A waste of bits and bandwidth

Brian decided to start using his laptop again but it was in a bad way. With this in mind, I told him that he should consider using Linux. No virus worries, pretty slick and easy to use. He was open to the idea so I began researching what would be involved in putting it on his Inspiron 6400.

I found a HOWTO and prepared myself for a long night of hacking. I burned 9.04 to a disk, rebooted and settled in for a long night.

30 minutes later Vista was banished and I started poking around to see what was working. “Hey wireless is up, all these buttons are working and so is the track pad!” much to my astonishment, everything was working. Ok, there is one button but nothing serious.

I did my updates, installed a bunch of software and signed him up for some new accounts. Within 90 minutes I was done. Everything. All that was left to do was to turn over the keys.

I’ve been an Ubuntu user since 6.10 but I was stunned at how easy it was. I knew it was quick to install but I had no idea that the driver support was so advanced. Ubuntu never ceases to amaze me.

Clearing out the old drafts…

October is turning out to be an excellent month for new operating systems. Ubuntu 7.10 is being released on Thursday. I’ve been using Ubuntu at work for a while now and I can’t wait to update. Price is free.

Apple has finally announced the release date for Leopard 10.5 is October 26th. I decided to do the pre-order thing and that means I’ll have my copy on the 26th. Well, hopefully. Purolator are not exactly good at delivering things which is odd given that is what they do.

Bonus points to Apple for charging Canadians the same price as they do ‘Mericans. Now if only they would do the same thing with their hardware… I also took advantage of my educational discount to get it for $115.

So Ubuntu is free and Leopard is $129. What does Microshaft charge? $499 And it sucks… If you decide to go with the 5 year old XP Professional, you’re still looking at $440

To be fair, my Media Center runs Vista and Media Center works just great. I’m sure my happiness has a lot to do with the fact that I never actually use Vista. Anyway I needed to bank an October post plus I’m all excited about the new OS’s coming out. I hate to miss a chance to slam Microshaft

So that is all. See y’all in November…