Teen Tech

OK,

So, most people that know me, know that I am a linux advocate. I finally did yesterday what I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Wipe Windows from my computer and Install Linux. I’ve been away the past week in South Carolina visiting family, and when I was away, two discs came in the mail from Ubuntu (a popular distribution of linux). Ubuntu is free and will always be free, all you have to do is go to their website, request discs, and they’ll ship them to you free of charge no matter how many you want. I first tried the Live CD where it runs everything off of the CD which doesn’t harm what you have installed, so I could see if it detected all of my hardware. It did. It found my wireless network, sound, and graphics drivers which are the main components people have problems with when it comes to a full linux integration. I then proceeded to back up all of my files, and installed Ubuntu. The whole install took MAYBE 20 minutes. I was highly impressed. A Windows XP install takes about an hour if you do a quick format and Vista takes about 2-3 years. This installed my new Operating System, formatted my Harddrive, and set up my user account in 20 minutes. When I started up, I was greeted by the Ubuntu login screen and was able to log in, which I might add is very fast.

There was a singular glitch in the system, and that was with the sound. Whenever a sound was playing, whether it’s music or video, a static was emitted that drowned out the sound. The solution was quick and easy once I figured out what it was. The computer was trying to output digital sound through an analog sound card. It’s like water and oil, it just doesn’t mix. The fix was to uncheck a single box in the sound’s control panel. Problem solved. I can now watch Rubik’s cube videos without annoying static. I was able to install my Steam (www.steampowered.com) games using WINE (Wine Is Not an Emulator) which is a Windows program emulator, so I’m still able to game with my new system.

Most people are familiar or have heard about the system called Beryl (a.k.a. Compiz), where the desktops can be turned into a cube (if you haven’t heard of it, you have now ). I installed this subsystem without a glitch, and was up and running without even restarting the computer.

Here’s some screenshots for you all to be jealous at because Windows simply isn’t cool enough:

(Beryl Cube System)

(Rain Desktop Effect)

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 29th, 2008 at 10:28 am and is filed under Fun Things, Operating Systems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.