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Desktop Environments Using Linux Your Choice

LXQT Desktop Environment

Hi all. I’m just writing a quick post here about this sort-of new desktop environment called LXQt.
You can find info on the LXQt Desktop Environment by clicking here.

I have my Dell Inspiron 15z for over a year now. Sure, it has Windows 8 and I’ve settled in to the long-term support version of Kubuntu. I like Kubuntu more than Ubuntu (never really loved Unity. I got used to it mind you, but I never saw it as my long-term environment).

Other distros simply gave me too much stress due to the UEFI/MBR/GPT constraints I finally had enough and “started over”, no, I didin’t nuke and pave and reinstall Windows, instead I got rid of a fine distro called SolydK and converted the machine back to a realistic dual-booter with Kubuntu 14.04.

From listening to the Linux Action Show podcast, I found out about LXQt and decided to give it a try. I tried LXQt while learning about OpenSUSE by way installing OpenSUSE in a VM and then adding the LXQt environment. I really enjoyed the fast response so I added it my main host machine (Kubuntu). My machine has 8gb of RAM, and Kubuntu runs well, but of course, a lighter environment is going to be faster.

What I think could be improved with LXQt is the settings. I found them to be “too sticky” in some places, and “not sticky enough” in others. Let me explain:

  • I use a 2nd monitor with my laptop. Each time I logged into LXQt I’d have to reset my monitor settings to make use of the 2nd monitor.
  • Under Kubuntu, the YaKuake terminal loads for me automatically. Under LXQt, this does not occur so you need to add a command to a startup script for that to happen. Easy enough to do, but…log back into the Plasma Kubuntu workspace and YaKuake terminal gets invoked twice.

Other than that it was a very fast and visually appealing Desktop Environment. Enjoy it with one of many distros.

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Desktop Environments Distributions Installing Linux Linux Discussion Obtaining Linux Using Linux

Solyd is great but I had to switch back

What does this mean? Well, it means that for a good run I was able to use Solydk, the KDE version of the SolydXK Linux Distribution. I recently had to replace Solydk with another distro because I ran into issues with my Dell Inspiron 15z, which is UEFI, Secure Boot with Windows 8 Pre-installed.

I do regret purchasing a Windows-based machine thinking it would be easy to dual-boot with Windows and Linux. More specifically, a non-BIOS machine anyway. It’s been blogged about countless times, that it’s just downright painful to get Linux and Windows 8 (with UEFI) to play nicely and dual-boot without issue. In retrospect, a System76 laptop with a Windows 8 VM would have probably been a better choice.

Here’s what I learned before I first switched to Solydk. That (on this machine so far) Ubuntu and its derivatives (for that matter) will install (in general) without major issues. But I discovered soon after that the Ubuntu Boot Repair CD becomes your best friend soon after. And of course, tutorial sites such as How To Geek come in handy as well. Here is a tutorial which may help with boot repairs. Even though Ubuntu has gone to the trouble of getting their kernels signed and approved by MS, there are still some minor post-install issues where you have to jump through a few hoops to have a reliable dual-boot system.

Then I switched to Solydk, as I recently became a big fan of not only the KDE, but the concept of installing a rolling release – install once, update as necessary. Sadly, because Solydk installed GRUB to the MBR, (my bad choice) I was unable to boot into Windows 8. Thus my machine became a single-boot laptop. It wasn’t bad for a while – but then you reach a point where you need to get at that Windows 8 OS to do something. And it won’t boot.

I reached for the Boot Repair CD, which has a feature to restore the MBR. That part of it worked great, as I was finally able to get to Windows. The bad news was I could no longer get to Solydk. Tried many different things and of course got some really supportive help over at the SolydXK Forums. But did not have any luck in getting the machine back to dual-boot capability.

At that point, it was time to choose a distro that would dual-boot properly and play nice with Windows 8 and all the UEFI/Secure Boot nonsense installed on this computer. I considered Fedora 20, but I could not get my head around the errors I was encountering on the manual partitioning page. I’ve been using Debian derivatives for so long, that I kind of got used to the way they do things. The Fedora partitioner was the deal-breaker for me. Maybe someday I’ll get it working via experimentation in a virtual machine.

The other viable candidate was Kubuntu, so I installed the current latest version (13.10) and had a lot of issues with the well-known “black screen on boot from grub” issue. This occurred whether the Live DVD booted in EFI mode or Legacy mode. It simply didn’t matter. I followed many blog posts that advised adding grub parameters `nomodeset` and `acpi_osi=Linux`, and `acpi_backlight=vendor`. None of these parameter add-ons fixed the issue. So it was time to make a judgment call. Fix the 13.10, or do something else. With April only days away, I decided to move forward toward the long-term support release of version 14.04 “Trusty Tahr” but since it’s not yet officially released, I downloaded and installed the Alpha2 version.

Kubuntu 14.04 Alpha2 installed nicely (the Live DVD booted just fine with the computer in UEFI mode), and the install process did not wipe out the MBR. However it did do some kind of monkey business as I was unable to boot into Windows. Once again, the boot repair DVD to the rescue. I was able to properly purge and reinstall GRUB and of course repair the MBR. After that, I am able to dual-boot Windows 8 and Kubuntu 14.04 with no black screen issue.

I’m seeing two somewhat interesting and strange items, but I can live with them both. One of them is that the grub menu theme is missing a character to the point where my grub boot screen is using “? in a box” as its border character. Also I have the Yakuake terminal set to autostart, where under normal conditions it stays hidden until you press F12 key. Currently, the terminal drops down once the desktop has fully loaded into a usable state. Again these are minor things that are possibly the result of rocking an Alpha2 (Pre-release) version of the OS.

In summary, it’s back to Kubuntu for now, but I can see myself reinstalling Solydk at a later time. Preferably when they implement support or handling of EFI and allow the boot loader to not be put onto the MBR. The SolydXK team is working on it, so hopefully they’ll release this feature soon.

Thanks for reading.

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Desktop Environments Distributions Linux Discussion Your Choice

Bye Bye Buntu, hello Solyd

I’ve used Ubuntu for quite a long time now. I would say since 12.04 on my current laptop (Dell Inspiron 15z that I mentioned in another post. Yes, the one with Windows 8 and Secure-boot UEFI). Seemed to be the “good/easy” choice to get up and running with a dual-boot for this newfangled secure-boot BIOS since Ubuntu has “signed kernels” since 12.04 version. Setting this up, was not simple, yet not too complicated once I found advice on the net that actually worked.

After upgrading from 12.10 to 13.04, things simply were not the same. The machine would not boot in secure mode. No big deal, but after a while it makes one think… what changed? what’s different? and the next thought… do i really want to be forced to press and hold the F12 key each and every time I want to boot into Linux properly. The answer to that last part was an obvious ‘no’.

So, it was time for a change of distro. The criteria was kind of simple: Stable (well I think everyone wants stable..) and if possible, a rolling style release, so I wouldn’t have to worry about `upgrades in-place` doing silly things, or having to do fresh installs. Under ‘normal’ circumstances I prefer fresh installs, but also prefer it when the machine itself is easy-to-control. Which I would say is somewhere between the days of Fedora Core 2 (when I was learning Linux) and this new age of Secure-boot BIOS. I feel like this machine’s BIOS is not under my full control (A P.I.T.A if you ask me).

The Linux Action show podcast reviews Distros every now and then, and one week, they mentioned “SolydXK“. The review goes back a few months, so I had forgotten most of the review. It was a positive one, which made me consider trying it. I wanted a KDE environment (as recently) I’ve been using KDE, even in Ubuntu (google for the 3-5 commands it takes to migrate Ubuntu to Kubuntu) if you like Ubuntu but have grown a bit tired of Unity and older GNOME.

My choices came down to Kubuntu 13.10 and SolydK (the KDE version of Solyd). So far, I’m really liking Solydk. There are few weird things, such as flickering splash screen on boot – which occurs whether I have the USB external keyboard/mouse plugged in or not. Also, I’m liking that SolydXK is a rolling distribution. Given that Linux offers choice, I can always switch back if necessary to Kubuntu. But for now… Solyd is working really nice. Really responsive on this computer and gives a great KDE Desktop where stuff basically works as expected in other KDE-based distros.

Some other qualities of Solyd are that it was not derived, but “forked” i believe from Linux Mint (read more here), which I have used and is quite nice. So that puts in the ‘based-on-debian’ category of distros. Solyd is based on Debian testing and uses Synaptic Package Manager. Even though software stores/managers are all the rage these days, I still (from time to time) will use the GUI Synaptic or the more common apt-get install command at the terminal.

If you’re in a similar spot with a relatively new computer (2 yrs old or so) and want a good KDE experience (rolling release) you do (thank goodness) have many great choices. Some of you still reading might be screaming “Arch, Archlinux has all this!” and you’re correct, Arch is well-known for its rolling style. However, it’s not easy or quick to set up and I wanted to get going quick so I can try the distro out.

I recommend SolydK for KDE fans out there, (no shopping lens or other spying apps that send data – as far as I know). And I’m thinking of putting SolydX (the XFCE version) on a friend’s computer (right now the machine runs Puppy Linux from CD-rom).

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Applications Desktop Environments Distributions Using Linux Your Choice

More new software

With the upgrade to Ubuntu 13.10, I was looking forward to the better performance (which it “does have”) however what I failed to consider – was what things might “stop working” post-upgrade.

I should have paid more attention to the multiple questions during the upgrade process. Questions such as “do you want to keep existing file “fileName” or use new file. I didn’t consider the impact of the decisions. Nor do I remember them to be honest.

End result – system that previously dual-booted windows and linux now would not boot directly into linux. At all. I then proceeded to turn off Secure Boot in the BIOS and after quite a few tests, trial, and error I wound up being able to get into Linux by holding down F12 at every boot and then selecting UEFI OS. Not ideal to say the least.

Got so irritated, that I was “moments away” from dumping Ubuntu 13.10 in favor of Fedora 19. But before doing that, I first made a backup of files, and followed some easy steps to convert Ubuntu into Kubuntu. Wow, I had not used KDE in such a long time, and I must say that I’m impressed with it. For many years I didn’t use it, as it simply works better on newer machines with decent Ram and hardware. Since I now have a machine with decent specs, I figured “why not” try out KDE again.

I’m writhing this post in KDE as we speak, and it’s wonderful to have the choice of booting into Unity Ubuntu, Ubuntu Flashback, or KDE. I totally enjoy the customizing and how it “gets out of the way”. I put my favorite/most used applications icons in a vertical dock at the right-hand side of my screen and set the bottom panel to auto-hide. Konsole is an awesome terminal and starts immediately.

Still, I find it a nuisance to need to press and hold F12 each time and make a BIOS selection in order to boot the system. I may yet still scrap Ubuntu entirely and go with Fedora and make use of KDE from there. While I got used to Unity via Ubuntu, I can’t say I’m a big fan of it. But then again, that’s the awesomeness that is Linux. We usually always have a choice of what we want to use right out of the box, or customize/add/remove things to our heart’s content.

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Applications Desktop Environments Distributions Installing Linux Using Linux Your Choice

New Hardware, New Software

Well, new is tough to define since computers and technology move so fast.

April 2013: I treated myself to a new laptop: an i7 machine (Dell inspiron 15z) and I’m happy with it. Great specs, such as 8GB of RAM, a touchscreen, and the “dual-drive” thing where one drive is a 5400 RPM in tandem with a 32GB SSD. So far, it’s got the best response time of any computer I’ve owned.

We’ve covered the hardware, on to the Software! The machine has Windows 8 & a UEFI Secure-boot BIOS. Yes, my fellow fans of Linux, I was “well aware of the challenge” of dual-booting that lay ahead. Still, I pressed on.

Information these days it’s available from many sources. For up-to-date Linux info, I trust Chris Fisher and Matt Hartley over at the Linux Action Show podcast and have been a listener for many years – a shout out to you, Brian Lunduke as well. Miss ya bud.

While listening to the podcast, they mentioned the emerging (at the time) technology of Secure Boot computers, and the potential impact it would have on us Linux users. I could have (and there are days that I wish I had) purchased a System76 laptop – however I did want to have “some access” to a late-model windows OS “just in case”. Chris and Matt informed me that Ubuntu and Fedora were (again, at the time) the only distros that would be compatible with the UEFI Secure Boot System.

A few of you still reading this post may be saying “Booooo, down with MS Windows…” – but I must say that having the real “Microsoft word” was critical for my job hunting. Open Office just isn’t there yet (sorry Apache), and Libre Office… disappointing as well. I needed (and used) the “real deal” – I don’t enjoy saying this, but there are just some MS Apps that are not directly replaceable (yet) in the Linux world.

I will say that getting Ubuntu to properly dual-boot was an arduous process. The good thing is that I did eventually get it working with the help of various software (such as EasyBCD for Windows, and Boot Repair Tool for Ubuntu). Things worked great for a long time. Then it was time for upgrade to Ubuntu 13.10, which I now sort-of regret. The upgrade broke a lot of stuff. Broke it to the point where I had to disable a lot of BIOS things just so I could hold down F12 key each and every time I boot.

I was livid, and have so much ire about this, that it deserves to be in it’s own blog post. Stay tuned – more to come.

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Applications Command Line (CLI) Using Linux

Burning Music CD Backup is not simple

Recently, I needed to backup a Music CD with my Linux OS.  Sadly, this was not simple.  This post discusses using Linux to back up a music cd. Nothing more, nothing less. I don’t intend to promote or sell my backups.  Yes, I am aware that

  • On Mac and Windows, music cd backup woes aren’t worth discussing since easily-obtainable programs exist
  • This is an area of computer use that can raise eyebrows

Why backup our music CDs?

Safekeeping in a familiar location; your personal computer

If I backed up my Led Zeppelin CD “In Through the Out Door”, then I wouldn’t be upset about it (it’s missing). Of course, music CDs are not as expensive as they were before the days of digital purchase, digital download, and youtube, but it’s the principal of it.

Easily encode & transfer music for different formats & players

For example, you make a digital backup of “In Through the Out Door”. Your wife wants to listen to it on her iPad in high quality audio format.  Your nephew would also like to listen to it, but has limited audio file type support and less storage space on his iPod Touch.  With a full digital backup of the cd, you can easily encode the songs to satisfy both requirements without having to take the original music cd out of its case multiple times.

You covered “why”, ? “how”

I will first give citation to the source of the solution that worked for me. See the first post from user noz in How to dump an Audio CD to ISO from the freebsd forums for the instructions. I found a “gotcha” (possibly) overlooked in the “Playing it” section;  Note: Playing the BIN without conversion will give you an earful of static.  This is notable, it also applies to the burn process.  You want to burn the converted (not original) bin file.  I got this wrong the first time. To avoid the mistake the 2nd time, I did the following:

  • Kept the file names the same for both original and converted bin files.
  • Used sed to replace the source (in TOC) to the converted bin file. Sed was quicker than a GUI text editor to accomplish same [find/replace] task.

For example, if your original bin = in-out-door.bin, converted bin = in-out-door-converted.bin, and TOC file is in-out-door.toc

sed -i -e ‘s/in-out-door.bin/in-out-door-converted.bin/’ in-out-door.toc

You might prefer to rename the .bin files and leave the toc as-is. It’s up to you.

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Desktop Environments Distributions Installing Linux Using Linux Your Choice

Old Hardware, Old Software

Hello all. Feels like it was only yesterday talking about this old Emachines T-5048 computer.  This machine has been through a lot. Many distros tried, several distros failed.

The good news is, that in the process I learned that Old Hardware is just not going to be treated fairly by new software/OS Releases. It’s a reality that I used to think only applied to MS Windows users.  You may remember the days when you wanted to run Windows 2000, but it just would not work right until you made “some” investment in new hardware.  Me, I was lucky. I only needed to purchase a new video card.

This computer has been running Crunchbang 10 for a few months now.  While the response time is really fast, (due to its light resource footprint) I had to heavily modify the grub bootloader to get it to properly boot.  Changes such as turning off ACPI and LAPIC.  I thought the only downside was that I’d have to manually press a button to turn off the machine.  Sadly, I think it goes beyond that.  Playing sound files or CDs  produces a poor experience.  Music would sometimes start and then stop, or stutter (don’t know which is worse) and I attribute this to hardware on the machine.

To know for sure. I installed an old (yet still supported LTS OS version). I first chose Kubuntu 10.04 LTS for two reasons.  First, it is old (below kernel 3). Secondly, it’s KDE4, which I’ve never tried.  I enjoyed the depth of possible customizations, but disliked the slow performance.  I need a responsive desktop, and this machine cannot run KDE properly.

My next (and current) choice was to try one of my favorite “other” distros – Linux Mint 9 XFCE Isadora (an LTS based on Ubuntu 10.04). I chose XFCE version of Mint since I ran a dual-boot Xubuntu with Windows XP on an old DELL Laptop.  Now that I’m dual-booting with 2 Linuxes, I think I will leave Mint XFCE on here, as it seems a great balance of speed and visual appeal. KDE looks better (visually) than XFCE, but again, performance and the ability to get the most out of this aging hardware are crucial to me. Also, in comparison to Crunchbang– Crunchbang is faster, but with XFCE the programs I install wind up in the application menu.  In Crunchbang you have to add just about every program you install in a manual fashion. There might be a tool out there that does this automagically, but I haven’t found it yet.

Edit; Found it. And boy do I feel dumb. I’ve been using Crunchbang Linux for years, and the answer was only a Forum-search away. To access all of your installed applications, follow the advice to show Debian Menu.

So far, music playback works great, and hey, I can also issue the shutdown command and walk away, knowing the machine will power itself off. Yay!

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Distributions Installing Linux MacBook Your Choice

Ubuntu 12.04 on Macbook 6,2

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS edition installed great on this Macbook.  I chose the 32-bit edition as 32-bit was recommended from the Mint tutorial that I first used as a guide for dual-booting linux and MacOS.

I was running Ubuntu 11.04 on the machine, and was hesitant to try and upgrade it “in place” to Ubuntu 12 based on experiences with my Desktop PC. The Desktop PC I’m referring to is the E-machines T5048 as discussed in my other post “Linux saves older computer“.

Basically, I did not want to run into the same ACPI-related issues where Linux Kernel 3 would not be supported.  Also there was an apprehension towards the Unity desktop environment.  This is, mind you, after trying it out on Ubuntu 11.

I was able to install 12.04 using the CD-rom install.  All went great, no bootup issues at all. Whew, what a relief to not see the forever hanging “waiting for /dev to fully populate”.  And with that, I am now dual booting Mac OSX with Precise Pangolin.  And because it’s an LTS, I can leave it on there for a good long time.  As per wikipedia, “this [12.04] release will be supported for five years“.

Unity

When Ubuntu made Unity the default environment, I did not like it at all.  I found myself immediately searching Google for ways to get that GNOME 2 look and feel back.  I just didn’t like or understand why Unity changed a lot of keyboard shortcuts that I grew to enjoy using either.  But the general ease-of-use, along with large community (interwebs) support of Ubuntu makes it such a “go-to” Operating System.  Of course, this is going to vary from person to person.  Now that I’ve used it for a while, it’s not so bad.

I’ve found that with some patience, and the willingness to learn new things, I can actually function in this environment.  I chose the auto-hide feature of the Unity dock to save on screen real estate (13.3″ macbook).  Another reason I chose auto-hide is I quite love the ‘minimalist desktop appearance’ that Crunchbang (with Openbox) provide, so now I have an all-out Ubuntu long term release, with a lightweight look to it.  Lightweight in looks is fine, as this machine is (so far) keeping fine pace with the resource demands of Ubuntu 12.

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Distributions Installing Linux Your Choice

Another Old PC, another Linux install

Hi all, this post is being written from another install of Crunchbang Linux.  Why is this worth mentioning? Well, it really isn’t worth mentioning, but I did anyway.

Recently I acquired a PC that belonged to a friend of mine. I offered $20 and, well, it has its limitations, but what do you want for 20 dollars, right? Right. Here’s the technical details: Shuttle XPC with an AMD64 Proc., DVD-ROM Optical Drive, 1GB of RAM, and a 20GB Hard disk.  My intended purpose for this machine is to perform software experiments and testing.  Nothing crazy mind you, so spending money to fix/improve it would be money wasted.

So, being a Linux enthusiast, I gave several Distros a test drive on this machine. Distros such as Mint (Debian, LXDE, Gnome), Crunchbang Linux, and Ubuntu (main Gnome 2/3, and Lubuntu), as these are my recent (and old) favorites. You can say I prefer the Debian Based Linux OS, but that’s a story for another blog post.

The results: (because surely a fair amount of those actually reading this blog are curious to learn what actually happened).

Linux Mint Results:

Mint 12 LXDE would not install, Mint 12 Debian Edition crashed mid-way thru installation, and Mint 11 GNOME was the winner in the Stable Mint environment for this machine.

Ubuntu Results:

Ubuntu 10.04.4 got most of the way through the install and crashed.  Lubuntu 12.04 installed nicely, but had lots of crashing during web browser use, so bye-bye. Ubuntu 11.04 GNOME was ok.  Ubuntu 12.04 GNOME not even a consideration based on inability to install a recent Linux Mint.  My Ubuntu goal was to use a long-term-support release if possible.

Crunchbang Linux Results:

This particular machine has had Crunchbang installed on it several times over the last 2-3 months, for stability tests and Linux multi-boot (GRUB) experiments.  I must say, each and every time the installation was a success, and the speed of the Openbox environment (which are the main reasons I use Crunchbang on my other Linux Desktop PC) performs superbly.

There’s just something about this machine I guess.  With 1GB of Ram, and (seemingly) other hardware-related issues, Crunchbang fits right in with its low-resource footprint.  Based on your hardware, the age and condition of said hardware, some software is just going to work better than others.

This is why I love Linux. When faced with a challenge, try, try again until you find what you want in terms of customization, efficiency of use, and last but not (by a longshot) least —stability. I cannot emphasize this enough.

The next article will discuss SugarCRM, and why it’s awesome to have an extra PC around.

Cheers!

 

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Distributions Installing Linux Your Choice

Linux Saves Older Computer

I have an old computer. I say old although I don’t really know what “Old” means. It’s an E-machines T-5048 computer with a P4 Processor running at 3.06GHz with 2 Gig of Ram (the system’s maximum).

When I got the machine, it had Windows XP Media Center, and I got rid of that in favor of Linux. The machine’s sticker read “Vista Ready”. So the machine had hardware that can run Vista. Whoopee. The next question is, “Should I run Vista?”, and based on poor experiences with it on other machines. The answer is a short and quick “No. No Way. Not Now. Not Ever”.

With Linux, the machine ran just fine for years with several different flavors, notably Linux Mint, Crunchbang, and at the end of the summer 2011, Ubuntu. Ubuntu 11.04 ran fine on it, worked right out of the box, no hassles. Eventually, it was time to upgrade to Ubuntu 11.10.

Or was it?

I wanted to do a fresh install from CD. While using the GUI “Update your OS now with this click of a button and when it’s all done you’ll have the latest and greatest” button is nice and convenient, but I wanted a fresh start for better performance. Remember, it’s an old machine. So I downloaded and burned the .iso image for 11.10, installed it, and then…. on restart … no boot. At all. Machine hang on “Waiting for /dev to fully populate“.

Nice. Lovely. Exciting, boring, and scary all at once. I am so happy that I backed up of all my files before attempting the upgrade. Yes, do back up your stuff. Unexpected Boot failures are one of the reasons “why” a backup is so important.

So, being a Linux geek for several years, you learn to keep a toolbox full of rescue CDs, alternate OS downloads, and partitioning software as well.

Being a computer nerd, you learn to troubleshoot things in a way that hopefully make sense. You try to repeat the issue and where possible, isolate the cause of it. Anything “/dev” is usually a tell that somethings wrong with a “device” which is typically hardware-related.

So I checked to see if the CD-burner was bad. I donwloaded a USB version of the Ubuntu Live CD, and got same result, machine would not boot up. Ruled out the CD-rom at that point. Next, on to the hard drive. Bad hard drives don’t always let you know that they are going to fail. I swapped out the current drive with an older drive of the same architecture (ATA). Although it had less storage space, (20 Gig as opposed to 160) it was just perfect for troubleshooting. If I could repeat the same error with a different Hard Drive, then the problem isn’t the hard drive (that is unless both drives were bad for exactly the same reasons).

I then tried other modern Linux Distributions, installing their latest OS. Same problem, so at least that lets Ubuntu off the hook.

At that point, I kind of figured that another piece of hardware, that was probably not worth fixing, was broken or damaged to the point of “no boot up for you” status. If it’s not worth fixing well, the computer has got to go, right? I started shopping around for a good deal on a modern, fast PC with NO Operating System. Makes no sense to pay for the OS when you’re only going to wipe it out anyway in order to put Linux on it. Not interested in dual-booting for my main workstation. It’s Linux. Period. The best price I could find was an HP Machine (with Windows 7 Home Premium) for $300.00 –not a bad price mind you for a new system.

However, instead of immediately breaking out the credit card, I felt there was one last thing I thought I should test. That’s right. Since Linux gives you so many choices of Operating Systems, it was time to experiment in that domain.
Since I tried swapping out current hardware for old hardware to test, it was time to swap out current “software” for older software and then test again.

Knowing that Ubuntu’s normal release cycle is every 6 months, it did not make sense to reload 11.04 as it will (at some point via upgrade) request that I upgrade to the 3.0 kernel. I don’t think this machine can run that kernel. Something to do with ACPI. I’ve written on a few support forums asking why the machine won’t boot up with latest Linux kernels. There has been no “direct” answer, but after a lot of googling it seems that on machines that were able to run Ubuntu 11.04 with no issue, but can’t boot 11.10 claim it’s some sort of issue with ACPI, I figured perhaps that’s my problem as well.

So I would need an older Linux version, but one with longer term support. Enter Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS. Installed and booted this machine (yes, the one that I’m typing this post on right now) with no problems. Got the machine running quite fast as well, and it boots up in a reasonable amount of time too.
Until I find an easy way to make modern Linux run on this machine (and by that I mean the ability to boot up) I’m going to stick with 10.04 LTS until its support lifecycle concludes (April of 2013). By that time, I’d be running that software for more than a full year beyond the day when I thought I’d have to replace this machine. Nice. Linux saves the day, and saved me the cost of buying a new computer.

Cheers,
Adam