Thursday Feb 14, 2008
Thursday Feb 14, 2008
I started using Linux as an early adopter back in 1999 when Win 98 just crashed all the time if I was using more than 3-4 windows. As a productivity tool Win98 was a inhibitor. Colleagues would boast about their patching methodologies for Win98, I kept thinking, why should I patch so often, don't they have anything better to do. So a Unix in the name of Linux was appearing for the the desktop and I gave it a try.
My first Linux system was on a Dell Cpi-A Lattitude Laptop, Pentium II 363MHz, 158MB RAM, 4900 rpm 6GB disk, that was with Red Hat.
About 2003 the Dell failed after 2 screens broke and I got a New laptop Toshiba Satellite 2450-S402, Pentium 4 2.5GHz, 512MB RAM,Nvidia GeForce4 420 graphics card, 7200 rpm 60GB disk.
Then I went through the following: Mandrake, Suse, Sun Linux Java Desktop.
Time has come to try something new as I have been running JDS for 3 yrs now.
When I first started it was all about open source, now no-one really makes their own Linux with "make" etc, everyone uses a specific distribution.
Should I use Ubuntu, how different is that, looks OK on my new home PC, but for some reason it reminds me of SUSE, it is the GUI or something.
I have learnt all I can, fixed Nvidia drivers, and Wifi. Power management is not that good on Linux but I do not want my laptop on standby, just in case it overheats in my bag and it starts a fire while I am travelling.
Does not seem like much new is happening in the Linux area, I have learnt all there that I wanted too, the innovations going in are really ports from other places, I understand linux is taking Dtrace and ZFS from Solaris.
What comes after desktop Unix/Linux or precisely, what comes after Red Hat. Looking for inspiration.
Get a MacBook Pro!
It is simply the best. . . .
Posted by AveJoe on February 15, 2008 at 03:23 AM CET #
That is a good, idea. I like the Mac and the system e.g. the Unix based OS X and Leopard. Apple have even taken Sun open source ZFS from Solaris. They know that for all the artistic types using the apple data integrity is important, only ZFS can provide this. However, my wife has/had a Apple iBook which after 3yrs failed, I missed the recall, but Apple did give me a voucher to compensate for the bad quality. Apples look so good, I love them, but I want them to work for more than 3yrs. Now I have to get all the data off the failed iBook. My Toshiba laptop is still working after 5yrs and the Java Desktop Software from Sun has never crashed.
Posted by Valdis on February 15, 2008 at 09:40 AM CET #
I still like the mac idea.
My advice is to implement some kind of backup strategy for your wife's data!
I use superduper to make a bootable clone of my macbook pro's internal disk every night. i also move data to mac.com and backup.com.
I've been looking at crashplan.com and jungledisk.com as well.
You could even use an ipod for backups.
If the disk on the failed ibook wasn't what failed, then getting the data should not be that tough. get an external case for $20, install the old disk, and connect it to your new mac.
If the disk is what failed then you have bigger problems.
Good luck!
Bert
Posted by bert shure on February 16, 2008 at 11:41 PM CET #
It is the Mac graphics card that failed. I can get it to work for 10mins at a time, so I may connect it and take what is left off the Mac. Thanks for the names of good backup products/offsite companies. I did backup some pics a while ago to CD. But just a copy not a indexed backup. My wife's job just gave her a laptop, so event though we like Mac we have too many computers. 3 laptops and 2 desktops. I may writea a blog about it, I am sys admin to the whole family.
Posted by Valdis on February 17, 2008 at 10:27 AM CET #