I just wanted to ask the group if 10.04 is stable now,im using 9.10 and its
working well,is it worth a clean instal and how do I keep my home folder
contents and favourites?

10.04LTS is a stable release so yes go for it and benefit from 3 years
of not needing to update every 6 months

If you do not have a separate /home partition and it sounds like you don't
or you would not be asking, then this is a lesson on why many users opt for
one. With a separate /home you would just re-use it and not worry about
losing data. If you have enough hard disk space then it is worth the time to
do a fresh installation and set one up. However, that is not the problem at
hand.

You need to save your entire home folder to another drive, usb key or
partition, just in case. Make sure that you the the hidden folders too
(Ctrl-H) as that is where your settings are. You can do some housekeeping
and delete caches and cruft first if space is tight.

Then you have a choice. You can do an upgrade or fresh installation. Try the
upgrade first. http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/upgrade

If that does not work then then opt for a fresh installation.

After either, copy your old home data back to the new home folder replacing
what is there.

If upgrades are worrisome then stop there and do not upgrade to 10.10 that
way you will have some consistency for two and a half more years as 10.04 is
LTS. Besides Ubuntu is in for a transition with 11.04 and you can avoid that
and see how things shape up. I am excited about the change, but many do not
like radical change.

I would like to save/export my Firefox Bookmarks to a Floppy Disc..as in Windows
XP.My Floppy Drive is displayed in Computer.I insert a blank floppy,and right
click on the floppy icon,click on mount.I then get a message that there is no
media in the drive?[NB I know the floppy drive is ok and connected correctly as
it worked fine with windows xp when that operating system was installed. I would
also like to be able to format the floppy..Can anyone suggest a remedy?

OK first off the drive needs a linux driver on the Ubuntu partiton to
use the floppy drive.

Also you find Import/export via the Bookmark/Organize Bookmarks.

so where do I get a linux driver for my floppy drive?

You need to know the make of your motherboard and go to their site on
the web to the Support section where you can seek Linux drivers for you
motherboard make.

The few systems I've installed Ubuntu onto that have had a floppy
drive have picked this up automatically and the only time there's been
any problems was with a bad floppy disc. Usually 'just works' :-)

Thanks to all that replied regarding my posting..re Floppy
Drive/Ubuntu 10.04 , it was suggested that I may need Linux Drivers as
contained in Fdutils? I downloaded and installed these but the Drive still
does not work. I have tried several diskettes with no result.It has been
suggested that its much easier to copy Bookmarks to a usb pen drive using
Import/Export in Firefox but I haven't been able to get that to work either?
Perhaps i'm just unlucky!or is it that its so much easier to do it in XP ?
I have tried this with three other Ubuntu or Mint computers with
the same result!

Unfortunately you will not find Ubuntu as easy as XP for
this task.

When you plug in the memory pen it will show on the Desktop as a mounted
drive.

Export those FF bookmarks to the desktop where they will appear as a
folder. Drag the folder over the Pen Icon and those bookmarks will be on
the pen

It works that way in Kubuntu. I don't get an icon on my desktop, but I get a
notifier in the top right and if I open the file manager it is available. I
have used Linux for over ten years on four or five different computers and
have never had to search for drivers. Not even once. In the past four years
usb devices have automounted and I have not had a single problem. I have a
Wacom tablet, e-reader, music player, camera, mouse keyboard, two scanners,
a slide digitiser, two printers, four external usb drives, dozens of usb
sticks, usb mulitreader, two usb DVD burners, and three usb hubs. It isn't
like I don't use usb. I rely on it.

I wish to point out that generally it works as you have described for XP,
only better IMO. If I want to use my Wacom tablet in Windows I need to
search for my driver disk and if I don't use it for awhile I need to
re-install the driver. I don't need a driver in Linux in any distro with a
recent kernel. I fail to see why Windows is held up as the gold standard.
This is FUD and is giving a false impression based on an old stereotype that
you are just recycling. You are generalising on one case that is far from
the norm. Linux users are as usb connected as anyone on any computer
platform and there is no reason to expect otherwise.

I understand that he is exasperated. I understand that you are trying to
help. But I think that you need to think of the implications of what you
write before you hit send. This is a Linux forum and I or someone else is
going to jump to Linux defense when outrageous statements are made. Send
him a private email if you want to advertise the virtues of XP and run down
Ubuntu. If you do it in public then expect a backlash. And I wonder why we
bang heads. I need to give my head a shake.

you do jump to impossibly silly conclusions. Who was advertising one
over the other by stating the obvious and what Michael himself has just
commented on. I am begining to think you try picking a fight.

how to do it with a memory pen or do you always avoid
what the user wants.

Perhaps you could use Firefox's Xmarks or similar Web service to store your
bookmarks instead, I find it easier with Linux. Otherwise, maybe a Linux Live CD
like Puppy could copy them from one mounted drive to another? However, I can't
seem to recall where the different Distros store them.

I wrote and told how to put the bookmarks on his memory
pen. That for me is the easier way to store the small amount of space
bookmarks take up.

I have just tried it and will put the step by step I am doing here.
I just plugged in my USB 4GB drive. Brought up FF, and clicked
on bookmarks, and clicked on Organize bookmarks, that brings
up another windows with Library at the top. On the top line is
"Import and Backup" click on that, and get a drop down menu. I
clicked on Export HTML, which gets another window with "Export
Bookmarks File" at the top, and Highlighted in Name: "Bookmarks.html,
if you leave that as it is the new file will be named that. Below that
name is a place to save the file, it should be you home directory.
You can select a different place by clicking on browse or click on the
directory to expand the directory listed, I choose the USB drive listed
above. Then I clicked save, and quick as a wink it was saved. You then
can verify it indeed saved it there. If you click on the file it will open
FF and display the HTML file and show you the bookmarks.
By the way if you carry your bookmarks with you in a "Jump drive"
you can always have your own bookmarks with you like at the library
or a friends PC, where ever.

I told him that and when you browse the Memory pen does not show
in the option list of places to save so I suggested he save to the
desktop and drag it the the pen that is now mounted there.

It probably is not formatted and so is not mounted. Format it in Windows
(easier) or there is a format utillity that you can install called GNOME
Format. I don't think that it is part of the default installation.
Formatting in Linux is harder to do. It is usually specific to the device
that you are using. There is no swiss army knife utility and you do not use
the file manager. You format hard disks and usb keys with GParted. You
format CD and DVD /RWs with the burner application. Floppies seem to have
gone the way of the do-do bird. However, you can install utilities and use
the commandline to do many things and floppies are still supported by many
of them. I do not know if the partition manager can handle them.

See: https://help.ubuntu.com/7.04/user-guide/C/gosnautilus-460.html

It says that you can use the file manager to do it, but I have never tried
because I rarely use Nautilus and don't have a floppy drive. You cannot
format other media as far as I know in the same way. I don't think that
other file managers (Dolphin, Thunar) have this capability either. It also
could be dated information or you could be using a simplified version of
Nautilus such as Nautilus Elementary, so it might not work. It is worth a
try.

Here is some commandline things to try to mount and format floppies:
www.cyberciti.biz/.../howto-linux-format-floppy-disk-zip-disk-create-vfat\
-ext3-filesystem/

If you search in Ubuntu's Synaptic using: Floppy Disk or DOS, you'll get some
more suggests.

The right click menu on the floppy drive icon should have the 'Format'
option so try that and see if the disc is able to be formatted. Also
try another blank floppy just in case it's a bad one.

Just a point or two - why bother with floppy discs when the USB flash
drive is so much easier to work with ? Presumably you backup your data
somehow ( external HD perhaps ? ) and that's also a better place to
export your bookmarks to.

He could have an older computer without USB, but its doubtful.

He..does have a computer with usb!

I have gone back to Ubuntu 10.04. I do not like xfce or kubnntu much, probably
because after years of use, I still like gnome better.