Programs downloaded with Synaptic Mgr dont open

You don't click on these programs in synaptic. They usually show up in the Gnome Menu under "Applications". The exact location depends on the type of application you downloaded.

You can also try: close synaptic and type ALT+F2 and enter the name of the program to start it.

Yup the Applications menu on the top taskbar (directly above where the "Start" button would be in Windows) is my favourite place to start applications from. Your friend may have put the top taskbar on the bottom of the screen like i did for my dad.

Good luck with this
Regards
Tom

Thanks for replies. I guess I didnt explain very well...What you are saying is what I've been trying to do and doesnt work...Programs appeared under applications button but nothing happens when I click on them..I also tried using the ALT+F2 to run them with same result (I start typing name and it appears on list then I click on it and Run Application closes and nothing else happens, programs dont open)

sorry if it wasnt clear...any other ideas?

Nope, sorry for our mistake. We all make stupid errors at times and i guess you can see the level of things we are used to dealing with a lot here ;) Fun & games :)

Can i just clarify that even programs that were already installed aren't working? or is it just new programs that you have installed with Synaptic? Do these recent additional programs show up in "Add/Remove Programs" also marked as having been installed.

I'm wondering if this is another problem for Marcobra to spend time with or if something else is wrong.

Good luck &
Regards from
Tom

Thanks for coming back....no worries about mistake, I really am just almost as beginner as you were thinking (it will probably become apparent soon ; ) but there are just couple of things I more or less manage to do (until problems arise, that is)...and I read loads of forum entries to try and learn : ).

Programs installed before run fine.

I have now checked on the add/remove and I can find the open office programs I downloaded (not sure if all because there was a few and dont really know what they were called) but definitely the database one is there (and shows when I select "installed appl only" ...Glosstex is not there

what is Macroba?

thanks again

Marcobra is a developer here.

It would be interesting to know which programs run for you and which don't, eg if you do

sudo apt-get install htop

(a small system monitor), and then run "htop" in the terminal, does that work for you?

uhhh..now is when you realize my real level..i dont know what all the stuff after your first 2 sentence mean Bernhard...I sort of guess these are commands for the Terminal (are they?) but although I've been reading about Terminal and attempted couple of most basic commands I dont really know what I'm doing and learn slowly as I'm worry I'd do sth bad and irreversible (guess everyone is when they start)

Anyway, as you know what you are doing ; ) do you want me to type that (sudo apt-get install htop) in Terminal or "htop"?, or both?

sorry i can't follow you any better (yet! : )

Ahhh, Go up to Applications menu - Accessories - Terminal
Into the terminal console type (or paste if you're like me - mouse paste works but CtrlV wont)

sudo apt-get install htop

type in user password if it asks (not Root or SuperUser one) then type

htop

into the terminal console. Note that if you're not sure what a command does or exactly how it should go then try typing --help after the command. Most linux distro's and most packages will give helpful guidance at that point. In the first case that would have been

sudo apt-get --help

Good luck with this
Regards from
Tom :)

arghhh...now we've come to a different issue I have which I'm stuck with at the moment....maybe too messy to get help with this one, if it gets too complicated with so many issues just tell me and we can leave it, no problem ...I am not sure how the system was set up but my user pwd and the root's is the same apparently and i get very confused and I'm never sure who i am and get really scare bout writing anything on Term. I recently asked the guy that originally set Ubuntu on my laptop for me about this issue coz i wanted to start playing around wiz terminal but I didnt wnat to do it as the root in case I do sth horribly wrong and I realised that I only new one pwd and didnt know if it was me as user (sara) or root as user because as "sara" I could do root things like software update, etc was very confussed..anyway, this was his answer :

that password is YOURS, but allows you to do root things - root is itself a user and has its own PWD - all is fine, but just don't use a command like this:

sudo "something i dont know what is"

whereas commands that don't being with SUDO are fine

that was his reply, but I'm still confussed and worried about using terminal....what u reckon? (again, we can leave it if it's too messy...i'll email my friend who installed ubuntu again and try to sort it out with his help)
thank you very much for all your help. These forum exchanges are definitely the best way to learn, and wouldnt be possible without u guys, thanx!

It's ok. Please try to post separate questions separately in the future tho. Some of us only know about 1 type of thing and try to avoid looking at questions outside our comfort zone. By sheer fluke tho i think i know the answer to this one too :)

Firstly try going into terminal and type

su

now it'll ask you for the Root/SuperUser password. Try typing your own password. If it lets you in then all actions within the terminal now have Root privileges. I would close the terminal window and open another one at this point. Phew Root privileges gone already :) If you did get into being root user did you notice the change in which directory you were in? Also instead of being something like

Sara@desktop:-$

you became

Root@desktop:/home/desktop $

so it shows at the start of the line whether you are Root or Sara. However even as Sara you are allowed to run "one-off" commands with root privileges as long as you type

sudo

before the command. Even when you type Sudo it still asks for a password but it lets you off the hook a bit by only requiring your user password rather than the proper Root one. Actually it does then give you 15mins where you can type in loads of commands with root priveleges but only where you keep typing sudo in front, missing the sudo bit means it gets done as a normal user. After the 15mins are up the next sudo command will need your password again. It's worth playing around with this using an innocuous command like LS (should be small letters). It'd be interesting to see if "sudo ls" shows a bigger list of files in the current directory than just "ls" would.

You may want to change you root password to something you can write on a bit of paper and keep near your machine ...
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/resetpassword

Err this is a public forum tho so don't tell me your password or what was there instead of "desktop". the password is the main issue but i prefer people not to know anything about my system if i can avoid it.

Another helpful place is ...
http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=100

Good luck and have fun
Regards from
Tom :)

If you are still having trouble with this then please post it as a new question. Only the most recent questions tend to get looked at so posting/reposting a question just before america arrives online gives the best chance of getting a good few answers.

If the problem has been resolved then please follow the link to the forum thread and mark it as Solved.

Good luck and many regards from
Tom :)