Well this is a welcome surprise. It seems that the month-long delay I was expecting for Internet service at home was trimmed down to about 12 minutes.
That being the time it took me to clone Windows XP back on to the X60s, install the proprietary network setup software, feed it my account information and click a few buttons. Wow.
That’s quite the change from the month or so it took to get things arranged and working last time. I guess there’s something to be said for keeping the same connection and service provider. At this rate, I should be able to get the rest of the house in order in an hour or so.
And perhaps in a day’s time, the rest of this site will be ready to go. Good news, that. 🙂
P.S.: A small slice of irony: Literally minutes after I posted this, XP bluescreened. I couldn’t get my camera out fast enough before it had rebooted itself. Total uptime, about an hour. Sigh … is it any wonder I use Linux?
Motho ke motho ka botho 
I don’t understand why you had to install XP or if I’m reading it wrong, K.
I don’t get it either. I think I’d die if I had to keep a copy of windows just to set up my internet.
Anyway it pains me to hear that anyone’s offline 🙂 So it’s good to read this…
Sorry, I didn’t explain that well. In my case, the line is owned by NTT, but the service provider actually makes things happens. I subscribe to a fiber-optic-to-the-curb line with NTT, and pay the service provider for both NTT’s proprietary hardware and the service provider’s … service. 🙄
Getting the hardware to connect to its mother ship out there in NTT land requires software for either XP or a Mac. Otherwise, I don’t know how it would communicate with the modem.
Regardless, once the modem’s control unit is configured, I don’t have to use Windows any more. It’s only for the setup. Now that it’s finished, I’m free again. …
I thought it might be cable via usb port or something… because I have cable service and connect via network card (linux plug’n’play), but the modem can also be used via usb, I got a CD with windows drivers from the ISP for this… praise the lord never had to test how that goes, but I have a friend who did. I just remembered after I commented that he too had to install windows to get it going. Damn where would I even find windows if I needed it for something like that 😀
You know, I’ve generally had pretty good experiences with the NT line of Windows (NT,2000,XP,Vista,7). From what I have observed, drivers are the biggest cause of instability in Windows outside of viruses.
I’d be willing to echo that with Windows 2000, and give XP a begrudging nod. After that though, I haven’t seen anything that really impressed. To each his/her own though, of course. … 🙄
I’ll give that a firm plus one (+1). 2K is OK and XP is tolerable. beyond that, I haven’t seen or heard anything making me even want to look at it.
As a side note. Windows has been loosing market share for the last several years. Nothing huge, but shrinking. They may no longer be the 900 pound gorilla in the room, but they are still a good 850 pounds.:-)
Gotta have blazing fast fiber optic to download those Jamendo albums, even if it doesn’t require 1hr to install!