It has been quite a number of months since I explained the issues with my laptop (see this entry). For a quick summary the Toshiba A135-S4656 is a nice computer for the price. . The major reason why I’m not totally happy with it is Vista. Microsoft’s new operating system is still filled with bugs. Even after I upgraded to 1.5GB of RAM the computer is still slow. When I tried to install Ubuntu I was disappointed with that the sound card would not work. That was a few months ago.
I had heard that Ubuntu has a new version of their Linux distrobution. I thought, “What do I have to loose?”. Vista (in my mind) was terrible and the current version of Ubuntu was unused becuase of the the lack of sound. So I downloaded the lastest version of Ubuntu from their website. The latest version, as of today is 8.0.4 LTS for desktop computers. While on the site I noticed their are 6 versions of Ubuntu, which might seem daunting to someone not familiar to Linux. All you need to be concered with is the desktop version.
After the download I burned the .iso to a CD and proceeded to run the installer. The CD is a live CD, which enables people to try the operating system out without doing anything permanant to the computer (nothing gets wrtitten to the hard drive). The menu in the latest CD asks if you want to run in live mode or go directly to the installer. Since I was already familiar with Ubuntu I went right to the installer.
I also want add that I did this while on my way home from work the other day. I had to make two stops and entered through the prompts then. I DID NOT use the keyboard while driving. I wanted to state this to show how easy it is to install Ubuntu.
By the time I got home the OS was installed onto my computer. I sat down on my sofa and started the boot for the first time. Ubuntu will install a GRUB boot menu. This menu is a non-graphic interface which appears after the computer is powered on and asks what OS you want to load. So I login and hear the Ubuntu welcome sound. IT WORKS!
So version 8.04 LTS has the proper drivers to run sound on my Toshiba Satellite A135-S4656. I will use Ubuntu now over Vista, but still have the Microsoft OS in place when I need to.
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