bordagen

On Monday night I went back to Ubuntu – forsaking Windows completely and starting anew with my favourite flavour of Linux (based on my experience of Suse, Red Hat and Fedora).

Complete with a format and full system update and installation of video drivers, I had a full working Gutsy Gibbon system running in an hour and a half. Not bad going when you compare it to Windows installations which have taken me slightly longer in the past. And only 2 system restarts.

Luckily, this time I didn’t have the fun of trying to get my network drivers sorted (which last time took me nearing 3 days!) – it just went straight through, enhancing my love for Netgear products!

Next it is time to install World of Warcraft…

I had been reading about this application called PlayOnLinux which is a friendly frontend for WINE. At least, that’s what it says…

For a start, it’s all in French – which I’m not really good with. I can guess a few words and phrases (‘Hello’, ‘What time is it’, ‘How do i get to the bank?’) but that’s basically as far as it goes. It doesn’t really help when I can’t install from the DVD as Ubuntu doesn’t see any of the .exe files or folders – only the install archives. I then need to operate a mount command to read the CD using ISO9660 and only then, can I see my executable install file.

However, even after this had been sorted, PlayOnLinux still couldn’t install the game because it couldn’t find the bank (as I said, my understanding of French is limited). In the end, I gave up with this frontend and just used the command line to install it, and lo and behold – installed first time. Managed to download and install The Burning Crusade add-on without a hitch too. I just need to patch it and I’ll be good to go.

My next task tonight is to download and configure Compiz-Fusion. By default, Ubuntu 7.10 includes some effects from the package, but doesn’t actually let you customise them, meaning I have a pointless piece of transparency at the top of the title bar which for some reason annoys me.