I promised her we’d replace her four-year-old desktop with a laptop and that was what we did. Yesterday, I bought her a new MSI S425. We already decided that with all computer upgrades in the house in the coming months, we would gradually phase out Windows and shift to Open Source — Ubuntu, in particular.
Downloading Ubuntu took half the night. We fell asleep during the download. When morning came, Sam copied the downloaded file to a flash drive, we tried installing and it didn’t work. It took help from three people — him, him and him — to learn that the downloaded ISO file had to be burned to a bootable CD to use it to install Ubuntu in the new laptop.
The installation went fine. Problem was we couldn’t install the drivers because they were meant for a Windows OS. Yuga said the newer versions of Ubuntu can auto detect hardware which would make the installation of drivers redundant. Fine.
Next thing was to configure the wifi connection. I tried, I tried… Tried for three hours and still nothing. I already checked the device manager and the wireless card had been detected. But still no connection. I read everything on the subject in the Ubuntu forums and got a headache. Couldn’t understand half the things they were talking about in there. I was beginning to wonder if Ubuntu was as user-friendly as its evangelists claimed.
See, we had to get the new laptop working because we already sold Sam’s old desktop and the buyer will come for it on Thursday. She has to move files and everything so her new laptop has to be fully functional. I told Sam if I can’t get her new laptop connected to the internet tonight, I’d get her a new copy of Windows tomorrow. But she said NO. She had been playing with her new laptop for a couple of hours and fell in love with Ubuntu. Duh, I needed a solution — fast. So, I bugged more people… 
I chatted with Max and with Karla. I read some more. And the frustration just grew.
Around midnight, I sent text messages to Chin and Yuga and told them I couldn’t uninstall Ubuntu because Sam was already attached to it. Then, finally, the solution…
Chin said, “Did you turn on the switch?”
What switch?
“Some computers have a wifi switch…”
Oooohhhh…
Darn, I should have known. Speedy’s laptop has a wifi switch. True enough, after pressing on the switch, Sam was online. 
And I was reading stuff like this in the Ubuntu forums where a lot of people like me were having problems with wireless internet…
You know, it felt like those nights when I was trying to install WordPressMU. Everyone had very technical solutions when the answers are really simple. I’m beginning to feel it’s some sort of “mindset” in the Open Source community. Everyone seems to have a complicated solution but no simple answers.
lol! I’ve done that before with my laptop. I didn’t even know there was a button!
Kakasakit lang ng ulo to think you wasted all that time trying to figure out the problem
HAHAHAHA!!!
Although it’s a moot point, didn’t the laptop come with CD’s from the factory that include the OS (Windows)? Or perhaps a partition on the HD? I just didn’t want to see you GIVING the richest man in the world even more money by buying another copy of Windows.
JMom, there was a point when I felt like screaming just to release the pent-up frustration hahahaha
Sam, tawa-tawa ka dyan, you should have helped me with the research ano!
hayw00d, some models come with the Windows OS but the prices are terrible. When word came out that Vista will coast PhP 26,000 and MS Office will be roughly the same price (over $500.00 each), I figured it was the best time to switch. I loathe the idea of buying Windows but, you know, sometimes you think of such things out of sheer desperation hehehe
con, stick to XP. Vista is a royal pain in the a$$. There are places you can still buy a legit copy of XP for cheap. I’m not going to switch over till they work their driver kinks out. Also, some stupid retailers are selling PC’s with vista when the system doesn’t meet the hardware requirements of vista. How dumb is that? My friend put two identical computers to the same task and XP outperformed vista almost 2:1.
Chris, yeah, I have yet to hear a good review of Vista, well, except from Microsoft and its cohorts. And YES, laptops with only 512 RAM are being sold bundled with Vista. Susme, as though the system can support how Vista gobbles up resources. Grabe.
so you didn’t turn on the switch?
hehehe
I should have asked you that hahaha
No, I didn’t, Carla. Didn’t even notice there was one — I felt like a complete moron afterwards.
it’s alright connie
i’ve had one of those experiences
hehehe
Oh…I’ve only read this tonight when your blog entry was featured in the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue34
It’s good to know that Chin was able to help!
Hi Jerome. Wow, I didn’t know that the switch to Ubuntu would get noticed like this.
Thanks for the info. And, yes, Chin is our Ubuntu guru.
I find it a bit funny when people say that Linux still has flaky driver support when in reality, most of the drivers in question are either some obscure hardware or something very new that is still not part of the mainline kernel. Just a fact: the Linux kernel has more supported platforms or “CPUs” than any OS out there.
I just wonder though, how did Sam discover Open Source and Ubuntu in particular?
She didn’t, Jerome. I did. From Chin. Sam didn’t even know what Ubuntu was until it was already installed. And, well… she fell in love with it, particularly with GIMP.
Cool story, switch lang pala ang katapat! =)
For any doubts, just go to #ubuntu on irc.freenode.net. I think it would be a good idea to read this, too: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats
Good read: http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Edgy
The problem is called PEBKAC.
The solution also mostly comes from who sits in between.
Solutions from a tech support specialist might have helped. We normally check for the most obvious like power and switches. Honest mistake, though. No need to wrack your brain for it. Like your site, by the way.
Might be visiting more often.