running ubuntu 8.10 on panasonic cf50 laptop.  mid january,
all was well.  then sometime at the beginning of february,
three disconnects occurred, whether related or not, or at
the same exact time, i can't say.

  - audio ceased to work; running gnome-volume-control
    produced an error window saying "No volume control
    GStreamer plugins and/or devices found."
    the "services settigs" gui shows a white box beside
    "audio settings managemnt (alsa utils)" and will not
    accept a check.
  - the scanner function on the hp4580 printer/fax/scanner
    ceased to work -- xsane doesn't find any scanner; the
    printer continues to work fine, and when plugged into
    a different computer, the scanner works fine.
  - the login gui no longer appears, so i login via a text
    screen, and use startx -- no biggie, but what ever
    became of inittab?

these things seem so unrelated ... and i can think of no
action i took that might have triggered them, but who knows?

my first inclination is to reinstall the operating system,
but i thought i'd first ask if anyone has any better
suggestions.  tia.

dan

j. daniel moylan
84 harvard ave
brookline, ma 02446-6202
617-232-2360 (tel)
810-454-1823 (fax)
jdm-LPA1KyJyIuz1P9xLtpHBDw@public.gmane.org
www.moylan.us
[death to html bloat!]