Newbie in Love

[Richard Colbert Jr]

First let me say that until very recently (as in yesterday) I have never
owned a usable Mac computer. I have had a few vintage systems over the years
but nothing I would even consider using on a daily basis. I am also NOT a
LINUX GURU. I have played around with numerous distro's on numerous
machines, but never been able to get one to work to my satisfaction; until
today!

 

Yesterday, I bought a used iMac (Tangerine 400Mhz.). The OS9 on it was
corrupted and kept crashing. I don't have any MAC disks so reinstalling OS9
was out of the question. So I decided to do a little work. I disassembled
the iMac. Upgraded the memory from 64mb to 128mb, replaced the 10GB Maxtor
hard drive with a 40GB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM hard drive. Then came the
tough part, what to install on it. A few months ago, I ordered a bunch of
Ubuntu disks (with the intention of using them, but never did), so I decided
let me try Ubuntu "Breezy Barracuda" on this machine. I stuck the disk in,
turned on the mac, answered 4 questions and without rebooting was at the
desktop with ALL HARDWARE WORKING and was surfing the internet.

 

Well, at this point I was very happy! Then I got a notice (almost
immediately) that there were updates. So I clicked to install them..three
clicks and everything on the system was updated. Now I am very very happy!
Then I took a look at the installed software, pretty good selection, but
there was a bunch of stuff I want missing. So I clicked on the System>Add
Programs and was shown a huge list of additional software. I chose about 40
things (way too much, I know) and within 5 minutes they were all downloaded,
installed and working with 0 CONFIGURATION or ERRORS. Holy crap I am happy
now. However, there were still a few things I wanted like DVD ripping
burning software which was given as an option cause I don't have it hooked
up yet. So I went to the Package Manager and selected a bunch more stuff. In
a few minutes, it was all downloaded and installed. Again with no errors.
This is freaking amazing!

 

Then I decided I would throw it for a loop and connect an internal BenQ DL
DVD+-R/W burner that has been converted to an external usb device. Surely
this will cause problems, right? WRONG! Much to my utter astonishment it
detected, installed and opened the disk that was in the drive with NO
PROMPTS at all. Now keep in mind, I still haven't rebooted since the initial
boot to start the install. How can this be? WindowsXX could never do this,
NEVER EVER NEVER! I have to be dreaming right!

 

Well after pinching myself till I drew blood, I finally realized this was
not a dream, it was one hell of a good Operating System. Time to find a bug
now, I am determined to find something wrong. So now, without rebooting
still I'm going to try and rip this DVD from the newly connected External
DVD burner, then try and burn it back using the same DVD burner. This will
kill it, surely!

 

So I open up Acid Rip and crap it only rips audio cd's. Now what??? Well let
me try GnomeBaker, I open it up, click Copy Data CD, select Create ISO Only
and away we go! It's actually doing it! This is un-freaking-believable! Well
after about 45 minutes, I had a completely successful rip of my DVD. So now
to try and burn it back to disk. Still using GnomeBaker I load the ISO and
click burn. And guess what, it failed instantly. Apparently when I inserted
the disk it auto-mounted so I got an error "unable to unmount". Well well
well! The first error of any kind. So I close GnomeBaker. Now I have a
problem, I am using the 1 button iMac mouse so I can't right-click
unmount/eject the blank disk. Attempts to unmount from the command line all
return errors. How the heck can I eject the disk..ARGH? Woohoo I figured it
out..From the command line I can type "eject /media/cdrecorder" and walla I
get my blank disk back. Now to reinsert and see if I get an Auto-Load menu.
Nope, no Auto-Load menu. But the disk is mounted, again. Time to fix this.
So I go to System>Preferences>Removable Drives and Media Preferences. There
I configure the Blank CD and DVD Discs settings to open GnomeBaker when a
blank disc is inserted. Time to eject and try again. What do ya know, it is
burning now! Woohoo, and I still haven't rebooted since I started the
install of Ubuntu. This absolutely defies everything I though I knew about
computers (and I've owned my own computer business for 11 years). Well after
a little break to watch a recorded episode of Surface I came back to find
the burn was successful.

 

All I can say, if a group of people doing this in there spare time, WHAT THE
HELL IS WRONG WITH MICROSOFT?

 

PS - I will be making the switch to Open Source PERMANENTLY thanks to
Ubuntu. I will also advise everyone I know to make the switch too. In fact,
any computers I build for now on will come pre-installed with Ubuntu if I
have any say in the matter (customers may not like that idea).

 

Richard Colbert

"Recent Ubuntu Convert"

YIM: cmptrgeeknshermantx

ICQ: 14466429

MSN: pcheaven2k at hotmail.com

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