Its been a long time now since I updated this space. We've recently set up a new desktop at home, so here comes a post from and about it..
The new set up is nice - we assembled components for this system at home, starting from a barebone CPU. The order came with the tower, a power supply and a motherboard with the CPU of our choice installed. We ordered it at http://www.portatech.com and they delivered the unit promptly and in good condition.
We ordered the other components separately - some RAM, a 500 GB hard disk, a keyboard and a mouse, a wireless adapter and a DVD drive. The interesting thing this time was learning about SATA; we realized that we needed Sata cables for both the DVD and hard disk drives. This was new to me, since the last time I saw a hard disk, it did not use these cables. Anyway, turns out these cables are pretty nifty and easy to use; no more headaches trying to figure out how to connect the cables ! Amazon.com has been quite nice to review stuff and buy them with free shipping !
Next, we burnt a DVD with Ubuntu's latest and ran it on the new system. Installing was quite a breeze, and I loved how the set up recognized all the hardware comfortably and everything worked so well ! Ubuntu is pretty good to use too.
Some nice points:
We'd ordered a HDTV / monitor from LG, and used that as the display. The resolution being a little large, I was afraid whether it will require special configuration, but no, Ubuntu took care of it by itself !
Sound was next, and we connected our mini Logitech speaker system, so thoughtfully gifted by Sandeep. The sound is quite awesome now !
One other fun part was how nicely our old HP printer works ! We'd replaced the cartridges with newer ones from cartridge world, but windows on our laptops refused to print. We were almost ready to give up and buy something new, but Ubuntu came along and is printing B&W and color merrily!
We haven't missed any Microsoft products so far; Ubuntu seems to have a fairly reasonable alternative to everything we've needed so far. Drivers work well, Open Office works beautifully, the printer and wireless adapter needed no configuration and even VPN got installed like a charm !
My final IT trouble at home was connecting to the office network from Linux; I'd tried to get it working on the older Ubuntu on my laptop, but it just refused. The new Ubuntu liked the Cisco VPN software, and I am enjoying wfh on this fine setup. We were looking at a window on unix inside windows inside unix, and decided this warranted a post!
The best part is switching the display between the computer and TV !
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7 comments:
Nice! And not just good to see an update on your blog, nice to know ubuntu has matured so well. Did u do this all on your own?
Archana and I, with lots of help from online resources! :)
Hope you guys are doing well..
500GB ??!! Do you even get a disk like that ?? :) Come on man, that's like bird food.
I was expecting something along the lines of Terabytes's of disks, with RAID and NAS. Disappointed ;)
BTW, is that C3180 printer, I've the same one. It works in Indian power without any issue :)
HP catridges are a rip-off. You could try to refill in Costco as well.
nice harish, how much did it cost for the whole setup (monitor+pc)? We should meet up some time, its been such a long time.
-Pramod
Thanks Pramod ! Yes we should, its been so long. We've enjoyed some of your family pictures on facebook off and on.
Shankar,
Same printer - C130. It actually worked quite well, but things started going south with refilled cartridges. Until Ubuntu that is.
To paraphrase Bill Gates - "500 GB ought to be enough for anybody" ! Seriously though, that much seems sufficient, considering there are several other machines in our family. .
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