This entry is a sort of test using a new program I just found. It allows desktop publishing directly to your website. If you like what you see, you may wish to visit www.blogdesk.org/en/index.htm.

1. It does lists
2. easily.

It does blockquote.

not sure yet how to exit blockquote.

It does bold and strikethrough?

Even images.

PCBSD is still chugging right along on the laptop. I downloaded Apache and MySQL without any major mishaps, and am now running Drupal with only a small, persistant error at the top of the screen. It is thrown up there by the system and not Drupal, so I can't ignore it by sending errors to the log only. I will have to ignore it manually for now.

I am even able to log in as root; that sort of behaviour is not allowed by PCBSD by default. A quick edit to /usr/local/share/config/kdm/kdmrc put all to rights. I also made myself owner of the www folder inside Apache. I hope that is not a serious enough security threat to affect the balance of power in Europe.

I also installed Firefox and Open Office. I may try out WINE as well. Later, though. Things are already pretty slow running and I am not getting any younger here.

It has been a long process getting a flavor of OSS to run as a desktop on the "new" laptop. Since nearbout anything would run just fine on my old "old" IBM 600e laptop and my old "not quite so old" IBM desktop, I pretty much assumed that most anything would at least run on a somewhat newer model. Boy was I surprised.

I have manages to install the following distros on my IBM x23, in no particular order:

• SuSe (crashed)
• Ubuntu (crashed)
• Mandriva (ran slower than the others, so it wasn't on long enough to crash)
• Kubuntu (crashed)
• Redhat Fedora Core 5 (seems stable enough, but what do I do with it?)
• PCBSD (what I have now)(also fairly slow)

There may be some more that I have forgotten.

When I say crash, I mean there is an error message that some file or another is missing or corrupted, and I am given a command prompt to fix it. Usually the OS will load after a reboot or two, but not consistantly.

When I first began to contemplate choosing a distro, I wanted KDE, the ability to install and run Apache, and I really wanted out of the box recognition of my integrated wireless card. I did get internal wireless recognition from:

• Ubuntu
• Kubuntu

So close, and yet so far away.

Windows XP Pro loads consistantly, no internal wireless without a firmware update, but it does run all the magnifigreat programs that I find as natural as breathing, such as PocoMail and NoteTabPro. I bet it even runs Photoshop. Or Civilization II.

Sometimes I feel like a total and complete numbskull for putting myself through such torture when every computational function I ever dreamed of is right at my fingertips. The downside is that that everything I read speaks of virii, rootkits, WGA, and general ownership of things I would like to consider to be my own property. It has come down to ease of use versus moral ground, and doggone it if old habits ain't hard to break.

Funny thing about the new, old laptop, it seems to corrupt all Linux distros, each in a distinctive, original way.

Meanwhile. Windows XP Pro seems to boot and run just fine, thank you.

As a last resort, I have loaded Fedora Core 5, which I think was the previous owner's choice. It boots fine so far, but it is an odd puppy and not what I wanted. First off, it uses Gnome, which can be altered. After that, it not only fails to recognise the integrated wireless, but most other wireless cards as well.

Things had better shape up soon, because as annoying as XP is, it does seem to work.

I seemed to have hit the wall with the Linux distros I have laying around the house, so I decided to try the WinXP recovery that came with my 'new' laptop's hard drive. I was almost immediately hit with the sasser worm which causes a reboot about every half hour. I am now reinstalling and hoping the restore partition is not infected.

It would be nice to have a copy of XP laying around for testing my Websites in IE7. I do find XP to be rather nagging with the popups about every little thing. It may just annoy me enough that I will use Linux full time once I get a distro I can use.

SuSe very nearly made the cut. It does not recognise my internal wireless, but then neither does XP. I could do a firmware update, then install the drivers which also performs a firmware update and after that Windows should work fine. Hard to commit to that when I have a working PCMIA card to use. So far Ubuntu does recognize the internal wireless and that gives me hope.

Speaking of wireless, I am sure the lady at the library is weary of me dragging this thing in there every Monday and then failing to connect. I will take the day off tomorrow and surely in another week I will have my act together. A library is just such a hostile environment for futile troubleshooting.

It is possible a friend will come through with install CDs for either Kubuntu or Mandriva this Thursday.