3.0 and all

The third generation of OpenOffice.org was released last month. The release generated a lot of downloads from all over the world, and for the first time we could see that the servers gave up. Statistics for the first day was rather inaccurate but on the second day, we could see the Dansih version downloaded more than 13.000 times.

Last week I participated in a TV program on Danish National Television DR1. 24 minutes about open s ource software on prime time. The Ubuntu community could measure a 5-double of website acivity and the OpenOffice.org community could see a +30% activity on downloads. Great. And I can now call me the first and only official IT-Hippie in Denmark. Well, I can live with that.

The TV program was very nice. A family of four accepted to give up all Microsoft Software for two weeks. All computers was replaced with open source software (surpise: the family survived).

I was very happy to di a live presentation of OpenOfffice.org 3.0 at the Ubuntu release party in Copenhagen on saturday. Unfortunately Ubuntu has decided not to include 3.0 in Ubuntu 8.10. Unfortunately my Linux box was 'at the hospital' that day and had to do the presentation on Windows. Ok, I think the Ubuntu community can accept that. Thanks to the guys that fixed my computer at the event.

Networking sucks

Can anyone explain this to me ?
Every time I start using the internet from my Ubuntu Linux thing, my wife starts making funny noises.

It's true. I checked the manual (spoke to my father-in-law !) She's alright.

The Wireless network gets totally overloaded when I start my browser.

Half the time my netcard is Idle, but the router is still working so hard that it makes my wife say §@$¤£~!

When I decided to install Linux I knew I would face some serious trouble. You know, all the things they are writing articles about on the internet. But I seriously never expected to hear funny noises from mrs. caused by this.

It's a Jensen of Scandinavia Air Ling WBR 6954 with firmware v1.4.3.C

Episode 5: Finally success

Finally I got the developer version of openOffice.org 3.0 installed. I used

dpkg -i -–force-overwrite [path to install packages]/openoffice.org*.deb

The desktop integration thing doesn't work (multiple errors) so I'll just add the applications to the menu manually.

Thanks to all.

Linux: Episode 4

I ust admit that most of this episode actually took place in the garden. It was 23 degrees Celsius and the sun was shining. Sorry, but I just had to do something in the garden.

Nevertheless I tried some of the fine advice from you - the readers. Alexander Colorado suggested sudo dpkg -i folder/to/openoffice3.0/* but that didn't work. Result: -bash: ooobasis3.0-base_3.0.0-3_i386.deb: No such file or directory. And what do I know about that ? Nothing.

An Anonymous Danish reader suggested me to add a few lines to /etc/apt/sources.list from https://launchpad.net/~openoffice-pkgs/+archive
but that didn't work either.

Is it really that difficult to add new software ?

Never mind. I'll figure it out somehow - some day!

Thanks for all the comments. I really feel that I'm not alone.

My Linux: Episode 3

Am I tired ?

Guess.

I have spent all day trying to get my old e-mail store (inbox, folders, accounts, mail rules etc.) moved from my old Windows XP machine to Ubuntu Linux.

• I think I'we got all the extensions installed now
• I created the POP3 account manually
• I managed to move the inbox and all local folders. The file structure is not exactly the same, so I spent about two hours figuring that out
• I think I'll create new mail rules over the next couple of weeks

I also wanted to upgrade OpenOffice.org 2.4 to 3.0 (developer snapshot). I didn't succeed that one :-( I still can't figure out how to install packages manually. I think that root thing in a terminal window is rather tricky. Is it surposed to be that difficult ?

Oh, and I also got my Pidgin configured with some of my chat accounts.

Think I'll turn in now. It's been a long day. For Tux and me ;-)

My life with Linux: Episode 2

• The wireless internet connection is very slow. I had some problems that the encryption code for my network was lost during restart. Somehow it seems to work now.
• Sound card works fine now. I just needed to turn it up. -I can even hear radio over the radio (despite the slow connection)
  
• My documents is transfered using an USB-stick with no problems
• Firefox bookmarks transfered using the backup/restore function in Firefox - nice
  
• Homebanking works now after I installed a JRE-plugin for Firefox (wonder why this wasn't done by default?)
• I tried to transfer my complete mail store from the XP-machine by copying the Firefox folder to /etc/firfox. It didn't work. I'll need to find another way.

My new life with Linux.Episode 1

Intallation went fine. It took no more than about 20 minutes to install the CD on my new (old) laptop.

Wireless internet connection is up running
Danish keyboard is working fine
Sound card is not working (yet)

Right now running update manager (107 updates).

Finally I got the guts: Linux

I have been thinking about this for a long time. As an open source evangalist I should try to use something else than MS XP. Today I decided to try.

I'm what you could call an advanced PC user today. I fele happy about Windows XP and I feel comfortable with it. My son has a laptop running Vista and I have made a decission: I will never allow Vista to install on my computer. It's just to much.... to much.

I got a new (old) laptop and I decided to find out if I can make it work with Linux.

I downloaded the ISO from www.ubuntu.org and it's installing right now. I'm very exited to learn how everything will do in the next few hours.

Will I get access to the Internet ?
Will I get all the drivers right ?
What about all the applications I need ?
Will I be able to exchange files with my friends ?

Stay tuned. I'll tell you all about my experiences.

13 reasons why Linux should be on your desktop

I just fell over this article by Kim Brebach (Oct. 16, 2007). The article is a summary of, how and why you should consider Linux a serious alternative to Microsoft Windows. http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT5836989728.html. Specially now, that it can be difficult to avoid an operating system that is defect and you actually don't want to use (Vista).

The article is specially relevant now, that Ubuntu has released 7.10.