When I boot my computer, I've never seen a boot screen. I only get a purple or black background for about 45-60 seconds (which seems abnormally long to me, considering I have a fairly modern system and when the process of shutting down takes about 6 seconds tops). Is this normal? If not, any suggestions on a possible fix or what could be causing it? I see it sometimes when I shut down, but is it normal that I never see this image on boot up:
I accidentally deleted the Downloads bookmark, and I wanted to recreate it with the same icon, but I can't find it.
Somehow, I removed the Downloads bookmark in the Sidebar under "Computer". Is there any way I can make a new one? Possibly with the same icon? I still have my Downloads directory. I just don't have the bookmark under "Computer" anymore, and it has the ordinary folder icon. I know it's not the most significant question, but it's a question nonetheless. Also, I'm not sure, but it may be important to note that I'm using unity 2d.
I noticed that on my system monitor, one of my processes, titled pulseaudio, had a very high priority, while all of my other running apps had a normal priority. I don't recall ever changing it, so it must have been its default priority, right? Are there any other apps like this?
When I open my system monitor and check the "processes" tab, I've noticed that regardless of what other apps I have running, "compiz" is always taking roughly 10% of my CPU. It might be a broad question, but what is compiz? I understand it's a window manager, but is it possible to use ubuntu without it? Is it a default application?
I noticed in my system monitor app, on the "Processes" tab, that one can change the 'priority' of a certain program. What specifically would this do? (I'm new)
When I have no other programs running, compiz takes up at least 40% of my CPU.
Is this normal? If it is normal, is there anyway I could make this program take a smaller percentage?
When I select the "Additional Drivers" program, it searches for available drivers but becomes unresponsive shortly after. I tried closing it, to try again, but now it just blinks 3 times when I select it. Any ideas to work around this? I'm unsure if there's a driver I need. My network connection seems fine, though.
Edit: When I use the command jockey-gtk, I get an error message that ends with:
Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus
security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection
was broken.
So first off, I'm using Debian sqeeze and I'm trying to make an Ubuntu 12. 04 Precise Pangolin Live USB. This is kind of a problem at the moment because debian does not have the "startup disk creator" app. So I looked through a number of debian forums and decided to try an app called unetbootin (apparently it's just about the only way I can make a live USB on Squeeze). I downloaded the iso file for 12.04, opened unetbootin and it extracted the files to the USB and everything was perfect. But when I reboot on my USB drive, the first thing on my screen is a unetbootin menu that only allows me to select "default". After I press enter it just loads a command prompt that starts with "(initramfs):" I can't figure out what I did wrong as I am a nub. Any Ideas or alternatives?