This is a collection of logs/journal entries by Chris Bennett about his experiences of using Ubuntu on his laptop. He is using Ubuntu Edgy Eft as the primary OS for school work. He is taking a set of courses in the College of Business. This is work his in progress...
The first day working with Ubuntu in the business lounge after my first class meeting. I am attempting to get the wifi up and running. For the moment, I have been customizing various effects with the system in an attempt to make it feel more personal and less out of the box. My first impressions dealing with items like screen savers and backgrounds is that Ubuntu assumes that you have a decent 3D accelerator. For the moment, I am using an array of flashing blue cubes that my ATI 8MB can seem to agree with. Once the wireless is set up I can begin to setup my Gmail account and other Internet related functions. I am curious to see how well Flash related Internet sites will function and to what degree of support I will receive with plug-ins. The pre-installed SoftPhone program has caught my attention and I may choose to monkey with it later. I would also be relieved to find some sort of chess or related game to pass some time between classes. Hopefully the package manager will provide some insight to that. This directly reliant upon the Internet connection I currently do not have.
From my guesses, The card is active and installed correctly. The network manager utility is telling me that the connection is “disconnected”, yet it never gives me the option to add a new network to connect to. Dr. Verma told me that I could use a utility called “wifi radar” to aid in the process of selecting a wireless network. Yet this program needs a wireless connection to download. I may have to find the CAT cable in the advanced micro lounge and get this solved.
1-30-07
In a continuing effort to get the WIFI to work, I have managed to obtain connection twice; once at SFSU and on LINKSYS at my home. For odd reasons, My Wifi will find the network and log itself on automatically. Upon restarting the computer, the system will act as tho no network can be found or has never existed. Even while my laptop is stationary and the windows laptop next to it detects a network, the Ubuntu network manager and Wifi Radar cannot.
What I find interesting is that Wifi Radar will “see” my link sys network and the Ubuntu network monitor will show a 50% (more or less) signal from the Wifi card yet not put together that that is an Internet connection and allow me to access the Internet. The monitor status says that I am disconnected even with the follow attributes I have mentioned.
For the time that I did have an internet connection, I was able to update Ubuntu and partake in some common tasks such as composing e-mails and having chats with friends on Gaim. I only wish I could continue to have a connection so I may try other applications.
2-26-07
Speaking with Dr. Verma last week helped a lot. He suggested a new wireless network applet that does a better job than the others installed with ubuntu. NetworkManager (one word) has been a bit of a blessing to my wifi problems. I have been connecting to my networks both at school and home, which for purposes of this project makes using the system more interesting than a stationary off line computer. My Gmail is hooked up to Evolution Mail and appears to operate parallel to any other standard mail client. I have managed to rip a few CD's to my music folder which transfer nicely to my Creative Muvo MP3 Player. Ubuntu gave the drive a general flash USB icon on the desktop without ever promoting me for instructions. In my next update, I plan to explore the audio playback capabilities of XMMS and learn to do some A/V tricks with the S-video and VGA ports on this computer.
**First Assignment** ISYS 464
My first road block came as an assignment for my ISYS464 class was stated to be in MS Access format. With all intent, I wanted to continue using Open Office and attempt to match the assignment in as best as I could. I soon read the following assignments and found out that more modifications to the database we were creating would require MS Access specific content. None the less, I had to pull out the old Dell and fire up Access 2003, which I hadn't seen since ISYS363,
**Spring Break Plans**
Since I'm not the vacationing type, I will be spending my spring break back home in the silicon valley. My plans include to learn how to FTP in Linux as well as create a web page. My quest to find a good editor will have to wait for now until I get a little free time. I will provide links to the page once I have something to show. The layout will be an on-line resume and other nonsense about myself.
In a continuing effort to get my WIFI problems solved, I have resorted to using my Windows laptop from time to time. Until I can get a reliable network setup on the Ubuntu laptop, I need to keep up with e-mails that my classmates are sending to me. I am going to give the Orinoco 802.11b card one last chance before I have to go finding another one. I have had no success attempting to plug and play a Netgrear G 108 or a Belkin G 54. I will consider doing a system re-install just incase the problem happens to be within the system. Since the Orinoco Card was not installed with the original system installation, I believe somehow it may not be registering properly within the system. My difficulty using the system is having 24 hour dependence on the internet. I’m not too old, but I can remember the dial-up days when checking your e-mail twice a day was enough to keep you up to date. It seems that we need a constant stream of live information rather than choosing to participate in the internet when we feel like it. So for now the project has a “flat tire” until professor Verma and I can piece this puzzle together. In the meantime I will explore other non-internet related options in Ubuntu. My digital camera seems to work fine using a standard USB connection. I’ll play around with Gimp and post a few things.
With the semester come and gone, Only in the end did I get my hardware issues resolved with using Ubuntu. I though I would wipe the slate clean and start with a fresh install of Ubuntu 7.0.4, Feisty Fawn. To my amazement, everything worked flawlessly. My wireless card found every network in range. If only this discovery had come sooner, I would have been able to continue my project at its normal pace. I use Ubuntu on a daily basis now and I am beginning to prefer it over Windows. In fact I am typing this message on my Ubuntu PC. Since Ubuntu treats you like you have some principal knowledge of using a computer, I feel as though I am able to get more done and customize my workspace a little more.
With graduation in the past, I have started working for an Open Source company. The company is SugarCRM in Cupertino with my role as the Assistant System Administrator of IT. Now I use Open Source products on a daily basis from Evolution for my mail to Gparted making backups for people. I have honestly enjoyed this project even as the complications came up in dealing with the hardware issues. In fact I have gained some knowledge that I have been able to pass on to other starting up in the Linux community. In that sense, I have reached my goal as becoming a little more wiser in using Ubuntu.
I would like to continue to work with Ubuntu and stay in close contact with the university's Open Source group. I look forward to keeping current with news and developments in the Open Source community. I would like to thank Dr. Sameer Verma for taking his time to be my coach through this project and I would encourage others to take the challenge of switching to Open Source.
Christopher Bennett