It was a bit hard waiting for the delivery of my new toy, we are getting so used to getting online purchase the next day or at least 48 hours later. But Dell had to my new toy build in China, since I wanted something that wasn’t directly of the peg. And then there was the annoyance of the online tracking tool, what every Dell told the shipping company, the shipping company didn’t understand. So I couldn’t track my toy as it made its way to me. Though after some searching I found out that if you modified the tracking code a little you could get it to work. Why Dell aren’t working on on fixing this I do not know, since it seemed a problem that have been around for a while.

Anywho a week later it arrived and looked very nice and still does, I plugged it in and pressed the on button and then the wait started. Since Dell had installed windows 7 on it, the laptop had to go through all the setting up for the first time use. Yes I know that there is a company here in the UK that sells laptops without OS’s so you can pick you own flavor but not the spec’s I would like. And Dell does sell ubuntu flavored ones too but again not the spec’s I would like for my new toy.

So I waited around two minutes looking at a nice animation my my very new shiny and sharp screen before windows told me that it was rebooting. It turned on and I waited again for around a minute and bit more before windows asked for my WiFi details, very easy to do. Then some more waiting before I could use the laptop for the first time. Which was simple to open up IE and type http://www.firefox.com and download the newest version of FF. Total time from first press to be able to use a browser just shy of 10 minutes.

Then I tried to log off and reboot as I was interested in how fast it would be booting up without setting up time. Logging out took forever and a day, who knows what windows was doing. One missing thing on this laptop, a small LED telling me that the hard disk is running. While I waited the 2 minutes it took to boot the second time, I started to think this wasn’t too bad since I didn’t get nagged by various programs that Dell had decided for me would be a great idea to have. Guess what I was greeted with upon the second boot up … McAafe Antivirus installer.

So I started the normal clean up, that you do when getting a new laptop, I had this on my Sony and any other laptop I have had my fingers on over the years. Tonnes of programs you do not need or want, but who ever your laptop manufacture is, decides that is good to have.

Like – Dell Dock, Dell Support Center, Dell Webcam, Live! Cam Avatar Creator, McAfe Security Center, MS Works, MS SQL Server, MS Virtual C++, MS Powerpoint Viewer, PowerDVD, Windows Live Essentials, Windows Live Upload, Windows Live Sync, GoToAssistance etc…

I missed out a few here, since I didn’t know what they do. Stuff that I would not need and is not planing to use ever, mainly because I use different programs or never will dap into them.

While that was happening I had 15 updates which I let windows install and reboot while I had a cuppa. A couple of reboots later i was testing to see if it would get faster or throw up any new nag screen at me. No on both accounts and the boot up time was still over 2min, which I do find very slow. FireFox took around 8 sec to start up which was slow compared to my old Sony and shutting down the laptop was also slow and so was other the programs I tested out.

Windows 7 did look very nice and slick and I think I could use it if I had to without too much shouting. I did start to uninstall all the above programs as I was willing to give 7 a go, well at least as a dual boot with xubuntu. So I wanted to set windows up as I wanted it to run and get used to it. But half way through the process I simply got enough of the amount of nag screens I had to click – yes I want to remove/uninstall this program and then it asked me to reboot etc.

So I got out my xubuntu 9.10 (64bit) Live CD to see if it would work on this laptop, A quick test later I was installing it with dual boot. But while that was going I figured out that I would miss out of 70 odd Gb of space on my laptop since windows needed that space along with 10Gb restore drive and 200Mb for something. And that I really don’t have the need to run anything in windows anymore. So I stopped the process and installed Xubutu 9.10 on a 65Gb disk with 3Gb Swap and the rest for my p0rn files.

EDIT : I forgot also the way that window 7 was handling my files, I did not like, it was very hard to find my files if they are not stored the way windows wanted me to. Sorry Microsoft my I know my files you don’t and I have my way of sorting them and most of all I want them on a different drive than the OS. Every system I have worked with where the files are stored on the same drive as the OS. I have many times lost all the files when the OS fell over. But where the files are stored on a different drive, even just a partitioned drive I have managed to save all the files when the OS fell over. I do not know why Microsoft and the manufacturers of the computers haven’t clocked this yet and then from day one, My Documents is on a different drive. Hard disk space is cheap now and it would not take many lines of code to change that. It will save many tears, I know I have cried myself when I learned the hard way. Though now I got a good back up and files on a different drive than the OS. So many of my friends have thanked me when I have told/taught them to store theirs away from C:\ and their system fell over.

That reformat took some time but with ext4 I’m now rebooting my laptop faster than it took to start up in windows. Installing the various programs I need is a doddle, I want that one, that one, that one etc, click install, click confirm, wait a bit and your programs are ready to use. Nag screens are down to the bare minimum, oh yes :) The same goes when uninstalling the programs. Yes there was around 150 updates but it took less than a minute to download and around 2 minute to install and best of all no nag screens or reboot needed.

Turn it on and I’m ready to use xubuntu in less than 35sec and Firefox is up in less than 5sec. My FTP program etc and blinding fast compared to windows 7 on this Dell. Yes I had some problems with setting up the dual monitor as I wanted, but it is much easier than the first time. And the same goes with sharing files over the network, for some reason I always fight with that.

Xubuntu 9.10 just runs on the Dell Inspiron 13z, some updates to install but no nag screens to talk about, WiFi which have been a problem with ubuntu for for some time, is now easy to set up. Above all it is very fast and just runs. From the little I played with windows 7 the other night, I know I’m not going back to windows this time around. And there is not a long wait for the new xubuntu 10.04, do I dare to install a beta on this one or should I just wait until the new version is out ?

The really good thing about this is …
- My DVD play back is working again, though I haven’t had time to test burning.
- The screen (also on the 19″ external screen) is much softer so that I can see the grey and other subtle colours much easier than before.
- A cool blue light on the power cord, not that I can see any use for it but it looks cool.
- It is every so quiet, yes you can hear the fan but even under pressure the fan don’t go any louder and I can have music on low and still hear the music and not the fan.
- It is running very cold, so if I should have it on the lap I will not cook my legs and other bits.
- The webcam worked too, not that I had any need for it before.
- The keyboard is pretty much bang on to my old Sony’s so I can easy use it, though the “insert” key is a little more to the left so copying and pasting stakes a bit of re:learning to do fast again, (if you didn’t know ctrl+insert = ctrl+c = copy, shift+insert = ctrl+v = paste)

The bad things ..,
- There is no light on the keyboard that shows if the CAPS lock is on.
- No hard disk light so that you can see if it is running like a mad thing.
- The VGA port is where I’m used to have my mouse next to my laptop,, so not much room to move around.
- The volume is a bit lower than before, must be hardware issue, since the Sony could go LOUD !! the Dell is a quieter.
- I had to pay for windows to get the computer I wanted, more companies needs to do the same as Novatech

*) Sony : SZ2XP, 2.2Ghz/600Mhz, 2Gb RAM (333Mhz), 128Mb Graphic, 2MB L2 cache, 120Gb HDD (5400rpm), DVD +/-, 13.3″ screen, 4 cell batter (I think it was)

**) Dell : Inspiron 13z, 1.3Ghz/800Hz, 3Gb RAM (800Mhz), 512Mb Graphic, 3Mb L2 cache, 320Gb HDD (7200rpm), DVD +/-, 13.3″ screen. 8 cell battery.

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Ubuntu 9.04 : Update it without any problems but the boot time was getting annoying, since it was over 1m45s. I know what my laptop could do faster, since when I ran a heavy tweaked Windows XP, I got the boot up down to around 35s. I read that ext4 was a faster file system than ext3. So I tried to convert (or what ever it is called) it but after few failed attempts, I had to format the drive to ext4. And got my boot time down to around a minute, still not anything near what I had with XP. And even with reading various blogs on how to speed up ubuntu it never got any faster.

Ubuntu 9.10 : They said in the run up to the release that they were working on booting up time, which I couldn’t argue against. When the RC came out I couldn’t wait and updated, but the boot time was just getting slower. And even after the full release of 9.10 the boot time was just above 1m10s.

Xubuntu 9.10 : So the other day I got bored and wanted to see if there was any differences between xubuntu and ubuntu, it said on the box that it would be lighter on your system compared to ubuntu

Downloaded, burned the ISO, installed and was up and running in no time. Even with formatting getting a ubuntu flavor onto your PC/laptop is sooo much faster than windows. Still a bit of a problem with the extra monitor but a quick download of the right driver and update of the xorg.conf I was up and running. Some tweaks to the look of xfce, since I didn’t like the default look/theme, I now have a nice looking theme with some transparency (sweet eye candy) and my boot time is just over 40s. WiFi works out of the box, DVD is still dead and networking is still a bit of a work but NFS is so easy to set up.

The best part is that now I can fire up Firefox and Chrome in under four seconds ! Where before it was around 10-12 seconds. And other programs are also starting up in no time at all, xubuntu have really breath new some life into my 3 year old laptop :)

Now I just have to get used to the menu in xubuntu and that some programs are called different things but I can either get used to that or install the program I’m used too. The only issue I have found so far is that the System Monitor tends to freeze on me and eat cpu and ram like no tomorrow.

I like what I see so far.

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Though the network share is still an issue, for the life of me I can’t get my two machines to see each other. I got a PC with my music, backup and other files which I would like to access from my laptop.

Both machines are set up just as Ubuntu come off the install CD. And now and again I would like the network to be seen from a laptop running XP. What I found out that there are a few ways of doing network share on the Ubuntu.

Samba : by the look and sound of it should be the easiest to set up and run. But I never got it to share the way I wanted. Either one pc saw the other but the other didn’t like to share its files with anyone. Some times I managed to get the XP laptop to see the folders but never had read write access to the files.

CIFS : had one look and one go at it, but it was way over my head. I had to do too much typing in the terminal etc.

NFS : A simple few edits to Ubuntu and I was up and running right away sharing my files just as I wanted.

I had lost my saved shortcut and after some minutes search I found web site again where the tutorial is. And since the website haven’t been updated for a while I’m posting it here, since I rather not loose it again. I hope that the original poster don’t mind.

In this small Tutorial I will show you how to set up a working directory / file share between two or more Ubuntu Linux Computers.

We’re gonna share the directory /media/music on the Ubuntu Linux box ernie, in order to allow the other Linux box bert to access it and listen to ernie’s music, Let’s go!

1 – Setting up ernie (who is sharing the directory):

Just Execute the following commands in a Terminal on ernie

• At first, we need to Install the Packages which are needed in order to share the files via NFS:
  sudo apt-get install nfs-kernel-server
• Now, edit /etc/exports in order to share our music folder!
  sudo nano /etc/exports and add the line

  /media/music bert(ro,async,all_squash)

  ro means “read only”, so the others can not delete your files. If you wish to allow writing to this directory, use rw “read write” instead!

• Restart the NFS Server by executing
  sudo /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server restart
• We’ve configured ernie very fast, didn’t we? Now it’s bert’s turn

2 – Setting up bert (who is using the directory):

Execute the following commands in a Terminal on bert

• Install the needed “NFS Common” Package nfs-common
  sudo apt-get install nfs-common
• Create your a music directory which will contain ernie’s directory and which is located at /var/music:
  mkdir /var/music
• Mount ernie’s shared music directory to /var/music:
  sudo mount ernie:/media/music /var/music
• Now you can access the files from ernie in your local direcotry /var/music – Have Fun!
• If you wish to mount the Directory automatically each startup, just just need to modify /etc/fstab:

  Open the file using sudo nano /etc/fstab and append

  ernie:/media/music  /var/music     nfs r,hard   0  0

  (Use rw,hard instead of r,hard in case you shared the File as “read write” or you won’t be able to change files!)

3 – We’re finished

Setting up basic File Sharing between Linux computers isn’t as hard as everybody is saying, and I really hope this will help some Linux Beginners out there to manage it on their own.

It’s just a couple of commands, if you experience any trouble or problems with this, please feel free to comment and I will try my best to help you

LINK : How to set up NFS and How to Share Files in a local network with Ubuntu Linux?

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And I couldn’t wait so a couple weeks back I updated my other PC and it all fell over, yes yes I know don’t touch an Alpha if you don’t know what you are doing.

But today there might be some hope since I’m right now updating and it is downloading the new NVIDIA kernel as I type this.

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Sync your files, share your work with others or work remotely, all with your Ubuntu (9.04) computers.

I have just signed up for the 2Gb free option, there is 10Gb which you have to pay for and it works great.

https://ubuntuone.com/

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Just got back from holidays, needed to backup the 300+ photos we took. So hit the power switch on the PC tower, and after a bit I was wondering why I did not hear the normal noises I hear when I turn on the PC. I then looked at the monitor saw that it just sat there displaying the BIOS doing nothing. So I hit the reset button and waited for it to boot again, only to find that this time it would not show the BIOS in at all.

Well time to have a closer look so I opened the box, hit the power switch again and saw that the CPU fan was not spinning and hard disks was not even spinning.

And then the burning smell hit me, bummer :(

Had a poke around and found that one of the heat sinks that normally only get luke warm, was blistering hot after only being on for 1-2 min.

We that was it I was thinking, time to get a new puter, which I rather not do atm. Because the last time I updated my PC I had to get new RAM, new graphic card etc because it was all out of date. And also I would rather spend money on our new touring bikes.

So I was up shit creek for a bit, until my friend came to a rescue in the form of a PC he was binning. He needed more space, found it slow to work on and the sound card was dead. Which is not a problem for me as I use my laptop to play music on.

After a bit of faffing around today I got PC up and running again, thanks mate :)

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Though suspend does work to some degree. When I come out of suspend if I had some programs running they tent to turn into memory eaters. Thunderbird really have a hard time to connect to the IMAP servers. FireFox eats memory and then freaks out the CPU and other bits are slower.

It does help close all the programs down before going into suspend mode, though after 2-3 of them ubuntu is just dead slow and only a reboot can sort that out.

Else I’m very happy with 9.04.

Just installed Picasa 3, and it scanned and loaded my 33Gb + worth of photos in less than 10min, the first time, and the cpu didn’t freak out.

FireFox and programs loads so much faster, I’m liking it :)

Though still no DVD play, it worked just fine in 6.10, or was it 6.04, but since 7.04 it does see that I got a DVD-r and the model of the drive (somewhere in the settings, can’t remember), it mount the CD and write cd’s just fine but it is still no go with the DVD’s.

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Since 7.04 my boot time have been close to 1:45. But last night I installed 8.04 update strait to 8.10 and then to 9.04, after a clean format. And then I just could leave it be and upgrade my boot drive to ext4.

Haven’t installed everything yet, so I don’t know if that could slow it down, normally I don’t have anything runing upon start up. Got a wee problem with the graphic, got a line runing from screen 1 to screen 2. But FireFox is scarily fast to load and load pages compared to before. Haven’t had the time to test other things yet.

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I just had to figure out what this ext4 was all about and borked the system, while trying to convert from ext3 to ext4.

Now I’m installing 7.10 because that is the only disk I got laying around, never got around to burn the other ISO’s.

It is my own fault playing with something I don’t know, just about got my head around ext3 and the fstab. Oh well it is going to be a long night updating back 9.04, without ext4 :)

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I couldn’t wait, so I upgraded yesterday to 9.04 beta. And as usual my monitor set up, 2 screens and Nvidia driver played up. So after 2 hours of stabbing in the dark I got the new driver and my x-server to play nicely together again.

I’m not sure if it booting up any faster, but some programs do start up a wee bit faster. Some GUI’s have changed such as the wallpaper, else I can’t see any different.

Though it does now have a new file system called EXT4, didn’t update my drive to that, so I do not know if that would be any improvement.

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