The BoormanBlog

So Microsoft mentioned that they are shipping the first service pack for Vista sometime this quarter. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any performance improvements or any major driver issues resolved. Oh well. I’ll just keep with my Mandriva Linux, thank you very much. Much more secure than Windows, uses a lot less system resources and oh, is entirely free. The operating system and a host of software. Productivity, internet, games, you name it. There’s even emulator software to run (some) of your Windows software (not very well).

If you can handle some of the more “unique” folks in the user community, and the ubiquitous penguin mascot, then give it a try. Did I mention it’s all free?

I downloaded the 2008 Powerpack a few months ago and tried to install it. It was a great big mess and a time waster. I lost an entire weekend trying to get the darn thing to install, much less work!

One thing I did NOT do before installing was the checksums. Maybe I just had a bad download. I’m a bit wiser (and greyer) from the experience. Next time I’ll do a checksum to make sure the download is good.

Linux. It’s as free as your time. Apparently my time is dirt cheap.

But I’m not swayed. The geeks shall inherit the earth!

Today I planned to reinstall both Mandriva and XP, complete with applications, with OS and apps on different drives. Instead all I managed to get done was burn the iso to a disk.

I downloaded Mandriva 2007 spring edition from the Mandriva club: a 4.3GB file. Today I tried to burn it to a DVD using K3B.

Nope.

Can’t burn files over 4GB. What?!? The DVD-RW has room for 4.7GB don’t give me this. After some gooling, I find out it’s a K3B limitation. Great. I go to advanced settings, select “allow overburn” and try again.

No good.

So I get to the K3B home page. The newest version 1.0 (!) eliminates “that stupid 4GB limitation bug. If it’s that stupid, why didn’t they fix it sooner? I can get the newest K3B, but only if I download the source and compile myself.

Yeah right.

I’ve learned not to go to bed angry, so I’ll sign off here and continue tomorrow.

This weekend I made up my mind to reinstall Mandriva Linux. This time, I’m using the power pack which should have all the proprietary drivers I need to get my nvidia graphics card configured. Hopefully it will configure my Hauppauge TV card too.

Time will tell, but if I’m quiet for awhile, you’ll know why.

Yep. I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I finally shelled out $66 to join the Mandriva Club. That got me the “standard” membership, which allows me to download the first 4 CD’s of the “powerpack” version of the latest Mandriva. This comes with a bunch of proprietary drivers and commercial applications. Hopefully my graphics card will be detected and configured properly. I’d hate to have paid for linux for nothing.

Made more upgrades to my PC today. A few weeks I installed my first graphics card (cheapie nVidia, still have issues with the Linux drivers btw). Last week I got ripped off buying a 512MB stick of PC2700 RAM ($53 should have checked eBay first).

Today I installed my 3rd hard drive. Did you know that motherboards can only support 2 hard drives? Me neither. Lesson learned. So today I got myself an IDE controller card to take care of that. I think this thing is officially maxed out. There’s not a single PCI slot left, and it’s pretty crowded in the case. So I’m going to use the 1st HD for the XP/Mandiva dual boot. 2nd HD for applications. 3rd will be for data (formatted FAT32 so it can be read/written by both OS’s).

Booyaa!

Went to a computer fair yesterday and got me a 2nd 250 Gig hard drive. Also got me my first graphics card. A Geforce 6200. Pretty chintzy, but it’s better than nothing. Still having some issues with it. I have multiple cursors on the screen it it moves too fast. Maybe a tweak to the drivers?

I also didn’t get to put my 3rd hard drive in. I need another ATA ribbon. Oh well, I’ll get it in a few weeks.

Link to a great article about why Linux loving men are sexier. This is probably new for some of you, but for those of us who use that alternative operating system, well….we knew it all along. Now all I need is a lady to prove it to

http://www.reallylinux.com/docs/linuxlovingmen.shtml