I am new to Lubuntu and I have been giving it a good try but confess I am now tempted to go back to Windows. However, I am open to persuasion if I can get a simple answer to two questions.

The first is a hardware question issue. It seems from the forum that many users like me cannot use plug and play hardware such as scanners. Are we doing anything wrong or does Lubuntu (mine is 13.04) not support plug and play or scanners?

I have read lots of previous answers about scanners but they all seem to involve re-writing lines of instructions to various areas of the system - not something an amateur like me can do with ease. Mine is a Packard Belle Diamond 1200 plus and apparently it should work fine on Lubuntu - but can I even get it recognised, let alone working - No?

Secondly is there an easy way in Gnumeric to set the default file location so that I don't have to trawl through my whole tree to locate a file I want to open? Thanks to anybody who can get me stay with Lubuntu with their wisdom.