Ok, I have this dinosaur of a computer at the house, and I have made it a dual boot computer so that I can use Linux.  A while back I got it running and used it for a while until Ubuntu came out with a new version.  I installed it and it crashed every time I booted it.  It was quite frustrating.  Ubuntu is not ready for mass adoption.

Now Ubuntu has come out with its latest version, 7.10 and I upgraded yet again.  This time it is a lot more stable on this computer, but it has taken me numerous tries to get wireless networking up and running.  Now, I am not a networking genius, but I have amassed at least some skillz, and it took all the tricks I have learned to get this computer back on the internets.

I am sure that if I wired this computer directly to the router with cat5 I am sure it would have worked immediately.  But, there is no way to run a wire from my router to this computer.  That means I have to use a USB Linksys wireless dongle thingy (yes, that is the technical name).

Ubuntu supports the USB thingy, but for some reason I had to unplug and re-plug and then manually configure it in order to make it work.  What the???  I would recommend this OS to more people if the networking was a little easier.  Most people need to be able to just plug in a peripheral and have it work.  If it doesn’t, most people will just give up and go back to Windows.

Here is how I finally configured it and made it work.  I switched over to manual configuration.  I typed in the ssid for my access point and then turned on DHCP and it finally got an IP address and started working.

So, if you are using Ubuntu and a Linksys Wireless-B USB network card this is how you can make it work

I am being a little facetious here but apparently there actually is a market for Microsoft Vista despite the endless blog and news reports about its many “failings”. Microsoft’s latest operating system, Vista, is actually selling.

I am not a Microsoft head, but I also hate the haters (regardless of the product). Vista has received more that its fair share of bad press.

Every product has its good points and bad points and pledging total allegiance to only one product in any class of products is extraordinarily limiting. I am currently updating this blog with my old Mac laptop. Across the room is my home desktop PC that is a dual boot XP/Linux box. I know that I am hardly representative of most computer users, but I really don’t give much thought to the operating system anymore. Each OS has its good points and each has its frustrations. So the fact that Microsoft sells 20 million Vista licenses hardly comes as any surprise.

The rumors of Microsoft’s demise have been greatly exaggerated, and when it comes to computers, I am agnostic.

Alright, for the 10’s of you following this string, I have gotten Ubuntu up and running correctly. I wrote a couple of days ago that there were some problems with updating Ubuntu successfully. Well, I think I have figured it out. Instead of using the Symantic thingy, I started using the Add/Remove programs thing under Applications and I think it worked.

I went through a complete update and all seems to be well. I have the latest versions of all the programs that came with Ubuntu and all seems to be working. I still am a long way from completely understanding this OS, but at least it isn’t broken.

I tried to upload the latest version of the OS and I couldn’t get it to install. So, I am a version behind in the actual OS. But aside from that, I do have all the latest apps in this older version.

Hopefully, Ubuntu will work out whatever problem I was experiencing so that I can update the OS in the future, but in the meantime, all seems good.

Well if you are going to be a Linux geek like me then you have to have software that burns ISO files to CDs so you can install new OSs. The best one I have found is one called CDburnerXP. It has a simple interface and even better than that, it is free. What up??

Ok… I just installed Ubuntu on my home computer and I am up and running! In fact, right now I am entering this blog post while in Ubuntu. I haven’t been using it long enough to really have a true impression of the system, but so far, so good.

I did have a little trouble getting my wireless internet up and running, but other than that, it was pretty easy, and as you can see, I am on the net so I did it.

My home computer is a little slow. I heard that Ubuntu, or any other linux OS, breathes new life into old hardware, and I think they’re right. Firefox opens quite quickly, and downloads even seem a bit snappier.

When I go to my main site, www.murdog.com, it opens like liquid lightning…..sooper fast!.

I was scared to install this on a computer that already has XP on it. I was afraid that I would some how lose that install and then I would be stuck with linux. Well Ubuntu was fairly easy. After the install, it noticed that I already had a copy of Windows and asked if I wanted to make the system dual-boot. That means it will ask you on boot which OS you want and then it will start the one you chose. Of course, I said yes and what do you know… it worked.

The install wasn’t without its problems. I first tried to install the latest build of the OS, and for whatever reason, it didn’t work. It would just get stuck on the initial splash screen. I read in the forums (did I mention that I am definitely a geek?) that people who were having that problem were succeeding using an alternate version. I downloaded the alternate and it worked. The only problem with the alternate version was the installer was text based rather than GUI based. That scared me a bit. But, all is well and I am on the net. Yea me!

MurDog, the dual-boot geek OUT!!!