Hi Folks,

As the topic says, it's been a while since I've been here so I thought I'd make one thing absolutely clear: I'm still sober! Drinking is not an option, I think I have the BORG Syndrome:

"We are Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile." -- Third of Five/Hugh, Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "I, Borg" (1992)

Misquoted by me: "We are AA. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile."

Anyway to continue: I had computer problems.  And I think I'd like to share that story with you.

I guess it started back in March. The 20th to be exact when I answered a request for help installing Ubuntu in the Ubuntu Forums (Linux). The man, Bill R, responded in an email and we started sending some really long emails back and forth, in fact there are 175 emails to/from Bill in a directory created for our emails. Bill ended up sending a description of his computer with hard drives and partitions so I would know more to help him. It was (is) a power house of a computer.

During all this I explained the differences between Kubuntu (heavy on computer resources but can do more), Ubuntu (the regular version of Ubuntu that runs on almost any machine) and Xubuntu (the "light" version that will run on older less powerful computers. I told him that I ran Xubuntu, as I had a P-III running at 800Mhz with 512 MB RAM. At one point Bill told me he had a lot of older computer parts collecting dust that and asked if I wanted a new motherboard with a P-IV processor and some RAM.

My words were: I'd be lying if I said no, but it wasn't feasible to send them. It would cost more to send than they were worth. I thanked him for the offer but refused, well, this went back and forth for a while, my wife was telling me not to believe any of this, until finally I told Bill I wanted his address before he would get mine so I could at least send the cash back that he promised to send for me to pay for the Customs Tax. Liliana was still sceptical and didn't want me to get my hopes up for fear of feeling bad when it "didn't happen"! To make a long story short, Bill sent everything needed to fill an empty computer case and the money need to pay Customs:

01. Motherboard: MSI K8N Neo4-F
02. CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ c/w Heat Sync Fan Unit
03. 4x 1G RAM Chips & 3x 512MB RAM Chips
04. 3x HD's, all are last generation PATA, IDE drives.
    40GB - Western Digital
    156GB - Hitachi
    200GB - Maxtor
05. LG Super Multi DVD Drive Model: GSA-H10L
06. Floppy Drive
07. Nvidia GeForce 7300 GS Graphics Card
08. Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Card c/w Remote Control and Sensor Unit.
09. Kensington - Wireless, Optical 5 Button Mouse
10. Philips Headphones
11. For the back - 2x USB connections and Joystick connection.
--------------
12. Bag of screws
13. Extra Fan
14. Various install CD's
15. Various Manuals
16. Various Cables including 2 "Y" Power Cables
17. Filter for the Power Source Fan

I told Bill the the computer was CODE NAMED: WRSSCC (Willy R Super Special CHIMO Computer).

The first weekend after it all got here I ripped the guts out of my case and installed all the new "old" parts.

It didn't work! ???? OK, put all the P-III stuff back the next day, reinstalled Xubuntu and went looking for help. Then I got a bad case of the flu and a cold back to back couldn't do anything for close to another two weeks. Finally we got a new case, and I built the new computer in that but still had problems with it. The internal working of a computer have changed from the time I used to build and maintain my own ten years ago.

In the process of switching HD's from the old P-III to WRSSCC a few times the P-III died. So there we were, no P-III and WRSSCC not yet functioning. We were like that for three days.

WRSSC would run just fine from the Ubuntu "Live CD" (the entire Ubuntu Linux system is on one CD and can be run from the CD Drive if you setup the BIOS to boot from CD before a Hard Drive) so I went to the forums to ask a few questions. I couldn't email anyone, everyone's email addresses were on the Hard Drives.

The last hurdle to fix was replacing the cables from the Motherboard to the DVD drives and Hard Drives. I thought the new cables Bill sent were OK, little did I know that they were NOT the 80 wire cables he told me I needed but were 40 wire cables. OK, I get that ironed (6 pesos for two cables) out and the new computer WRSSCC was up and running in an instant.

I installed Xubuntu and restored the backups I had, at this point, 4 days old. That whole process of installing Xubuntu and restoring took just under 2 1/2 hours and I never lost a single byte of information in the process.  I can't imagine that happening with Windows.

I have since installed Ubuntu 64bit to make bettter use of the AMD Athlon 64 3500+ CPU. This machine running at 2.2Ghz (3 times faster than the P-III) with 2GB RAM (4 times what the P-III had) just smokes along.

And for as great as WRSSCC is, the past 6 weeks have been somewhat of a sad time. I have not been able to contact Bill by phone (yes, I called the USA 4 times) or email to thank him properly.  I've send a few emails thanking him, they haven't been returned, but they weren't answered either, hence the sad feelings. I'll keep trying though, someday I'll get through.

During all this, I lost track of this URL, but a friendly, I think automatic email, reminder a while back gave it back to me.  I even had to send a request for my password.

So here I am, back in the fold.
Have a great day, I'll be around every now and then.
CHIMO!
Bruce