As you may recall from a previous entry, I’ve been promising myself I’d get my old Pentium 4 up and running again with a Linux operating system. I had loaded Kubuntu 8.10 (I think) onto a new hard drive that I’d thrown together in a new case with the old motherboard. The new (old) system had worked, but Linux novice that I was (and still am), I was unable to get it to connect to the Internet using an old Linksys wireless card. I simply wasn’t savvy enough to be able to build/write/acquire a driver, and the new (old) system was on the far side of the house and given certain, um, *ahem* “Aesthetic limiting factors,” running a Cat 5E cable across the house and through the floor was out of the question.
I’m happy to report that thanks to careful preparation, things seem to have paid off handsomely in getting the Kubuntu system running. Earlier I fortunately properly prepared the current office; I had the cable company install the home’s entry point for the cable and the Internet in the office and then had him run a line to the living room. I put the DVR equipment downstairs with what amounts to our family “Entertainment system” but left one TV controller here in the office. But most important, I made sure to place the router upstairs here in the office, and it was a simple matter to run the Cat 5E cables around the baseboard to the desktops (the Core II system doesn’t seem to like wireless, either). Last weekend after giving the office a scouring I dragged the older system with Kubuntu out of its hiding place, set it up, attached it to the also-prepositioned KVM switch, and fired it up! After simply needing to input the time for the BIOS, and after waiting a few extra minutes to let the system do whatever it did, up it booted!
So this is essentially the inaugural use of a Linux operating system going out to the world from this desk. With this post, I’m going to call a modicum of computer karma restored in my household.
Now if I could just get a Linux-based tablet computer that would run Foreflight, I could start weaning myself from my iPad!
Thanks, Josiah, for the comment!
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Thank you for the additional insights, Heather, Bridget, Guy, Wilburn, and Sherrie!
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