Back to Root

Well, I have been trying to figure out just how to start this, but I am back to my old root. Okay, I had to get a geek joke in at least once. I have gone back to Linux. Yes, you read that right. At first, it started off rather simple. I had taken my Lenovo G500s and figured as I haven't been using it much lately as Windows seemed to run pretty slow on it, after a reinstall even.

So I downloaded Zorin to try. This ran well but offered far to little customization for me. That is one thing that I love doing, so it was a big deal for me. The thing for me is that I am a big fan of Gnome 2, as I cannot stand Gnome 3, KDE 4, or Unity. I had two options here, the first of which was to install a different desktop. I tried installing Mate but it was glitching out far too much to even be usable. So I went with option 2 and downloaded Ubuntu Mate 15.10 and installed that.

So now I have what I had been after in the first place! So I started installing all the things I needed, including a dock. I wanted to install Avant Window Navigator but I couldn't find a version for this as it hasn't been maintained in some time, so I tried Cairo Dock, which was nice but too glitchy for me so I settled on Docky. So now everything is running great on the G500s. I have everything tweaked as I like it, and unlike setting up Windows, most of the stuff I need is actually preinstalled.

So the next morning, I decide that I am going to install it on the ThinkPad X140e as well. So, back up the files, and one installation later, I find out the WiFi needs a propitiatory driver since even in 2015, BroadCom still hasn't released an open source driver, but they do provide a driver at least so after telling it to use the driver, it seems a little slower than Windows, it works good enough for me to use it. Now I have two laptops that are setup the same, one a 15.6 inch and the other a 11.6 inch.