Class Wrap Up

I have been running the box for over 2 and a half months now. (Notice that Linux machines are always called Boxes for some reason) Things were really shaky at first and it continues to be a struggle when I try to do new things for the first time. If this were my only computer, I think I could manage to find the programs and resources I need to become as proficient with the operating system and applications as I am on my windows machine, but at this time I do not see the need to spend the time doing so. Other than the fact that it is all supposed to be free (as I learned the things I REALLY want aren't so "free") I see no valid reason to switch from the windows environment to the Linux world.

For the benefit of anyone that doesn't want to read through everything I have posted, the following 9 posts are the ones I have deemed most noteworthy. They are in reverse order so that they can be read by going through the blog from top to bottom. (or thanks to a suggestion by Jennifer L, you may click the links)

1. Memory Fun
2. Network Folders
3. Becoming a Linux Geek
4. I commited a CRIME
5. A Little R&R
6. Something Cool
7. Zip ping along
8. A Noble Thought A Royal Pain
9. Hardware / Drive Tests

To my loyal reader, (I only had 1) I hope you have enjoyed my blog as much as I have enjoyed creating it. There are no guarantees as to the next time I will post here or how long this information will remain so enjoy it while you can.

Faster Boot Time

I put a new CD Drive in the computer to see if it would work. Two things happened. The first is that my computer loads much much faster now. It boots in under 2 minutes instead of taking well over 5 minutes. Also, the CD drive works again. Not sure what was wrong with the other drive or why it was slowing the whole boot process down, but since it works, I don't REALLY need to know.

Also, while I was going through the process of swapping out CD drives, on one of my boots I got a display that informed me that the computer was checking my Hard Drive since it had been mounted 30 times without being checked.

Back to Blogging

So it's not that I haven't used the UNIX machine in the last 16 days... I have used it the couple of days that I was actually in my office. There was a Holiday for Good Friday on the 6th, Then I was out of work the 12th-16th. The rest of the days were the same boring stuff it has been for a while now. There were more updates and I did some web design. I printed a few handouts from the mapped drive. Other than that there was nothing exciting (or abnormal) until today.

I brought in some CDs to listen to while at work and it turns out that my CD drive is no longer mounted. The disks don't even spin in the drive. It still appears in the PLACES->Computer window, but when I click on it is says it can't mount it because no media was found. I even tried rebooting. O'well... I'll let you know if I find a solution.

A few things

Four updates this morning. 2 security, 1 recommended, and 1 back port.

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gFTP was giving me problems. Turns out it is not a DRAG and DROP interface like SSH. In any case, every time I go Drag and Drop it generates error messages.

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Going back to playing with the memory (see previous post) after using the computer for 5 hours, I did a FREE command. It is using 17620 of the Swap memory. The only thing I have open that I am using is Firefox to type in the blog. I closed everything else.
Looking at the System Monitor, Firefox is taking up 40.9 MG there are 18 applications taking up between 1 and 10 and 9 applications taking up less than 1.