Buying a Mouse

Went shopping for a wireless laser mouse with a mini adaptor.

I have had great experience with Prolink, and just homed straight for it at the hardware shop. The specific compact model that I am using on my Dell Inspiron Mini 9 was sold out, so I picked a normal size model reluctantly. Holding that on my hand, I went around to look for any other options and I saw this stunning looking Logitec mouse, which costed more, but it was having a promotion which gave away a pair of Logitec speakers and subwoofer. Great, something that I could have some use.

I compared the specs of both mice again, then I saw a little Penguin among Mac & Windows on the suported OS column of the Prolink mouse. I know both would just work fine in Linux, but I give credit to Prolink for displaying the Penguin on the specs proudly. That firmed up my mind and put the Logitec mouse back to the display hanger.

Fedora Core 11

Since I have set up a new PC to "evaluate" Windows 7, I might as well make use of this PC to test other Linux Distros. Fedora has always been on my mind, as it is one of the pioneer distros around plus I really want to try something other than the *buntus.

I went for the KDE version because I have not played with KDE 4, so this is also a good opportunity to try it.

First impression:

- Beautiful distro.

- Everything works well.

- I don't know why but the installer is very slow and not responsive. After the installation, the performance is sluggish as well. Maybe it is because of the graphics intensive KDE 4? The performance improves greatly after I added another 512MB of RAM to the PC.

- KDE will take some time for me to get used to, especially on the applications part. I have trouble installing flash plugin for Konqueror, and finally gave up and did the Yum install Firefox.

- Still having some problems on flash sites such as youtube on Firefox. The video will just jitter... Perhaps it is because of the Firefox 3.5 beta? Or it might due to my graphics accelerator? Will have to do more tests on this.

- New set of commands to learn, and to be frank, I do miss the "apt-get install"...

Anyhow, I think I will have a lot of fun playing with F11.

Windows 7

Downloaded Windows 7 RC.

Retrieved my daughter's old Dell Dimension 2400 P4 computer from the storeroom, and decided to try Windows 7 on it.

Somehow Windows 7 couldn't boot from the DVD drive, initially I thought my DVD drive is a goner, but the PC is able to boot my other Linux distro discs fine. Next, maybe the ISO wasn't created well, so I tested it on other PCs, and it was ok. Hmm...

Strange problem, finally I created a bootable USB drive for Windows 7, and install the OS from USB, and tah dah, I got Windows 7 up and running! Err... My screen resolution is only 640x480? I didn't give much thought about it at first, as I have done that numerous times on other Windows installations-- a driver update will solve the issue. Somehow the Windows 7 couldn't find a driver for the integrated Intel graphics accelerator, even from Internet. Ya I know this PC is old, but still...

I searched Dell website and just as I have suspected, they have only old drivers for this PC, and it's Windows 2000... -.- The good news is, the driver works in Windows 7, and the screen resolution is updated to 1280x 1024. Cool. So for those who want to try Windows 7 on an old Dell Dimension 2400, you can actually use the Windows 2000 graphics driver.

Talk about difficulty in installing Linux... Windows is just as bad if you are not experienced to do so and it really takes a lot of time to set it up properly with anti virus, anti spyware, and etc especially I am no fan of integrated security suite. Spent all in all about 4 hours on the installation process including the time spent on making a bootable Windows 7 USB drive, and I still have yet to install Open Office and other applications.

Overall, the OS looks Vista-ish, but I actually like it. It runs much faster than Vista, and I do not feel any sluggishness at all on this old P4 2.8Ghz with only 512MB RAM. Hmm... great improvement, and I might even get a copy after the trial license expires as my one and only Windows PC replacing the Vista. Anyhow, I will wait for users reviews on the OS after the official release to decide, who knows this version is actually with all DRM off to not antagonize the beta testers?

Vista?

No. That's not the reason I stopped blogging about Linux for awhile. I am still a happy Ubuntu user.

Yes. Indeed, I did start to use Vista because I have formatted my Dell Mini 9 to Ubuntu Jaunty recently (great decision, you should do it too if you own a Dell Mini 9), and I thought I should keep a PC running Windows for games, office usage, and photo printer. So I started to update my primary notebook Vista partition, and try using it for awhile. Grrr... Glad that I switched 2 years ago...

Vista is so so so annoying. At times when Ubuntu crashed on me a few times over the last 2 years, I thought hmmm... maybe Windows don't do that so often. But the truth is, Vista hung on me in the last couple of weeks more than Ubuntu over the last 2 years. And Vista is slooooooow!!!!

Why do I even bother...

Worm

Ubuntu 8.04 first impression

After backing-up all my data and also used Clonezilla to mirror the whole hard disk, I finally installed Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron to my laptop. For the last 2 versions of Ubuntu, I installed them on my test box before the go ahead on my main working laptop, perhaps I have become so comfortable with Ubuntu that I decided to just install.

Very similar to Gutsy (7.10), the installation process is smooth, and completed without any hiccups. There are only very slight changes in the installation process, but one change that I find very significant is the hard disk partitioning part. In Feisty and Gutsy, it was a guessing game when you try to move the slider, which side is for Windows, and which is for Linux? I made mistake on this once and shrank Windows to minimum resulting in unbootable Windows. This time there is an indication on which is which, and this will help greatly for new users who would want to configure a dual boot system.

I have not been exploring much on Hardy yet, and realize only a few changes, the 'thrash" naming is different now, and it has an additional folder inside the thrash bin holding information of the deleted files.

Next, Ubuntu will now auto-mount my SD-Card! I have an SD Card inserted to the computer, in Gutsy, I will have to remove and insert it again for Ubuntu to recognize and mount the card. It is now done automatically upon boot up. Nice!

There are a few applications changes which don't affect me as I am not a media guy and do not play music and DVDs on my laptop. The Brasero CD burner is a nice addition I would say, I have used Xubuntu on another PC and Brasero is standard CD burner on it.

One last minor thing I have noticed on my laptop, is the Intel wireless card does not require restricted driver now. I remember there were 2 restricted drivers that I needed to turn on during my first Gutsy boot-- the nVidia graphics and Intel wireless drivers, it seems like I need only to turn on the nVidia this time round. I have yet to check whether the wireless is working on Hardy, if it had worked flawlessly in Gutsy with just a click on restricted driver activation, I have great trust that the wireless will also work in Hardy.

So much for my first look of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron, and by the way, it could be just my imagination, I feel that my computer runs faster now as compared to Gutsy.

Choosing the Distro

I will continue on talking about Linux Distro today.

As a new would be Linux convert, how to pick the "right" distro? My personal point of view is since the launch of Ubuntu, most distros are slowly catching up and are moving towards the ease of use and installation direction. There are definitely differences behind the desktop screen, however, if you are just a normal user from Windows environment like me, you will not notice the difference and whether it is a Fedora core, Debian base, or Mandriva doesn't matter to you. All you want a general purpose distro which is easy to install to run your applications.

You can try this link to help you decide which distro is suitable for you.

What I personally think is more important for a new convert (especially from Windows & Mac) is the GUI desktop that you will feel comfortable with. There are quite a number of GUI desktops available and the most popular being GNOME, KDE, and xcfe.

Let me explain a little on what is a GUI desktop. You see, Linux OS and the desktop interface are 2 entire separate entity. You can have the same engine, and load different Desktop on it. In the example of Ubuntu, you can have Kubuntu using KDE desktop, Ubuntu running GNOME, and Xubuntu on xcfe desktop-- all are having the same Ubuntu engine but different interface, and you can even switch from one to another if you want to. If you have used computer long enough, just imagine DOS + Windows 3.11 where the 2 things are separate.

I do not want to start World War III by commenting which desktop is better, and the followings are ENTIRELY my personal opinion:

1. KDE. This is the preferred desktop of Linus Torvalds. It looks nice, and have arrangement very similar to Windows XP. It uses an application called Konqueror to explore the system files and internet just like the Windows Explorer in MS Windows. I have very limited exposure to KDE, and couldn't comment much, but I do find it a very powerful desktop that allows many hardware configurations to be done from a GUI environment. I have read that new users from Windows environment are generally more comfortable with KDE as compared to the other desktops, especially the power users who like to tweak and tinker with the OS.
   


2. GNOME is suitable for users who prefer a simple Mac-like desktop. It may look plain in its barest form, but is highly configurable to make it an eye-candy like a Mac. Power users from Windows environment may not like it, as many functions are hidden or not available from the desktop environment. If you find Windows is full of things you hardly touch like control panel & system management, and prefer a simpler approach, Gnome is for you. I personally am using Gnome and xcfe most of the time and I do not find it difficult to adjust to after 15 years of Windows.


3. xcfe. I have used xcfe desktop (Xubuntu--> xcfe + Ubuntu) for quite awhile on an old P3 system and currently Mythbuntu on another PC. It is a lightweight desktop and usually bundles with fully functional lightweight applications as well. It is also a very simple desktop just like GNOME. If you like to have fast boot/ load/ shutdown, or running Linux on a very old computer, xcfe maybe the way to go.


4. Others. There are a few other desktops available, like Fluxbox, Enlightenment, and etc., I couldn't comment on any as I have not tried them personally.

So, remember to research into which desktop the distro is bundling by default as well to ease your transition from your current OS. Anyway, frankly, if you are the adventurous type and familiar with using mouse clicks, all desktops are easy to use and need less than a week to get accustomed to.

Ubuntu 8.04

Just downloaded the Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron a few days ago. Have not installed into any boxes yet, as I am so comfortable with Gutsy. Before the release of Hardy, I was thinking of loading it to my main working laptop and keep it that way till the next LTS or end life of the laptop, whichever comes first.

However, I love Gutsy. Perhaps another reason is Gutsy just works with this laptop, Dell Inspiron 1420, without any sort of tweaking and configuration, unless you consider activating the restricted drivers as tweaking.

Well, let me think for a few more days, perhaps I will do a back-up over the weekend and install Hardy Heron to the laptop.