The last month was a period of experiments with my computer, starting with the fact that I was running on a ‘going to break’ HDD and the DST short test was failing repeatedly. So before anything, I backed up all my data (which also includes my windows partition) after running openSUSE in recovery mode; and trust me it was quite a breeze, reinforcing my crush on Linux. Later that day I called DELL support and they promptly shipped me a replacement hard drive one working day later, but the OEM OS that id also asked them to ship was going to take a few days longer as the package which includes WinXP, device drivers, sonic, win backup and a few others were flying in from Netherlands. Nevertheless I was happy with their prompt and ‘no questions asked’ service, afterall I guess ive already paid them quite a sum when I took the 3 yr complete care support for my inspiron 6400.

A few months before this day I had installed the vista transformation pack just to see what the hype was all about. Must say, I was impressed by the freshness it gave to the aging, yet stable XP. So I decided to head to the nearest and dearest electronics shop to get the Vista Home Premium. I like the way it installed, M$soft finally decided to keep it simple and viola!! I also have my disk management utility inbuilt right into the installer, and without second thought retained 20gigs of free space for THE Linux. Two weeks passed and I liked the way vista felt, till I realized that I need more memory for what started to seem like a dying computer. I think I can quite easily point the finger at vista that required ~500 MB just to boot and get running. I ‘tried’ installing Halo for vista, and not to my surprise it didn’t quite go on well. You already get the picture, don’t you? Nevertheless 2Gigs of memory is on its way..

A jobless Sunday afternoon, and what more could I do when I find the ubuntu feisty fawn media lying around, 10GB of free space and a geeky mind. No prizes for guessing right, im now happily ubutun’d with a fresh and functional desktop. And here is a trailer of what could be done with Ubuntu and Beryl

Tell me that you still aren’t impresses by just the eye candy, then here is more from a functionality p.o.v. The ubuntu installation is completed with a couple of user inputs that loads off a Live CD making life much easier, then comes the best part, the apt-get feature provided by Debian (the platform over which ubuntu is build) is used to install any application from the command prompt, all u need to know is the name of the application, and a simple `apt-get app_name` will look for the application online, download it, resolve dependencies and install the app. Ive got two words, “luvin it”

Next adventure would be tweaking and compiling the G15 drivers to get my Logitech Z10 working, and then Vmware to get virtual servers running. More later …

Like a few wise men have said …

Live free, or die.
Linux!!

If you are obsessed with the Mac and yet reading this, i thank you for your Patience. Peace

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