The Beast Now Has Ubuntu

By /
A while ago I harangued the fine readers of this and my work blog about what laptop should the Riversdales buy ... many (but not all) respondents were adamant that I should not look at anything other than an Apple Macp(Pro) - yet I was unconvinced of the cost/benefit calculation.

And then a mate, Tony, said this:
Bought an Acer Extensa 5620. $1299 from DSE. Trash Vista, dual boot Solaris (better than any Linux Distro) and Mac OS X leopard. Both just work. Starting to fall in love with Mac OS X

I was sold ... just.

When it came time to hand over the credit card I had open, in 2 separate tabs, the completed order forms for Dell and Apple. Whichever I clicked on next I would buy ... call me indecisive if you want :-)

And then it hit me! What do I want this machine for? It was to use the web from anywhere (no mean machine required), store every piece of music I've got, play DVDs/Blu-ray and generally be the "media" hub for us all. With the iPhone I could surf (not 100% "use)  the web from the toilet anyway and so it was a "media" centre type affair. AND, I didn't want to have this bloody pain in the arse decision for at least 3-5 years.

I went for out and out grunt and bought the Dell XPS M1730 ... in red.

It came with everything I wanted except the unknown experience of a reportedly dodgy operating system, Windows Vista Home Professional - turned out just fine.

Anyway, we've had it for some time and it's grand.
It is, however, a beast and not something to throw into the laptop back - but then again, it's a media centre. It has also been fantastic over the summer holidays as we bum around the country allowing us to pop on a DVD for tired kids and then choose something for weary parents.

We use iTunes for everything (music and podcasts mostly), Windows Media Centre (MCE) to play DVD and Dell Media-thingy for Blu-ray. Oh, and it's Flickr for photos but we're loving the Google screensaver that shows us the latest/best of the Riverdales whilst mixing it up with the random photos our Flickr contacts, brilliant.

Everything flies along at a hell of a lick ... except the TV receiver card which I haven't managed to get working yet although I've read a bit on the always informative Geekzone that informs me I won't ever get MCE working here in New Zealand but there are free alternatives - but to be honest we don't watch that much crap New Zealand TV for me to give a shite.

And last night I installed Ubuntu 8.10 on to the beast as well following the extremely easy How to dual-boot Vista with Linux (Vista installed first) -- the step-by-step guide with screenshots

It felt like the machine opened up and I was no longer stuck in a walled environment.

The only issue was getting Windows Vista to give up some disk partition in the first place - bloody fucker! Sorted using the How-to Geek's, Working Around Windows Vista's "Shrink Volume" Inadequacy Problems

Installed and EVERYTHING works perfectly - built-in camera, WiFi, sound, keyboard, disks, mouse, screen, drivers ... everything!

That just leaves the small deal of getting Hackingtosh installed and I am sorted.
Thanks Tony, top advice! It is slowly coming together for us here in Riversdale-land.

Comments

  1. Brett LegreeTuesday, January 27, 2009 3:18:00 am

    Nice machine you have there - and enjoy Ubuntu. I love using it on my work laptop too (don't tell IT though!) - as you say, it all "just works".

    Good luck with the Hackintosh too ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mike RiversdaleTuesday, January 27, 2009 8:43:00 pm

    "works" - and so it should! I gave a fellow Wellington-geek a little bit of cheek about Windows 7 "working" and that was beta so he could've thrown it back in my face ;-)

    Love the fact you've given yourself a machine that suits you DESPITE your IT Dept, top work ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Brett LegreeMonday, February 23, 2009 12:13:00 pm

    I am more and more impressed with Ubuntu, day by day actually. I use it a lot on this HP even though I've got the Macbook Pro ;) no problems at all.

    Just for fun I used the Ubuntu install for an entire day at work to see how it would go - no issues. Outlook Web Access gave me my email - that was the only thing that could have been a problem.

    Like many companies, we are in cost-saving mode. So I'll be writing up a short report about it (and maybe submitting it anonymously...)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Be kind

Popular articles

Make Your Public Event Calendar Usable To All

Image
If you run a sports club, this post is for you. If you are on a community committee, this post is also for you If you host events, this is for you. If you put on shows, this is for you. In fact, if you do anything that has a date/time component that you'd like to share with people, this is for you . Yep, probably for all of us. Sharing calendars can be both: an effective way of letting everyone know a complete and utter technical pain in the bottomly region If you've posted up an events page onto your website you know how difficult it is to keep up to date, how the readers have to keep coming back to get the latest changes and don't even think about integrating with somebody else's "events page". Ok, so we all know the problem. What's the solution? iCalendar (normally shortened to iCal) ... yep, it's a geek word that you will come to know and love just as much as RSS. In fact, think of it as RSS for calendars. But that's enough geekery, if you want

On a scale of 1 to 10, how is your day going?

Image
So many people have had me ask them this simple question, " On a scale of 1 to 10, how is your day going? (where 1 is as low as it can get)" Once the person responds, you then simply askm " Is there anything I could do to help move it from a 6 to a 7? " (or . . . "from a 3 to a 4" or "from a 10 to an 11"). Just reach out and ask ... I cannot recommend this highly enough as both for support people / friends / family that are keeping an active eye on someone in their life, but also just as a great way to connect not matter what the situation. So where did it come from - this is a technique that Jane McGonicall  ( @avantgame ) picked up from her friend Michael, a philanthropist and entrepreneur and uses in a Super Better "quest" called Plus-One Better - here are the complete instructions. QUEST: Plus-One Better Pick three people: 1. Someone who would like to hear from you 2. Someone you would like to hear from 3. Some

The Difference Between One Million And One Billion

Image
It's feels like a billion is just a bit bigger than a million. Obviously it's bigger but it fits on the same scale as a million, surely. It doesn't. A billion is so so so much bigger than a million. I've trawled the internet finding graphics and videos that show the VAST difference between one million and one billion. Oh, and just to finish with a different misconception about space starting with the classic opening line from the great Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy : “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

AI Generated Images, 2024

Image
The " AI bubble " that we're currently experiencing started on 30th November 2022 (a Wednesday for those asking), the day OpenAI released ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) and everyone and their dog went bonkers for it, AI, and the new world order. As I write this I am yet to experience anything astounding in my life from any "AI" from any tech company of any size. I have noticed that Google Assistant is getting worse, Google Maps is slower, but apart from that (which I assume is "AI" related), nothing. Note: I am yet to work with any organisation that utilises "AI" in anything more than, "Ooh, look, shiny new toy". Generative "AI" is actually what ChatGPT, Gemini, and many other types of "AI" are, systems capable of generating text, images, videos, code, or other data using generative models, often in response to prompts. I am not impressed by text or code, I should be but rarely am. I will alway