My PC lab (warning tech talk ahead)

Sometimes, I get these odd curiosities to learn about something.  Such is the case with Linux.

Linux is a computer operating system, an alternative to Windows.  It comes in a variety of  versions from several manufacturers.  I selected a free version that appears to be very popular, Ubuntu.  (Ubuntu was not in my Windows vocabulary, so spell check wanted me to correct it.  Funny.)

I burned Ubuntu onto a CD.  It was the "mini image", which means it was the minimum amount of data to boot the computer.  Then the remainder of the operating system, aka O/S, would auto download from the Internet.  That was the claim.

So, here's what happened at first:

Not too shabby for a novice, huh?

It wouldn't detect my wireless network, so I plugged in an Ethernet cable and in a few seconds, it started the download. 

Now this PC is our old, worn out box.  It was running Windows XP.  I was trying to remember what exactly was going wrong with it the day I pronounced it dead.  I replaced it with a new Dell running Windows 7.  It may have been crashing a lot.  I think that one or more usb ports had died.  At least the hard drive and CD drive are working.

Here's where the dad stuff comes in.  When I came up from the dungeon, I mean basement, with the old PC, my kids started asking questions, especially Riley.  They wanted to know what I was up to and ultimately where this PC was going, if I got it running.  They were helping me look for a power cord and a mouse.  Never found a spare mouse, so they were ready to steal the mouse from our new computer.  No to that.

Tilley is roaming past the screen, telling me there's a message about partitioning the disk.  If nothing else is gained from this experiment, she learned a new word: par-TISH-on-ing.  Hang on for a minute while I go take a look...

I chickened out.  I didn't have the guts to use the whole disk.  But it looks like I left two hard drives in that PC.  There was a second hdd with 80gb total space that we had used for family photos and such.  I copied all those to the new PC, but still didn't want to overwrite them.  I also didn't want to erase the XP O/S from the primary hard drive.  So I selected the first option on the list, which was to re-size the partition and use all free space, estimated to be about 43gb, obviously on the secondary hdd.  It said it might take a long time.  We'll see.  It's almost bedtime.

That PC is on the kitchen island/bar.  Hopefully, I can get it out of the way before leaving for work tomorrow morning.

If you're not a gadget happy freak like me, then you're probably wondering why I am doing this.  The only answer I can give is this:  because I couldn't help myself.  Kinda like the guy who has to play the newest video game, or the one who must learn that new guitar chord.

At least my kids are impressed.

God Bless,
Dadofmykids