Linux - interfaces - hp
Sure it�s been, lets see� oh, a few moths since my last entry; but I�m not quite dead yet. Well, since September I have had a lot happen, relating to computers and technology, I acquired for the hefty sum of nearly $500, one iPAQ. This machine is amazing, If you are looking at buying a laptop you should really contemplate just getting one of these. After buying a few overpriced accessories you can have all of the capabilities of a laptop with the sleek and small form factor of a top-rate hand-held. I�m not going to get into all of the messy details of comparing the iPAQ to a palm device, but lets just say that if you want power and high-end usability the iPAQ series is a great option. That was back in October, for Christmas I was gifted by my overly generous parents with a brand spanking new hp desktop (19 inch monitor included)
P4 2.0 GHz
DVD
CD-RW
100GB HDD
512 MB RAM
nVidia geforce 2
All of this awesome hardware came with Windows XP preinstalled. Yeah, no choice in the matter. Well, after aproximately 3 weeks of messing around with this new reason to bang my head against the wall, I bought Mandrake 8.1 and was thourghouly surprised. The biggest thing about Win-XP is the immediate hardware recognition. Installing my numerous peripherials was a breeze! I was of course concerned about this when switching over to Linux, but decided to just go for it. Oddly enough all of my peripherals are fully operational in Linux. Mandrake 8.1 installed cleanly and recognized nearly everything. My CD-R was recognized correctly and works just fine with eraoster. My DVD player works, but it took a little IRC tech support to figure out that my DVD drive was symlinked horribly, I have to browse through about 8 subdirectories to select the device node in ogle. My SanDisk CF card reader works and i just mount cards like any other drive. I have tried out 2 different digital cameras, both are fairly easy to access with gphoto2. The one interesting bit is my iPAQ. Technically I cant synchronize with it�s UB cradle but I can easily transfer files using my CF card reader.
So Linux is a success, but I am frustrated by interfaces yet again. KDE has by far most complete desktop with excellent features and programs including excellent anti-aliasing which works in my favorite browser: Opera. Unfortunately KDE is but-ugly, and resembles Windows a little too closely for my tastes. Of course Enlightenment is better in many ways including usability and graphic, unfortunately I miss the features that make KDE great, including anti-aliasing. Don�t tell me to use gnome with E, cause gnome has bought the big one for some reason, it just dosen�t load up correctly anymore. When it was working it still had problems such as a lack of a working ppp dialer.
As for HP, well they have started doing something very annoying, they do not actually distribute install cd�s for windows xp. That�s right, if you want to format and dual boot your machine then you are required to get the CD�s from hp through tech-support. The windows xp recovery information is kept on an �emergency partition� this is where they tell you to do a system restore from. I see why they do this, 1.) Its cheaper to not make as many cd�s, and 2.) Many, many people lose their recovery cd�s. It wouldn�t be as much of a problem, except there is a $9.95 charge to send you the cd�s for the software which you actually already purchased.
Well, it�s been interesting for sure, and while messing around with a nice digital camera I was borrowing(and the help of the gimp) I came up with this pic here.