Fitting the battle of life

Well, I’ve decided that when Hardy is released in April, I’ll wipe my Windows partition. I no longer need XP for anything - the two songs I’ve bought from the iTunes store are both on my iPod, and principle tells me not to care too much if I lose them in the future.

My /home will be backed up onto my external hard drive (it is already anyway), I’ll get a list of packages that I’ve got installed ready to batch-install them, and then I’ll switch over to Ubuntu completely. No more Windows on my laptop. It feels odd, thinking that. There’s just no reason to. It’s a liberating feeling.

I suppose I’ll have to save my theme to reinstall it on Hardy just the way I want it, but that’s no big deal.

The release of Ubuntu 8.04, an LTS release, is an apt time to make this decision, I feel. Just as the OS itself will be ‘hardened’, so too will my commitment to it. I guess it’s a bit like confirmation. It’s been baptised with the dual-boot, but now I’ll be making a real commitment.

In other news, I’ve received two Gutsy cds in the post from Ship-It, and already have given one out to a friend - she’s previously tried a 7.04 cd I gave her, but found her graphics card wouldn’t work even in the live cd safe graphics mode, but I remember an improvement in ATI support when I upgraded, so recommended she try the latest version.

The second one I shall use to install Ubuntu on a flatmate’s laptop. I’ve already checked the hardware on the live cd, and made sure his printer works with my own laptop (it’s an HP Photosmart C4280, works perfectly, unlike my Dell freebie). Today I got something resembling an affirmative answer from him. I’ll update on this when I can…

This time in two weeks, I will have successfully run my third and final debating competition of the year. Unfortunately, I decided early on in my tenure that I would be using a Windows-only piece of software (running it under WINE didn’t work properly, and unfortunately I don’t have the time or skills to get that sorted). There is an open-source solution, tabbie, but the Windows software I have automatically generates a powerpoint presentation showing which teams are in which rooms being judge by whom, which is something tabbie does not (it does something similar, but not as sophisticated).

Anyway, Sat 16th Feb is the date of my last tournament as IV Convenor this year. Next year will be someone else’s turn, and I’ll let them use their laptop for running the tournament with whatever system they wish (within reason and after discussion with all involved parties, of course). After that, I shall back-up all the files on both my Windows and Ubuntu partitions onto an external hard drive and take the decision to start over or not.

I’m not running out of room on either, but very rarely use Windows. I have only used it once or twice since November (the last competition I ran), and don’t use it to play MOHAA any more, simply because I have moved on from gaming for the time being (and I can always play enemy-territory on Ubuntu!). The only reason I might need it is for iPod management (I have a couple of DRM’d tracks - literally two or three), but I mostly do that in Exaile (although it’s been strangely broken of late; perhaps I’ll go back to Amarok).

I may just defer the decision until Ubuntu 8.04 is out,  because it would give me more of a reason to wipe clean and start over. I still have the xp discs somewhere, so could always set it up in a virtual machine if I needed it (and I see no foreseeable need anyway). Hmm, we shall see.

There aren’t many here, but these will do for now. I don’t think the new year is the only time to make resolutions, so there may well be more as the year progresses.

1. Post here regularly. It’s a wonderful break from actual work but still creative, so it’s not mind-numbing to the point I can’t get back to work. In fact, writing blog posts kinda helps me get in the mood to work, at least more than facebooking does.
2. Install and post a review of Hardy when it comes out officially in April. If there’s a -uk release party in London or nearish that I can get to, I’ll blog about that as well. Call it a Hard-on. No, on second thoughts don’t. A Hardy-fest will do fine.
3. Write a few simple how-tos. I’m not the most experienced user in the world, and nor can I solve bugs or anything like that. But if people need to know how to do simple things I’ve worked out how to do, I really ought to share that information.
4. Push for the two of my friends who’ve expressed an interest in installing Ubuntu to do so, and help them do it and support them through the transition. This may well be the hardest part, but it’s one I’m most committed to. If they get past the installation and into everyday use, then perhaps they’ll understand why I’ve been raving so much about it. (On a slightly related note, we had a couple of friends round the other day, one of whom cheekily saw me spin the desktop cube around…suffice to say, she was impressed.)

That’ll do for now, but there will be more to come I’m sure. As ever I’ll update on these towards the end of the year.