Ubuntu for Eee PC

I feel right at home at the Ubuntu User Forums' "Absolute Beginner Talk" for that is certainly what I am!

As there were so many threads, I chose to use the filtering options at the bottom of the page to limit the threads to those with Ubuntu as the prefix, sorted in descending order by the number of replies, and the time period to the past month. This still provided over 200 pages of threads. To say the Absolute Beginner Talk forum is prolific would obviously be a understatement.

Following comments in our DigIn class discussion posts and also on the Ubuntu forums about laptops, I made another search for "Eee PC" -- the type of netbook I am currently using -- and even then found a several hundred threads. Choosing one, titled "Issues with Asus Eee," I learned that running Ubuntu within Windows using Wubi would be slow and prone to some problems. [Wubi is not a virtual machine like we will be running, but "creates a stand-alone installation" (Wikipedia)].

In the fourth response, a forum moderator suggested that the original poster use an SD install, and also advised that there were Eee specific versions available (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport/Machines/Netbooks). Another poster pointed to a utility which would allow Ubuntu to be installed to external and flash drives (http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/). The remaining dozen or so posts in the thread are supportive and indicate high user satisfaction when the appropriate version is in use. I plan to read up on the options for future use, and to revisit this list if problems surface with my Eee.

What I really found helpful at this portion of the forums were the "sticky" threads, which provide a multitude of links to resources to help a beginner learn and understand more about Ubuntu. For example, 14 of the 20 posts in the "New to Ubuntu? Start here..." thread contained links to helpful information -- most contributed by a forum staffer -- while others are long texts of informative information for beginnners. There are links to material specifically to help Windows users, too; documents which are part of the Ubuntu community documentation:

Official guide to switching from Windows to Ubuntu 8.04LTS

Switching from windowss

and another labeled, "Ubunto for non-geeks" -- which is actually a book/PDF to purchase (there is a sample chapter available to download). However, there is a free beginner's guide offered as a PDF in the first sticky thread of the forum.

I have been using Windows for so long, I am sure I will be making good use of these resources.

Back in Command

Oh, boy!

 Tonight my head is spinning -- not just from a pollen-induced headache, but with unfamiliar and semi-familiar concepts and terminology. Today was the first day of my first course in the University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science Digital Information Management Graduate Certification Program, Introduction to Applied Technology (nevermind that it is second in numerical order; this is the first course).

 I think I was fine until I decided to read chapter one of Linux Administration Handbook (Nemeth, Snyder, & Hein, 2006; 2000). Linux, UNIX, and GNU (among others) are familiar words, yes, but I've been using Microsoft products since 1996, at least. So knowing the words was about the extent of it.

 Still, even with Microsoft, and before Windows, there was DOS -- which I loved. There's nothing like a command line to put one in, well, command!

 Today, the OSes; tomorrow, VMs & distros!