Riel
July 5th, 2007, 09:38 PM
Well, since I am totally new to the whole Linux thing, I had a lot of experiences and troubles to start. I tell it in a short story, without the details. At this point, I am a very happy user. So if that's all you need to hear, stop reading already :D
First the Live-CD. My CD-rom drive was so ****** up, I wasn't able to boot a single on. Tried a lot. Was still using Windows XP, and found a program which made me boot to linux, and install from a server. Hmm. Had to move my whole computer to another room because my network cable was too short and I normally use wireless. No big deal, plugged it in, started and ... woo it really began to install. That took me .. 2 days of figuring out.
Well, I got booted in Linux, and wanted to get that Wireless back working. Some hours of spending this forum and figuring out why it didn't work (I have an Atheros (something like that) chipset and it should be no problem?) I found it was a stupid thing: The wireless modem used WPA, and I could only fill in WEP. So i switched the modem to WEP and whoo, all worked! Again, 2 days of struggeling for such a simple thing. But glad I could move the Computer back were it belongs :)
Next thing I needed was a VPN connection to my office, for mail and Exchange. I never got it working on XP for some reason I never figured out. But problem was, I never found VPN settings. I only saw 'manual configuration'. Again, a few days of browsing (well, were I mention days, it are some hours in the evening) didn't do the trick. At that time I got a command-line thing from this forum, I really don't exactly know what it does, but it did set my network-card to 'roaming' . And: VPN connections were shown! Hmm. Disabled the roaming again and they were gone. Enabled it again and there they were! Well, setting up the connection and making Evolution use the Exchangeserver at my office was no big deal at all! (Are there any other programs for that? Evolution doesn't feel that good to me, and is quite slow).
Next thing was the Quake3 issue. I really NEED that game, it was the only game I played in XP, and I knew it should be doing great in Ubuntu. But, as you can expect: no sound. Same story again. A lot of trying, changing /dev/dsp things, reinstalling etc etc, my sound was muted all the time. Just thinking what quake wants, reading this forum again, I figured it wanted OSS. There was the experience I gained from previous problems. Becoming a root, the consoles, CTRL-ALT-F1 and such things, I got used to it. So in a split second, I installed Oss, installed build-essentials, and got OSS running perfect. That test-sound made me laugh.
So, for now, everything works. Quake runs better than on XP (really have about 15fps more!), ping is lower, internet is faster, I have a VPN, love OpenOffice, and like the sharper GUI (is it sharper dan XP, it looks more smooth to me). I also tried Beryl, and thats nice to show your friends, but nothing for day to day use.
So, I ended up with an old pc, A pentium III 1.6ghz, with only 512 mb of single DDR ram and a GeForce3ti, and ONLY 20 gigs of harddrive, but it feels reborn and ready to use (i just started my own company, I create educational programs for schools and organisations). Ubuntu washed my problem of my softwarelicences (which I don't want to affort at the start of my business, first we have to make some money, I was a student 3 weeks ago).
What I also want to mention is that I feel like the problems that I experienced, are experienced by a lot of users. It is still very difficult to find a solution, but the solutions áre there! What could we do about that?
So, to end, hello to you all, I am typing this with a big smile, because I am a bit proud I managed to do this all myself (and with the help of here and the dutch forums). And google.
Regards, good night, whatever!
Riël.
First the Live-CD. My CD-rom drive was so ****** up, I wasn't able to boot a single on. Tried a lot. Was still using Windows XP, and found a program which made me boot to linux, and install from a server. Hmm. Had to move my whole computer to another room because my network cable was too short and I normally use wireless. No big deal, plugged it in, started and ... woo it really began to install. That took me .. 2 days of figuring out.
Well, I got booted in Linux, and wanted to get that Wireless back working. Some hours of spending this forum and figuring out why it didn't work (I have an Atheros (something like that) chipset and it should be no problem?) I found it was a stupid thing: The wireless modem used WPA, and I could only fill in WEP. So i switched the modem to WEP and whoo, all worked! Again, 2 days of struggeling for such a simple thing. But glad I could move the Computer back were it belongs :)
Next thing I needed was a VPN connection to my office, for mail and Exchange. I never got it working on XP for some reason I never figured out. But problem was, I never found VPN settings. I only saw 'manual configuration'. Again, a few days of browsing (well, were I mention days, it are some hours in the evening) didn't do the trick. At that time I got a command-line thing from this forum, I really don't exactly know what it does, but it did set my network-card to 'roaming' . And: VPN connections were shown! Hmm. Disabled the roaming again and they were gone. Enabled it again and there they were! Well, setting up the connection and making Evolution use the Exchangeserver at my office was no big deal at all! (Are there any other programs for that? Evolution doesn't feel that good to me, and is quite slow).
Next thing was the Quake3 issue. I really NEED that game, it was the only game I played in XP, and I knew it should be doing great in Ubuntu. But, as you can expect: no sound. Same story again. A lot of trying, changing /dev/dsp things, reinstalling etc etc, my sound was muted all the time. Just thinking what quake wants, reading this forum again, I figured it wanted OSS. There was the experience I gained from previous problems. Becoming a root, the consoles, CTRL-ALT-F1 and such things, I got used to it. So in a split second, I installed Oss, installed build-essentials, and got OSS running perfect. That test-sound made me laugh.
So, for now, everything works. Quake runs better than on XP (really have about 15fps more!), ping is lower, internet is faster, I have a VPN, love OpenOffice, and like the sharper GUI (is it sharper dan XP, it looks more smooth to me). I also tried Beryl, and thats nice to show your friends, but nothing for day to day use.
So, I ended up with an old pc, A pentium III 1.6ghz, with only 512 mb of single DDR ram and a GeForce3ti, and ONLY 20 gigs of harddrive, but it feels reborn and ready to use (i just started my own company, I create educational programs for schools and organisations). Ubuntu washed my problem of my softwarelicences (which I don't want to affort at the start of my business, first we have to make some money, I was a student 3 weeks ago).
What I also want to mention is that I feel like the problems that I experienced, are experienced by a lot of users. It is still very difficult to find a solution, but the solutions áre there! What could we do about that?
So, to end, hello to you all, I am typing this with a big smile, because I am a bit proud I managed to do this all myself (and with the help of here and the dutch forums). And google.
Regards, good night, whatever!
Riël.