraid I don’t know how to fix Windows XP. If you would like to try Ubuntu Linux I would be happy to help with that.
Hi, currently in Mombasa. It would be great to try Ubuntu but I have no way of getting hold of it at present. At the moment I don’t care what os it has as long as I can get it to work then I can worry about that. It’s so frustrating! Do you know if I opt for formatting c: and restoring windows would that work?
I really don’t know that much about Windows any more, I haven’t tried putting it on a webbook. I will send you a mail separately, if you have a postal address I could send you an Ubuntu SD card that will fix your webbook.
Hi, i have recently had to buy a new charger for my webbook as it would not work. Now with my new charger, if i take it out the webbook will just shut down. But for example last night i charged it over nigh all night. This morning i took out the charger and the webbook would not even come on. Any 1 have any ideas on whats going wrong. Much appreciatd, James
i have a samsung pixon on orange and would like to use it as a mobile internet connection is this possible ? if not i will prob end up on xp ;-(
I don’t really know, not sure how XP would help either to be honest. The webbook doesn’t have bluetooth, but you could in theory connect via USB if the device exposes itself as a USB serial modem. The other thing you might try is http://www.joiku.com which, if it works on that phone, turns the phone wireless into an ad-hoc or master access point wireless hotspot. Then you could just connect to it over wifi. You may need a data tariff on the phone.
Hi
I recently had to replace the HDD on my webbook, I went looking for my SD card with the intrepid1.img file which Alan had created a torrent for. The wife had decided to use it for somthing else. Help, I clicked on the link to the torrent in the howto section and keep getting a 404 not found error. Where can I get the image file without having to deal with Elonex Technical Support.
Thanks
Gray
Hi I have a thing called pc studio which allows me to use my phone as a modem on my pc but would love to have this on my webbook, but i don’t think this programs runs on linux.
I don’t know about PC studio (or any software on Windows really) but using the phone as a modem is known as tethering. It can be done in several ways depending on how you bolt the phone and computer together. If you have a phone with wifi then you can run something called jaiku on it which turns the phone into a wireless hotspot and you just connect to the access point. If you are connecting via USB the phone probably looks like a dongle and might well just work with the wader client. If you want to connect by bluetooth, then you are out of luck as the webbook doesn’t have bluetooth.
Hy I have a Elonex Webbook with Ubunto O/S but it does what you discussed some time ago ie:- soon as ubuntu logo comes up the screen goes blank, have you found a reason for this happening, or, is there any way to format the hard drive and then load a new version of Ubuntu or portable windows? Cheers, TC
just about to post instructions on doing a fresh Karmic Ubuntu 9.10 install, not sure what the issue is you are seeing but this should cure it.