Installing Ubuntu Linux on the HP Pavilion g6, which happily fell into my lap, will have to wait. Not because of UEFI, or Secure Boot, but because the wireless card -- the Ralink RT3290 802.11bgn Wi-Fi Adapter -- is too new for Ubuntu -- versions 12.04, and 12.10 couldn't see it at all, while Ubuntu 13.04 saw the card, and Wi-Fi networks, but couldn't connect to anything. Sadly, being able to simply download and install a Linux driver for the Ralink RT3290 is not an option, so far as I can see -- just not Linux-y enough.
I did find some possible solutions:
- Richard Rickett's slightly terrifying Installing Ralink RT3290 in Ubuntu 12.04.
- Linux Mint Forum scare-a-thon involving installing Liquorix and updating the Linux Kernel (I'd need to be drunk on "Liquorix" to try this!).
- Interesting suggestion in the above Mint Forum thread was to just buy a new Linux-compatible wireless card, particularly the Atheros AR9285.
Changing the wireless card sounds good, but in the meantime, I've been unable to resist the Sith Lord, allure of 6 gb of RAM, and over 3 gb of processing power, plus I want to see how the battery performs. That means cozying up to Windows 8, and guess what? It actually improves on the number of steps it takes to perform a simple task in Windows 7 -- in some cases Windows 8 has increased task time by a third or a half, so Microsoft is making gains. To ease the shock, I installed some, freeware, mostly opensource applications. The first five are Windows versions of apps I use in Ubuntu:
- Firefox -- a Web browser whose atomic number is not 24.
- Gimp 2.8.6 -- an image editor.
- Qbittorrent 3.0.11 -- a bittorrent client.
- VLC media player -- an audio/video player.
- Thunderbird -- Mozilla Firefox's mail client. Ugly, but good.
- Launchy 2.5 -- a keystroke launcher.
- Notepad++ 6.4.3 -- a code editor/notepad.
- Linux Live USB Creator 2.8.23r -- a good Windows-based ISO-to-USB utility.
There are already numerous third-party ways to add a traditional "Start"-style menu to the Windows 8 desktop, but I've contented myself with the following:
- The key combo Windows-D toggles tween the Start screen, and the desktop.
- Right-clicking application tiles on the Start screen allows you to pin them to the desktop Taskbar
- And I put a Shutdown shortcut in the Taskbar using these instructions, with one extra step. Before I pinned it to the Taskbar, I right-clicked the shortcut and applied a more suitable icon from the stock choices.
[caption id="attachment_3584" align="alignnone" width="497"]
The Taskbar can take some sting out of Windows 8 by keeping you in familiar desktop territory.[/caption]Launchy calls itself a "keystroke launcher." It duplicates the functionality of the so-called "semantic launcher" Synapse, which I use in Ubuntu. Both are invoked by a user-definable keystroke. Launchy's default is alt-spacebar. I launch Firefox by typing "alt-spacebar-f-i-r," and hitting Return. For Qbittorrent, as there are no other programs starting with "q," I only need type "alt-spacebar-q," and hit Return -- it's really fast. And -- bonus -- because I created a shutdown shortcut called "shutdown," I can use Launchy to invoke that also.
More fun with Windows 8 on the Pavilion g6 ►
Fedora-based Linux distro Korora 19 "gets" Ralink wireless in Pavilion g6 ►
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