• P5B Deluxe Mobo
• 2x300GB SATA Drives
• 2GB 800MHz RAM
• 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo (E6600)
• 256MB GeForce 7600GT PCI-E
• Plenty of I/O ports in front and back (kick ass Antec case)

I don’t use my old Ubuntu config anymore, sadly. I’ve still got Windows running on the secondary drive, but I can convert that to a Boot Camp or Parallels machine, if need be.

I prepped by reading this article on Lifehacker, which really simplified this thread on OSX86Scene. While it all looked daunting, it was really quite simple (simplified from the Lifehacker entry):

• Make an image of my Leopard DVD (using Disk Utility, simple)
• Download any one of the files at the top of this thread. (Some links don’t seem to always work, but there’s four possibilities)
• Unzip the files from the download to your desktop.
• Edit the indicated files (see the Lifehacker thread)
• HIt F8, use -x -v when beginning Leopard install
• Use Disk Utility to create a MacOS partition.
• Install!
• Follow post installation instructions.

My pitfalls/warnings:

• My P5B Deluxe uses a JMicron IDE Controller. Both my DVD-ROM/RW drives were connected to this controller, and it was not allowing me to boot to the patched DVD. I tried a $27 E-IDE to SATA adapter, but that didn’t solve my problem. I had to buy a SATA DVD Drive ($45 for a DVD-/+ RW) for the disc to boot.
• I couldn’t keep my USB Drive inserted when rebooting for the PostPatch. I had to insert it after I had booted back via the DVD. Also, my front USB ports wouldn’t work for the USB Drive, I had to use the rear ports.
• I had to go through the Post-Installation (PostPatch) twice.
• I rebooted a zillion times, but after I did a power off/on and left the disc in the drive I was finally able to boot to Leopard. Let the timer run out on the Darwin Bootloader screen. Hitting buttons put me into the setup loop.
• I don’t have network connectivity for some reason

Now I am tired. I will have to figure out the network piece another time.

Edit: Updated 10.5.1 using the same Lifehacker instructions. Basically, update and re-do the post installation patch.

As an aside, I also installed VMWare Fusion. Awesomely (if that’s a word) enough, it found my “old” Windows partition and immediately let me start that up as a VM.

While I’ve been able to do 99% of all my work and tasks in Ubuntu, it’s not always easy to do what I want to do. I have found that ease is more and more important to me as I have less and less time. When I want to buy a piece of hardware that will simplify my life, it should be easy to hook it up, install it, and get it running. Any delays, workarounds, and other distractions take away from the overall goal.

For example, I love my Quicken. I use it forecast, budget, and report on expenditures. I have One-Step Update running and all my passwords saved so it’s easy to download all my transactions. On Ubuntu, I have to run Quicken in a Crossover bottle. Yes, it works. But it wasn’t easy. And anytime there’s an upgrade or any issues, it’s not easy to troubleshoot and resolve.

I’ve gone paperless in my house, as much as possible. When bills come in, they get scanned then shredded. We’re also going through and scanning historical bills, statements, and other paper documents. We save everything as PDFs. Our scanners include dual-sided scanning via the ADF. The Windows driver works great with Adobe Acrobat. However, the driver for Linux supports only one sided scanning at a time. There is software to scan one side, then refeed the documents and scan the other side, and it will collate the images and let you save it as a PDF. But guess what? That’s right. It took work. Not easy.

The list goes on, of course. RAW image support in The Gimp takes longer to be released than Photoshop. Any new device may not work in Linux for some period of time. Etcetera, etcetera.

So I was able to install Windows XP on a separate HDD (which was supposed to be a mirror for my Ubuntu installation, but it wasn’t easy and I never figured it out). I did take the time to keep grub as the bootloader and I can successfully boot to either Linux or Windows.

Oh, one last word. Why Windows XP instead of Windows Vista or Windows XP x64? Guess. Not all drivers are available and compatible. That makes it… right… not easy.

Whoa, let’s back up first.  Why is this such a big deal to me?  How is this me “breaking down”?

Well, for many years (as far back as I can remember), I’ve pretty much hated Apple.  Why?  I don’t like their business practices.  People complain about Micro$oft’s proprietary and evil business practices.  They get mad when MS embeds their browser in their OS.  Hmmm.  But… when Apple does it… “It’s the best thing ever” and “It just works”.

So, here’s the thing.  I’ve tried Creative, SanDisk, iRiver, and Archos.  No one has anything even close to an iPod, in terms of form factor and usability.  Even the “competition” (the Zune) isn’t even close.

Unfortunately, the iPods are very compatible with Ubuntu.  Too bad Apple doesn’t really support Linux, even though it’s built on BSD Linux.  I guess older iPods worked with YamiPod, gtkPod, and other OSS Linux software.  But the newest iPods don’t work (yet?).

So.  To all my friends who have been listening to my rants and raves against Apple for so many years: Go ahead.  Leave your comments.  Get it out of your system.

So after much consideration, we bought an HP 7780. We also have an HP 7410. The 7780 adds to the feature list by allowing you to scan directly to a shared drive or memory card.

HP makes themselves the defacto winners of my printer wars because of HPLIP. They have done a great job of supporting Linux. (Oddly they do a crappy job of supporting Windows, but that’s not my problem anymore)

I also tested Quicken 2007 on Ubuntu 7.04, using Crossover.  Read about my failure here.

Lastly, I got my dedicated server configured the way I like it.  You see, I run a VM on my server for Scalix email.  The primary reason for this configuration is that Scalix doesn’t support as many server operating systems as I’d like.  It does support Fedora Core 5, so I have FC5 running in a VM on my server.  However, I had been previously unable (and unmotivated) to get the bridged networking configured properly.  So I had been using NAT and iptables to route to the VM.  Now my VM has a real IP address and my life will (or at least should) be easier.

Intuit (via Quicken) is the leader of personal finance software. There’s just no disputing that statement. I spent time evaluating other solutions, and nothing even came close to Quicken. There’s a reason Intuit rules every category they’re in: they know what features customers want. (Full disclosure: I currently work for Intuit, but it has nothing to do with what I’m writing, as you’ll see this is not a review of Quicken)

Anyways, I’ve been running Quicken on Windows XP in a VMWare environment since I migrated to Ubuntu Linux. Last I had looked, Quicken 2007 (which is the version I use) was not compatible with wine (a Windows Emulator for Linux). However, I was reading a Linux magazine last night and saw that Quicken 2007 was now supported via Crossover Linux. I looked up Quicken 2007 support on the Codeweavers page this morning, and lo-and-behold someone gave it Silver rating! There were a few known issues, but everything had a workaround, so I decided to give it a try.

I first tried Wine on its own, but it was clear that wasn’t going to work. Whatever hacks (Tips & Tricks) the Codeweavers guys had figured out wasn’t going to work on Wine alone. I installed the trial of Crossover Linux and followed the convoluted instructions to get Quicken running. And it works!!  (See my updated instructions to get Quicken running here)

I don’t need Windows anymore at all! So screw you even more, Micro$oft!

I went and bought a new external enclosure yesterday, since mine was acting wierd.  I then deleted the partitions that Ubuntu had created and ran `testdisk` under linux.  It actually found my missing partition!  I then had to run `chkdsk /f` on the drive, and almost all my data came back to me!  I have my homemade videos, pictures, and documents.  I just haven’t found my pr0n.  And I really can’t complain about that, you know?

I’m still bummed out about my lost data, but I’m coming to terms with it as quickly as I can.

I’ve completely lost sight of what I’m trying to accomplish. I’ve lost so much so quickly.

So, to re-cap:

• I’m installing Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy)
• I’ve lost ALL my current data (photos, movies, pr0n, etc.)
• I can’t do a hardware RAID

What a sh*tty day so far.

I made sure all my stuff on my HDD was backed up to my external Firewire drive, including the Windows XP (32-bit) VM that I had moved all my data to.

I added my second 300GB HDD to my PC and configured a RAID 1 (Mirroring) array.

I then started the Ubuntu install, and was having trouble (as of this writing, still having trouble) with Ubuntu not seeing my RAID array. For some reason, I didn’t unplug my Firewire drive… And when it told me it found a 300GB drive, I just assumed it was the RAID array… and told it to go ahead and remove the partition and format. When I saw the red light on my Firewire drive blink my heart sank. So at this point I can’t install Ubuntu and I think I lost all my data (photos being the most important thing, my Quicken data is on the network, I’m sure.)

Damn.

• Why I gotta ditch Windows:
  • The only reason I’ve been able to keep up with Windows is MSDN. I haven’t bought a Windows license, ever, except with a PC.
  • I’m certainly not going to upgrade to Vista (which is a different story on its own).
  • Windows is slow and bloated. A fresh install of XP seems to run OK, but with any service packs and patches, performance turns to sludge.
  • Microsoft (and vendors) have made Windows XP x64 a PITA as a desktop OS. Printer drivers, scanner drivers, everything is missing or incompatible.

• Why (I think) Linux is the way to go
  • I’ve been running my websites on LAMP (Linux, Apache, mySql, PHP) for over a year now, using only open-source software, and I love it.
    • (As a side note, at this point I’ve easily donated more to the software I use than I’ve actually spent buying software in more than 10 years.
  • No licensing fees, no crap-tacular activation “features”.
  • Most of the Linux distros have spent a lot of time on their UI and driver support to make sure Linux can be used a desktop OS.
  • I can still run Windows in a VM if I need particular Windows functions or applications.
  • I’m a geek – and geeks use Linux.

My biggest issue with this transition has been my extensive use of Quicken for the past five years. I’ve explored a few possibilities, which I will be blogging more about as I try, learn, and evaluate over the next few days, weeks, and months:

• KMyMoney – Free, open source, money management software for Linux.
• GNUCash – Free, open source, money management software for Linux.
• Mvelopes – Online budget management software (requires Flash 9)
• MoneyDance - Commercial money management software for Linux, Windows, and <ugh!> Mac.

Due to my experience with Quicken, the following applications were deemed not good enough for me, for various reasons:

• jGnash – Free software, no bank integration (QIF import only)
• Buddi – Free software, no bank integration (QIF import only)
• Yodlee! – Online bank & bill aggregator. Doesn’t help me budget and predict income & outflows.

I’d love to hear anyone else’s suggestions of what I can use to replace Quicken.

For now I’ve settled on Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy) 32-bit. I can run 64 bit with my CPU, but there are a few things that don’t seem to work well, like the Flash plugin for Firefox.

Enough for now. I’ll publish more when I have more to say.