Tag Archives: pclinuxos

Experience with LinuxMint 4

About last year I replaced my PCLinuxOS 2007 in my notebook with LinuxMint 4.0 (Daryna). So, I have used LinuxMint 4 more or less for 12 months. There are good and bad things with this LinuxMint.

The bad things first:

  1. Like all the other Ubuntu derivatives and the Ubuntu itself, the software inside the “Package Manager” or “Synaptic” is not updated to the newest version. It stuck at the version when the LinuxMint was released. I understand that I can install newest version of any software by installing it from binary that can I get from the software website. But, I just feel its not safe, and afraid it will break my system.
  2. Compiz Fusion is not so stable. Whether I used Normal or Extra Visual Effects, it was randomly hang my system. I really like Compiz Fusion, but the instability kept me a distance with it.
  3. Everytime I use Live CD to test a new linux OS, I lost my current OS sound. It’s weird, because when I used Live CD, the sound is fine. At the time I wrote this article, my system sound is still not working, and I have no idea how to fix this. Actually, this is the second time I experience this. At the first time, the system sound was fixed by itself after a few days…

The good things are:

  1. The ultimate reason I used LinuxMint was I could make my wireless working. My wireless hardware is Broadcom BCM4328. This hardware was known to be hard to make it working under linux. I ever failed to make it working in my previous OS, PCLinuxOS, that’s why I moved to LinuxMint. (See this article: Adventure with Linux).
  2. I also can watch and listen to music with any format. I also can watch new trailer movies from http://www.quicktime.com. That’s very good.
  3. LinuxMint has a good menu system, so it’s not so difficult to find any application as long as we know what is the purpose of the application.
  4. LinuxMint as Ubuntu derivatives has a lot of ready to install softwares. What I need to do is open the “Package Manager” and find the software that I want !
  5. One other good things as Ubuntu derivatives, when I have a problem with the LinuxMint, I can go to Ubuntu forum straight away. It has so many active users there who are willing to help us.

LinuxMint is the linux distro that I like the most for now. I also like PCLinuxOS, but the wireless problem make me thing twice to use it in my notebook. Thanks to LinuxMint and Clem team.

Adventure with Linux

About almost a year ago I bought a laptop, a Compaq Presario V3206AU. It came with Windows Vista Home Basic Edition. Even though in the first place I want to install linux on the laptop, I tempted to play around with Vista. I like Vista appearance. It’s elegant. I use Vista for a few months. I started feel uncomfortable to Vista, because somehow the interface confused me. Unlike its elder brother, Windows XP. I felt I need to learn about the OS like to learn a whole new OS. And this feeling made me more eager to learn linux. Why I need to learn Vista, if I can learn linux with almost the same effort?

At that time PCLinuxOS 2007 was very famous (I think until now still very famous). I installed PCLinuxOS 2007 on my laptop. I installed many applications into the laptop, including VMWare Player to access Windows XP for my work. I activated beryl on my laptop. It was amazing. Everything is perfect. Almost. Except my wireless. My wireless was not working! The wireless is broadcom 4328. Later I found out that this device is not so Linux-friendly. I tried to find a solution in PCLinuxOS forum, but cannot find a ny. And then, later I tried to find in Ubuntu forum. I was hoping the solution in Ubuntu can be applied in PCLinuxOS. I cannot remember which forum, but in the end I ended up downloaded R151517.EXE, and using the bcmwl5.inf. At last after I did many experiment I could access internet through my wireless. I was very happy. But, I was not happy for long. The system crashed/hang. The system was not stable. I wanted to replace PCLinuxOS with other OS, but I didn’t have any good preferences. So, I used the laptop without maximized my wireless.

A few months ago I updated my PCLinuxOS. After I restarted my laptop, my laptop cannot display properly, until I fixed the display using command line. Not only that, beryl, wine, and 3D games are not working. The sound device and ethernet were missing. These conditions forced me to replace my PCLinuxOS 2007 with a new Linux OS. After a few time trying different flavor of linux distro, I ended up with Linux Mint.

I accidently found a very good article written by Micah Carrick. Actually this article is meant for Ubuntu, but because Linux Mint is an Ubuntu-based, the method in the article is applicable with Linux Mint. I don’t know whether this method can be applied with other linux distro (I haven’t tried it). Now I’m writing this blog using Linux Mint through my wireless connection. And, the OS isn’t hang or crashed. I can say it is very stable. I don’t mean that PCLinuxOS 2007 is a bad OS. Maybe I did something wrong with the setting in the OS, that made some problems with the OS. I intend to give a try this OS again with it’s next version.