Friday, April 27, 2007

Ubuntu experience for a beginner (Part 2)

I have written an article regarding my first experience on installing and running Ubuntu. This article picks up where the pieces left behind: screen resolution and wireless connection.

1. Wireless connection
First, I started looking for solutions to fix the wireless connection using the WPA encryption. I have tried to change the router encryption using WEP (since Ubuntu default wireless encryption is WEP), but it only made matter worst - my windows wireless connection was totally lost. It seems like my temporary solution was not able to fix the issue, therefore I did a search on the internet on how to configure it. Luckily, I found an article on the Ubuntu forum itself. By just following the command stated there, I was able to get my laptop connected. "Ya hu" (I don't want to upset Yahoo by using there trademark)

2. Screen resolution
I was happy when I got my laptop connected to the internet but there's problem, the screen resolution wasn't look so nice. As I mention in my first experience post, I was lack of 32 wide resolution. Again, I search through the internet, without switching back to my windows (how nice), and I found the article for this problem: Ubuntu Fix resolution. As usual, I followed the first instruction in the article by using the Xorg autodetection. It was a disaster. After the changing the configuration file and reboot the machine, my Graphic Display Manager has failed and it cannot boot into windows-like environment. It left me high and dry with only the command screen. I tried to fix the problem by re-running the autodetection program and yet, it failed me everytime. In the end, I left it and went to sleep.

With that hanging problem, I started to do more research and searching. Finally, I hit the jackpot article Ubuntu Laptop Testing Team. This article stated their finding by install Ubuntu into different laptops and write out an report upon their findings. It also provide the solutions on what has been missing and how to solve them. I quickly returned back to my laptop, restored back my config file and tested out all those solution stated in the article. It works like a charm. "Ya hu"

3. Enable Desktop Effect
Now I'm connected, the screen resolution is fine (except the font wasn't as sharp as it looks) and what's next? Enable the desktop effect, of course. Again, it blows me away. I believe there's a lot of video, screen shot and plug in to enhance the desktop experience; however, on what the desktop effect was able to provide me was more than enough.

Summary: Will all these makes me want to dump windows forever?
Hold your horses. There's too many commercial item/gadgets that are still rely on windows to work. Example: digital camera, webcam; plus the money I've paid to Microsoft for that windows xp home edition. Throwing windows away sounds like depreciate my gadgets and laptop's value faster. The best solution, let it dual boot. "Hahahaha" (Evil laugh)

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