A Ubuntu Laptop Too.

I am lucky enough to have a lot of hardware laying around. (I work on computers for people who don't have lots of money and they usually "pay" by giving me their old or broken equipment or not) I've taken some of that stuff and put together a Dell Inspiron 8100 Laptop. It's a PIII 1.2 ghz, has 512mbs of ram, a 40gb hard drive, built-in 100mb network, a built-in modem, and a CD Burner. (I had to rebuild the screen, new bulb and inverter) It had MS Windows XP Home on it and it was just sitting there so I said what the hey, and put Ubuntu Linux 6.1 on it.

I was missing the portability of my laptop so this should cure that, plus I can take this to work and see if it will play on an ACTIVE DIRECTORY DOMAIN.

I started this install at about 6pm and I just now finished. Why? A bad CD. I have had the worst luck with my Linux media. If you've read all this blog you'll remember that I had to download the ISO twice because of a few bytes missing. I used the same CD I installed my Desktop Linux Box with, but it would lockup at 59% every time on the laptop. I took the CD out a few times and looked at it and it seemed ok but after the third attempt, I burnt a new CD and it worked.

I thought it might have been a Linux/Laptop thing (hence the three repeats) because it would hit 59% and run the CD for about 10 minutes staying at 59% then start the hard drive and run it until you powered it off manually. I thought it could have been the hard drive too but I ran a hard drive utility from a boot cd and it said the hard drive was fine.

Why tell you all this? Because when you are experimenting with a new OS don't rule out the little things. Who would have thought you downloaded a bad ISO? then just 10 days later have the presumed working install CD (had worked twice before) have a tiny scratch that kept it from working. So before you blame the OS or just assume that Linux can't do it, check your cables, check you CDs, and make sure its plugged into the wall power outlet.

Tomorrow I plan on testing wireless from the laptop and Linux to Linux networking. Anyone know if a Motorola WN825G PC Card works with Ubuntu? We'll find out.