Category Archives: Administrative

Administrative, Technology and Society

New Fedora Laptop Issue

6 Comments

OK, when we last left our intrepid laptop, it couldn’t install Fedora. Following advice in comments there, I tried a live version of Ubuntu, and it had no problem, other than telling me that it didn’t have an open-source driver for the WLAN. Then I tried Fedora again. It hung up as it did before, but I went away and ignored it, and when I came back after a while, it had finally booted into the installer. Apparently I just hadn’t been patient enough the last time.

Now, after selecting languages, it gives me a message saying “No driver found” It tells me that there is no driver for this installation for the device, and asks me if I want to install manually, or if I have a disk. When I try installing manually, it gives me a drop-down list of every driver for every device known to Linus. The only problem is that it doesn’t tell me what device is causing the heartburn.

Any suggestions? I’m guessing that it might be the wireless, because of the message on Ubuntu, but who knows?

[Update a few minutes later]

The exact (cryptic) message is “Unable to find device type needed for this installation type.”

Huh?

Administrative

Back To The Sunshine State

5 Comments

I’m catching a plane back to Florida in a bit, so probably no more posting until tomorrow, since I don’t get in until late tonight. I get to go through DFW, so they get (at least) two chances to lose my suitcase this time. But they apparently only need one.

[Saturday morning update]

Arrived late last night, with suitcase. Now to catch up on all the things that didn’t happen while I was out of town.

Administrative, General, Technology and Society

It’s Healed!

4 Comments

Miraculously (and mysteriously), my internal wireless adaptor started working yesterday. Unfortunately, that gives me one less excuse to return the laptop.

I still have to figure out what to do about Linux. Also, I’m unimpressed with Vista so far. Last night, the machine crawled almost to a halt. It’s a 2 GHz Turion with three gigs of RAM. It took forever for task manager to load, and it provided no information as to which process was causing the problem, but the CPU was saturated. I couldn’t even shut down applications, or the computer itself. I eventually had to just power it down. It’s been OK since I rebooted into safe mode, and then rebooted again, but I have no idea what was going on.

Administrative, General, Technology and Society

It’s Always Something

Well, I got what I thought was a good deal on a laptop.

Two problems (well, three, one of which is caused by the other). First, the integrated WLAN adaptor doesn’t seem to work. That’s an annoyance, but I have a USB adaptor. More seriously, it doesn’t seem to accept Linux. When I tried to do a Fedora 9 install, it hung on one of the devices. It didn’t occur to me to check to see if it was compatible with Linux–I had just assumed that it had evolved to the point where that wasn’t an issue any more. So I’m considering returning, but not sure how to avoid the problem in the future.

Oh, the third problem? It comes with Vista installed. I hadn’t cared when I thought that it would running Linux most of the time, but now it’s an issue.

Administrative, General, Technology and Society

It’s Always Something

16 Comments

Well, I got what I thought was a good deal on a laptop.

Two problems (well, three, one of which is caused by the other). First, the integrated WLAN adaptor doesn’t seem to work. That’s an annoyance, but I have a USB adaptor. More seriously, it doesn’t seem to accept Linux. When I tried to do a Fedora 9 install, it hung on one of the devices. It didn’t occur to me to check to see if it was compatible with Linux–I had just assumed that it had evolved to the point where that wasn’t an issue any more. So I’m considering returning, but not sure how to avoid the problem in the future.

Oh, the third problem? It comes with Vista installed. I hadn’t cared when I thought that it would running Linux most of the time, but now it’s an issue.

Administrative

Busy

3 Comments

I had to write a piece this morning on the Phoenix water tasting, and I’m getting ready to fly to LA on Sunday for a new (badly needed) consulting gig. I also have to go out and buy a new laptop this afternoon, so posting may be light.

Administrative

Slow Weekend

4 Comments

Yesterday morning, a dump truck lived up to its name and deposited dozens of bags of mulch (malaleuca–I know you were dying to know), top soil, potting soil and sod in the yard, in a large high-entropy pile. We are still dealing with the aftermath of this event (which was not only planned, but cost us a few hundred bucks). Also, I’m working on a piece for Popular Mechanics on the fate of ISS after Shuttle.

Administrative

Comments Hygiene

10 Comments

I’ve banned a moronic anonymous commenter that seems to have nothing of value to contribute, and is so illiterate that it can’t even manage to spell my last name right. Just in case anyone was wondering. I grow less tolerant of such juvenile nonsense as time goes on. If the creature persists somehow, I’ll just delete the posts as well (probably should anyway).