…whole life

As alluded to in previous posts, I am primarily using Linux now as my OS of choice. Actually, that is not quite fair, as it is not really completely by choice. I do have a hard drive with Windows 2000 on it (and Baldur’s Gate II) that used to be in a borrowed computer, but when I put it into this one, it choked on the network card. The result is that I have a desktop (without BG II) that I am using for my daily use, and it happens to be Linux. I am enjoying the new environment, as I try to figure out how to do all the things I am used to doing in a new way (or at least evaluate if I am going to continue doing them if it really is this hard to figure out). My main tools are all the ones that I used under windows and OS X, so everything is fine there, but the file sharing part is a bit of a problem. I will save that for later. I started off using SimplyMEPIS, and I liked it. Soon, though, I grew bored and decided to see if I could install something new while leaving /home in place. I knew that it should be possible, I just was not sure that -I- could do it. I did not have a whole lot stored there, so I went ahead and installed Ubuntu on top. I found both easy to use, but the default window managers (KDE for SimplyMEPIS and Gnome for Ubuntu) were a bit bulky for my hardware and I installed XFCE on both. XFCE runs nicely, and I can get just about any package I need via the apt-get command. Sounds nice, but the only drawback was that under MEPIS my 15″ monitor would only do a max of 800×600. I can tolerate those large icons, but when it comes to remotely managing servers via VNC or RDP, it is insane. I found myself scrolling back and forth constantly, just to see what was in the log files. A recently acquired friend named Jeff told me that the local power company had a warehouse that is open to the public on Wednesdays, and they have 17″ monitors for $25. That was a good price for me, and so off I went. I picked up a nice black Dell monitor, and it does a nice 1024×768 although I am still working on a higher refresh rate. They also have Dell desktops that are around 900 MHz with 256 RAM, for $125. Not too shabby for a few extras around the house to do things like stream music and that sort of thing. Maybe after I get a job….