Ubuntu Crash

Article = None , this is my own opinion, or in this case experience.

You know, that Fire fox for unix ? It's running a little slow. I don't know , maybe because the old clunker I'm running it on only has a 1GHz clock cpu in it , compared to my much maligned windows machine's 2.5GHz clock , but I'm gonna try Opera.

www.opera.com

The site immediately recognized that I was on Linux. The button said press here to download Opera for Linux.

Press button. Amazing, it downloads and installs and only ask's for my password once. And Opera is up and running. An easier installation I have never seen. Not even on windows.

Hmm... opera doesn't have flash. Try the flash site. It recognizes that I have Linux , and only wants to install flash for fire fox. Flash for Opera On Linux is not a supported operation.

30 min of hitting the message forums and looking things up and delving deep into the arcane and obscure linux commands, I discover that if you install flash for Fire fox opera will simply steal it from fire fox and you're all set. So , with great pain and suffering , I do that.

And it works. On fire fox. Not opera. Oh , there's an icon on the top right saying I need to reboot. So I reboot.

And down she goes.

And Up she does not go. Error message, my X-Windows server has failed. (thats the thing that draws all the pretty icons and menu's and stuff for you to run linux like it was a windows machine). Reconfigure your graphics card and try again. Reboot , same deal.

Most users would throw in the towel at this point. But the only thought that crossed my mind was "I always wanted to reinstall Linux. Bet I could do a much better job this time around. "

Reach for the LiveCD for Ubuntu.

11:00 pm , insert CD begin reinstall.
Hmmm... when it looks for your time zone , apparently Ottawa Ontario doesn't exist.
Montreal does and it's only two hours away and in the time zone, I use that.
11:25 pm ... finish installing linux, take the cd out , boot into it normally.

Do a search on EasyUbuntu , and download and install it. This is a utility that installs the most common patches and upgrades that everyone wants. Things like making your DVD , actually play DVD's ! And the music player play MP3's , etc. Careful if you're in the USA apparently this violates all sorts of bizzare copy rights down there and they'll cart you off to jail.

And EasyUbunto isn't glitch free either. The list goes on and on , off the bottom of the page, of packages it wants to install. And the buttons for you to enter your password and say ok are at the bottom of the page of course.

Started doing it in pieces, then I realized that I could simply hit any package name , hit TAB and it would put me in the password field. Enter the password, hit enter (even though you can't see the password field) and off it goes.

12:10 am Installation complete.

1hour 10 minutes for a total reformat and reinstall. Beats the plick out of Windows.
And reboot time is 1 min 20 seconds, and that includes 7 seconds for me to enter my user id and password, from the off on switch to the desk top where you may start your work.