The new Family Computer

I checked the tracking today and it said it was coming tomorrow along with my Ubuntu keyboard from ZaReason, but I looked outside and there was a UPS truck carrying a bunch of packages.
UPS must be pretty fast.

Anyways, I have unboxing pics. ZaReason uses a moderate amount of packaging and this computer is really small for a desktop.
A picture is worth approximately 1235304 words (at this resolution anyways), so I'll just post 'em.

The two packages.

The Ubuntu keyboard, which is _awesome_
Unfortunately we do not have an extra USB mouse so I have to use the one I have for my MacBook so I can't right click on the MacBook for now.

That's the computer's package. I'm actually glad it had all those peanuts, because the UPS lady wasn't exactly treating it like it was fragile.

And now, for the big reveal...
What were you expecting? A pony?

To give you some perspective...
Apparently blogger won't let me rotate the image, but there you have it standing on its side next to Eckle.

That's a bunch of random crap that came with it, including...
I won't need it of course, but it's nice to have something official.

There it is all set up and stuff. I actually have a Webcam I'm going to install (Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000, supposedly it works out of the box with Linux), but it's late here on the East Coast.

So there you have it. Eckle is no longer tasked with being the family computer, and now it can be used for testing the Icebuntu developments I should hopefully have soon when I get a crappy old Dell to develop it on.

Did I say this computer is really quiet?
It is.
Really quiet.

Oh, and it's based on the MSI Wind PC, just in case anyone here has never heard of ZaReason and was thinking "that looks familiar".

Sidux on Esteguan

One of the things I didn't like about Dreamlinux was that it was based on etch, which meant old packages.
So I've installed Sidux 2008.3 on Esteguan and it's pretty good. Lightning fast, Xfce by default, really recent packages, and all that good stuff. I'll post further on it later, as I've literally had it running for less than 5 minutes now.


In other news, I have great news regarding Icebuntu. As soon as I get this "crappy" Dell I've been promised (the owner got a MacBook from her new workplace) I'll be able tow work on Icebuntu more.
First thing I'll do is replace Ubiquity with inxtaller. Unfortunately you won't be able to use it with dualboots (until of course it's updated to work with multiple partitions).
I might have to rename Icebuntu because of trademark issues with Canonical, any suggestions?

BasicLinux on Nettlewark

It's installed to the hard disk, LILO and all.
Now, for the interesting part -- boot time.
Coldboot to "Please press Enter to activate this console. _" is...
Around 45 seconds (not a scientific measurement).
On a Pentium I.
Wow.

Today's changes

So, I started last night by replacing Fluxbuntu (which is, AFAIH, a dead project) with AntiX M7.5 on Siplebop.(Sorry about Mr. Blurrycam, my camera doesn't like taking pictures without flash)
As you might not care, Siplebop is the family computer now.
But he is soon to be replaced for lack of Flash abilities by a ZaReason Breeze 3110.

Anyways, I went on to replace the apparently broken FeatherLinux on Zalaf with INX 1.0, which I posted about earlier.
There's your CLI only INX pics.

And in other news, instead of replacing Syllable OS with INX as I said I would earlier, I decided to use the newly released Vector Linux Light 5.9, and it's been a mixed experience.
Partially insanely buggy and hard (the installer) and partially amazement at how fast it is, even with kdm.

That's LXDE by the way.

I might update this post if I resolve some Vector Linux issues and get around to installing BasicLinux on Nettlewark.

INX Is Not X -- but still awesome

I'm on Siplebop right now, typing this in links2 -g.
But why you ask? Can't I just use Kazehakase you say? Well, I'm not running Fluxbuntu on it (surprise), I'm running something called INX (stands for INX is Not X).
What's special about INX?
No X.
None.
It's a CLI only distribution, and it's not meant for servers either.
Because of this, even from the LiveCD, it's _really_ fast.
I'm not installing it on Siplebop, but I'll be installing it on Nesuro.
It also has a new experimental installation script called "inxtaller", which I could modify to use on Icebuntu when I get off my ass and work on Icebuntu.
Get it here:
http://inx.maincontent.net