10:00 AM
Paul B
For the last few weeks my home desktop computer, the last of the Windows computers on my home network kept blue-screening. There was something going on when connecting to VPN that was causing it.
I've been trying to get my wife to go 100% Ubuntu for a while now. She's let me setup her laptop with Xubuntu, and she's slowly gotten used to it, so when this BSOD issue kept creeping up I was finally able to convince her that it was time to switch it to Linux!
I did run into a few problems though with the tranisition. The main problem had to do with the wireless card I am using in the Desktop since my home network is almost 100% wireless. I am using a WMP300N card in it, and from Ubuntu 12.04 - Ubuntu 13.04 it had frequent disconnect problems apparently. No problem right? Just install Ubuntu 13.10! Not so fast Jack!
That was my second major problem, Ubiquity kept hanging up and crashing on the Xubuntu 13.10 install media. I also tried Lubuntu 13.10 and Ubuntu 13.10 with the same issue. I could only install using Xubuntu 13.04, so that's what I did.
After that I was able to perform an apt-get dist-upgrade, but it took forever because the wireless network kept disconnecting. Anyway, I finally got that done, and wireless is working fine now.
The last thing I found was that Picasa is no longer available for Ubuntu. I never use it, but my wife uses it all the time. I guess they stopped after version 3.0. Anyway, I can't find any working Linux versions for it anymore, so I had to switch to Shotwell as most people say they like it as an alternative to Picasa for Ubuntu. Plus, I hate Google because of all their NSA crap, so it worked out.
One of the things I used to do on the desktop when it was Windows was torrent TV shows using ShowRSS. I could easily do that using Utorrent, but Transmission and Deluge don't do that so well natively. Deluge has an RSS plugin, but it didn't work too well either. It seems that the best Linux Bittorrent program that has RSS and Scheduling features like Utorrent is Ktorrent.
The best thing though about finally putting Ubuntu on my home desktop is that I am finally able to put one of my FREE Powered By Ubuntu stickers on it! Check it out!
Is your house Windows free? Did you have any issues getting it that way? Let us know in the comments.
