Not Enough Credit Given

I got a call from a BiC who has been bugging me to help him set up Linux on his PC. I have been avoiding this like the plague because he is the type of guy who has very good intentions but never follows through. I just knew if I helped him install it that one of two things would happen: 1) He would not take an interest in it and give up in a few hours or 2) His hardware would be teh suxxors and not handle a Linux install.

I gave in and went over to his house todays since my wife was going to wash the dogs and not do much else. I got there and his kids are running all over and generally getting into my work area, but I managed to survive that. Kids are gonna be kids and want to be where their dad is, so no harm there.

Well the project started off on the wrong foot because he has some hardware issues and he was not sure what they were, other than the fact that his newest (2004) DVD player worked intermittently and he had to open the case unseat the IDE cable and reseat it before it would come back. I unplugged it, changed the jumpers on the remaining DVD burner and tried to boot. Nada. Swapped them. Nada. Unplugged after market USB card reader. Nada. Removed 2000 model 10 gig hard drive. DING DING DING. I was able to boot the Ubuntu CD.

After a few false starts with the CD, I finally got the image on and updated. For what ever reason, my 6.10 CD would not boot properly (errored out), so I had to go back to 6.06, Dapper Drake. It installed and I was able to get his wired internet and his network printing to function without a problem. He asked me to install a TON of games and I did, but the driver needed to run them was not the one we installed. I did not check to see what card he had and he did not know other than it was an Nvidia GeForce card. We fought with it for a while and finally gave up on that. Then he asked me to set up wireless networking on his DESKTOP. Now, I realize I am not the sharpest bulb in the cookie jar, but why would you want you desktop wireless when the active LAN port is 10 feet away and insist that your Windows laptop remain WIRED when it has built in WiFi and can move from room to room? Well I configured his wireless and the desktop saw the router but would not connect. I fought with it for a while and then after realizing I had been there 5 hours working on this beast, told him I had to go home. He called me shortly after I got home and I told him I could not help that he would just have to go to the forum pages and find his answers. He hung up and I thought I pissed him off.

After I was done assembling an end table for my wife and washing the dinner dishes, he called me back. I underestimated him. He fixed his video driver issue (in LINUX!!) and got his WiFi to work. I think I will have to give that man more credit. He did good.