 Ok, so it's the holidays, most sane tech workers are not at their desks, and I'm pretending that my workload is "slow" so I can play a little bit. This is one of the rare times of the year where I can worry less about deadlines and more about learning. Like getting the Dapper Drake distro (6.06.1) installed on an old Sony VAIO Pentium III PC.
After studying Linux distributions for literally a couple of years (my first ISO came from a friend at Red Hat - he scored me the not-yet-public version of Fedora), I took the plunge today and tried out the CD-hosted version of Ubuntu on my 6 year-old Sony VAIO, Pentium III with 700+ MB of DRAM.
Learning the ins and outs of Linux is important to me as a tech journalist. I'm frequently getting evaluation small form factor hardware from PC/104 and Mini-ITX companies (bummer, eh?). Linux is also a common port to most VME SBCs, and it's used big time in military applications.
As I learn more about Linux, and the Ubuntu distro, I'll keep you up to date. I'm sure more than a few of you can offer me some meaningful suggestions.
Of note:
- Burning an ISO to a CD was dead simple. The bundled Roxio Easy CD Creator on my Dell Inspiron does disk images. Thought I'd have to buy Nero....who knew? (Uh...didn't Adaptec become Roxio become Nero?)
- Even though I've already got Partition Magic on my VAIO (so no probs partitioning the disk for a dual boot WinXP/Linux), I decided to walk - ok, crawl - before loading the machine. Instead, I ran Linux off the CD ROM.
- Was incredibly impressed that not only was running an entire OS off of a 4x CD ROM drive pretty snappy with minimal lag (nearly as fast as XP Pro SP2 off the HDD!), but all the drivers for basic stuff like keyboard, mouse, LAN, screen and audio worked immediately.
- Never having used this GUI at all, I immediately found my way around multiple desktops, bundled apps like Gimpshop and OpenOffice (ok, that one was a bit slow off of CD ROM), and the way-cool calendar built under the day/date on the top taskbar. I am already impressed with the GUI's intuitive simplicity.
- Was AMAZED that a built in Samba server was included (for UNIX and Windows shares on my LAN), and that I could see all my other machines hanging on the LAN. You won't be surprised to learn that I could get right into the Windows disks with no problem ("security", anyone?) but OS X forced me to authenticate. Hurray for Darwin!
- I didn't try printing, but noted that some basic HP printer drivers were included and I don't doubt that my parallel port printer probably worked, too.
I'll monkey around with this some more over the coming weeks, with the intention of getting down to the command line and ultimately applying this knowledge to Linux running on VME single board computers and PC/104 boards.
Stay tuned.
C2
PS: This Sony VAIO is different from the now-dead and scavenged IBM I wrote about in “Windows ate my homework” (see: http://www.smallformfactors.com/departments/insight/2006/Winter/ )
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written by Arty Effim, February 28, 2007
"You won't be surprised to learn that I could get right into the Windows disks with no problem ("security", anyone?) but OS X forced me to authenticate. "
Nope, I'm not at all surprised to learn that you don't know even know enough about windows to put passwords on your shared network directories. Don't blame the software when it's a user problem.
written by LGR, February 28, 2007
I have had a similar experience. Ubuntu has brought my Pentium III laptop back to life and given me more use out of it. Everything on my Dell Latitude worked. A great way to give new life to older hardware and get a longer lifespan out of good machines.
written by Dr Love, February 28, 2007
Roxio and Nero are 2 different programs and companies. All be it I prefer Nero to Roxio as versions past 5 of Roxio has crashed my XP machine on more then one occasion. Nero just works better in my experience.
written by Drood, February 28, 2007
This is quite possibly the most pointless article ever written.
written by anti-Droob, March 01, 2007
This is quite possibly the most pointless comment ever written.
written by PumpkinPositive, March 01, 2007
Roxio became Napster not Nero.
written by crime, March 01, 2007
i think it's still called the Gimp in Dapper Drake.
written by Peterix, March 01, 2007
Try Infra Recorder. It's free, open-source and has most of the important stuff and no feature bloat.
written by Michael, March 01, 2007
My computer is 7 years old and has 512 mbits of ram with a p3 700 mhz processor.
written by nixuser, March 01, 2007
you should try this one i think it is to good and too easy it works on my 450 mhz box highly recomended
written by C2, March 01, 2007
I'm not afraid to admit that I don't know everything. So can someone tell me how to set up passwords for shared drives and folders under Windows XP SP2?
C2
written by Matt, March 01, 2007
Nope, I'm not at all surprised to learn that you don't know even know enough about windows to put passwords on your shared network directories. Don't blame the software when it's a user problem.
But that's just it. Windows forces the user to institute basic security measure, OS X has them enabled by default. OS X, by default, is more secure. Why spend the time and energy necessary to secure your system, shouldn't it already be secure?
written by Michael Tam, March 01, 2007
Yes, Ubuntu is great when things work. I too was amazed with the Live CD distributions and what they can do. However, it is when things, don't work that Linux in general (but particularly Ubuntu) is 10 times more annoying that Windows.
It is interesting that you didn't try printing, but I can tell you that despite multiple configurations, I can't get Ubuntu to connect to my networked (shared over Windows) HP printer. Windows does this automatically. In fact, it was pretty darn simple with Knoppix and Kanotix (both Debian based Linux distributions with KDE rather than Gnome). Ubuntu also for some inexplicable reason refuses allow me to use my LCD monitor's native resolution (i.e., 1280x1024). I have a stock standard Nvidia graphics card (and older FX5700) and a standard monitor (Hyundai Q17). Even after manually configuring configuration files I couldn't get it to work. Again, in Windows, I have never had such a ludicrously basic problem once you have the display drivers. In last version of Ubuntu I installed, it had a bug where on start up, it would randomly choose one of the PCs sound cards as default (and setting it manually won't "stick"). Again, a ludicrous problem.
Furthermore, let's not even discuss the paucity of adequate driver support for newer but common peripherals like USB based wireless network cards or Bluetooth.
Regards.
written by McIO, March 01, 2007
MY computer is running Dapper with xfce, is 8 years old and 500mhz 256 ram
written by C2, March 01, 2007
I certainly appreciate the feedback. You'll note that in DL.TV's episode 138 podcast (http://dl.tv/2007/02/episode_138_a_little_ubunutu_a.php ), and TWIT's episode 88 "Batteries Included" ( http://www.twit.tv/88 ) - the hosts:
1. complain about Ubuntu's video driver headaches
2. Windows Vista's lack of support for Nvidia's DX10 high-end graphics cards...stating that gamers are gonna have to wait until May/June for Microsoft to get that sorted out.
Clearly I've got a lot to learn.
C2
written by kara, September 06, 2007
roxio became sonic solutions, not napster. they just launched [url=emc 10 http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/creator/suite/overview.html?source=rgbuzz]emc 10 [url]http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/creator/suite/overview.html?source=rgbuzz.
written by bed, August 11, 2009
It is interesting that you didn't try printing, but I can tell you that despite multiple configurations, I can't get Ubuntu to connect to my networked