Thanks for taking the time and effort into reporting the error.

> I got on the computer & signed in as the user. No taskbar came up - but an
> error msg came up regarding the lack of taskbar. I saw a few icons for it way
> off to the side, and while trying to move it back to the bottom of the screen,
> I accidentally clicked on the update symbol. I ran the updates & got error
> message for the second time, something about needing to fork. (No idea what
> that even is.) Closed that window, noticed there still wasn't a taskbar - then
> got a window that said, "The application Plasma Workspace (plasma) crashed and
> caused the signal 11 (SIGSEGV)." I have no idea what that means, don't know how
> to even read the issues others have posted here, and don't know what to do
> now...I just know I have to be at work online in a couple of hours.
> 

Mh, the "fork" thing is something related to the packages manager that Ubuntu/Kubuntu uses.

A "crash" means that the application (in this case: "Plasma", the desktop and the panel on the bottom), had an error and had to close unexpectedly.

We can't determine which kind of error is it until we get some information about the error, called "backtrace".
If you experience this error again, you can check the "Show details" checkbox and some text will appear in the editor below. Then you can save that text and later copy it here.

> I will totally admit I'm stupid about all this and don't know much about
> Linux/Ubuntu. I'm not the one who put it on this computer. So I'm trying to get
> with it and learn what I can. I'm just lost and confused - and NEED my computer
> to work!
> 

You can ask your friend for more information and also you can browse the KDE (http://forum.kde.org) and Ubuntu forums (http://ubuntuforums.org/) to ask common questions and fix some situations that could lead to errors.

> Thank you in advance for the help.
> Katherine

Regards
Dario

Hi Dario - 

Thank you SO much for your comments. It has happened again - not the crash, but the part that occurs when I'm trying to download the updates. This is what the box says:  The backend took too much time to process the synchronous request - you need to fork!  And I don't understand what "forking" is. Googling it hasn't been any help.

I am unable to ask the "friend" who put the computer together. Not an option. 

But it seems like my desktop has been "stripped". I no longer have the taskbar or anything else that looks familiar. I can't take a screenshot because I can't get that program to open. I can't get anything to open - there isn't a menu anywhere.

I will copy the error message I get the next time it crashes. I am extremely annoyed since I can't get anything to work right, don't have a taskbar to open anything, etc. I'll go to the forums you suggested as well. I am totally lost and not only do I not "get" what's going on, I don't have any idea how to fix it. <sigh>

Thank you again,
Katherine

You can launch applications pressing Alt+F2, a bar to enter command should appear.
You can type "plasma" in that bar and press Return to try to reload the desktop+taskbar (Indeed if your desktop+taskbar is missing it is because Plasma is not running.. so there is an error)

- With "ksnapshot" you can take a screenshot
- With "dolphin" you can launch the file manager.

The "fork" message is an Ubuntu error already reported here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/packagekit/+bug/272410

Regards

Closing the report as INVALID as we don't know yet if this could be a KDE related problem (in fact, it is probably a installation issue).
Reopen if you get more information.
Thanks!