Ubuntu | Dominik Mayer – Products, Asia, Productivity

Update

Ubuntu 8.04 brought me Firefox 3 Beta 5 which is not yet supported by one of my crucial add-ons. Chinese Perapera-kun translates Chinese words by hovering over them. Very useful.

Now I have to get along with these:

Ubuntu and the Aliens

Safe an Alien developer Roy Man wrote that my download problems are caused by “problems with image uploads” on Ubuntu. According to him the matter will be fixed in the next version.

Defective Pixel

Thanks to Thanks to ThinkWiki nearly everything’s working now, even the fingerprint reader. But my poor little laptop got a defective pixel. 😢 And I’m in desperate need of clowns.

Driving Me Crazy

Ok, so I got a laptop, X61s, rid of Vista and have been trying to install Ubuntu for two days now… without success. When I boot from a copied live CD, the installer reports defective files, a netinstall doesn’t work from home and when I try to install from the ISO file the thing reports a defective CD. But there is no CD and the MD5 hash of the file is correct. Arg.

Gutsy

The latest version of Ubuntu Linux, called “Gutsy Gibbon”, was released this week. It features several improvements including the eye candy of Compiz Fusion. You should give it a try.

Linux ThinkPads

Lenovo Worldwide Competitive Analyst Matt Kohut published two interesting posts on his blog. He first wants to figure out if and why people would want Linux on a ThinkPad and asks for the prefered distribution in the follow up.

I can’t say I’m unhappy that Ubuntu is leading the field with 47 % of all votes. The chances increase that they will offer a laptop as desired.

Laptops

I can’t take my desktop computer to Shanghai so I have to look for a laptop. I’d like to get a ThinkPad but couldn’t figure out yet how to customize a model instead of just buying one. It works on the US site, why not on the German one?

And why do I have to spend money on Windows Vista?? I’m very happy with my Ubuntu Linux and even if I’d want to use Windows (what I don’t) I could get a free and legal copy from my university. Praise Dell that offers computers with Ubuntu.

I’m also thinking about getting a cheap laptop from a discounter which I’d use at home where size, weight and battery life won’t matter and try to find a small used ThinkPad at eBay. But then I can just as well get another desktop computer in China… Anyone competent around?