The Setup

Well, the Thinkpad T400 came home from the Computer-Shop-Across-the-River today, now sporting a brand new CPU cooling fan.  Works great, with no problems.  I'm happy.

Not having anything better to do, I debated all day about what to install on the system.  For the longest time, it was down to between CrunchBang and Bodhi.  I did some experimenting with the system, tested both distros via liveboot.

As a side test, I booted Saluki from the USB drive I made up last night.  Ran like a dream.

So, all day, I went back and forth between CrunchBang and Bodhi.  I just couldn't decide between them.  (And, I do have to say, if the heaviest thing you have to decide is between which Linux distro you're going to install on a computer, I'd say life is treating you pretty easy...)

Finally, I came to a decision:  Install NetRunner.

Yeah, NetRunner.  After all, that's what I originally had in mind when I bought this computer.

So, I installed NetRunner.

Major mistake.

Now, I'd did a liveboot test, and everything seemed fine.  A few glitchy things which I wrote off as being due to running from the CD.  But I went ahead with the installation process, which seemed to go fairly smoothly.  I got up to rebooting the system into the new installation...

...and the reboot failed.  The system locked with a black screen a barely blinking hard drive light.

OK, hard reboot and everything seems to work fine.  I dearly loved the login screen...

Then, I get back in, only to find that my wireless isn't working.  So, I try to enter my password for my wireless setup...  Only to be told that the activation failed.  Even though it looks like the wireless is up.  The web browser burps, and now I can't get back into the wireless setup...  And I keep being asked to set up some sort of "password locker" type thing...  Every time I dismiss the password locker thing, and try to access the wireless, the password locker setup reappears...  OK, I'll do the password thing, and maybe that will store my wireless password properly...

Yeah, right...  At this point, I get a little disgusted, and try to reboot the system...  Only to have the reboot fail yet again...

As the old farmers say, at this point I had lost my religion, so I reached for another distro...

By the sheer coincidence that its CD was laying on top of the distro pile, I am now running Bodhi on the T400.  It installed perfectly (though I initially forgot to enable the wireless icon in the liveboot), and everything ran perfectly once the install was complete.

Well, almost perfectly.  I installed the "Nikhila" (ie, heavyweight) meta package from the Bodhi AppCenter.  I figured that would be faster than doing it individually.  Of course, the "Nikhila" setup comes with Adobe PDF reader, which I truly dislike.  (If I could never see another Adobe product, it would be too soon.)  So, I went back through the AppCenter, and threw Okular on for the time being.  I figured I could just go through Synaptic and nuke Adobe Reader.

I just never realized that Adobe Reader was the "zombie you can't kill" program.  Took me about 3 passes through Synaptic before I finally managed to extirpate every last vestige it.  How many damned bits and pieces does that accursed program jam onto your system..?

As a comparison, I also zapped Cheese, as I don't have a webcam.  That was just point & click removal, the way it should be.

But, hallelujah!, Bodhi is now set and running.  I'm happy.

Though I'll probably tote the CrunchBang DVD along with me when I go back to work Monday.

I'm just never satisified...