el rinconcito

As I mentioned previously (here and here), my sturdy desktop computer seems determined to have a catastrophic hardware failure. I don't have time to troubleshoot it anymore until next week, so I have pressed the little netbook I have into service as the main machine for awhile. It looks a little funny with so much stuff jacked into it. Connecting it to a regular monitor and a USB keyboard makes things a lot more comfortable. It's hard to believe this tiny little thing with an Atom processor runs so well.

All images are clickable for greater detail on flickr.

Image #1: Ubuntu Netbook Remix is designed to make the most of a tiny screen of a netbook. It looks a little funny running at 1280 x 1024 on a regular monitor.



Image 2: I'm lucky this little babe has a place to hook up an external monitor.



Image 3: Stuff all hooked up.



Image 4: She workin' like a big girl now.

As usual, Puppy Linux runs great on the Sylvania Meso netbook. I've posted about this slick portable Linux distro before, here, here, and here. The latest version, 4.20, is available for download here.

It installs easily on a CD or USB flash drive, and saves itself back every time, so even though it's not a permanent hard drive install (though it can be), you can keep all your changes.

I previously had Puppy 4.12 on my flash drive, so the upgrade was a snap. I downloaded the .iso file and extracted three files to the USB drive: initrd.gz, vmlinux, and pup_420.sfs. A quick reboot and I was up and running with 4.20. If it's your first install to a USB drive, the Puppy installer will take care of the flash drive for you. See the documentation.

The Puppy is a fast and portable way to have some Linux fun. It's especially nice if you are just wanting to try it out without making changes to your existing system. It handles the wireless just fine and knows what to do with about anything I jack into the USB ports. The default window manager, JVM, is prettier than ever, and the ICE window manager (icewm) is also ready to go if preferred.

One time I used the Puppy to rescue a torn up Windows XP system. Very handy!

Have fun! Oh, and like most Linux distros, it goes well with beer.

Dinner dumped out of a carton. Netbook idling nearby.

Image clickable for greater inspection. Select "all sizes" upon landing on the flickr page.