The Ubuntu Dell Mini10 experience.

The keys are big enough on this unit for even big fingers. I'm really happy about that. Only thing else I prefer is a wireles mouse. I'm just not a touch-pad kind of guy. Tried a number wired and wireless mice. All worked great. I am so happy I bought a Dell Linux machine. And I'm sure I am going to be impressed in the future.

The Ubuntu Dell arrived.

Initially, I love it and hate it. But the latter wore off. Like many software distros, it comes with a dozen apps for kids. I was trying everything. But the more I checked out the real things I use, I found them to be up to par.

I ordered a Dell with Ubuntu.

Why? Because they sell it. I hate Windows. I, for one, will never pay for a computer with Windows on it again. Took a week to do so. Primarily becuase I requested Linux. Why is it that? Maybe Microsoft still has Michael Dell by the balls.

This will change. I hope it will anyway. It will take a mind shift of the masses to overcome Microsft madness.

I've been running Linux for 5 years now. I've pretty much forgotten how to fix Windows. It can't be fixed anyway. You run Windows at your own risk. Enjoy!!

My Daughter needs a computer to find a job.

She has a Windows laptop and when she brought it over it was as sick as a dog (paraphrasing). I've spent too many days doing too many two-day Windows resotoration projects. So I gave her the Asus Linux netbook. She loves it.

The ASUS Eee PC 900 A After 2 Months

Great unit. Connects well on the road. Keyboard is small though for big hands. But everything works just fine. OpenOffice opens up all the Word, Excel and Powerpoints people send. Videos play. Always liked Geoclock and Mahjong. Plug-in mice and keyboards work flawlessly.

The ASUS Eee PC 900 A Netbook w/ Xandros Linux

A Linux machine finally comes to Best Buy. My reasons for getting it were twofold. I wanted to finally test drive one of these nifty Linux netbooks and I also wanted to send the message that if the retailers can overcome their fear of the gorilla in Redmond (whose market share recently dropped below 90%) and they stock an alternative OS that people will buy them.

So far my conclusions are the same as many of the reviews, people really love their Linux netbooks. Some have replaced the Xandros distro with the UbuntuEee distro. I'll research that avenue in the future while testdriving what I have now. Looks great so far.

Stay tuned. Cool YouTube vid of some guys PC 900A. If you like first-person games like I do.

RealPlayer for Linux works great

Want to listen to a program on a non-local radio station that brodcasts over the net?

Save it in the bookmarks of RealPlayer for Linux. Then just click on the link within RealPlayer. Works great.

First update of 2008

Doing some web updates again. Was pleasantly surprised with GIMP.

It really does a great job with photos. A lot of programs make a thumbnail that is nothing more than smeared blob. GIMP does an excellent job of resizing images without destroying them.

Found another Quanta+ tool

Decided to change this page around. But that meant dozens of manual changes. So I looked for a tool in Quanta to do mass changes.

Found one. Entered the find argument and then the replace argument. Then was able to step through each section just by clicking between "Change it" or "No - go to next one". Quanta+ is a really a great webpage editor.

Loving Thunderbird and Mozilla

Spam is at 100% containment. The Mozilla email clients have the best spam filters in the industry.

I still check the trash to see if there is anything I want. Five seconds, then I select "Empty Trash". Good-bye spam. Good-bye security risk.

New phone/Walkman/MP3 player

Bought an unlocked Sony/Erickson Walkman phone. Paid a lot. Still a better deal than buying a new 2-year, higher priced agreement.

Latest and greatest. Came with a useless Windows disk. Didn't need that. Took some of my music CDs, converted them to MP3s on Linux. Then plugged my music player phone in via USB. Transferred the tunes and whollah. Got the music on my music player phone. A friend sent a funny ring-tone in an email. Moved that to my phone and added it to my phones ring-tones. I'm glad Linux works so well with external devices.

And I'm glad I don't have Microsoft's DRM interfering with me copying music I've already paid for.

Firefox upgraded itself.

A few days after I upgraded Firefox they came out with another update. Windows users know that a Firefox upgrade is usually just a click. On Linux, it usually took a little know-how and some extra intervention.

I tried the Firefox upgrade option not expecting it to work. I was surprised. Firefox downloaded the updates and installed them without a hitch. Way too cool. It was just too easy.

Flashplayer and Firefox upgrades

A few days ago I installed Flashplayer 9 (I was on version 6). Install went OK but I lost sound. Searched and searched for related forums. Found nothing conclusive. Then I went to the Linspire forums. Oh Yeah, there is an "audiowrapper" parameter you can add to programs you run to enable sound. Forgot about that.

I was running an old version of Firefox so I upgraded that. I installed it in a new directory so I could test it initially. I was surprised that it found all my bookmarks and settings. I didn't even have to reconfigure it. I thought for sure I would have to do an import at some time to get everything to the way the previous version was set up. Did the "audiowrapper" to the new Firefox and WOW, I've got sound in Firefox where I never had it before. In the past I used two browsers. The Mozilla standard browser when I wanted to to do Youtubes, and the Mozilla Firefox browser when I didn't care about sound. It was easy to have both activated. But now I have the latest Mozilla Firefox browser and it works for everything. No more need to run two browsers. This is totally cool.

Now here's the kicker. There were people in the Linspire Linux forum who were having the same problems upgrading Flashplayer for Windows. They were so frustrated that neither M$ Windows support nor any other M$ support forums could help them. So they turned to Linux forums for help with Winblows. And you know what? The Linux people were actually able to help some of the the Winblows users solve their problems.

This is a perfect example of the Linux community. We love Linux or Unix because it is good. But we all evolved from the bullsh*t swamp of the legacy Microsoftian era at some point. My advice to everyone.... Go to Linux or Apple. You might have to learn something (heaven forbid) but you will save $$.

Well you have another choice. Send your dollars to Gates by buying another Windows crap machine or buy yourself a PC that freaking WORKS! If you want something that works, convert your Windows machine to Linux or buy a Mac. You have a better chance of success when upgrading from Windows to Linux than you do from upgrading Windows to Windows. Microsoft never had any competition in the past so they made all of their upgrades destructive. They didn't care about us because they didn't have to.

Thunderbird Mail Client

Upgraded Thunderbird to the latest release (2.0). A few days ago I installed it so I could test the new version while keeping the old version (1.5) going for daily mail operations. Everything looked good so I moved all my email and settings into the new version and made it the default. Of course I backed everything up before and after. It is working like a charm.

I've also done more tweaking with the spam filters. This is really GREAT! False positives are pretty much down to zero meaning that everything that goes into the trash, belongs in the trash. My inbox is virtually spam free. I am so impressed. This saves me SO much time and didn't cost me a dime.

Thunderbird Mail Client

Wow. My version of Thunderbird is 3 years old. I never knew how good the spam filters were until I recently started playing with them. Heck, Outlook still doesn't have anything this good. Sure wish I would have discovered this sooner. But hey, I used Windows before I switched to Linux so I was used to crap that didn't have useful features.

Now, most of that damn spam goes directly into the trash where it is deleted.

Ubuntu Linux Installs

Ubuntu Linux. WOW!!!

Now that I have a few Ubuntu Linux installs under my belt I wonder. Why in the hell would anyone ever run or buy a legacy Microsoft Windows OS again? After I install Ubuntu, people are getting their systems set up and running w/o my help. I'm starting to feel like the lonely Maytag repairman.

Recent News

Dell is selling Linux machines. Toshiba is too but not in the US.

IBM has been supporting Linux for years. A judge today dropped all remaining claims that SCO owns Linux, Unix and every other OS besides the ones MS puts out. Poor SCO, they were paid millions by Microsoft so they could hires lawyers to try to sue IBM claiming that IBM was supporting what they owned. Actually, SCO was suing eveyone it could find claiming that if they weren't paying Microsoft, SCO must own it. And everyone SCO wasn't suing was threatened with future lawsuits. Most of us saw Daryl McBride for the fool he was years ago. He claimed SCO owned the world just because his Microsoft paid for lawyers said so. Some were even stupid enough stupid to send him money out of fear. Long story. Do some web searches if you want to know more.

Lenovo, the company that took over IBM PCs announced they will start selling Linux PCs.

Don't look for Linux PCs to start showing up at Best Buy or other stores too soon. Microsoft has been paying them NOT to put alternatives on store shelves. But you can get a Linux machine online from more outlets all the time if you look for them. Even Walmart has offered them 'online' for years.
And now the surge is taking off. People are realizing that they can do everything they need to on a Linux or a Mac machine, and it is better, safer and more secure. Microsoft's propaganda really started wearing thin after people strated using Vista and found that it was an even bigger piece of junk than anything they offered before.

Really amazed.

I had to build a whole new website. You might be looking at it now and not even know it.

When I did this 3 years ago from a Windows machine it was a disaster. My website was messed up for months.
I didn't have Linux then and nothing was reliable. I was lucky if I could transfer 4 or 5 files without errors under Windows. Under Linux, I can move a thousand files and never have a problem. I can build a new website in hours. Using Windows, this would have taken me a friggin year.

Just thinking back.

In the last 2 1/2 years with Linux, I've been at 99% productivity.

I sure don't miss all those weekends of system restores from hell. I've gotten a lot of people away from using the Bill OS. And it has sure made my life easier.

What the hell is going on with Linspire?

Both Linspire and Xandros recently entered pacts with Microshaft. As Yoda says, "With crap you associate crap you become."

Linspire and Xandros were great for a while and still serve me well. But my next Linux upgrade is going to be Ubuntu. Who needs a distro that is going to suck-up to Microsoft for the money? I don't think this is good for Linux. Linux never needed Microsoft's help to get better than Windows before.

Some fun graphics stuff

I've been playing with my own current Linux version desktop lately.

There are some cool desktop effects that I never knew about. This is WOW considering my Linux is about two years old. And it doesn't slow anything down.

For an even greater WOW check out this video of a Linux desktop. It blows Windows Aero away.

I can keep my scanner plugged into my Linspire machine.

It used to be that everytime I fired up Windows, my scanner would come on and do a self check. Couldn't seem to turn that off without unplugging it. Waste of electricity.

Now I can leave it plugged in. It doesn't turn on until I decide to fire up the Xsane scanner program.

And that is what I want. An OS that only starts what I want, when I want.

I'm leaning away from Xandros.

It was a good distro for a while but Ubuntu is getting better. Ubuntu is stronger with networking and wireless hardware and has kept up better with the hardware and where the market is going.

Who says nothing is as impressive as Vista?

Check out this link on YouTube. Beryl on Linux blows Aero away. And it was going strong before Microsoft had anything even close. Microsoft's Aero is just a cheap rip-off of the Linux and Mac GUIs. And yet Microsoft accuses everyone else of stealing the ideas they stole from everyone else. Boo hoo Bill Gates. Your company really hasn't done anything innovative in years. Consumers are getting tired of your piece-of-crap Windows OS. And now people are finding out that nothing works under Vista. Well Duh. You were so secretive about your new OS that even the hardware vendors couldn't make the drivers to make their stuff work with Vista.

Want your hardware to work? Go Linux!

Took the hard-drive out of my last Windows machine.
(Mother board and power supply blew in one fell swoop on the eMachine.) I wanted the data off of it as it was never going to be a Windows machine again (w/o spending $300).

Put the drive in an Ultra enclosure and plugged it in to the Linspire machine. Hmmm, it didn't respond like when I plug in other external drives.

So I had to go into Linux command mode and try some things. When I executed:

mount -t auto /dev/sda1 /home/Ultra1 (Ultra1 being a file folder I created)

the drive mounted. Then when I queried it it showed up as:

/dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 on /home/Ultra1 type ntfs (rw)

I was then able to find all files on the disk and even transfer some of them.

The main problem I was having was that I was trying to mount the XP disk as vfat. That was my config default for USB devices. But as you can see the auto option found it as ntfs. (Guess I forget that XP was NTFS.)

It was a success. I must have 15-20 years worth of data on that drive. I've got my spreadshets and photos and resumes etc.... All the important stuff. And I am making a backup of that. If you only have one copy, you don't have a backup. Haven't had any problems opening up the old files.

KStars - A great program for the astronomy buff.

Locate stars and galaxies before you go out with your telescope. Shows the night sky as it appears from your location on the current date. Drag and drop navigation is so easy. It's the Google-Maps of the universe.

Found a neat little thing in Linspire (or the common KDE ).

Very interesting. Ever have a time when the system freezes up? It's waiting for something but you don't know what? In many cases, just use the alt key to cycle through the windows until you get to the one holding the lock on your system. Click yeah or neah and the system resumes.

Had the chance in the last few weeks to install both Xandros and Linspire on a 5 year old Dell and a new Dell laptop.

Very interesting. Everything worked flawlessly. What did this prove? It proved that when these Windows PCs got all messed up, it was Windows (and not the hardware someone paid $1000 for) that was the problem.

Many moons ago I set up my Linspire Desktop with the colors and curves that pleased my eyes the most aesthetically.

A lot of news about Windows Vista lately so I took a look.

Totally blew me away when I saw how much Windows Vista matched the scheme I've been using in Linspre for the last year. If anyone reading this wants the scheme, let me know.

Stardate 60177.4 Time to update the crew.

The lack of negative events must have the crew on edge.
All the ships computers are working flawlessy under Linux.
The Master Control Program remains under our control.
Everything is functioning without problems. Your Linux efforts have paid off immeasurably.

Got an idea. Wanna see my current Linspire Desktop?

Then tell me there is no software for Linux.

My Linspire Desktop

Just an overdue update.

Not much to report though. Linux is running smoothly around here.

It does everything I need it to do and more. What can I say?

Wireless Internet on a Linux machine.

I really wanted to get the Xandros Linux machine working with DSL without running wires to another part of the house. There are literally thousands of forums available on the best way to do this. So much so it can get confusing. Most hardware vendors adamantly REFUSE to support Linux (and I suspect that they get brownie points from Redmond for doing so).

But, as usual, it turns out that even though the hardware vendors refuse to support Linux, Linux marches right along and supports the hardware anyway (without any help from the vendors).

I installed a newer D-Link wireless adapter, set up the WEP and other parameters. And the device took off as if by magic.

I didn't need to use the the disk that came with the hardware saving myself 20 meg of hard disk space loaded with Windblows spyware and adware. I didn't even need THE DRIVER which incidentally is now cleverly hidden in a Windoze executable on the CD. Linux does have utilities to convert drivers if necessary but I didn't need them.

GoDaddy goes pro-Microshaft. Moves millions of domains from Linux to Microsoft servers.

What they didn't mention is that these were "parked" domains. Many of them set up to be ad pages loaded with all kinds of malicious adware, spyware and trojans.

Need to host malware? Then you need a Windows server!

Too much to report.

DSL is woking better on Linux than it does on Windows (I had to test this). I downloaded 17 program updates to (Linux) software I run. It just keeps getting better. Also downloaded KGuitar and the Hydrogen Drum Machine software. There's some pretty cool software for Linux out there.

On Linspire, this was too freakin' easy

Time to hook up DSL and a router. Decided to practice first on a Windows XP machine. After about an hour of software loads I still couldn't get ethernet card that was pre-installed on that machine to work. Troubleshooting said it was OK but it wasn't. Finally got XP to work with a DSL USB connection.

Now to try this on Linspire.

I plugged in the ethernet cable, opened up a browser window and was surfing immediately. I'll take the two minute solution over the two hour one any day.

Thought I had a problem

Time to unload the camera with 305 images on it. Using LPhoto, I clicked on delete after doing the import.

Then I noticed I only had imported 226 images. ??? Uh Oh! Did I hit some kind of limit?

After going through the photo library I realized that I must have done an import without doing a delete when the camera had 79 photos on it. Lphoto was smart enough not to import what I had already imported. Whew...

DSL and routers

I have a new project.

I'm going to test various DSL routers and modems with Linux. I'll let you know the results. The biggest pain in the butt so far has been the phone companies.

Opera

I'm not sold on Opera. It's not faster than Firefox. Sometimes it loses track of the internet connection and 404s. Still has some bugs.

I don't know how well it works under Windows or Mac since I do not run those. Firefox is still my browser of choice.

Opera

Decided to try the Opera web browser for Linux on Linspire.

Looks good so far but will take some playing with.

Xandros versus Linspire

Tried a test with my 6 year old machine running Xandros. Installed Linspire to compare how well it would work. This is how it panned out.

Linspire didn't have the older drivers for some of the hardware. The modem wouldn't work. Linspire was considerably slower as well. Xandros comes with a plethora of drivers for even older machines (probably more drivers than Microsoft provides). Linspire has more features which probably explains why it was slower. Reverted back to Xandros.

If you have a newer machine, Linspire is a good choice. Xandros is faster on any machine and still has everything that most people need, out of the box. Linspire is probably easier for the majority of PC users as it is easy to install additional products from the warehouse.

OpenOffice 1.1 and StarOffice 7 (built on OO 1.1) Exploration

Played with both of these. Found some pretty neat stuff. A lot of good templates and the ability to create your own. The Presentation tools have a lot of good templates. Wish I had these years ago.

OpenOffice 2.0 and StarOffice 8 are now out. This is the dilemma. These OO 2.0 based office suites get so much better every year. Should I upgrade every six months? Didn't have this problem with Windows. We just accepted the blue-screen-of-death and waited 5 years for the upgrade or new PC that might fix it.

I think I'd rather have what keeps getting better by leaps and bounds than what breaks

Helped a friend get set up with a new Linspire machine from Fry's

Took about 3 hours but got a lot accomplished. Internet was set up. Email was set up. Address books moved over. Browser was set up.

How did YOUR last Windows upgrade from an old machine to a new one go? Lose anything?

I truly believe that if you can manage a MS to MS upgrade you can manage an upgrade from MS to Linux. It is so much more intuitive. Current Linux programs handle your previous Windows files better than Windows does. It's amazing. In Windows, if you receive a Word document and you only have Word for Works, it refuses to open the file because you haven't PAID Microsft for the 3 year old MS program required to open this version. At least with OpenOffice, under Linux, you can still open the file and save it as an MS file, an open-office file, a PDF or any other file type you like. It captures your data just fine which is what you want. You can reformat it from there.

The jury is still out on this one. The $200 Linux box that Fry's sells will run faster than XP on the same box but it isn't a screamer off the shelf (see my upgrades throughout this log). So for those expecting the same whamo like the last time when they plunked down $1000 for a W98 PC, it aint gonna happen.

My Linux PC isn't a screamer by some standards. It just always works all the time. That's what's important to me. Many of the things I do run faster and better. That's my experience.

Happy New Year!

I tried a greeting card software package called Kreeting. It was developed in Japan. It wasn't ready for prime time so I deleted it. But hey, it was free so nothing lost but a little time on the venture. Maybe in another year it will be better.

What a year it has been! My Reflections!

A full year of Linux at home. Stuff just works. A few bugs here and there but no big deal. There's always help in forums from the Linux community. And it just keeps getting better all the time. I renewed my Warehouse Gold membership for another $50 (regular is $20). Almost 300 new downloads were added to the warehouse in the last year.

Played with Rosegarden.

What great midi music file editing package. More features than I ever imagined. WOW.

It's been a year now.

I've been using Linux and Linspire at home for over a year. I love it. It works. Great customer support from both Linspire and 3rd party software vendors. You can't get this kind of support from MS, HP, Dell, Epson, Gateway, Lexmark, Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA or anywhere else.

I just heard that Microsoft may add PDF support next year.

Duh! We've had this with Linux for over two years now. Apple has PDF support also.

Just Linuxing along here.

Everything is working fine with Linspire. Go to Michael Robertson's site for commentary.

Turboprint Works Great

Seems I forgot to follow up on the printer issue. I tried Turboprint and it works great. The installation was easy and it added a config tool and a setup tool icon on the destop. It has drivers for the latest printers and supports ink level monitoring as well as other functions and features included by the software shipped with printers.

Turboprint isn't free. You can try it for free to see if it works. In trial mode it puts the Turboprint logo on every page. It costs about $30 for a license key. That's less than most ink refills. It is definitely worth it. New drivers are always being developed and are free to download.

And here's what I really like. Most of the software that comes with printers these days includes Spyware and Adware. With Turboprint, I'll never have to use those worthless disks that come with a printer again.

New Monitor

I bought a new Samsung monitor. Its a 19 inch with built in TV tuner and PIP. The install instructions said that I MUST run the software on the disk provided before hooking up the device, and then reboot. (Yeah, just like every other device sold these days.) But, the software is only for Windows or Mac so I can't run it anyway.

Being that most devices are not shipped with drivers for Linux I am always paranoid about new hardware actually working. But my worries were unfounded. Hooked it up and whollah! I've got a nice big new monitor now. I can watch TV in my PIP corner of the screen. I haven't had to install any new software. It all just works great. That's what I love about Linux. You plug in new hardware and it works. From what I've seen, the Linux distros include more drivers than what you get with Windows (which is why you need all those Spyware disks to use their hardware with Windows and Macs).

Canon Responded

They basically iterated they have no intention of providing Linux support. Oh well. Epson, HP and Lexmark aren't doing it either and their printers are garbage. (At least Canon does have some good printers.) Does Microsoft have them by the balls? Technically, this is no big deal. They all develop drivers for Mac which uses Unix below the GUI. Unix and Linux both use CUPS (Common Unix Printing Subsystem). The drivers could very easily be ported to Linux. They could do this but it might make Bill mad.

I found Turboprint from a German company. I will try this out and see if it works.

Canon Printers

I've added a lot of printers to Linux distros. They all worked great. It seemed that either the Linux community or some of the vendors had the drivers covered for every printer on the market. Then I introduced Linux to the Canon i860. There are 'some' drivers for Canon printers but the i series isn't one of them. It turns out that all Linux distros have this problem. So I went to the Canon site looking for answers. I ran into a lot of pages that read: CZ01005CRE:System failure prevents us from providing you with proper service. Please wait for a while and then reconnect to the service.

Well no help on the Canon site. My Canon scanner was recognized with no problem. So, I sent Canon a note.

Linspire Forums - A wealth of Free Help

It never ceases to to amaze me how helpful the Linspire forums are. Have a question? The answer is likely there. After years of enduring horrible internet forums and non-existent customer support from that monopoly, it is like a breath of fresh air.

Logical explanations and solutions aren't the only thing one discovers. One learns all the time just how powerful Linux is as a platform, how well it is put together, how well it is secured and just how easy it can be. This is where home computing could have been a decade ago if it wasn't for some monopoly.

Here's a new internet user fact. 69% of the internet is now powered by Linux servers. Google, Yahoo and many others use what works!

I'm past the upgrade bugs. Linspire has been working great. Life without Microsoft is good.

Now there's Cedega.

I have to admit. About every two months I turn on the W machine. Why? I need a release. Usually I just pick up the guitar. But, sometimes I fire up W to play Doom 3 and try to keep from getting massacred by monsters. You know, a game that resembles life.

Now, Linspire is offering Cedega. It's a Linux application that allows you to install your MS software and run it on your Linux machine. This one is primarily for games and supports the top 300 titles. Even though Wine and Winex allow you to install and run MS Office or other W software on Linux, perhaps they weren't as strong in game certification. I don't know. I've never had the desire to run anything from MS on Linux because I have everything I need on Linux.

But Cedega is interesting. I may try it next time I get in the mood to Doom3. It does have a price. It can be bought for $45 - $60. Free magazine, memberships, updates and forums are included.

I'll give it a month or two to shake out. I don't mind paying for Linux software. It is really inexpensive. If the money goes to reward the companies that make all this great stuff for Linux, then let's empower them with a few dollars. They are writing better software at a fraction of the cost. They deserve some support.

Tried the XSane scanner software with Linspire.

It works pretty darn good. Again, one set of programs that works with many types of hardware. You don't have to install tons of gobble-de-gook software every time you plug in a new device like you do if you run Windows which also installs their Spyware and Adware. You get a clean user interface without the [I Agree] disclaimer that you have to let all companies in the world scan your your hard-drive for personal information in order to use their product. (You reallly should read those sometimes. You'd be surprised at what you are agreeing to.)

It's starting to come together.

Linspire Five-O looks really nice. The application updates have resulted in some nice new features.

My CNR list is quite large. But a lot of that was just for testing and fun. My primary applications took a few days to reinstall and set-up. But I am back up and running now and that is nice.

Tip

If you do not feel comfortable doing hardware upgrades I recommend getting and installing a Linux distribution on your current PC or a new PC with the hardware you want. Linspire and Xandros distros make it easy to create a Linux partition on your huge hard drive and have dual boot capabilitites. You can then try out the many applications and still access your W files or even boot up in W while you learn how easy it is to do the same things do with a Linux distro..