I have talked about small, low power computer previously. Indeed I have walked the talk and have quietly switched tungwaiyip.info to a VIA based PC for a while. I placed an order of a barebone on IDOT PC. It delivered a working system promptly. Next I put Linux on it and then, voilà, it works! Actually it was so smooth that there is almost nothing to write about.

It was a far cry from last year when I setup tungwaiyip.info for the first time. As a greenhorn on Linux I ran into some ominous sign of dark screen in the first install. Linux is reputed to have strong community support and I indeed found many resources on the Internet, some discussing the exact problem I was having. Although it still took many many trial and errors to get it work.

After a while I came up with a theory on the wealth of Linux information on the Internet. Many many individuals have written "How I installed Linux" documents that cover different degree of details. It was hailed as community sharing. Less discussed is that it also reflects that Linux is difficult to work with. People have gone through so much toil to get it work that they are motivated to write a journal afterward. If things work the first time, there will not be so many "How I installed Linux" around. Now that I have a system working and I do not have much to write about, I am happy.

By the way, there is a significant drop in my electric bill after I switched over to the new system!

2004.04.21 [computer] - comments (0)