Dancing with the Penguin

I have a laptop which I acquire back in Dec 2003. It’s an Acer Aspire 2001. During those period of time, I brought it with me wherever I may roam, be it business or pleasure. During those period of time, I have changed the hard drive twice, upgraded the RAM, repaired the hinges (is it me or it have a hinge problem which cost me RM260 to replace it) and formatted it twice.

Early of this year the hinge was broken again! Urgh!!! I already thinking of getting a new laptop before this, thinking of which brand and specification to take other than Acer. But with the old one broken, I have to get a new one fast. I wanted to have something that is good to play with when Starcraft 2 is released somewhere last year (it’s already 2009, batang hidung terran belum nampak pun). So I bought Acer Aspire 4920G (yeah, Acer again).

So since I’m getting a new laptop, I’m going to use my old laptop as a download server only, downloading and uploading torrent for movies, printer sharing, basically turning it into my home server, running on Window XP. I wanted to install Linux on it but fearing my mom (who loved to play them flash games) didn’t know how to use it. So I let it be as it is.

I didn’t know how or when, it was infected with them pesky worms. I guess that is why my internet connection was so bloody slow for a few month last year. The thing is, I hate doing troubleshooting because it takes up a lot of your time. I hate to reformat mainly because you have to go folder by folder to get those important data. I have had it. I’m going to install Linux on my lappy. I’m installing Mandriva distribution using GNOME desktop environment. I come with Live on CD but I decide to have it on my lappy. Good thing with Live on CD, I can still retrieve files in my lappy and transfer it temporary on my portable drive.

A few years back, installing Linux is not that easy. Because it is relatively new, you need to have a really good knowledge about computer to install it. You have to manually find and install the driver yourself provided that you can find it. Most drivers are written for Windows. Everything has to be done manually. Now, installing it is as easy as installing Windows. Thanks to Linux user community who had made Linux becoming more user friendly. Even most driver nowadays has Linux distribution although you have to do manual installation yourself.

I have no complaint with it. My siblings have no problem with it although my sister prefers to use Photoshop; she’s learning to use GIMP on Linux. My mom? Mandriva Linux comes with a few games; board games, RPGs, strategy to name a few. But what really matter for her is to read the local news online. Like I said earlier, I just want to download my anime series with ease and fast, and it is fast. But I still need to know Linux command line for me to really control Linux. I’ll do it step by step I guess. It’s kind of a shame installing what is considered a very powerful operating system when you don’t even know how to use the command line like my knowledge using DOS.

I got these from a website, selling T-shirt specifically for geeks.

UNIX is sexy.
who | grep –i blonde | date cd ~; unzip; touch; strip; finger; mount; gasp; yes; uptime; unmount sleep

Yes, that’s some of the command/term used in UNIX and Linux 😉

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