A little while ago I was playing happily with Ubuntu on an old laptop. With a new job, I’ve been obliged to spend more time on a Vista/.NET platform. Helen’s just bought a new Vista laptop so I’ll be using her old one to install Ubuntu again.
Ok, so I know I should update Ubuntu and I’ve read that Breezy isn’t the best for sound but I’ve finally - after an afternoon of messing about - managed to coax Audacity to use my Logitech USB microphone.
First of all, I downloaded the (beta) source for Audacity 1.3.2 and following the helpful advice on mics in Ubuntu here, compiled the source with:
./configure --with-portaudio=v19 --without-portmixer
For the first time since taking up Ubuntu, I’ve been lost in the content of work and forgot completely the OS I was using. I was on autopilot, on Linux ,and thought for a moment that I was Helen’s laptop rather than my own. She uses XP at home.
I haven’t been able to use Ubuntu as much as I’d like - I’m not able to use it at work - and this is the first time that Ubuntu’s presence has been absent (© J.P.Satre). Until now, all those little differences and difficulties have been as if I were wearing someone else’s shoes.
First, I installed Ubuntu. Then Mark Pilgrim installed it. Now Cory Doctorow copies us.
One day I’ll tire of being in the vanguard of technology and fashion.
Did I make a mistake in installing Ubuntu rather than Kubuntu? Kubuntu is Ubuntu with KDE rather than Gnome and I seem to be having problems installing some applications.
Well anyhow. Here’s what I want to install.
Audacity
Some podcast organiser / downloader
An RSS reader (can’t get on with Bloglines)
A good FTP client
A good development environment
Apache
MySQL
PHP
I may have some of these. I don’t know and I’m not sure how to find out either. I think I saw Python installing itself during the setup…
Finally managed to connect to my wireless network and the Web on Ubuntu
My main laptop has wireless built in. The old laptop on which I’ve installed Ubuntu needs a wireless PCMCIA card. I have two cards; one is recognised by the new operating system and the other is completely ignored.
So, for the moment, down to one card and now I’m trying to setup the network connection … for my home wireless network. I was expecting a few difficulties but this is getting silly. Still, it’s what I was expecting. So for the moment, haven’t been able to give up on XP.
