So I probably didn't mention the incident last weekend when three Smart Broadband employees came and sat at my house and watched files download. I was demonstrating to them how slow my connection is, and the fact that it is impossible for me to download any large files, or watch any streaming media. I've been complaining about this for the last 5 months, on and off, so I was delighted to finally get some response.
General IT
Big Switch 6: Virtually there.
OK a quick recap from my last post, where I realised that then next step was going to take some explaining … A week or so went by without incident and it was time to consider the final stage: moving Windows to a virtual machine and getting rid of the old Windows partition. Here are the main stages.
- Make a windows install CD from the install files on the windows partition (Thinkpads don’t have an install CD, they use an Install partition)
- Install vmware on Ubuntu and make a Windows Virtual Machine.
- Delete the old Windows and IBM Install partitions
- Re-arrange the remaining partitions to suit the new arrangement.
Message from Above
I was in Church the other weekend attending a mass. As I'm not a religious person, my attention was beginning to wander. Some birds had taken up residence in the roof, so I was watching them for a while, which struck me as mildly odd. Then the choir started up to lead the congregation in … Read more
Big Switch 5: Unplugged
So now I had all the software installed and working correctly I could catch up with work, and just get used to using Linux on a day to day basis. I also had the security of a fully functional Windows installation to fall back on, should everything go wrong, or should I have forgotten to copy something across.
But up until now, I'd only been using a Wired connection. The built-in wireless on my Thinkpad R51e didn't work with Ubuntu, and a few attempts to fix it were not rewarded with success. I decided to wait until I had a weekend free to sort it all out. In the interim, if I needed wireless, I had a Buffalo Airport PCMCIA card which worked perfectly when I plugged it in.
Big Switch 4: Softly Softly
Now we've got the box booting correctly its time to install some useful pieces of software, and fix a couple of things that don't work quite right out of the box. Your mileage may vary with this section, as some of the software choices are personal.
OK first golden rule of any Linux install, update all the existing software. As Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian (uh, that's enough …), then we use:
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade
… and go away and get a coffee, 'cos on a 47 kbyte connection this takes a while. Actually make that a coffee, a visit to the gym and lunch.