Well it's been awhile and I know you've all been on the edge of your seat wondering how everything went, well the truth is I finally just today finished dialing in my computer to the point where I'm happy, who says sitting around watching World Cup isn't productive.
All I wanted to do when I got my new computer is dial it in like my old computer, pretty simple right? I have dual monitors and two hardrives, one for data one for OS. So I get my new dell I figure all I have to do is swap the the video card and hardrive from my old machine to my new machine simple huh. Get the screwdriver out pop out the cover of the old machine pull the card and the drive bamn done super easy.
Look at the new machine heck I don't even need a screwdriver to open it it has this handy little pull tab thing open up the machine grab the video card to shove into the handy AGP slot ...................................... where is the AGP slot? Every machine I've owned for last 3-4 years has AGP slot there is a slot that kinda looks like a AGP slot but after brief inspection , (well just trying to shove the card in it in multiple times with varying degrees of force) it obviously not, I pull out the specs and take a look and what do I find? A whole new type of card type the PCI Express. Now I don't have any PCI Express x16 cards so I just put it on the list of things to get at Fry's. You know Fry's it's the electronics SUUUUUPERSTORE and I'm totally addicted to the place, so I decide to put that graphics card to the side, since I need to go get another one anyway, grab the data harddrive and find the mount point start installing it until what do I notice..... where is the IDE ribbon? Every hardrive I've every used has an IDE ribbon but whats hooked up the the hardrive they shipped with is this little tiny connection cord that I've never seen before....... AHHHHHHG.
So at this point I'm mad, off to Fry's pick up dual output Nvidia card, made sure it was a PCI Express and Linux compatible (as a side note I've used both Nvidia and ATI dual monitor cards on linux and using yum and this rpm repository http://rpm.livna.org/livna-switcher.html makes it a breeze) and get a external stackable networked mounting for the hardrive that way it will be easier to add extra space later on and I have a couple extra drives anyway. Put all the hardware together and then boot up the machine for the first time with the Fedora Core 5 Setup Disk One ,thats right I never even looked at the Windows install, take that Bill Gates!
And you know what went wrong then......... nothing Fedora installed exactly how I expected it to without any errors, a big difference from the days when I installed Slackware off of 30 or so 3.5 inch floppies and even the old Redhat had an issue or two, but Fedora 5 is absolutely the the easiest Linux install I've ever had.
Run yum and install yumex, Run yumex update all my software ,had a beer or three :) while this happened, remapped my user directory to my data drive and rebooted everything is worked perfect.
So what did I learn through this whole ordeal....
- Check the hardware specs, for some reason hardware vendors like to change things that have ran perfectly for years.
- I am absolutely addicted to FRY's , even though I knew what wanted when I walked in I still spent 2 hours browsing through things and playing with different electronics.
- Fedora is absolutely the easiest way to get Linux up and running.
- Don't ever start setting up a computer and expect to get 'any' real work done the same day, It's not going to happen.
- A six pack is mandatory, it should be a nice lager (best to be imported, if not a nice micro brew), it is the absolute necessity to keep you from putting a foot in the machine when you figure out your graphics card just isn't going to work.
- Finally and most important, don't blog about setting up your computer it's boring and nobody cares, including yourself, but you feel like you need to finish up the 2nd part because you started it an need to have closure.
But the computer is done and is so much faster and more responsive that my old machine I seriously get a smile on my face every time I boot it up.
