Well, I finally got around to it. I got out the Ubuntu 7.04 Desktop CD and decided to dual boot my laptop. After witnessing first hand the demise of a fellow staffer's machine using the Ubuntu disk partitioner, I opted for another manner.
First I used Partition Magic 8 in Windows XP to make the XP partition smaller, freeing up room for the Ubuntu installation. For testing purposes I gave Ubuntu 8GB of disk space. After a reboot and letting Partition Magic do its thing it was time to install.
I booted from the CD and chose a standard install. About 35 minutes later, I had an Ubuntu desktop staring back at me. Now what, I thought. I was used to the Linux distro's of yesteryear with command line syntax and all. (Showing my age now!) One of the first things I noticed is that Ubuntu had already mounted and made available my NTFS partition for Windows XP with read-only access. COOL! I had immediate access to my mp3s that I had on Windows XP from within Ubuntu. Sure enough, I double clicked one and boom, it started playing.
Now how about FireFox. Yup, right there. Yes, the network connection is working and really good download speeds. Wow, about 3 times faster than XP. Hmmmm, guess I better look into tweaking XPs TCP settings. Uh oh, trouble. The wireless connection is not working.
Well that is the one and only thing thus far I have had trouble with. Thanks to an article I found on installing the ndis-wrapper, I was only a few commands away from having my Dell Wireless Mobile 1390 working painlessly with WPA-2/AES encryption over 802.11G. I had to download the correct drivers from Dell, extract them and then use ndis-wrapper to install the bcmwl5.inf. Then all that was left was to restart networking.
So far, I am really impressed. I am thinking about trying to install Ubuntu on a spare machine then VMWare and then load Windows XP on VMWare. Now that would be a change. Any thoughts?
First I used Partition Magic 8 in Windows XP to make the XP partition smaller, freeing up room for the Ubuntu installation. For testing purposes I gave Ubuntu 8GB of disk space. After a reboot and letting Partition Magic do its thing it was time to install.
I booted from the CD and chose a standard install. About 35 minutes later, I had an Ubuntu desktop staring back at me. Now what, I thought. I was used to the Linux distro's of yesteryear with command line syntax and all. (Showing my age now!) One of the first things I noticed is that Ubuntu had already mounted and made available my NTFS partition for Windows XP with read-only access. COOL! I had immediate access to my mp3s that I had on Windows XP from within Ubuntu. Sure enough, I double clicked one and boom, it started playing.
Now how about FireFox. Yup, right there. Yes, the network connection is working and really good download speeds. Wow, about 3 times faster than XP. Hmmmm, guess I better look into tweaking XPs TCP settings. Uh oh, trouble. The wireless connection is not working.
Well that is the one and only thing thus far I have had trouble with. Thanks to an article I found on installing the ndis-wrapper, I was only a few commands away from having my Dell Wireless Mobile 1390 working painlessly with WPA-2/AES encryption over 802.11G. I had to download the correct drivers from Dell, extract them and then use ndis-wrapper to install the bcmwl5.inf. Then all that was left was to restart networking.
So far, I am really impressed. I am thinking about trying to install Ubuntu on a spare machine then VMWare and then load Windows XP on VMWare. Now that would be a change. Any thoughts?
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