Added a Printer to My Linux setup

The Mita 550 and Lexmark 23 printers that I had on this machine did now lend themselves to Linux printing. I did a little research and found that most of the Epson Stylus Color printers did. A little investigating on eBay showed that they were selling quite reasonably and that ink cartridges were economically priced. I bid on a couple before I was finally successful in getting a Epson Stylus Color 440. Setting it up was a piece of cake using the utilities included with PCLinuxOS 8. Now all I have to do is install a compatible sound card and I will be set.

More PCLinuxOS

I finally got the USB HOME function working correctly with the PCLinuxOS while using a bootable CD. Now my settings are being stored on a USB hard drive and restored when I log back in. I've ordered an Epson printer that is Linux compatible. Once I get it installed and working, the only thing that I will be lacking is a compatible sound card. Probably work on that next.

I read yesterday that it was Microsoft's intent to force everyone to upgrade to newer software. They currently have a problem with folks using older versions of Windows. Those versions have all the functions the existing users need, but there is no profit in it for Microsoft. My main machine (the one I am using right now) still uses W98SE. It has been fine with me until now and would be into the foreseeable future if I had not discovered PCLinuxOS. Of course I am doing this while it is running PCLinuxOS and everything just seems to work faster and smoother. So I guess I am playing along with Microsoft and upgrading to newer software. Some how I don't think that an upgrade to PCLinuxOS was what they had in mind.

PCLinuxOS 8.0

I was reading Claire Wolfe's Blog yesterday and came across a post about PCLinuxOS 8.0

I have been interested in Linux for several years and have tried a time or two to install it on various old pc's that I had laying around. Never was able to accomplish what I wanted to. The thing that intrigued me about PCLinuxOS 8.0 was that it was completely self contained, along with the necessary associated applications, on one bootable CD. I down loaded the ISO, burned a CD and put it in my main computer (an old 350mhz PII machine with 320 mb of ram.)

I was impressed. It loaded great, very fast, found most of my hardware and within minutes I was using it for web surfing and web based email using Firefox. The PC Linux Online website even described a method to customize the ISO. If you are like me and have always wanted to play with Linux but just never got around to it, here is your chance.

By the way, you can also install PCLinuxOS 8.0 to a HD partition from the same CD.

So Many Projects, So Little Time

Seems that every time I get one project lined up, another more pressing one pops up. My dog Corky keeps wanting to run off and play with kids in the neighborhood so I've had to start putting in the side fences to finish fencing in my backyard. In the middle of that, I discovered that I was responsible for rabies vaccination of the stray cat that was hanging around in my backyard. I got a live trap and caught the cat and took it to the vet first of the week. Later in the week it started raining and I only got to work on the fence intermittently. All of this is pushing my veggie car out further.