Once again i couldn't resist having a go at Linux.

Found that i could load Ubuntu 9.1 alongside windows xp and and select which system i wanted to use on start up, so although i knew 9.1 was well out of date i decided to load it and update when installed.

All went well and i had the choice of both systems on start up. I then went for the next Ubuntu upgrade. I though it would skip the next two obsolete issues and go for the 11.01, which is the latest. Not so, so i had to hang about for about 4 hours on each upgrade whilst it was first downloaded, then installed. 150 kilobytes a second is the fastest download speed i can make, invariably it would dip lower as more people came on line in my area.

All went well until the latest distro was finally installed. I did get the program running more with luck than judgement i think as the monitor, on boot up, would display the floating 'Imput not supported' box. Bugger!. Now i couldn't see the choices for booting the system, of which there was about 6 if i remember right from when it was working ok. 5 relating to Linux and xp being the last choice to scroll down to.

I tried a long shot and hit the down arow 6 times, then enter. Success!, up comes xp every time. Oh well i'll have to stick to that method unles i scrub Ubuntu altogether. Trouble is i don't know how to delete it now it's along side xp on the same disc. Only thing i can think of is wipe the whole disc and re-install windows. As i can actually fire up xp i'm loath to lose everything i have running at the moment.

From my brief play with Ubunto 11 i can say it looks very nice compared with the previous versions. Has a sort of 'Apple' look about now. I tried feeding the radio to the sound card using fldigi, but couldn't hear anything. I'm using a usb external sound card, which has to be set in a certain way with it's own software on xp. As the software is not Linux compatible i was stitched. That's Linux put back on the subs bench for the forseable future.