Free from dependence on Window$

Finally! I was able to get ubuntu installed on my new external hard drive. It wasn't as easy as I thought it was going to be due to two problems. (Problems on my end, not w/ ubuntu)

First, I had a problem w/ my screen, which i mentioned before. Turns out it was just a loose connection between my screen and motherboard. So that's been fixed. (Free service is really nice.)

Now for problem two… Getting Linux (grub specifically) to play nice w/ a USB hard drive. Thankfully, these problems were easily resolved with a step-by-step guide at ubuntuforums.org. It took about an hour to get it installed. And then another hour to figure out few tweaks (get the middle button on my Thinkpad trackpoint to work, install Firefox and Thunderbird 1.5). And in the process of doing that I began learning about using the command line and Linux permissions. Good stuff. So everything is up and running just great.

There are still a few things on the Linux to-do list… Be able to boot Win XP from grub, get some programs from the universe and multiverse, add some fonts (I wonder if Verdana works in Linux…), and a few other miscellaneous things. But that gives me something fun to work on in between school. (Not that school's not fun, but you know…)