My first experience with Linux OS about 3 years ago was with RedHat Linux 6.2 on a Pentium 100MHz. I tried so many times without success and finally gave it up. I was able to install Windows 2000 Professional on that PC without any real problem though. The only problem was it runs really slow.

About a month ago I received my Ubuntu Linux CD and installed it in my Pentium II 450 MHz PC at home.

At first the installation went smoothly, until it goes into the XWindows system and the screen went blank. My guess it must have been the display card, I use S3 Trio 64V2-DX/GX (775/785) on that PC. I tried again the second time using ‘expert’ installation mode and goes through the process very carefully. When it came to the display setting I choose a lower color, 16 Bit and smaller screen size, 800×600 pixels. It works.

The next problem was that my mouse doesn’t work, I used an A4Tech serial mouse. I then open a terminal using the keyboard (pressing Alt+F1 will open the menu) and edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf manually. It requires only minor changes from
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
to
Option "Device" "/dev/ttyS0"
Option "Protocol" "Auto“
.

Now my home PC runs a dual Ubuntu Linux / Microsoft Windows 98 OS. I still need Windows to run several applications such as Adobe PhotoShop, CorelDraw and AutoCAD 2000. There is Gimp 2.0 came with the Ubuntu Installation and I can install InkScape easily. I will eventually learn to use them but Dia wasn’t really a replacement for AutoDesk AutoCAD. Until someone writes a decent CAD application for Linux, I will still depend on Windows and AutoCAD to do my drafting job.