I finally got around to installing Ubuntu 10.04 onto my laptop (Toshiba Satellite L300D PSLC8C-04401R). Not dual-boot or VM’d…we are talking full format (bye-bye Vista) and clean install of Ubuntu.
It would be worth noting that I did upgrade the BIOS of my machine to the most recent (v1.80). I moved all files off to my server as I will now be running a file server at home to house the vast media I have. After that, I created the install disc and reboot to start the install.
The installation was smooth. I experienced no errors and the full time of install was about 30 minutes. I was pleasantly surprised after I logged in for the first time that my wireless card was picked up right away (gone are the days of Linux wireless woes) and my ATI Radeon HD 3100 card was detected and asked to install the proprietary drivers. I also ran a full update for the packages that have changed since Apr 2010 and that ran flawlessly too.
I started to play around with Gwibber and the “social-first” mentality that this release claims. Click on my name in the top right, add in chat accounts…done. Dead simple.
Now I need to look into setting up:
- LAMP
- Compiz fusion/emerald
- Lm-sensors and sensors-applet
- email/contacts in Evolution
- Java/PHP/Android SDK/Eclipse
- Subversion
So far…so good.
[UPDATE – Sept28, 2010]
As much as I loved the operating system the few days I played with it, I needed to format and go back to Vista. The single reason is that I could not get the fan to work in Ubuntu. I read countless posts about people having trouble with Toshiba laptops and ACPI drivers. Rather than have my laptop melt (or fry my junk if it is sitting on my thighs) I will make the walk of shame back to Windows. Damn you Toshiba for refusing to support anything but Windows.
[Update – May11, 2011]
With the new 11.04 release and Unity interface I am back on Ubuntu with the Toshiba laptop! It is working great with no errors and the fan seems to be blowing as needed 🙂 I even have it playing Minecraft.
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