The Installation of Operating Systems

So, this weekend, I decided to reinstall Ubuntu on my desktop, which is actually not that impressive of a feat, considering a) how many times I’ve done it before and b) the fact that the Ubuntu installer is very straightforward and easy to understand (at least for a techy like me). 

Well, the whole process took about a day (in this case, Friday), and by the time I was done, it was about 3am the next day.  However, I must say, I’m quite proud of myself.  There were certain issues that popped up, but all in all, this is the best I’ve ever done with an installation of Ubuntu.  At the moment, there’s only one issue with the operating system, which, considering that previously, I’ve had somewhere between 6 – 20 separate issues, is not bad at all.

Right now, the only issue I have is the fact that for some reason (and this is a known bug in the Ubuntu Forums), whenever I start Gizmo5, I cannot use any other sound (no music, youtube, system sounds, anything).  In addition, if I use one of these other programs, Gizmo does not work.  This is somewhat frustrating, since this means I can’t use Gizmo to get incoming calls when listening to music (for those who don’t know, Gizmo is an open source program similar to Skype, but it has free incoming calls and integrates quite nicely with Google Voice).

Well, I was so proud of myself for this accomplishment, that I decided it was time to reinstall Windows XP on my laptop.  My laptop had been kinda bogged down from 4 years of use, and a reinstall seemed to be in order for it.  So, the next day, I started with the (considerably more arduous) task of reinstalling XP.

First off, the whole thing took about a day and a half.  It wasn’t that hard, but having to get 4+ years of updates, including a service pack, takes a really long time (to be precise, it took me 2.5 hours to get all the updates).  Afterwards, I had to install all the programs, which is a very tedious task, since I had to look for them online, download, install, and repeat.  At least with Ubuntu, I could check some boxes, and it would download and install all of them in one go.

However, eventually, I more or less got my computer to the point where it was before, with one major difference: it now loads REALLY QUICKLY!!!  Where before my laptop would load in about 5 minutes total, it now takes about 2, which is a huge improvement in speed.  This is, of course, taking into account all the startup programs I have, which do slow down the startup process.

Anyway, right now, I have to see if I can fix the Gizmo issue on Ubuntu, and set up my new wireless-N router that I got from woot.com.  But, all in all, it was a productive computer-fiddling weekend.