Thoughts 04 Sep 2007 01:30 am
Kubuntu on Fuji laptop
I was given a Fujitsu 17″ laptop with an early 3.2ghz dual core p4, and a bad hard drive.
Aside from the fact that this desktop replacement weighs more than the desk it sits on (10.5lbs with ac adapter), it’s a nice machine with a great screen.
So I replaced the drive and added memory.
It now has 2gb ddr2 ram and a 100gig drive.
I decided to use Ubuntu as my OS. Being the flavor of the month, I thought it would be a snap to install.
I was almost right.
The wireless gave me nothing but headaches, but everything else seemed to be fine.
For some reason or another, I decided to reinstall, using Kubuntu. The drivers for the wireless card were obviously different than the drivers included in Ubuntu, because it recognized the card and installed without a hitch. No patching, getting drivers from a third party, or recompiling the kernel required.
Everything appears to be running well, although I have yet to test the cd burner. I use usb flash drives almost exclusively for storing or moving data, so I’ll have to remember to check the burn feature one of these days.
(2gig flash drives were/are available locally, for $19.95 at Walmart and Bestbuy.)
In spite of it’s power and available memory, it boots a little slower than a pristine copy of Winblows. But, it boots at least half again as fast as my primary laptop, which is running xp pro, but has all the things I use, and some I haven’t used in months, loaded and running.