I have the alternate cd now. This is going to work. I can feel it. Even better, the wife is cooking some weird cake for dessert. I’m sure it will be delicious.
So, the keyboard layout detection wizard is kind of fun. I don’t have most of those keys, though. I feel a little left out.
It can’t configure the network. That’s probably not a big deal. I’ll do that later. Now we’re setting the computer name to “calvin”, as in “and Hobbes”. And now I’m formatting partitions. Since I don’t want any remnant of Windows Vista, and I’ve backed up all the files I need, I chose to reformat the entire drive. Some may not want to do that. But really, who wants to dual boot Vista and Ubuntu? On one hand, you have an OS that pretty much everyone has acknowledged is a giant mess. On the other hand, you have the first real alternative to Windows and Mac OS that is getting some real traction and publicity. So, goodbye, Vista.
I know my brothers-in-law, and some of my other readers are probably aghast at my dismissal of OSX. But Macs hate me, and Windows hates everyone, so I don’t feel bad.
The alternate installer is pretty easy to use. Sure, it looks like something from 1989. But that’s okay. Just so long as it works. It’s installing software now. That’s probably a good thing.
And the wife is beating something in the KitchenAid. Probably eggs. Actually, it’s butter and sugar. I know because I just checked. And the software installation is stuck on 6%. Hopefully that’s not a problem.
There it goes. It jumped up to 18%, and now 22%. Things are going swimmingly.
Ooh, now it’s installing the GRUB boot loader. “You’re a grub boot loader”, the wife would say.
Now I’m restarting. This is exciting.
Okay, I’m all booted up. Unfortunately, it’s at 800X600 resolution. Let’s see if we can fix that.
It looks like I’m missing the latest Nvidia driver. Clicking the little icon between the network icon and the volume icon doesn’t seem to get me anywhere. Wireless works, though.
So, let’s run some updates. sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get dist-upgrade sudo reboot
Don’t know if this is working at all. Going without a guide is a little harder than following in someone else’s footsteps.
I just tried to change the video driver to “nv”, the open source Nvidia driver, in Administration->”Screens and Graphics”. I chose the driver, hit the “Test” button, and now have a blank screen. Sweet. “
alt-ctrl-delete
I feel like I’m running Windows.
I went to System->Administration->Restricted Drivers Manager and enabled the NVIDIA driver. Now it’s downloading. This reminds me that there is no way my dad or my sister, who have both expressed interest in Ubuntu, are going to be able to install this. I think they’d like it if someone else installed it, but this requires more comfort with a computer than either of them has. I hate to bash the install process, but it’s just not going to work for people who aren’t computer geeks.
It’s asking for a restart now, so I’m obliging. I’m hoping for some sweet graphics to be enabled now. That would rule.
Well, that didn’t really work. But you know what does? “
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
Go through the wizard, reboot, and then go to System->Preferences->Screen Resolution, and you can choose 1280X800. I think I can actually get a better resolution out of the video card, but this will do for now.
So, things seem to be working. Wireless was painless. In fact, I’ve never had an easier time of connecting to a wireless network. This is groundbreaking.
Gutsy is definitely an improvement – this install took me much less time than Feisty did. I’ll have to update you all when I get a chance to play with things, but I’m currently pretty happy. I haven’t tested anything, like hibernate, or the sound, or any of the software. But I’m just going to assume that everything is awesome. I think the wife is feeling a little neglected, so I’m going to go wake her up and tell her that she’s more important than the computer. With any luck, she’ll believe me.