Doh!

I know I have not even logged on to my home computer in almost a month. I won't bored you with excuses, but I will let you know that Optimus Prime looks amazing done up in flames and a very good reason for switching to Linux is the BSOD.

Sooooo after my rebuild of another computer I shall continue the project.

Networked drives

So I have not had much time lately with work to muck around with the new OS, one problem I have encountered is networked drives. I have all my computers at home set up with shared drives, I would like them to contiune to work as they did with Windows. But I cannot seem to find the networked drives from my other computer.

Another problem, does anyone know how to say Unbuntu? I have been pronouncing it "OO-boon-too" is this correct?

The Irony

Nothing is ever just simple right? Everything has got to be a problem.


I forgot that one of the reasons I retired this lappy is because the CD/DVD Drive is kaput. Look it up, Toshiba Piece of Crap CD drive I believe is what it is called, or TPCCDD for short.


Well, what this equals is cannot run Live CD or install via CD Drive. This leaves me with a couple of options, install virtual box running Ubuntu or boot from a pen drive.


For the time being, I installed the virtual box on my desktop to take it for a test run. And what a test run it was! I can't believe I have waited so long to try out this OS, part of the reason being I did not want to go throught the hassle of partitioning my drive, but now, Wubi makes this very easy.

Love the UI, straight forward and easy to navigate. I did choose to switch the taskbars so my application menu is on the bottom, still clinging to the Windows setup a bit I think. I skinned it up a bit with the Crux theme. What can I say, I'm a girl, love the purple :). But what I really love is changing the theme did not slow down my computer one bit, in fact, I have never seen my tower run this fast.

Also love the workspaces, it is almost like having duals monitors with out the hardware. I was a bit turned off at first because it kind of looked like a Mac, and if you know me, you know how I feel about Macs. Swaping the task bars helped a bit, but I really need to figure out how to hide my desktop icons next.

I am still a bit confused with installing applications. I was reading up at Lifehacker about the Top 10 Ubuntu applications that I should have, but I don't understand the packge that I need to install first? I also have yet to have a run in with the Terminal, which I believe is the most intimidating part of running Linux.

More to come folks, I have just started.

The Specs

The specs for my lappy are as follows:

Pentium III 733 mhz
256 mb RAM

List in progress, because I am writing this from work and I don't have the lappy with me.

The Programs

I have decided to replace my current application line up with the open source applications I have heard the most about. Feel free to let me know about any programs I might not mention here and why you think I should be running it.

This is a list in progress.

The OS - Ubuntu
Currently running XP Pro SP2

The Browser - Mozilla FireFox
Currently running Firefox and IE7

Office Suite - Open Office
Currently running Microsoft Office 2003

Photo editing - GIMP
Currently running Photoshop

Vector Editing - Inkscape
Currently running the Flash MX suite

The Open Source Project

Welcome to The Open Source Project.

I consider myself an average to advanced PC user. This project is an experiment I am running to see how easily I can switch from currently used programs to open source only.

Now, a little background on my personal training and experience.

For OSes I have worked with Windows, 3.1, NT and XP. I have a bit of experience with 95, 98, ME, and Server 2003. I have limited Mac OS experience and can count the amount of times I have use a Mac on both hands. I have no Linux experience at all, in fact my only Linux experience amounts to installing Windows on a system that had Linux previously.

I consider myself a beginning programmer, I have a Bachelors of Information Technology Programming from AIU Online. Currently I work in the IT dept for a mortgage bank as a Loan Origination System developer. In the course of this job I have worked with VB.Net, LISP, and PL/SQL. Honestly most of my work is done via an editor built in VS for the LOS we use. I deal with a little code behind, but am in no way a full programmer.

In the systems and networking dept, I am also a beginner. I have set up a p2p network in my home office, but have little experience with servers, TCP/IP, etc... All of my computers are franken computers, but I have never built my own computer from scratch.

Well now you know a little of my background, lets move on to open source programs.