The Island Journal

You may remember I built a PC not to long ago and it’s still kickin’. I installed Windows XP 64 bit with every intention of replacing it with Ubuntu 9.04 “Jaunty Jackalope” when I had the opertunity… it is still running windows. While I may be excited at the prospect of a new Windows OS like Win 7 releasing in October, I want my Linux and I want it on my primary system. More over, I want to play games and use Photoshop IN Linux.

I was told recently that this is doable and I plan to test that theory by formatting my system tonight and installing Ubuntu. It may be after my upcoming trip to Sacramento, but I will find out soon if I’ll be able to WoW (yes I reactivated the account for a month or two) and Photoshop CS4 my way to glory.

By the by, I’m currently running Linux Mint on my smaller, older system. It’s almost as pretty as Ubuntu and like Ubuntu, it’s using the Gnome gui which, as we all know, is much better than KDE. Do we all know that? I don’t weven think we all agree on that, but it’s my opinion. At any rate, it’s a nice system and I’ll be installing Fedora on yet another old system when it arrives at the PC grave yard, aka my home office. One day I’ll get around to posting screen shots of all these desktops so you can see what it is I’m rambling on and on and on about.

Tags: linux, microsoft, ubuntu, windows
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I considered installing the beta for Windows 7 (AKA Blackcomb or Vienna) x 64 on the system, but it will go inactive before the full release date around Christmas so I figured, I’ll grab it when it’s released. From the reviews I’ve been reading, Windows 7 is a vast improvement over Vista. The shell is more similar, but closer to Windows than OS X and the system is a bit more configurable. I also understand, like many of their 64 bit operating systems, they’ll be basing it on Windows Server which increases the stability. I’ve read rumors that they will only be offering Windows 7 in 64 bit and dropping 32 all together. If that’s the case, many older systems are going to be hard pressed for support. Looks like I need to start building my parents a new one.

Tags: computers, linux, vista, windows, windows 7
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You may be wondering where my blog went. Well, I wasn’t keeping up with it and I had broken the cardinal rule of the slacker… I planned. I planned to make the blog about doodles and travel, but as I’ve been traveling, I’ve run into weekends I just didn’t feel like doing anything picture worthy or I posted them at MySpace. As I’ve been doodling, I haven’t done anything worthy of posting or didn’t have a scanner with me Or I posted them at Deviant Art. In a nut shell, The blog just kind of sat here. I’ve deleted the posts and I’m starting over. It’s September of 08 and I’m picking up about a year after I left off the last time. I begin anew with a new discovery:

LINUX! The Ubutu distrubition, Hardy Heron build to be specific.

That’s right boys and girls, I’ve gotten into Linux, the open source free man’s (or woman’s) operating system. When I was in college, I used a Unix system (the basis for linux) and a text based web browser called Lynx to get online along side telnet for chat. Later came graphical interfaces like Netscape. I eventually fell into the trap Microsoft has lain for us all and became… and end user.

Now-a-days, I like to think I’m smarter than the average user, but I’m defiantly not an U83Я l33t h4ck3r (uber “leet” as in elite hacker, see leetspeak) either. I thought, that’s all that used Linux. Not just the hackers, no Linux users were the elite hackers who had ideas about politics and art and literature and when they spoke, out poured important utterances that would set the coffee house on a roar with debate. These are the people who, while trading pirated software in back rooms of smoke filled techno clubs, wearing faded black sweaters with torn jeans and beanies, sporting silk scarves and dark round sunglasses, would comment on the instability of Darfur and how the oppressive regime currently trying to control the country was nothing more than a mouth piece for the corporations that really ran things and arguing the benefits of pirates over ninjas or vice versa.

This was my misconception. I am more of an end user than a real authority on the subject of all things tech, but that proves the versatility of the OS. Linux has proven it’s self to me so far as a solid and relatively easy to learn operating system. My system is faster and It’s getting easier to use. The only issues I have are some programs that have to have windows to run (Photoshop is a prime example), it’s not as intuitive as I’d like but that can be fixed with some tweaking of the GUI and the inability to sync some devices though I’m looking into that. The best part is a community of support. Windows offers a little database of issues, but there’s no one that really cares. Linux users really want other users to enjoy and have an easy time of Linux. The forums are full of helpful and nice people who are eager to help. All in all, it seems like a hit, but we’ll know more as time goes on.

Ubuntu Site

Forums for help

Change the look

Tags: computers, gnome, linux, microsoft, umbutu
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