The Dood's been using some form of Linux on and off since the late 90's. In the early days I was a Red Hat guy, and would install it on old computers just to play around. I loved a Linux system, but there just wasn't enough software to justify being a full time user back then. On top of that, there was an awful lot of configuring to get a system running right.

About 7 or 8 years ago I began running dual boot computers. I partitioned my drives to run windows on one partition and some flavor of Linux on the other. The first OS I did this with was Ubuntu, then being a Red Hat guy I ended up using Fedora as my goto flavor of GNU/Linux .

When Microsoft released Windows 8 I absolutely hated it. I loved Windows 7 and still to this day think it was the best Microsoft release ever. After Win8 though, I was really disappointed. So much so I decided to go full time Linux user. I figured hey, there's a good opensource program for just about everything I need nowadays, why not?

For the first couple years I used Fedora, and was pretty happy with it for the most part. Then about 3 years ago or so I decided to switch over to OpenSuse after reading an article about it and really fell in love with that distro. Now that I'm into crypto it seems most Linux wallets are released for Ubuntu / Debian. So my choice to switch over to an Ubuntu product was based on my love of crypto for the most part.

Now The Dood's computer is about 7 or 8 years old. I've got an old Dell Inspiron 1750 that has served me well over that time. Unfortunately the plastic case is beginning to crack and missing chunks of plastic. It's also not as fast as it once was, and probably in need of some upgrades. I began looking for a new computer and when I finally found one I liked, I got a little concerned about the Meltdown/Spectre bug that affects new Intel & AMD processors. I did a little more research and discovered older processors, over 5 years old aren't affected as badly. So I decided maybe I could get a few more years out of the old laptop and wait for this Meltdown/Spectre issue to get sorted out.

I decided if that was the plan I'd have to refurbish my current laptop. I started looking for a parts PC online. The Inspiron 1750 was a popular model and there are a ton of them out there. For the most part, all I really need is a good plastic case. I ordered an 8GB memory kit, and wiped the old OpenSuse from the system and installed a fresh Kubuntu release. Now running Artful Aardvark 17.10

I went with Kubunu because I've always been a KDE fan. I love the look and feel of the desktop, and in many ways I find it comparable to the classic Windows desktop. I downloaded the lastest release and tested it on my system with the live DVD. Everything worked great so I went ahead and installed it.

I have to say, after tinkering with Linux for over 20 years this had to be the easiest and least painful install ever! I was extremely impressed. Usually I have to spend a day setting up all my multi-media drivers and codecs. That wasn't the case. Youtube, Flash, mp3, mp4 everything worked on first boot.

Now the system seemed to be running a bit clunky. Granted I plugged my 1TB external drive in and began transferring my backup onto the drive. I get the impression though that the system was doing a lot of stuff in the background. I was also running an update. Once I got everything situated and rebooted I loaded up HTOP for a second time to see what was going on and the system went from an average work load of over 6.50 to just 0.58. Really happy with that.

Mind Blown

During setup I used the Edimax USB wireless dongle. The Inspiron 1750 uses the Broadcom drivers for its wireless card and anyone that has gone through this knows they can be a bit of a pain the first couple times you learn to use these drivers. If you're new to Linux the experience can be an absolute nightmare. I really didn't feel like dealing with any of this, so for the sake of getting things up and running I used the USB dongle wireless and it was pretty much plug and play. Then... I don't know why it took so long, but about an hour after I began using the system I got a system notification that basically stated it recognized my wireless adapter and had 2 choices to choose from "Broadcom Proprietary drivers" or an opensource alternative. I selected the broadcom drivers just because I've always used them without problems and I already knew how to configure them. Kubuntu installed them in the background, and when I finished what I was doing, I shut off the laptop, pulled out the USB dongle for the wireless and booted the system back up. To my absolute amazement Kubuntu discovered the drivers I needed and installed them for me! In seven years of using this computer and messing with those damn Broadcom drivers, this was the first time a system actually installed them for me. I returned the USB dongle to my Raspberry Pi and the Inspiron 1750 is now using it's factory wireless card. So impressed!

It's now closing in on using Kubuntu for close to 24 hours. The system is no longer clunky acting. Everything seems to be loading properly and the system is running smoothly. I'm guessing the original clunkiness may have been caused by the system upgrade, and backup going on in the background at the same time. I really can't stress enough how impressed I am with my first 24 hours of use on Kubuntu. Almost wondering if I wasted my money ordering the new RAM upgrade.

One of the reasons I ordered the RAM was because when I'm trading on a busy exchange, I've had fast moving order books cause some memory issues and even a browser crash. I logged into my trading account and made some trades and was really impressed with how well it worked in that environment too. I can't wait to see how it works during a pump when the order book is processing hundreds of orders a minute. If I don't have any memory issues I'm going to be really happy. At this point, I honestly couldn't be happier.

I think over the next several weeks I'll post an on going series on updating the Inspiron 1750, running Kubuntu, and how everything is going. Thanks for reading and if you're considering running linux and haven't tried Kubuntu, you may want to consider giving it a try.

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