I know I am off the context of this specific update problem, but since I
spent two days of my vacation solving my 9.04 problem, I want to tell
the other new people how I did it. Before leaving the states for Germany
to visit I downloaded Super OS which is basically Ubuntu 9.04 with lots
of programs added that us new people need, but don't know about.
I booted up after an update to play a children's movie for my 3 year old
grandson. No sound. That was why I downloaded a new OS because I lost
the sound in 8.04. My son told me I had to solve this because I couldn't
go on doing a total wipe every time I hit a snag.
To make a short story even longer, the problem turned out to be, just as
told to me 100 times. The Pulse Code Modulator volume control was muted
and the volume pushed down to 0.
But I had to download a bunch of added programs to be able to see that.
At the top of Ubuntu there is a speaker symbol. If you push it (right
click) you get a volume control. It has a drop down menu. Keep selecting
until you find 3 sets of volume controls, one labeled PCM. See if it has
the volume control turned all the way down. Turn it back up!
Reboot. To hear the Ubuntu boot-up music was better than the Beatles
back in 67'.
I had to fight with my expensive OS from the evil empire also. I also
had to pay blackmail every so often to the "e-mail war on terror" from
the virus protection companies telling me that my computer wasn't
protected, and they would make sure that nothing happened to it, me, or
my children if I paid them and got a long number key and downloaded
their protection.
So, in spit of my frustration, which is mostly with the fact that I am
old and have to learn new tricks, I am staying with Ubuntu and learning
it before I try to move to another version of Linux. It has a lot of
help forums that don't want access to your machine to scan it, looking
for any violations of Evil Empire Laws. It doesn't seem to be in the
blackmail business, but seriously wants to help old guys like me,
understand acronyms like PCM HDA etc.
Thank You people who take your time to type trouble shooting guides. On
the first days it felt like I had found an old volume of the
cryptomomicon code breaker. But it started to become workable when I
downloaded alsa-oss and other programs that started giving me access to
hidden controls.