Luggage and Laptops

It was World Cup Cricket Saturday.
I got up late decided to stay at home but did not want go out thinking I might get late and miss the first 10 overs where the game seems to be decided.

I was almost confident Sri-Lanka will be in the semifinals barring bad weather and poor ground preparations.

In any case I bought a new TV Card (PCI plugging) with facilities for recording (compressed images) and tried it on one of my Linux computers BUT unfortunately even though it had a TV software it did not configure the new hardware.

Then on second thoughts I thought of trying the LAPTOP I was using for testing Sinhala Linux and few other new Linux distributions on which I installed Win 2007 starter pack.

While I was doing this I counted the number of little, little gadgets on the table and there were 12 in all which included the power pack and the USB battery I used in case of power surge or drop in voltage due to everybody watching cricket.

This is one thing I hate about laptops, so many luggage, in fact a gunny load of gadgets.

The list goes like this.

1. Battery cooler (one USB port used).

2. Extension for extra USB ports (two USB ports used).

3. USB Mouse (now three ports used and adorned).

I hate fiddling with the laptop flat mouse. I prefer a real meaty mouse. which I can grip and squeeze when I am annoyed which is generally the case until windows find a driver.

4. Power connector and step down transformer

5. UPS battery.

6. Power connection cord with multiple plug holes

7. TV USB Kit

8. Antenna

9. Mouse pad

10. Microphone or Speakers

11. USB extension cord to prevent clutter and get the antenna cable well away for clear TV signal.

12. CDs to install drivers and any instructions that come with the gadgets.

With all this I managed to get the TV signal with cricket (except other channels) but I could not get Microsoft to configure audio codecs and a message that the audio was not available was on the screen when I open the software.

This is something I hate, the drivers with Microsoft and OEM vendors.

It used to be the story with Linux 10 years ago but Linux will identify and configure audio automatically and sound quality is pretty good too.

I hope by next Cricket World Cup Linux will have a search engine to detect any TV single over the globe especially in villages areas where TV signals are weak and after the cricket the Linux box can be used for education and games for children with TV channels providing services instead of advertisements which galore!.

Any way I did some home work which I had learned from win 95 (42 to 45 CDs then) days and got the audio working (AC 97) with TV channels all received except one just in ready for the semifinals.

I must state how we got the win 98 work.
1. Prepare hard disk with FAT partition.
2. Install with many restarts.
3. Install graphic driver.
4. Install sound driver
5. Install virus guard
6. install media software
7. Install office.
8. Install any other software you paid for including TV software.

It was apin in the neck and I went through this rigmarole many a times to get it in working order.

Now I do not have to do any of those donkey work. Put a live Linux CD/ DVD on the CD/DVD ROM and check the media and run Linux sometimes lighting fast booting with 1 GiB RAM.

I thank Microsoft million times since it was not for such a pain (getting the computer in working order) I would not have discovered Linux in its early and formative years.

Anyway for three cricket matches I can go through the pain again.

I love cricket much more than Linux or Microsoft.