[ltp] T60, Gutsy, woes!

[Richard Neill]

> I'm getting very tempted to do a clean install of gutsy - I'm sure at 
> least some of my problems are due to cruft left over from 6 months of 
> feisty.
> 

Linux generally doesn't accumulate "cruft" in the same way as windows, 
because it has a proper package management system. So when you upgrade a 
package, it really is properly upgraded.
BUT, you can get hangovers in:

  /etc/
	Often, an upgrade will keep your old settings.
	This is usually helpful, sometimes not. uninstall with purge,
	then reinstall will give you a clean configuration.

  /usr/local
   	More generally, anything you installed that bypasses the package
	manager. Usual culprits are binary installs (nvidia!), or 	
	anything that you built from source.
  	[Hint: never us "make install"; use "checkinstall" instead]

~/.xxxx
  	Your own per-user, per-app preferences. Try deleting them.
	
/var/cache
	Apt keeps a lot of stuff lying around hogging disk space.
	Run   apt-get clean


Richard



P.S. If skype input doesn't work, do you have the correct mixer 
settings? You usually need BOTH the microphone and the "capture" input 
to be enabled. I suggest gnome-alsamixer for the GUI.  audacity has a 
useful display of what's happening.