Installation 2(ish) revisited

I mentioned in a previous entry that I ran into a few problems when I attempted to install Ubuntu on my daughter's laptop.  The screen went mad, the colours were wrong and I didn't have a visible mouse.

I also mentioned that I posted a question on AskUbuntu to see if any members of the community knew what the problem was.  As I compiled the entry linked above, I went back to see if there were any suggestions - and there was one.  Another user had encountered this issue when attempting to install it on their father's machine.  But they went ahead with the installation and there were no problems when the booted from the hard drive.

So I gave it a go.  This presented me with 2 problems; the first of which was just a pain in the butt.  I couldn't see my mouse.  So every input had to be made via the keyboard - most notably the tab key.

But the problem that gave me greater concern was when I could not progress past on individual screen.  As the software is installing, you are required to enter some user information such as which time-zone you're in and what kind of keyboard layout you are using on that machine.  There is one screen entitled 'Who Are You' that I just could not get past.  It asks you for your name (clearly I entered my daughter's name) the name you want to assign your computer and finally the password you want to use.  I entered all of the information that was required, but the 'continue' button remained grayed out.  There were nice green ticks next to the username and the passwords, no red crosses displayed anywhere but I still could not go any further.

I revisited AskUbuntu to see if anyone else had encountered this issue.  While I couldn't find any reference to anyone running into this when installing Ubuntu 12.10, there were a number of posts relating to the same thing happening when installing 10.04.  It transpired that if you use any capital letters in the username, it would not let you move on.  So I trotted back to the installation and removed the capital letters from my daughter's first name and surname (with some degree of discomfort, after all proper nouns afford capital letters - I know, I'm a pedant as well as a geek).  But the 'continue' button was still greyed out.

I returned to AskUbuntu and discovered in one thread that someone also noticed that if there were any capital letters in the computer name that it would not let you continue.  I looked at the computer name, assured that there was no problem here - as it was the default name provided...  And there were 3 capital letters in the default name!  I was annoyed on 3 levels:

• Why insert invalid characters in the default name?
• Why was there no red cross next to the computer name indicating this was the field that was causing the problem.
• Why hadn't this been fixed when it was a known issue in 10.04... and 10.10, 12.04 and 12.10 had be released since then?

(Post Publishing Note: +Steven Thomsen-Jones pointed out in the comments below that he used capital letters in his computer name and still managed to successfully install the operating system.  This got me thinking that I remembers seeing a note next to the computer name I wanted to enter saying that the name had to be between 1 and 64 characters.  When I renamed the computer to get rid of the capital letters I substantially reduced the length of the name.  It was this reduction in the name size that enabled the installation, not the removal of capital letters.  But many of my gripes above still stand - rather than invalid characters, why was the default name too long and why wasn't there a big red cross pointing out my error?)

By rights, I should be more than a tad peeved with the installation and it should taint my view of the operating system - but it hasn't.  I am still very keen on the entire concept of Ubuntu.  Why?  I ran into this problem and solved it in less than 10 minutes.  I knew from previous installations that if I ran into an issue, I could dash off to AskUbuntu and I would be able to find an answer.  And this is the major difference in using this operating system to any other I have used - the community.  The community genuinely want to support other users, but by the nature of the operating system, people know what they are talking about and how it works. It's an open environment, not closed off to protect their patents.  I have run into loads of issues with Windows and have found the supporting forums unhelpful and next to impossible to understand without taking a so called Microsoft qualification.

So here I am, I have now conducted 3 successful installations, with only the wife's machine to go.  I no know that I have done the right thing by my kids, as they listened to me talk through what I did to make my daughter's installation work - and they were genuinely interested.  They are at last starting to learn about computers, not applications.

I now look forward to the next 'problem' as I know finding the solution will enable me to learn more about the environment.