Kick the Windows habit

Posted by markjr, Jul 24 2006, 08:13 PM in Using Xandros

"Xandros makes a valiant attempt to help users wean off of Windows by including tools to migrate all Windows settings as well as setting up a dual boot so you can continue to use Windows while you get accustomed to Linux."

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/business/15061788.htm

Cold Turkey Ubuntu

Posted by markjr, Jul 5 2006, 11:15 PM in Getting Started

Ubuntu is one of the more popular choices for Windoze users wanting to come over to linux. This article details one such user's first impressions.

Things to know when switching to a linux desktop

Posted by markjr, Jun 10 2006, 10:14 AM

Here is a good overview of Basic Things to Know When Switching to a Linux Desktop by Gerald Cortez: Distributions, Live CD, Install CD, partitions, mount points, desktop environments, networking, package managers, and repositories.

The only thing missing is "linuxhelp" from the "Where to get more help" section

Got wireless working finally

Posted by markjr, Apr 5 2006, 09:51 PM in Using Xandros

It took me awhile to get my laptop working on the wireless interface. It took a bit of fiddling.

For starters, I needed to activate the ath0 (wireless) interface from the Control Center -> Network -> Network Connection -> Interfaces

The problem I kept running into was that if I booted the laptop with the ethernet plugged in, and then unplugged the cable, my wireless would work. But if I booted without the cable, my wireless would come up without a default gateway setup. It would connect to my DHCP server (a linksys wireless router) and be able to ping the gateway, but it couldn't find its way out to the internet.

To make matters worse, whenever I went into the interfaces GUI in the control center and ticked the "Set as default gateway for the system" checkbox, my laptop (an Acer Aspire 3620), would totally seize up forcing a hard boot.

In the end, the fix was trivial, just opening a shell and running:

Which I could add to the startup scripts to automate.