Well… I must change the description of my blog. I’ve now got a PC, so that will be used for most of my Ubuntu work. It also runs Windows, but I really dislike Windows.
Not for any MS-bashing reasons; not for any software ideological reasons; but simply for how difficult things are in Windows. People talk about KDE having an overload of settings, but Windows must be worse. Every dialog box has a "Setup" button which opens a new control panel, which has a "Properties" button which opens a new window, which contains an "Advanced" button. Also, this being the display model used at the computer store, Windows definately runs much slower than Ubuntu.
When setting up my broadband ADSL connection (which runs through my Ethernet port), Windows kept wanting to "dial" it! In order to get the thing to work, I had to tell Windows to set up a HOME NETWORK. Think about it: My broadband only works if Windows thinks I’m connected to a network. Crazy.
Setting up Ubuntu was a bit less fun than I remembered. Running the Live CD was a little easier than on the Mac, considering I didn’t know exactly what settings to use; but "vesa" works fine for the moment. I’m hoping to get the ATI card running before too long. I was *very* cautious with the resizing of the NTFS partition, but after a few looks at the inbuilt help and the guided partitioner I became satisfied that it would only resize and not destroy the NTFS partition. My computer didn’t come with a "rescue" CD, damnation.
Also, after restarting and having Ubuntu install the remaining packages, I was horrified to notice that it was loading stuff through my Internet connection! I switched off the modem… then near the end of the install it told me that parts of the install had failed, then dropped me to a command-line prompt. Fortunately, a quick "sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop" fixed the problem.
I also had to change the xorg.conf file to use the vesa driver in order to get the xserver started. Also, it only started up after another restart.
The moral of the story: If Ubuntu starts loading packages through your network connection, LET IT. It’s not going to download the whole thing, I assure you.
Now I’m looking forward to trying out some new distros. Which reminds me: How do you change the date and time on this thing?
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