Wednesday, June 08, 2005

I'm a nerd now...

Okay... not just now, but this just proves it.

Today's big project? I installed SUSE Linux on my second computer. This was more of a chore than you might imagine since it came on DVD instead of CDs so I had to plug in a hard drive, install it, pull out the hard drive and move it over to the other computer. The great joy was that it fired right up. Minor miracle! In the process, I found that it even fired up my first computer, auto-detected all my hardware and got me on the internet... See what I mean? Total dorkmeister.

The funny thing is that I don't even really like computer stuff that much, I just feel like I should keep on learning it. That was the whole reason for creating a website too. Just to learn how to do it.

On a separate -- but yet sort of the same -- note, it's kind of cool to keep on learning stuff. Maybe that's part of why I don't feel that old. I think learning new things helps to keep you young -- so does having copious amounts of sex, but that's not happening so I'm stuck with learning stuff.

Anyway, in keeping with that philosophy, I've been listening to some German podcasts. I can only understand a little... very little... but it's sort of cool to have a different language going in the background. Almost like travelling.

2 comments:

The Zombieslayer said...

You'll have to do an update on what you think about Suse. I'm using Mandrake. Fooled around with Suse back when it was like version 6.x, but I keep hearing that it's pretty cool.

Oh, Mrs. Zombieslayer and I both love KDE, but I occasionally fire up XFCE when I have memory intensive stuff I'm working on. She's not a geek at all, she just likes Unix because it works.

Shawn said...

From what I can tell, SUSE is pretty cool. I was mostly happy to find that it actually fired up since I was expecting to have to screw around with it forever just to get it to work.

With the first computer, I honestly didn't have to anything but put it in the DVD slot, answer yes a few times, and then get out of its way for about 30 minutes.

The second computer hasn't been quite as smooth, but I'm pretty sure that's because of the odd way I had to install it (using a different machine to get it loaded). I just added a wireless card to the second machine yesterday and it worked fine, the only problem being that something's not right with the configuration for it and I've had to kick it a couple of times to get on the internet. Used it all night yesterday and was totally happy with the results.

Along those lines, the main browser that comes with Suse is Konguerer and I really dig it. My favorite thing about it is that if you 'view source' for a page, it shows everything including the full javascript and such and it also highlights. That's pretty cool... especially if you're trying to learn HTML coding...

I've heard that Mandrake is equally user friendly to install. It was a tossup, but SUSE came with the book I bought. There was comparable book for Mandrake (or Mandriva now) so it honestly came down to a SUSE is German and Mandrake is French thing...

I'll let you know more as I figure it out...