Ok here’s what happened. I downloaded the xubuntu Alternate ISO which I installed via torrent. This is after I decided to use xubuntu, a kind of lite version of Ubuntu for either weak (old) PCs or people who want it to run extra fast on new PCs, such as moi.
There are two types of iso files to choose from, an ‘Alternate’ and a ‘Desktop’. Alternate is the ‘lite’ installation method, while the ‘Desktop’ is the bells and whistles version, but only on a graphical scale as they both do the same thing. For example, while the Partition editor on Alternate looks like this:
The same process on the ‘Desktop’ version looks like this:
Anyway, using the Alternate iso I created a bootable USB via method described on my last post , search for the words ‘create a usb startup disk’.
When I decided to go xubuntu I chose this method thinking it’d be the ‘safer’ choice, or at least ‘faster’ than the Desktop version. I installed Kubuntu via the Desktop version as well, so reason has it that if that worked out, alternate would fly, right? As it turns out, ten minutes or so into an installation, directly after partitioning the disks and entering user details, while it’s doing something (allowing me to do other things) it suddenly turns off.
I tried it 2 to 3 times and even removed the battery to run purely on the wall charge, thinking it might be a battery issue. Each time, it just shut down, no warning, no error message, nothing.
I considered updating the BIOS, but I felt it too drastic and risky. Besides the latest BIOS update didn’t mention a fix to any such issue.
So instead, I downloaded the Desktop install version. Two hours later (spent watching Transformers on HBO and cooking dinner), voila:
my xubuntu powered MSI Wind, posing beside by ubuntu powered desktop (they’re friends now). Picture above shows me installing the wifi drivers via ssh, with instructions I learned from here.
As expected it runs blazingly fast on Scout albeit (whispering in case she might hear me) waaaay ugly compared to previously installed Kubuntu. But that’s the beauty of it. It looks almost as simplistic as, say, Windows 3.1, but as a result windows and apps just pop up and you’re confident your commands fire away.
Which is in effect, what we want from our PCs, and from all machines we use in general. We want them to look nice, but at the end of the day when you want / need something done you want to issue a command and BANG it does it, no questions asked, no drama, just results.
Besides, strangely yet expectedly so, there are places on the net which teach you how to tweak your xubuntu to make it look and act like Vista or Leopard – a practice contrary, you would think, to the purpose of making a ‘light’ OS, but hey, if there’s anything consistent with Ubuntu and Linux in general, it’s that if it’s tweakable, it will, and probably should, be tweaked.