Goodbye Bill!

I must admit, though I live in New Jersey, unlike our state's favorite pass time, I hate going to the malls. It is not that I hate malls as such. Like everybody else, I also love to buy things I do not need. Not going to malls helps. Anyway, about a week back, I landed up at Walmart for some mundane task. I love the price "Rollback" gimmick at Walmart. While browsing through the electronics isle, I saw this cute little Acer Aspire One laptop staring at me. Like a puppy with those droopy eyes. It was calling my name, in fact begging me to take it home. To sweeten the deal, there was a big rollback sticker next to it. "Price Rollback: Was $349. Now: $298." Wow, $298 for a laptop with Intel Atom processor (I have no idea what that is), 1 Gig Ram and 160 Gig hard drive with Windows XP Home. I really needed a laptop. My Dell 610 recently died after four years of faithful service. So, I brought this puppy home. It was small, weighed only 2 some pounds. You know what they say, if something is too good to to be true, well, it was. It turns out Intel Atom processor acts like its close cousin, Celron. If I was President Obama, my first order, even before the economic stimulus package would have been to ban loading any Microsoft operating system on Celron or Atom processors. At this point my easiest option was to go back to Walmart and return the merchandise. There were two challenges in the return process. Returning anything in the Walmart in my area is a chore. The customer service is run by recently arrived immigrants, who still think that they have to enforce the same level of bureaucracy as their country of origin. I despise returning anything at my Walmart. The second part for not returning the product was the challenge to load this operating system I have been hearing about. It is called Ubuntu. Ubuntu is another flavor of Linux based operating system. I first heard about it from my nephew, who is a rocket scientist. Considering that I have been associated with the software industry for over twenty five years, I like challenges. I have installed Windows NT on servers, when NT to most industry experts meant, "No Thanks". I used to get nightmares of the famous blue screen of death. So, like Frodo Baggins, I took up the task of loading Linux on my newly acquired Acer Aspire One. I knew that my journey will be filled with numerous kernel compiles and unsupported device drivers. There was also that dreaded possibility of making the trip to Walmart to return the laptop. But I was motivated, I was inspired, and I was determined to load Ubuntu on my machine, no matter what! It is the journey that matters. So, Goodbye Bill Gates! It was nice knowing you! I always wanted to leave you and this is my ticket. P.S. The journey continues ....