I have invested about one whole day to installing Ubuntu Linux 7.10 on my wife's Toshiba Satellite Pro 6100 laptop. We had it repaired from a burned out fan and disk so there was nothing to salvage from prior systems. I did, however, install XP Pro first, since she would need that no matter what else happened, as do I on my own computers.
The installations went OK until I tried to get a flaky Ethernet connection to work. I finally had to go into my office, right next to the router, and directly plug it in with a short cable, and that gave me straight Internet -- wonderful. But, Linux nor XP could use the Wireless Card. It must be faulty. I have a Wireless game connector (Wireless G via Ethernet) which I am using at the moment-- that worked because Ethernet worked and Linux or XP neither had to think about a different device.
I like Ubuntu Linux. So far it has been easy to install, has a lot of nice features, games, tools, every sort of doohickey that a programmer like me needs.
I install g++ and was able to make some hello world type programs. I have OpenOffice for all that stuff and Evolution email, Image editors, movie/music players, some kind of Skype like thing, and so forth-- everything I could ever want to buy -- all for free.
Since I am an old Unix hacker, Linux seems like a modernized dream version. But to my wife, this is a nightmarish Non-PC that requires too much re-learning. I understand. I didn't necessarily like re-learning programming on PC's after Unix, either. It was a definite step down. Microsoft has some adequate tools, and billions of add-ons and helper programs made by them and 3rd parties. But mostly MS is about paying through the nose for everything -- especially if you are a business.
The dual boot works, however I'm not sure how to make XP the default instead of Linux-- it is my wife's machine, after all.
I'll figure it out. Must be a way to edit that Grub file or whatever it is.
The installations went OK until I tried to get a flaky Ethernet connection to work. I finally had to go into my office, right next to the router, and directly plug it in with a short cable, and that gave me straight Internet -- wonderful. But, Linux nor XP could use the Wireless Card. It must be faulty. I have a Wireless game connector (Wireless G via Ethernet) which I am using at the moment-- that worked because Ethernet worked and Linux or XP neither had to think about a different device.
I like Ubuntu Linux. So far it has been easy to install, has a lot of nice features, games, tools, every sort of doohickey that a programmer like me needs.
I install g++ and was able to make some hello world type programs. I have OpenOffice for all that stuff and Evolution email, Image editors, movie/music players, some kind of Skype like thing, and so forth-- everything I could ever want to buy -- all for free.
Since I am an old Unix hacker, Linux seems like a modernized dream version. But to my wife, this is a nightmarish Non-PC that requires too much re-learning. I understand. I didn't necessarily like re-learning programming on PC's after Unix, either. It was a definite step down. Microsoft has some adequate tools, and billions of add-ons and helper programs made by them and 3rd parties. But mostly MS is about paying through the nose for everything -- especially if you are a business.
The dual boot works, however I'm not sure how to make XP the default instead of Linux-- it is my wife's machine, after all.
I'll figure it out. Must be a way to edit that Grub file or whatever it is.
No comments:
Post a Comment