[ale] Installing Linux on laptop on New Years Eve

[Daniel Howard]

 >Message: 6
 >Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 14:36:39 -0500
 >From: "Matt Kubilus" <mattkubilus at gmail.com>
 >Subject: Re: [ale] Installing Linux on laptop on New Years Eve
 >To: "Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts" <ale at ale.org>

 >FYI, I found Ubuntu to be the most laptop friendly distro when setting 
up mine.

 >Sounds like the CD boots in INT13 mode, but has an issue when it
switches to using the linux driver (or lack thereof).

 >-Matt

Matt, thanks!  After trying several distros (Fedora/LTSP, Debian, 
PuppyLinux, and Suse) Ubuntu was the only one that recognized everything 
the first time, including the pesky D-Link 10/100 Ethernet PCMCIA card 
and the CD ROM throughout the process, and was super easy to install, 
including the repartitioning/reformatting of the hard disk (thereby 
wiping Win2K off in the process, thank heavens), and my wife, who 
already used Firefox, said that Evolution was easy to use after I set up 
her email account settings.  Plus, we plugged her IPod into it, and not 
only did it recognize it, but it automatically launched an MP3 player 
(RhythmBox).  My wife was particularly impressed that the single install 
CD was also a live CD so we could verify that everything worked before 
wiping W2K and going through the full install process.  What a pleasure, 
and now she and I both feel much better about her doing her online 
banking/bill paying/investment management (which we verified that it 
worked using Firefox on another Linux box in my home before deciding to 
make the change) using the Linux OS.

Technical details:
Laptop is a Dell Latitude, purchased as refurb from USANotebooks.com for 
about $300 two years ago, P3-533 MHz, 256 MB RAM, and 12 GB HD. 
Ethernet is via D-Link 10/100 PCMCIA card.  Ubuntu was a piece of cake 
to install, and appears to respond faster than Win2K even after fresh 
install, and much faster after the Win2K OS caught malware.

Afterwards, my oldest daughter, who has a Mac IBook for school and a 
Win2K box not connected to the Internet so she can play Sims2 and other 
CD ROM games, asked: "Is there a version of Linux that I can play the 
Sims with so I can still surf the web safely?"  Jim Kinney suggested 
that I set up a Linux firewall so all those ports opened up by the Sims 
can't get to the outside world, but I'm wondering if anyone ever got the 
Sims to run under Wine...either way, I'll not hook that Win2K PC up to 
the Internet with the Sims installed on it; within 24 hours the Ethernet 
card activity light goes off and the system forgets it has one, even 
after wiping the OS/reformatting the drive and reinstalling Win2K.  I 
have to go through a contorted procedure of modifying the BIOS settings 
with lots of reboots before it finally sees the motherboard Ethernet 
interface again.

Regards, and thanks again for all the helpful suggestions,
Daniel

Daniel Howard
President and CEO
Georgia Open Source Education Foundation