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Day 3:
Today didnt turn out to be too successful for the wireless. Rather than dwell on it another day, I decided to say screw it for now and go with a patch cable. For some reason, now the damn wireless wont authenticate. I dont know what the problem is, but its on my list of things to check out over the next couple of days. I wanted to focus on a couple of other things. I was able to accomplish a couple of things.
One, I was able to map to a network drive to the PC I have all of my music on. However, I was only able to map it with Read Only, as the drive is formatted in NTFS. Linux and NTFS dont mix too well without some configuration. There is a driver (NTFS-3G) that you can get that will allow you to obtain read/write privileges but I wasnt able to get it to mount properly. However, I did mount the share using CIFS (Common Internet File System) which at least gave me read rights.
Ubuntu also comes with a program that will allow you to play media(Rhythm Box). However, Ive always been a huge fan of Winamp for its simplicity, so I had to download XMMS, which is an OSS replacement. This wasnt a hugely complex task, but wasnt necessarily easy either. I had a couple of options. 1) Compile from source – NO! 2) Add a repository to Ubuntu so the package manager would allow me to download it – WAY BETTER OPTION. After browsing through the site that hosts XMMS, I found the entry I needed to make and by using the Synaptic Package Manager, was able to install XMMS. The only thing it didnt do for me was add an entry to my applications menu. Not a big deal though. By browsing to /usr/bin/ I was able to find the XMMS executable and get it running. Another road block though was that Linux will not play proprietary formats such as MP3 by default. So as a result, I had to install the Ubuntu Restricted Extras package, which gave me MP3 codecs, Flash, and the Java Runtime Environment, among other things. Once I installed those, I obtained successful tunage.
Note: I have found myself using the command line ALOT in the last couple of days. A lot of the instructions found online encourages it. This leads me to one conclusion: Linux still isnt ready for the desktop if I have to use the CLI this much. Granted, I probably could have found GUI instructions on how to do the things I did today, but I really shouldnt have to. This will definitely be something on my list to accomplish is to move away from the CLI and toward the GUI. As someone who is fairly comfortable with a CLI, it doesnt bother me horribly. However, a user who is used to a GUI isnt going to be able to accomplish the things I did today easily without it. Now, having XMMS was a personal choice. BUT it should be a lot easier to obtain and install than adding a repository (which no ignorant user [no offense] is going to understand).
Still a long way to go.
Here's a link to a story Ive been keeping up on about another who is making the switch to Linux. The comments are an especially nice read.
Ive been thinking alot lately, as my current laptop is slowly dying (the LCD is loose and now has a green vertical line down the right side and I just replaced the battery after two years of pretty intense use), that I would like to get another laptop within the next year or so. As part of that, I would like to get away from Microsoft and Windows, except for those things I need at work. Then the thought came to me, install Linux as the main OS, then run Windows in a VM. The other option would be to dual boot for the things I need to do at work. Either way, Linux has been on my mind a lot lately. One of my struggles has always been with wireless connectivity. Prior experiences have never allowed me to connect to a WAP (Wireless Access Point, for those of you not versed in TLA's [Three Letter Acronyms]). The last time I tried to work with a version of Linux was about two years ago, using Ubuntu 6.10. And wireless wasnt working. And like anyone who gives a rats ass about security, I have my WAP secured using WPA encryption. This proved to be another stumbling block that I could never get passed. Once I was able to connect by turning WPA off, but didnt like that option.
So on Thursday, I decided to give it another go and downloaded Ubuntu 8.10. It took the better part of an hour to install, which isnt too bad for this hardware (1.8 Ghz AMD Athlon XP Mobile, 768MB RAM, 20 GB HDD). Once I completed the installation, I attempted to do the first thing I always do, try to connect to the net. Well, as has been my experience with Windows, sometimes the drivers arent always right. And in the case of this particular equipment, the drivers werent correct. Earlier this evening, I did some research and finally found the answer that I had been looking for to solve my wireless woes. Apparently, Im not the only one who has had this problem, and its a problem that has existed since the last time I looked into it. This particular laptop has a Broadcom 4306 Wireless Adapter. Even though the Ubuntu installation recognized the device, the driver that was installed apparently didnt know how to find wireless networks, let alone authenticate to them using WPA. Using the following instructions, I was able to FINALLY get my wireless NIC to connect to my WAP with NO problems at all. The laptop is now in the process of updating itself (as of this writing, there were 214 updates, based on a downloaded ISO from 1/1/2009.
Once the updating is complete, Im gonna start Linux'ing.
I'll post another update later on how its going. Anyone want to join me in switching?
BTW, here's the link to the documentation to get the NIC working.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx/Feisty_No-Fluff
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