More PCLinux machines

Well, we have added three more PCLinux machines in the family.

It was really kind of funny. Almost. Sort of. Now that the disaster has passed. I upgraded my Ubuntu machine to Hardy Heron and was quite happy. I had decided to keep it (Compaq Presario V22630US) an Ubuntu machine because it has a Broadcom 4318 wireless card -- and they aren't the most Linux-friendly cards out there. The wireless worked fine for a week or so and then started disappearing on a regular basis. Since I am teaching an online course, my Internet connection is not something I take lightly -- especially since my Acer seems to have bit the dust and I am waiting until I get back to Louisiana to officially declare it dead and look for a replacement. I tried every fix I could find in the forums. I made up some fixes of my own. Nothing worked. My husband, who at that time ran Debian on one machine and PCLinux on the laptop, suggested I try PCLinux on it. He had tried it on his Acer with the same wireless card, and everything seemed to be OK on the live CD. I was reluctant because I had not been aable to get the Live CD to see ot on mine, but he was persistent and suggested I try TinyMe. So I downloaded it. And it worked. Wireless, printer, everything. I am thrilled!

While I was doing this in New Mexico, my son finally consented to turn his Acer laptop over to my husband for some Linux distro to be put on as he had all kind of problems on it running XP. (Most of them may have been of his own doing, but the fact is that the machine was dead running Windows.) My husband put on PCLinux, and everything worked.

Meanwhile, my husband has had trouble getting things to work on his Debian Acer desktop, the one he had tried the PCLinux liveCD on, so he finally broke down and installed it. For the first time in the more than year and a half that he has had the machineee, he got the wireless working.

Over the last year or so I have become very detached as far as Linux distros are concerned. If they work, I use them. If they don't, I move on to another one. So far, PCLinux seems to work more consistently on our machines than anything else. Thanks to all the people who have put in so much time and effort on it!