New Pup on the Block

Finally got round to downloading MacPup 550, the latest.  Been wanting to ever since running across SneekyLinux's teaser preview over on YouTube.  (He's since done several videos on the new release.)

Normally, I download new distros on my desktop computer, the Acer running Mint 13.  However, this time I got a wild hair and downloaded via the T410s, just to see how it would handle the job.  (The answer there:  brilliantly.  I did a straight download, as I'm not much of a Torrent'er.  And, to be honest, I didn't see a Torrent option available.)

I also used this opportunity to test the T410s DVD/CD-RW drive, which worked fine.  I used PBurn, which comes with Lighthouse 64, and that worked fine.  (I really don't have any preference in burning software.  I've used Brassero quite a bit, simply because that's what Mint comes with.)  A quick test live boot showed everything working well.  MacPup 550 was up and running, detecting everything on my system with alacrity.

So, I decided to take the plunge and do a USB thumb install while I had MacPup up and running.  I dug out the thumb drive that had my MacPup 529 install on it, and proceeded to fire up GParted.  (I wanted to re-partition the drive, as I'd felt I'd given a bit too much space to the swap file.)  Everything worked fine till I went to set up said swap file.  Then GParted would gag and give an error message.

About 10 minutes of this, and I'd just about had it.  I ejected the thumb drive and shut down MacPup.  Back into Lighthouse 64.  Remount the thumb drive, and fire up that version of Gparted.  After a few moments which felt longer than they should, the repartitioning worked fine.  Rather than relaunch the CD,  I simply mounted it, did a straight copy over to the thumb, and then ran Grub4Dos config from Lighthouse.

Worked like a charm.  Booted fine.  I didn't play with MacPup 550 too long last night, but everything seemed in order.  I'll give it a whirl over the next week.

I do have one problem with the T410s that I have since addressed, and am now awaiting the solution.  The battery.  The system was sold as refurbished, and that it is.  But this is a case of "refurbishing" simply meaning, "we checked to see that it simply holds a charge", which is pretty normal, mind you.  And the battery included does hold a charge.  But only about a 57% one.  Sooo...  I had to put a battery on order.  Hopefully it'll be here next week.

It's too nice an evening here to do anything even vaguely resembling work.  Time for some rest.  the work week is coming on far too quick...........