Another Linux laptop given away

Today, I gave a friend one of the old Dell Inspiron 4100’s that I picked up from my employer a while back. It’s a pretty good system: 1 GHz processor, 1 GB RAM, 20 GB HDD, 802.11b WiFi, 10/100 built-in NIC, 24x CD-ROM (can be replaced with 2nd battery). The laptop will help her a lot more than the recycler who usually gets our obsolete equipment.

She needed it for her daughter that is homeschooled and takes classes online. Our copy of Windows XP Professional was loaded so I had to wipe the hard drive before I gave it to her. Instead of giving her a blank system, I loaded PCLinuxOS 2007. I chose PCLinuxOS because it’s even easier than Kubuntu for someone that has never used Linux.

The system fit her needs perfectly. Firefox, Flash Player 9, OpenOffice.org and MP3 support is installed by default so I didn’t have to install them post-OS install. She couldn’t believe everything that was installed didn’t cost anything. I made sure to show her that OpenOffice.org will open and save Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. I also showed her how to use Synaptic to download updates, install software and how to use the Administration Center to configure the system.

I was impressed with how well PCLinuxOS ran. All of the hardware worked without any special configuration. The boot time was noticeablely shorter than Kubuntu on a similar system I had given to someone else. I noticed that it has an easy way to configure Active Directory login in the Administration Center. I’ll have to test that out in a VM at work to see how well it works.

I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed. – George Carlin

19.Sep.07 Hardware, Linux Comments (0)

PCLinuxOS 2007 released

The final version of PCLinuxOS 2007 was released today.

Texstar and the Ripper Gang are pleased to announce the final release of PCLinuxOS 2007. Featuring kernel 2.6.18.8, KDE 3.5.6, Open Office 2.2.0, Firefox 2.0.0.3, Thunderbird 2.0, Frostwire, Ktorrent, Amarok, Flash, Java JRE, Beryl 3D and much much more. Almost 2 gigs of software compressed on a single self bootable livecd that can be installed to your hard drive provided it is compatible with your system and you like the distribution.

I’ve tried earlier versions of PCLinuxOS and found it very easy to use. I haven’t tried this version yet but I plan on installing it this afternoon. I am really interested in seeing how Beryl 3D works in PCLOS.

You can get PCLOS 2007 via a direct download or torrents.

21.May.07 Linux, Operating Systems Comments (0)

No rest for the weary

Day 4: I saw a pink elephant. He was rather snotty, didn’t return my “Hello.”

I don’t know what’s going on but I do know one thing. Insomnia sucks. I start to doze off and then snap back fully awake. The worst part is that it makes the work day drag by.

Back to technology. So far, Ubuntu 7.04 hasn’t made any impressions on me that I didn’t already have from 6.10. The latest version actually has a problem on my laptop in that the processor doesn’t throttle properly. Because of this problem, the lower left side of my laptop gets really warm. I’m going to go back to 6.10 for now.

The server version of Ubuntu 7.04 runs a little better on my desktop server compared to 6.10. Queries against MySQL and pulling pages from Apache are slightly faster. Unfortunately, I blew away my Jinzora install and have to get it set back up. That’s good, in a way, because I can double check my write-up and be sure it’s correct before I post it.

Stay busy, get plenty of exercise, and don’t drink too much. Then again, don’t drink too little. – Herman Smith-Johannsen

05.May.07 General, Linux Comments (0)

Linux gets a consumer desktop boost

CNet is reporting that Dell, the second largest PC maker, is taking another crack at selling consumer desktops and laptops with Linux. The Linux distro of choice is going to be Ubuntu 7.04. I state “consumer systems” because Dell has offered Linux solutions, RHEL and Novell/SUSE, on their business systems for quite a while (Red Hat since 1999, SUSE Enterprise since 2005). The consumer systems will go on sale at the end of the month.

Dell has tried this in the past but it failed after about a year due to lack of sales. The decision to try it again was spurred on by the immense support shown in a discussion on the Dell IdeaStorm website.

A video interview with Canonical’s founder, Mark Shuttleworth, about what Dell’s choice means for the consumer can be found on the Direct2Dell blog.

Deliberation is a function of the many; action is the function of one. – Charles de Gaulle

01.May.07 Linux Comments (6)

pfSense rocks

pfSense rocks. There are no other words to describe it. My connection speed is faster with it compared to IPCop and SmoothWall. Traffic shaping (QoS) wasn’t as easy to setup, compared to the others, at first but it only took a little time to get it down. Snort, Squid and OpenVPN were easy to install and run flawlessly.

The only thing that is missing from pfSense QoS is Layer 7 traffic shaping. That would allow me to do QoS based on applications instead of just IP/port. The good news is that Layer 7 shaping is planned in the next major release. The bad news is there isn’t a set release date for the next major release.

Updates come out fairly often to correct minor bugs or to add functions for testing. The updates are released as snapshots and can be installed via the webconfigurator Firmware page.

I still have the Linksys BEFSX41 just in case of some kind of failure (hardware or software). It’s good to have a backup.

If you’re in a bad situation, don’t worry it’ll change. If you’re in a good situation, don’t worry it’ll change. – John A. Simone, Sr.

03.Feb.07 BSD, Networking, Security Comments (0)