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So… with Ubuntu 9.04 out, I really wanted to make the switch-over. I already been running Ubuntu, the old Red Hat, Fedora Core, SuSE, Debian and various other distros in the past, but I really like Ubuntu.

I got hold of a IBM T60 ThinkPad Serial ATA Hard Drive Bay Adapter, so I could easily add a second harddrive in my laptop leaving the primary harddrive untouched and the partitions intact. Much easier, when the primary harddrive is my work-harddrive. Although, eventually, I would like to do the full switch-over, both for home use and work use, but this is going to take some time, as I have too many things I need do on a clean Windows XP or Vista system.

So, as the UltraBay adaptor would replace the cd-rom drive in the laptop and I didn’t want to make the whole installation process to complex, I swapped around the blank harddrive with my workharddrive, so I could easily install Ubuntu from CD. (I already downloaded the ISO and burnt it on a CD)

Swapped the harddrives, popped in the CD, booted and started installing. Easy as pie….within 20 minutes, I was up and running.

But.. there were a few issues.

1. No sound

2. Flash not working in Firefox

3. I was not in the same workgroup as the rest of the house hold computers.

So… time to fix stuff.

1. No Sound…

I updated all the packages using the System > Administation > Update Packages.. but still no sound.

Then I read a few post online about there being issues with a muted PCM in the Alsamixer. But, Ubuntu should already be automatically be using the Alsamixer on my T60.. and when check the PCM audio to see if it was muted, it wasn’t… Try to keep to simple: I just tried to mute it and unmute it… and then it worked. (You find the PCM audio “Speaker Icon” > Right-click > “Open Volume Control” > The second scroller should be the PCM, in the bottom there is a speaker icon, click it twice, the first mutes it, the second unmutes, now try to play something)

2. No Flash in Firefox.

Easyfix. Just go to http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ and install the Flash player. Remember to choose the DEB pakage for Ubuntu 8.04+ and then follow the on-screen instructions. If your browser was open during the installation, just close and re-open it, then test.

3. No on the same workgroup as the rest of the household computers.

You can of course do this several ways, I choose this way.

- Open the Terminal window (Applications > Accessories > Terminal)

- Type “sudo gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf” (without the quotation marks, of course), now gEdit open the configuration file in a new window.

- Scroll down to the section, where is states “workgroup = WORKGROUP”, change the WORKGROUP to the workgroup name that you are using at home. If all the computers you have are “standard” Windows installation, the workgroup name would usually be MSHOME.

- Click the X to close and save the configuration file.

- Restart your computer (EDIT: or type “sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart” in a Terminal)

Now when you go to Places > Network, you should see all your network computers and their shares.

So far, so good…  what is next????