I have finally acquired a spare laptop from work following replacement of machines, now it isn’t the best but I didn’t mind because all I wanted was a basic machine to play with linux on, specifically Ubuntu.

Ubuntu logo

That isn’t the case anymore because I have fallen in love with Ubuntu! It has been an absolute dream to use, the GUI is beautiful and the ease of use is much better than Windows.

Installing I had some problems with v7.10 however, where it just seemed to hang after showing the Ubuntu progress bar when trying to load the install. However I thought I would try v6.06 as a last resort – it worked. When installing I loved the ease of set up, Microsoft should take a leaf out of the Linux book (or maybe a full chapter!). The installation did collapse at first attempt (at some point during the Open Office install) but following a retry I was away.

Setting up my wireless network was a little easier than Windows, not completely trouble free however. I could connect to my wireless network fine once I found how to choose the network to connect to, but I still couldn’t load any web pages by domain name, only by IP address. A little investigation and I found that Ubuntu had set the DNS to be my router. Once I had changed that to my ISP DNS servers I was cooking on gas.

I have yet to really try to use the machine for any serious work, or really get stuck into any programmes or terminal exploration – but I’ll let you know when I do.

This blog was brought to you by an Acer Travelmate 290 running Ubuntu 6.06.