Storm tracking on Linux and verses MS

[Billie Walsh]

Knapp wrote:
 >> Bill Walsh Wrote:
>> Figure a possible total of two to three hours time spent
>> on the install. Yup! FAST and painless.
> 
> Spent installing or sleeping? I know that it can take a download some
> time to update but this is like saying you work on your clock 24/7. I
> would only count the time I spend looking at it or adjusting it.
> 

Kind of guesstimating from the time I put in the CD and booted the 
computer till the initial upgrades finished [ I was asleep when it 
finished so.... ] then my install time for the addons I wanted the next 
day. (K)Ubuntu does update much faster than SuSE.

I am able to "fix" most things [ DVD, MP3, etc. ] rather quickly because 
I have a pretty good idea what's needed. IF I was a complete newbie, as 
I was a few years ago, the time invested in just getting DVD to work can 
run into hours all by itself.

>> Then another eight hours or so mucking about with the WIFI getting it to
>> work.
> 
> As I have said before, if you buy the right hardware you could avoid
> this. I don't know what you get paid but if it is over $20 and hour

Something well below that.

> surely it would be worth it to buy a good new WIFI that works with
> Linux and then work 8 hours at your job to pay for it.

None of the cards I looked at told what chipset was in the card or 
mentioned Linux compatibility. Looking at the the websites for 
compatible cards was about useless because the stores don't seem to 
carry most of the specific cards and sometimes they have different 
chipsets in them within a given model. Best I could tell it was a crap 
shoot. Buy the card and see if it worked.

> Or maybe it is
> build into your laptop that you bought before you got into Linux?

The card I have is an Atheros chipset. OK, did my home work before I 
started. Should setup and run with madwifi. Got it. No joy. OK, fall 
back position. Lets try ndiswrapper with the windows drivers. 
Well.....maybe not such a good idea after all. OK, back to my friend 
Google. Page after page of madwifi stuff, all totally confusing to my 
poor old brain [ lose brain cells as we get older you know - well 
probably not the real reason but we won't go there - that's my excuse 
and I'm sticking to it ]. Let's check with the guru's on the list for 
some new ideas. Hmmm, good stuff here. In the meantime I'm digging 
through all the deepest "Advanced" settings I can find in System and 
Control Panel for anything that has to do with networking. At this point 
I have to admit that I don't know WEP from wet, but I do know I have to 
put in this string and it's "shared" and stuff. Somewhere I found 
something and put in the information that was needed. Kind-o-sorta 
worked, but Knetworkmanager I wasn't happy with. Let's try Kwifimanager. 
I like that. CHA-CHING! It works like a charm.

What actually made it work? I have no idea. What did I change? 
Well.....er.....um.......uh.........have to admit I'm not to sure. Could 
I do it again? Probably not right away. Somewhere in the deepest bowls 
of the settings something wasn't quite right. I made the necessary 
change and it worked. Some days I would much rather be lucky than good.

> 
> One thing I would like to see is an install program that asks you all
> the questions at the beginning not one here and one there, throughout
> the install. I mean why wait until the end to ask about passwords and
> users and all that? Do it at the start and let me get on with my day.
> 
> Douglas
> 

I've been using SuSE since 9.x but it wasn't until 10.0 that used it 
full time. During that time I tried Ubuntu a couple times but, for 
whatever reason, didn't care for it. I decided to try Kubuntu and liked 
it. But I was always a little leery of loading a laptop because of all 
the horror stories I read about getting things like wifi working. Then I 
found this laptop at the flea market [ I know, strange place to buy a 
laptop but poor folks have poor ways. ]. It's a nice little Gateway, 
Celeron 1GHz. Bigger hard drive and more memory from eBay and I was 
ready. I started the install late on a Friday night.

Actually, I'm VERY pleased with how the install/setup went. It was, for 
the most part, painless and fast, at least much less pain and much 
faster than I expected it to be. I expected to spend a LOT more time 
pulling my hair out and gnashing my teeth.

If someone came to me today and asked my opinion about switching to 
Linux, as I did many people several years ago, I would not hesitate to 
recommend that they try Kubuntu. In fact I would probably hand them a CD.

There are some things I would like to see changed. Like Thunderbird is 
into version 2.x now but the latest I can find in the installer is 
1.5.x. Also a few other bits of software I'm used to in SuSE but not 
available. The software is available in tar-ball but I'm a total klutz 
at CLI. I know, I know, the thing to do is work to make those things 
available as .deb's and give back to the community. But I don't have a 
clue how to get that done. IF there was a SIMPLE, words of one syllable 
or less, tutorial somewhere written for total dummies I might take a 
shot at it.

-- 
(o:]>*HUGGLES*<[:o)
Billie Walsh
The three best words in the English Language:
"I LOVE YOU"
Pass them on!