So David came over around 10pm, armed with CD’s and ready to do battle with our old laptop. The hacked verion of OSX seemed to install effortlessly, but when it was done and we popped the CD out the machine would not boot at all. We tried installing Linux from David’s discs, spent much time fiddling with it but could not get it to install. Ron had brought home a book on Linux from the library. We popped in the disc included with the book and eventually got it loaded. Then we went to try to get online and the fun really began.
David fussed with it until almost 2am before crying uncle and going home. Ron then took over and fussed with it for another hour or so (and was lost to the world, so involved with the damn thing he got). Then I finally got mad. They treated me like I was too stupid to possibly know anything about installing software but neither of them could get the damned thing to dial up. Ron went to bed mad.
It seems to recognize the modem but after you enter all the information and click to dial it tries for a matter of seconds before failing and leaving a log that indicates it was unable to communicate with the modem due to a “pppd options” error. None of us were able to figure out how to change pppd options (or even what exactly they Are). I read the fucking manual and fiddled with it for more than an hour myself and still didn’t get it to work. Feh.
Desperate to be online I booted up Joel’s old desktop and dialed into Earthlink just fine, though this old box is noticeably slower and very uncomfortably situated in a corner of the kitchen. We started out with a Windows laptop that wouldn’t go online and had all of our accumulated stuff but otherwise worked fine and now we have Linux laptop that won’t go online but otherwise works fine. I HATE computers!!!
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August 27th, 2007 at 11:14 am
Oh, honey, I do relate to that! I wish you well in getting the linux box to work.
The biggest mistake I ever made with personal computers was buying DOS 3.0.
I should never have encouraged that SOB in Redmond by giving him money!
August 27th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
another techie bud says the problem is most likely that we just don’t Know how to set it up to use the modem and I suppose he is probably right, though that is not much help. This friend thinks we shoud use ugumbu or something like that, which he says is much easier and more user-friendly than suse/kde. The good thing about ugumbui or whatever it is called, is that they will send you the OS on cd, no charge so I will be able to try it, even though I can’t get online. I have ordered the cd and will have to wait and see if it comes in….