Problems with 7.10 upgrade

[micromentortoo]

Hello everyone.

First, since this is my debut with this mailing list let me tell you briefly
who I am. I have been working in computer development and support since the
mid 70s. I have worked with PCs (mostly using Microsoft), Apples, Unix
systems and some Minis over the years. I have gotten frustrated over the
last decade with Microsoft's support and wanted to switch my home systems to
Linux. I finally did so with over a year ago with Ubuntu 6.10 (and Kubuntu
on a different machine). I've used a few other Linux versions but am very
happy with how Ubuntu works for less experienced users. I now have problems
with my eyesight making dealing with these problems alone more difficult.

Over the year I've now upgraded to 7.04 and now 7.10 without much problem.
This time I have two main problems I want help with. The first is that I
have an external drive that connects with either a USB 2.0 or Firewire
connector, the case supports either. I prefer connecting with Firewire but
the USB is easier to find when I take the drive elseware. When I upgraded to
7.04 I had a time when I couldn't get the system to recognize the Firewire
but it worked with USB. It wasn't the driver card because both worked when
plugged into a Windows system. I have a smaller Windows XP boot drive for
the same system so all the hardware stays the same. After a while someone
had me load 7.04 with some new files and I got the drive connectivity back.
This time it happened again but I have no connectivity, USB or Firewire but
it still works with Windows so it's still a software problem. I don't know
how to get the Ubuntu system to browse the available ports like I would do
with other operating systems. I feel that this problem will resolve as it
did with 7.04 but until then I'm stuck.

The second problem is that during the system upgrade Gaim was upgraded to
Pidgin IM software. I've used Pidgin before so I was happy with the upgrade.
When I connected a few IM accounts I didn't have a problem until I tried to
connect a Gmail XMPP type account. I've used several IM accounts for a while
to make it easier for clients, using Trillium on my PC to connect to what
they used. All worked until I connected Gmail. I got an error message saying
that XMPP wasn't being supported. It's selectable in the Pidgin menu but
doesn't seem to work. I went to Pidgin's support board and found a few
others with the problem. A technician suggested that the XMPP driver may not
have downloaded properly when 7.10 upgraded the software. Hey it's possible
but I have no way of  knowing how to load  the XMPP protocol by itself. In
Synaptic package manager the descriptions of the components didn't lead to
any obvious choices. I would probably have unloaded the software and
reloaded it with Synaptic but the suggestion from Pidgin was to get help
from Ubuntu support so the problem could be resolved for more users. If the
software upgrade of Pidgin is recent, it's possible that the source Synaptic
is using is the same one my upgrade used.

One last point to make. Before I started to do my upgrades, I went to
Software Sources in the administration menu because the network resources
are in a constant state of change. I had the system choose the best server
for me near here but I didn't note which one it was. Three attempts to
upgrade failed with some source files being reported as corrupted. I looked
at them and the characters in the file did look corrupt but I couldn't be
sure. I went back and selected the  "Main Server" this time to save time.
The upgrade went fine so far except for the problems discussed above. I hope
someone out there can help. I'm available most of the time if anyone wants
to ask more questions or make suggestions. Thanks up front for any time you
spend on thiese problems.

Steve
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