General Questions

[JakeLawrence]

I'm new to Linux and just recently made the switch to Ubuntu from Windows. I have the feeling that I did everything wrong in regards to the installation. I downloaded the ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso file from the website, extracted it, and ran the Wbiu.exe file - it prompted to get my info and then restart. Upon restarting, I then had the choice to run Windows or Ubuntu, and I've been running Ubuntu ever since.

Now, this is probably not the way I should have done it, but everything worked great until I ran into some speed-bumps. Upon entering the Ubuntu option at my start-up prompt, I go to another prompt asking me to choose from:

• Ubuntu, linux 2.6.31-20 Generic
• Ubuntu, linux 2.6.31.20 Recovery mode
• Ubuntu, linux 2.6.31-14 Generic
• Ubuntu, linux 2.6.31-14 Recovery mode
• Windows 7 installer
• Windows Vista installer

I've been choosing the very first one, the 31-20 generic, but just this morning after downloading some programs from the Synaptic and transferring a few Gbs of music, I received this error prompt:

[2.879604] Kernel panic -- not syncing: VFS : Unable to mount roof fs on unknown--block (8,2)

After that, I've been running the 2.6.31-14 generic installer. I have no idea what any of this means and I've spent time crawling through threads trying to figure it out. I mean, it still WORKS but I just help but think I've done something very wrong.

ALERT: SUDO PASSWORD QUESTION

I hope the cautionary sign above has dispelled any annoyed gurus who have answered this question dozens of times before. I've crawled through my fair share of threads concerning this, the best corollary being the following: forum/linux-newbie/157773-solved-sudo-password-errors-usb-internet-issues.html; which, strangely enough, was never really solved. Like the user in that thread, when I access the terminal and type in a command, the next line invariably states "[sudo] password for jacob' -- when I hit enter and type in the long list of possibilities I've read (read: sudo, su, su root, su passwd, sudo passwd, sudo root, et al.), alas, nothing happens but the same statement.

Could this be related to my faulty installation?

[techieMoe]

I hope the cautionary sign above has dispelled any annoyed gurus who have answered this question dozens of times before. I've crawled through my fair share of threads concerning this, the best corollary being the following: forum/linux-newbie/157773-solved-sudo-password-errors-usb-internet-issues.html; which, strangely enough, was never really solved. Like the user in that thread, when I access the terminal and type in a command, the next line invariably states "[sudo] password for jacob' -- when I hit enter and type in the long list of possibilities I've read (read: sudo, su, su root, su passwd, sudo passwd, sudo root, et al.), alas, nothing happens but the same statement.

Could this be related to my faulty installation?

What command, specifically, are you trying to execute? The user in the thread you mentioned didn't understand how to use sudo correctly. For example, if you want to edit a file that requires root access (say, to change a setting somewhere) you would use sudo like this:

sudo sometexteditor someTextFile.cfg

Your system would then ask for a password. You'd enter your regular user password, and the program would execute as though you were root user. If that doesn't answer your question, perhaps I misunderstood what you're trying to do?