Re: [tlug] Ubuntu 10.04 - kernel update snafu

[Brian Chandler <brian@example.com>]

On 2014-06-09 22:10, Jim Breen wrote:
> Three days ago an updated kernel and headers arrived for
> 10.04, taking it to 2.6.32-61. I updated (as usual), ...

Yes, I am another victim. Please excuse if I drift into rant/essay, but 
there are a number of specific questions, and I would be eternally 
grateful for help on any of them. (Just quote the bit, and throw the 
rest away. Actually the more acute questions are nearer the end.)

First aside: If after reading a bit, you want to scream - "You are doing 
it wrong, you should be using Debian", or similar, please do. My biggest 
disappointment in adopting Linux was to find that the notorious hundreds 
of text files for configuration are hidden away never to be found.

Since Ubuntu 10.04 is no longer supported, and my previous experience of 
"Upgrading" to Unity was worse than nightmare, I installed Mint 17 
Cinnamon. I read some stuff about "modern technologies" or similar, and 
thought that as long as I get used to something, the important thing is 
that it does not have to change for at least n years. But I'm not sure 
that "modern technologies" (in the sense these people use the phrase) 
and I get on together. I am getting older, and my eyesight is not what 
it once was; even though I'm working on a Chopin study, my fingers don't 
seem to be as nimble as they were. So for me there are some major 
usability issues: I want legibility of words, not a dazzling array of 
blobs in shades of grey, and I also want as few finger slips as possible 
to take me somewhere unexpected that it takes 20 minutes websearching to 
recover from. This appears to be the polar opposite of all modern 
interface "design". Every combination of finger movements does something 
(unpredictable), and "Design" means darkish grey text on a 
light-to-medium grey background, with splashes of 56% grey for contrast. 
And transparency and wobbliness. I just want to get rid of all this 
crap; I switched to the "Mint-X" (whatever that means) "theme", and some 
things got better, but the terminal window, F G'DNS SKE, is slightly 
transparent. How do I escape this madness?

In the course of this major upheaval I did at least learn something. My 
hard disk seems to have two partitions, so I was able to keep the Ubuntu 
10.04 partition, and by connecting a PS2 keyboard (won't work from a USB 
one), I can press any/all of Esc, Del, F12, to select an older version 
of the 10.04 kernel, which then seems to run fine. (Fine-ish. I don't 
*like* Ubuntu, particularly, but I can manage with it. I dream that one 
day I might meet something new that I actually like.) How would I go 
about deleting the latest version, so the automatic boot might even go 
to the working 10.04?

My immediate problem is that I am involved in a largish translation 
project, of some school arithmetic materials. And this is supposed to be 
done in Memsource. So I downloaded a file called "Mem_something.run", 
and after a bit of fiddle executed the version said to be for Ubuntu 12 
(listed here: 
http://wiki.memsource.com/wiki/MemSource_Editor_Installation ). Despite 
being 15MB, it simply does nothing. How would I get a clue whether this 
is because it really only runs on "Official Vanilla Unity Ubuntu" or 
what? (If I were a Debian user would using something notionally only 
available for "Ubuntu" be harder? Easier? Impossible?)

Of course, I do not think Memsource is the right tool for this job: if 
you have a manual, preferably translating between two Indo-european 
languages, it may be brilliant at picking up common, almost identical 
sentences. Generally for Japanese it strikes me as miserable, ...well 
perhaps that's not relevant here, except to note that the programs I 
have most difficulty getting to work in Linux are ones I don't want to 
use really.

Since there is a Memsource version for Ubu 10 and 12, I chose 12, 
thinking it closer to Mint 17. But should I think Old Better?

That is enough. I read Stephen Fry's novel "Making History" this week - 
very recommended. Depressingly thought-provoking.

Brian Chandler