Well, I’ve been going to GUST with Q8BKman for a while. I go to there just for Q8BKman, I really don’t have anything to do there(really; i’m a KUNIV student). Anyhow, we usually stay in their library (I call it Internet Cafe, PCs are the only things in there). The thing I don’t like about it is that all PCs are running Win Vista, the one i really dislike! BTW, I wasn’t intending to write this, but SIGTERMer suggested, so this time it’ll be 2 episodes

Episode 1

Before two weeks we went there, Q8BKman had some stories to print. I had my netboot and my necessary stuff. I got bored in minutes so i did something bad, I shouldn’t do it, but i had to. I got out Ubuntu 9.10 and inserted the cd and started … installing, No i didn’t wipe the whole HDD, i installed it aside to windows (dual booting). Giving ubuntu 10 Gigabytes out of 160 GB, i think it’s fair enough. I continued clicking “forward” until i was asked for the user name and the password, if i entered one only I know, the PC will get formatted and Vista will be back . so I used “GUST” as the user name and “lab#123″ as the password, DO NOT PANIC, this password isn’t really a password, cause all other PCs have the same password it’s unified, except the fact the user they log in with has no administrative privileges mine -pffft- does. I also didn’t wasn’t students to be freaked out, so i had the option “log in automatically” checked.

Of course I was anxious during the process, I didn’t want to be caught knowing i have no right to do this. But what made me relax a bit was two things, the first is that they had no surveillance cameras in the boys’ section of the library. Second is when i opened firefox, while installing, and googled up a vista screenshot and had it in fullscreen mode.

It didn’t last long, man they have good PCs over there, nothing like KUNIV science library for sure. I then rebooted the system and got my CD back. In 25 secs the desktop was up, i dragged some common applications onto the desktop, to make it easy for those non-linux-experienced ones. Seeing that all they use is IE and Word, i had firefox (enlarged icon), OpenOffice word processor, and Tetris (just for the heck of it) on the desktop. I also enabled Arabic (+1 for this pc, there is only one other PC that has Arabic enabled in the lib, so now they are 2). I had little more time so I quickly started the UpdateManaged and updated the system. It was fast comparing to my home’s, the download rate was 600KB/Sec!!! Seeing that Q8BKman was going to return home, i had to restart the system (for the update), say “byebye” , and leave worried about my new baby.

Episode 2

Before a week, Q8BKman offered me another visit to his university and I accepted of course; i was panicking, needed to check how was my baby doing. We got there in no time, i was in the library in 5 minutes. Got to the second floor aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand the PC was switched off . I pressed the power button and … GRUB WAS THERE . Q8BK started to do his work while I sat down doing my stuff. I first checked if anyone used ubuntu, but it turned none have used it, i checked by seeing “recent documents”, they were what i used last time . Anyhow, i was happy that it was still there!

Now that everything was okay, i started by installing “ubutnu-restricted-extras” to let ubuntu be friendly with videos and soundtracks, it was installed in seconds! I didn’t have anything else to install so i thought of the stuff i’d like to try on my PC. It was KDE, so I downloaded/installed “Kubuntu-desktop”. At home it takes a lot to get downloaded, but there … it took only 10 minutes and it was installed. I switched to KDE, it was smooth and cool, cooler than windows, and it didn’t affect the PC’s speed, on my Pentium 4 – 512 MB(ram) PC it usually become slooooooooooooooow. Q8BKman saw me and said “Why did you install another OS?!!” I explained it’s just a desktop environment, and to make it clear to him I installed XFCE (downloaded in seconds!!). Here I have captured a video of my mess!

No, that’s not Xubuntu installed, it’s ubutnu, but when I installed “Xubutnu-desktop” package, it replaced ubuntu’s GDM files with xubutnu’s (both use GDM, kubuntu uses KDM). That’s why there’s a rat on the login screen.

I soon got back to Gnome and started to configure the stuff which students need, and that was printing. I launched the Printer Configuration Manager and searched for printers. The good thing it was able list them, the horrable thing was THERE WAS MORE THAN 20 PRINTERS!!! I needed to configure this since printing is necessary for the students over there, but there were just too many of them, I was confused! I didn’t know what IPs does the boy’s section printers have, nor any clue. All i knew was the name of the printers, LaserJet P2015. I wanted to see printers configuration on the other PCs (windows), but only admins can view it, so I was left with no other choice than trying. “So printer no 1 here we go” and i clicked on “print test page”. Then I heard a sound coming from the girl’s section. I was half laughing half asking a question: “is that a sound of a printer” I asked Q8BKman and he said “Yes” so I laughed extremely laud, he was saying that this was not possible. It turned out that all the printers of the library were listed, the boys’s, girls’s, and the reception’s were in the list. What caught my attention was the Xerox, any person is capable of printing ANY CONTENT from this PC to that machine which is at the helpdesk!! I hope nothing really bad happens. It was really funny, but i had to return home after that:(.

Yesterday was the registration day so i think at laest one person have used it. I’ll find out next time I go there, probably next Monday. And hey, they have ubuntu now.

Ouch, I wrote a lot this time, if you have read the whole thing post a comment. I doubt any will.