Almost Somewhere

I downloaded Hardy Heron release while it’s hot. Waited all night (I slept, though). Move my data elsewhere this morning – but lost some due to my mistake and prepare for take-off. By 12.00 pm, Hardy Heron booted Live and I played around a bit. Still, no wireless, bluetooth, or sound although they are detected. Hrmm, the ACPI switches bug has not been solved. No matter. So, I try the suspend trick. Didn’t work. Try again. The notebook hangs. Well… it’s Live.

Maybe it will work if installed, I thought. I boot again and this time select to install. Wiped-out my Mint 4.0 for it. Had to reserve XP for video editing with Vegas (and maybe some games, once in a while.. hehe). I’d probably remove XP altogether if there are Linux video editors as good as Vegas. Even if it’s commercial. As for games… I haven’t played much on PC since I got my PSP – no configuration needed, no worries about dependencies or system requirements, and no frustration for not getting the best graphics through tweaks (you get what you get.. period).

So how is Hardy Heron? One word: FANTASTIC. Do I need to say more? Well… the suspend trick is still needed to get wireless, sound, and bluetooth working but I guess that’s OK for now until I figure out a more automatic workaround. After all, I only need to do that once every boot up. Not too much of a hassle.

As I am writing this, my friend asked for an ISO of Hardy Heron but I left it at home and only have the CD. So I have not created an ISO in Linux for so long (last time back Red Hat 6, I think… before Fedora). So, I was wondering what software to use and was thinking the Windows way – get a CD burner or disc copy software, open it, put in CD and create ISO. But my recent experience with Mint and Ubuntu somehow makes me think simpler. So I try simple: right click the CD-ROM icon on the desktop and there was the option to copy it. Selected copy and then I can choose to save to disk. Clicked OKand save the ISO!Now that’s usability! In Windows, creating ISO is for power users. In Ubuntu, even a two year old can do it by accident. How much easier can it be? Auto-popup and ask if you want to create ISO? Now that would be annoying like XP.

Hardy Heron is way better than XP or Vista. Well, XP is not that far behind. After all, it’s aging. But Vista? You just can’t compare. Vista got good looks but is slow, not practical, and break too much compatibilities with hardware and software. I loved it at first but only for a few days when it starts to get on my nerved. On top of that, it’s way too expensive even as OEM version. I think I’ll skip Vista like I skipped ME. Yeah, they both deserve to be in the same sentence (and same waste basket).