Continuing the Saga of Computer Fun

So, everything working on the new comp under Ubuntu 8.04 but the IR receiver and remote, but the driver search for that can continue for a while, since I still need to add an appropriate splitter and a new cable run for the TV card. The card itself is recognized just fine, but without a cable hookup or an external antenna (not very useful here in my part of America’s Third World County), actually tuning in any channels is not going to happen.

I guess I could hook up an FM antenna and have radio, but why? Sure, I’d not mind listening to Car Talk or Karl Haas or some such, but that’s not enough reason to play the radio through my PC when there’s a perfectly good radio already in the room I never listen to anyway.

This week: my DeoxIT Gold kit will be in, and I’ll disassemble the computer (heck, I’ll disassemble the one I’ve been tweaking and hardening for my dad as well) and treat all possible electrical contact points. (Heck, maybe I’ll finally clean up the pots n pans on an old AMR42 mixer I have sitting in tghe corner, too.)

On Ubuntu 8.04: Now that I’ve decided to make this my everyday comp, I’ll have to move my email stores on here and import them into Evolution. Yeh, this is the seventh or eighth different email client I’ve used in the past 15 or more years (not counting proprietary clients from MCIMail, AOL–yeh, I used it for a while back in the bad old metered proprietary AOL days before web browsers and regular everyday ISPs–Delphi or Compuserve) I think I’ll like Evolution. Reminds me more of Outlook (NOT Outlook Express) than Thunderbird or any of the other clients I’ve used recently. I’ll probably not be using the calendaring or group scheduling facilities much, since I have those built into my hosted account, and family members–the use I planned the thing for–can post their schedules any old time from any old where easily and securely. But as for its email functions: solid. Like it much.

As to setting up a media center comp that has several proprietary peripherals in Linux… not for the proverbial Aunt Tilly.

Still unhappy with WINE’s inability to run a couple of indispensable Windows apps, but that can fall to one of the Windows versions I’ve retired from other computers and installed in VirtualBox *heh*.

All-in-all, unless something unforeseen crops up, I see no real reason to have another Windows-based computer, unless, of course, “Windows 7” turns out to be a winner. But I’m not holding my breath.

Future (not so far down the road) changes to this comp:

Change out the 1GB of memory for 4GB. Pretty cheap performance enhancer.

Change out the power supply. I knew going in that I’d do ths, because the base comp has an inadequate power supply, and I knew that up front. BTW, this is probably one of the best things you can do to improve the reliability of any off-the-shelf consumer-grade PC. $50 will usually get you a decent power supply that’s at least 100% better than the one that came with whatever desktop you bought. $100 or so will get you a much better PC Power and Cooling power supply–a Very Good Thing.

I’ve waffled on the video card upgrade, and I’m kinda glad I did, because I’m gathering a LOT of info about what Linux in general and Ubntu in particular “likes” and the two I was considering… won’t make the cut for my final choice. In any case, a 512MB nVidia PCIex card will be it, but which one? The jury’s still out. Meanwhile, the 6100 6150SE series nVidia chipset onboard graphics is enough for some nice Gnome-ish slaps in the face to Vista eye candy. *heh*

Eventually, I’ll upgrade my speaker system. I’m using a venerable Harmon Kardon (HP rebranded) set now, but it’s not really surround sound capable, and with the media center stuff, I think I’d like to use the 5+1 Soundblaster card I added (pulled from another, now retired, computer) to more effect (or heck, even the 7+1 onboard sound).

Down the road a little further, I may look at a wireless networking solution for this comp. My Wonder Woman’s notebook does well here at twc central, working with our Netgear WPN824. It’s only b-g, but the multiple antennas mean solid connections, and the security features are more than we need here in our corner of America’s Third World County where the nearest other wireless network is wide open, unsecured at all, at all. *heh* Temptations. Still, the only wireless adapters I have to add to this one are old 802.11b adapters. Good ones, but slower than I would want. The Netgear WG111 USB Wireless Adapter is very good for some applications (when Lovely Daughter’s built in adapter went blooie, this was a perfect solution for her lil Vaio laptop), but the Engenius / EUB-362 EXT, though about 3X the price, seems more likely to be the direction I’d go.

Apart from those near term upgrades, I don’t see a lot left to do to this but tweak the software. I don’t necessarily want to learn how to write my own drivers for the IR input devices, but it’d be a learning experience if it came to that, now wouldn’t it? Well, at least the multimedia keyboard was recognized and configured w/o a hitch. That’s something, isn’t it? 🙂 Heck, even the “Mail,” “Search” and “Browser” buttons work, along with the “regular” multimedia buttons. That Ubuntu magic at work, I guess.

Still, again I’d say that setting up this computer using Ubuntu 8.04 hasn’t been a task for “Aunt Tilly.” But now that it’s (mostly) set up, anyone could sit down and do anything they’d do on another computer running another OS just about as easily as in something more common.

Tell ya what. If you’re a Windows user, why not download and invoke Wubi and give Ubuntu a no-hassle shot?