SDPenguin's blog

Since my last entry I've gotten VLC to work great on both my machines, Dell 4600c and Inspiron 6000. DVD playback is great, don't forget to enable DMA though. It doesn't seem to be enabled by default. I have the wireless working on my Inspiron 6000 using WEP security. Breezy found the new Intel Pro 2200b/g card in it and installed everything. All I had to do was activate the card and put in my SSID and key. Presto everything is working great. Network setup is graphical just like in Windows, which is great for the Linux newbie like myself.

The more I use Breezy B. the more I'm impressed. It's been a little over a month now, I only get on my windows pc to do my graphics work because I'm familiar with the software, and for my personal finances, Quicken, enough said.
I was amazed when I got my 5 copies of Breezy in the mail, free of charge, each with an install and live disc. I don't think I will be buying any Windows OS again. I've given all my copies away to the college students next door, all CS students, they love Ubuntu, and all have used Linux extensively in their studies. I'm a newbie and I suppose easily impressed, but this distro is the first one I've been able to even get my wireless working on my laptop! NDISWrapper does not work for me, I'm sure it's because I'm not installing and setting it up correctly. I'm glad Ubuntu has drivers for the INtel Pro 2200 B/G mini PCI. My laptop has a Celeron processor and 512mb ram. It can get a little sluggish at times with Windows XP, Ubuntu on the other hand just flies around on it. I don't think I've ever seen an hourglass. So far I've been able to find all the apps to do what I do except for Quicken. Gimp will no doubt do the graphics work, but I am reluctant to change right now.

I had purchased SUSE Linux desktop previously and installed it on my Dell 4600c. I was frustrated by the trouble I had getting this install to work, and more frustrated with the volumonous documentation. I stumbled across Hoary by accident and thought why not, it sounds good. It installed perfectly, 1st try dual boot with WinXP. I've since upgraded to Breezy and it just works. All hardware was identified and installed correctly by both distros. The ease of adding packages with adaptic is amazing. I'm quickly becoming a Linux user instead of a Linux dabbler thanks to Ubuntu!