Linux and Me

I bought a netbook, Samsung NC10, cos I thought it would be nice to have something small to take around to conferences and field trips, instead of lugging my laptop around. Well, for the sake of full disclosure, I actually have a Nokia E61i, a smartphone that is of course way smaller than a netbook, but those with full Qwerty keyboard smartphones know that it might get a bit tiresome to type on the small keyboard with the thumb. A netbook sounded like what would be the bridge between the laptop and my phone. The Samsung NC10 really caught my attention. I mean, a netbook with a 1.6 ghz Intel Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 160 HDD is not bad at all. It came with windows XP Home edition, but since I had been thinking about the possibility of having a computer that is all open source, I considered installing Ubuntu Linux on it.

Now, installing an OS on a netbook that does not have any optical disc drive wasn’t exactly a piece of cake. On the Ubuntu website, I checked to see whether it was possible to install Linux straight from the hard drive, and I got a link with instructions on how to do that. I downloaded a .iso file of the Ubuntu software on the netbook, and I proceeded to unpack it with UNetbootin. Well, I managed to run the live version, and then I decided to install it. I started the installation and ran into problems when it asked whether I wanted to partition the HDD. It was a pretty new computer, and I had absolutely no files saved on it, so I could afford to be a bit reckless. I accepted that the hard disc be partitioned, but it ran into problem midway. It said I would have to restart the computer in order to continue. I did, but I got an error message that said that no operating system was found. You probably should understand that this happened to a guy who does not know what BIOS means, and whose dalliance with techy stuffs does not go beyond that of a good user. I was a bit alarmed, but I reminded mysel that I had the recovery CD for Windows, and that if things got too bad I would get a removable drive and reinstall it.

But then
I decided that since things had come to that, maybe it might not be a bad idea to actually see whether I could still install Linux anyway, since it didn’t seem like I had much to lose anymore. I decided to go over to the friend of everyone who had ever been in want of knowledge, but who has internet connection: good old Google. I started googling to find out how I could install from a USB stick, and I found that I would first have to change the boot sequence of the netbook from the BIOS settings. I had no idea how to do that, but someone already wrote something about that on their website so I pressed F2 and I was able to get into the settings and changed the sequence. The next thing was to do turn my USB stick into something that I could install from. In other words, I had to create a bootable USB stick.

I guess things might have been a bit easier if it were not that most of the websites that had information assumed a measure of familiarity with computers. I rambled around a bit until I discovered that what I needed to do to be able to create a bootable stick was to install syslinux on the stick. I then proceeded to fool around a bit more, before I found that I had to install it on the stick from DOS. I had never used DOS, save for formatting floppy discs. You see, back in Uni I had a room mate who was a computer science student – actually, he graduated with a first class – and I learnt most of the things I knew about how to use a PC from him. Well, I saw him formatting a floppy disc once with DOS so I normally formatted with it. I also still remembered how to get into DOS from XP – type cmd into run. But then, I still needed to learn DOS commands, so I googled for that too. I got a DOS command tutorial online, learnt the basics. I then installed syslinux on the USB stick from DOS, before unpacking the Ubuntu .iso file onto it with UNetbootin. Actually, all the info is here, but for a person who is not so familiar with computer, it could still be daunting.

It felt so good when I plugged in the USB stick, and the netbook booted from it. I installed Ubuntu and started exploring the OS. I can proudly say that I am now moderately familiar with the use of the Terminal in Ubuntu, up to the point that I can actually create folders and move files around using it. I know that knowing these things is not much in itself, and that I could continue using computers without actually learning to use DOS, or to run commands on Linux, but it is one of those things that make you feel great once you get it right. I got it right, and I still feel great about it.  After I described this to a geek friend, he told me that I better than Google for these possibilities. So, I offer my thanks to the guys at Google for creating and maintaining a great search engine.

Getting used to it
I will be going on a trip soon, and I am thinking of taking the netbook instead of the laptop. The first thing I had to get over is the fact that there is no iTunes for Linux. But there are great tools for managing iPod on Ubuntu. I am currently trying out gtkpod. I was also able to fix a problem that I had with using wireless lan on the netbook, because Ubuntu refused to recognise the W-LAN card. I fixed this by installing a windows wireless driver (learnt how to do this, too, by googling). The main problem now is that I cannot use a Sony digital recorder on it. Sony has made it so that the programme that comes with the digital recorder can work only on Windows, not even on Mac.

This, I hope, is the beginning of a lasting relationship with Linux.