J_K9 @ Linux

Windows, Windows, Windows…

August 17, 2006 on 11:50 pm | In Hyperactive |

My Linksys WAG54G-UK has been going strong for about a year, possibly a bit less - it is a good wireless router (with an inbuilt ADSL modem), and while I had many problems with the firmware it came with, it worked perfectly after installing the latest firmware.

However, my trusty companion has finally conked out.
My desktop uses a Linksys WMP54G for its wireless connectivity, but I have yet to set up the card’s driver on my installation of Ubuntu 6.06.1 (amd64 version).

But, there is still some hope - according to this article, I can get my card working using Linuxant’s driver. It’s not free, but I can sign up for a short trial and download the driver while that lasts! Ah, Linuxant saves the day (once again).

Anyway, the driver is not what my rant is about. In fact, I’m quite glad I’ve found a way to get my WMP54G working on Linux. Now, I would just download the Linuxant driver from Ubuntu on my desktop by connecting to my router via an ethernet cable (cat5), but it seems that my router (see above) has decided to shut off its ethernet ports. That’s right - my router is refusing to let me connect via ethernet! Just kidding; the damn thing is broken. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but no matter what computer I plug into the router, it just doesn’t work.

So here I am, working on my laptop, on Windows. I also have Ubuntu on this laptop, and although it recognises my Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG (which works using the excellent ipw2200 driver), I have attempted and failed to connect it to my WPA-encrypted WLAN. That’s not because I can’t - it’s because I’m lazy, have not installed network-manager yet, and it appears that the wpa_supplicant documentation is fairly incomplete. I’ll set it up later on - that’s another thing I have to do! And I can’t wait to get off Windows. Seriously.

What about this post’s title? Windows, Windows, Windows? Oh, yes, of course. My desktop. It not only has Ubuntu Dapper Drake installed, but also Windows XP Professional - it’s a shame that some of my games are not compatible with Cedega, if not that partition’s space would currently be taken up by Ubuntu. Alas, there is nothing I can do about that - maybe in a year or two, we might start seeing games ported to Linux.

Oops, the title.. Well, yes, that desktop. My installation of Windows XP Professional has become corrupt. Don’t ask me how, don’t ask me why - it just has. I went away on holiday for a week, and now I’m back at home - do you think it got severely depressed while I was away, and is now in a state of such extreme unhappiness that it refuses to respond? Such is the way of Windows - it has its days. When I get the boot screen, and that lovely little blue bar is speeding along showing me how fast and polished Windows is, what do you think happens next, every time I try booting into Windows? I get the dreaded BSOD, with a 0×0000007E error. There is no way to get around this - not even Safe Mode will work. Windows has decided to take a dump on me, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Oh well… I’ve already backed up the saved games and whatnot onto Ubuntu (thank God for Linux), and I’m about to reformat and reinstall.

If only we (the gaming community) could do away with Windows… Well, I guess I could always switch to America’s Army instead of Counter-Strike:Source - at least that runs on Linux

[edit] Rats… The America’s Army developers have stopped support for Linux, and in case you are wondering, I am hurling verbal abuse at my screen at the moment. Grr. I guess I’ll have to stick with Windows for games then..

Although there’s always Frozen Bubble to provide hours of fun!