![\"HP](\"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/HP-8200.gif\" "\\"HP")
<\/p>\nThis is a love story.<\/p>\n
No, not the kind of love I have for female androids.\u00a0 I never have and never will fondle or fuck a PC.<\/p>\n
My first PC is a vintage 1998 HP Pavilion 8260.\u00a0 Back then, it cost me $2599 and included only a mouse, keyboard, monitor and speakers.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The specs and accessories for this speed demon were:<\/p>\n
Back in May 1998 this was a very good computer.\u00a0 It wasn’t top of the line, but it wasn’t a cheap and slow PC either.\u00a0 I got many, many years of use from it, and learned all I could learn about Windows on it.<\/p>\n
I upgraded the RAM to 160 soon after I got it, and got a (FUCKING MASSIVE!!!) 10 GB hard drive installed a little later… as well as one of those newfangled CD burners.\u00a0 I even bought a 100 MB\u00a0 Zip drive… but sold it to a friend after I realized I had run out of room and cables to install it.\u00a0 After hardware upgrades, some as recently as last year, it now has these improved specs:<\/p>\n
Still an old clunker.\u00a0 I kept it around only because I have certain DOS games that won’t run on my Windows XP machines.\u00a0 I’ve never mucked about with DOS Box, so I still fire up Windows 98 on it and give those games a spin from time to time.<\/p>\n
The reason I’m in love with that computer, however, is because of Linux.<\/p>\n
Linux!\u00a0 Hooray!<\/p>\n
Back in 2006 when I first dipped my toes into the Linux pool, I decided to run an Ubuntu Live CD on that computer.\u00a0 I found out right away that it didn’t have enough memory, so I looked around on the net for a solution.<\/p>\n
Damn Small Linux seemed like a nice fit to try, so I burned a CD and booted the HP 8260 with it.\u00a0 My newly acquired USB\/Ethernet adapter wouldn’t work in Damn Small Linux though.\u00a0 (I was determined to get a fast internet connection on that thing.)<\/p>\n
So I installed Xubuntu on it.\u00a0 That was my first experience with Xubuntu, and I was disappointed.\u00a0 I later installed Xubuntu on most of my machines, but on the 8260 it was slow as molasses… albeit usable.<\/p>\n
It was then that I could use the computer as I intended: for reading before bed.\u00a0 Now, I’m an extremely lazy person.\u00a0 I like to have things automated for me (this includes women).\u00a0 Since around 1999, I’ve only read news and other things on the internet with a screen reader.\u00a0 There are a wealth of text-to-speech programs available for Windows…. but a dearth of such software for Linux.<\/p>\n
The solution I found for that machine was the KDE text-to-speech system: kttsd\/kttsmgr\/ksayit.\u00a0 KSayIt is no longer supported, but that’s another (angry) rant.<\/p>\n
So with a screen reader, and with Firefox installed as well, I was able to read some Wikipedia articles on my ever geeky interests at night just before I went to sleep.\u00a0 That old computer currently sits about 4 feet away from the foot of my bed, so it’s perfect for that purpose.<\/p>\n
Xubuntu was, however, just TOO fucking slow.\u00a0 I did some more looking around on the net and did two things to improve the situation:<\/p>\n
![\"120907043625-fluxbuntu3\"](\"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/120907043625-fluxbuntu3-300x225.png\" "\\"120907043625-fluxbuntu3\\"")
<\/p>\n
I have fond memories of Fluxbuntu.\u00a0 It was the first installation of a Linux distro on that computer that had made it as usable as it was under Windows 98.\u00a0 It was still a bit sluggish, Firefox 2 especially, but it was now getting used every night for reading.<\/p>\n
Fluxbuntu was released as an installable Live CD back in late 2007.\u00a0 The project is, for all intents and purposes, dead.\u00a0 Since Fluxbuntu was based on Ubuntu, I was able to get it upgraded to version 8.04.\u00a0 I was also able to install the “Update Manager” to make sure I was getting all the latest software upgrades.<\/p>\n
But I wanted more.\u00a0 There’s only so much a minimal Ubuntu derivative running Fluxbox and ROX file manager (which I fucking hated) can do.\u00a0 I then read about Lubuntu and LXDE.<\/p>\n
![\"LXDE_desktop_full\"](\"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/LXDE_desktop_full-300x225.png\" "\\"LXDE_desktop_full\\"")
<\/p>\n
When I tried running the (non-installable) Lubuntu Live CD, I was blown away at how fast the computer was.\u00a0 I knew I had to install LXDE on that PC to get it working as fast as I’d seen it run on just a live CD.<\/p>\n
After some searching, I was able to add the Launchpad repositories added to my sources list and install LXDE.\u00a0 I had never seen that computer run Linux faster.<\/p>\n
But that horrible, puke-like Fluxbuntu colour scheme was still there, and I couldn’t completely get rid of it.\u00a0 So I tried uninstalling the Fluxbuntu desktop package and installing the Ubuntu desktop package.<\/p>\n
No go.<\/p>\n
So last weekend I took the plunge and did the best thing I’ve ever done for that old clunky PC.\u00a0 I ran the Ubuntu 8.04 Live CD and installed that version over what used to be Fluxbuntu (RIP).\u00a0 Then once I had rebooted and installed the updates (which took 3 hours) I added the Launchpad repositories again and installed LXDE.<\/p>\n
Some tweaking and rebooting later, I now have a very efficient desktop computer for my late-night reading.\u00a0 LXDE is MUCH faster than Gnome and even XFCE, and PCManFM is like a lithe gazelle compared to the sleepy drunken elephant that is Nautilus.<\/p>\n
All this just justifies my pack-rat mentality when it comes to computers and electronics.\u00a0 See?\u00a0 I CAN still use it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is a love story. No, not the kind of love I have for female androids.\u00a0 I never have and never will fondle or fuck a PC. My first PC is a vintage 1998 HP Pavilion 8260.\u00a0 Back then, it cost me $2599 and included only a mouse, keyboard, monitor and speakers. The specs and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4,7,6],"tags":[9,8,11,10],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computers","category-linux","category-lxde","category-ubuntu","tag-fluxbuntu","tag-lubuntu","tag-pc","tag-windows-98"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions\/16"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}