AOFM-MWU – Geeking Out – Linux

Hello kiddies, the irritated corpulent male here.

I decided to "geek out" on you fools. You see, I've had the Linux itch for a few years now, ever since I assembled a desktop computer out of spare parts for my parents and wanted to avoid paying for another copy of Windows XP. I had heard about Ubuntu being the easiest variant of Linux to install, and that it also resembled Windows the most.

So I tried to bust into the world of open source operating systems. Ubuntu installed easily enough, recognized most of the hardware with one exception - the modem.

My parents had (and still have) dial-up Internet access. They live so far out in the woods that the Deliverance Banjo Boy keeps telling them that they need to move closer to town. And if there's nothing else to know about Ubuntu, there's the fact that it requires a broadband Internet connection to accomplish anything with it, and that IT'S A HELL OF LOT MORE COMPLICATED THAN WINDOWS!

So it was a no-go for my parents, but I vowed that I would have my vengeance on little Billy Gates, oh yes. Vengeance. Raging, fist-shaking, snorting and drooling nerd vengeance.

At last, today, I have my fat geek vengeance. I have resurrected a laptop from that great computer graveyard - our garage - and now its undead carcass is stumbling around on the Internet with a dark, unholy free operating system powering its formerly lifeless appendages.

We had laid the laptop to rest after it failed to properly serve the needs of my oldest son and my wife. Its Windows 98 OS was too slow and unwieldy for Zack, so my wife took it as hers. The motherboard then died and I replaced it myself with the only affordable substitute, which happened to be an even slower motherboard and processor. Windows 98 began to crawl, then finally the hard disk started showing signs of kicking the bucket. I figured the IBM Thinkpad was too old and too costly to repair, so we purchased a new bargain laptop - Mary Anne's beloved Toshiba (cue the song "Endless Love") - and transferred all of her hard work onto it.

Cut to the afterglow of Christmas and New Year's along with its subsequent debt. I suddenly started thinking about the (what I thought was) dead laptop in the garage and how, with my new-found technical prowess and knowledge of where to find low-cost hardware, I could get it going again.

I pull it off the dusty shelf, check all of the seams and connections, plug it up, push the power button, and it comes to life. It boots up to Windows 98 Second Edition, which is almost as worthless as not booting up at all. A perfect candidate for Ubuntu, because it can run modern software with far lower hardware requirements. AND... Ubuntu is 100% FREE!

Well, it took a little elbow grease (or brain grease, or whatevs), but now the laptop is running fairly well on Xubuntu 10.04, and we now have an extra laptop in the house.

And that's where I'm posting this blog entry from.

Take that, Bill Gates! From Hell's heart I stab at thee! HAHAHHAHAHHAAAA!