YWAM Information Technology

Hi guys.

A while back I was thinking about what the right la­ptop would be for me. Chris said in a comment "I'm excited to find out what you get in the end".

Now I got one but all that happened was a bit unexpected. So, here is the story of my new laptop.

My wife was in Germany and when she came back on a Wednesday she said that she has a present for me from my parents. Then she gave me a laptop. My parents 2 years old laptop. They hardly used it, so it looks like new. I guess I couldn't say a word for a while cause I was so blown away. For some reason I always thought that something like this would never happen to me.

My parents  don't believe in God, so it's not that they would have asked Him if there is a way they could help me with my need of a laptop. They just did it because they don't really use it but their son needs something new.

Anyway, there I was sitting with my new laptop. A Toshiba M70. Not exactly what I was hoping for in some details but I knew that this computer would work so much better than what I had so far and also will be so much quieter.

Basically it's not exactly the screen resolution I was hoping for, but besides that it's a great machine. OK, I have and had some problems with Linux on there but the computer is running like a wild horse and doing that very quiet. Other then the other laptop.

During the following days I was basically installing and adjusting the computer to meet my needs and then on that following Saturday we wanted to write our monthly newsletter. I started, still on the old laptop and just as I finished my part, saved the file, and wanted to send it to my wife, the computer turned off. Nothing new to me, overheated let it cool down for a minute and boot again. It happened many times, it's not good I know, but what could I do? I cleaned the computer from the inside on a fairly regular basis, actually with little or no success. But I was not able to boot up the computer again. Dead, nothing happens, no light, no fan, nothing. And, of course, how could it be different, no backup.

So, I was hoping it's not the HD that's causing the problem and I can access it as an external HD.

Praise God.

Not only because I can access my files but also because I got a computer just before the other one died. It's not like I was done with setting up the new one, I still don't have my emails set up, etc. But at least I was able to do basic stuff right away.

God is so good, I really don't have words for it....

As I said earlier, I had some trouble setting it up. So, when I first wanted to install Linux the laptop hang and all I could do was pulling the plug. Windows XP, which is still on there as dual boot cause I need still be able to test websites with Win, was OK. That was a great PHEW since I had to shrink the partition for that. XP took the whole HD (100GB) for drive C. Interesting set up.... Anyways, I shrunk it down to 30GB and have 70GB for Linux. Guess what my main OS is. Then I had some "discussion" with the video card (ATI X700) but I pretty much ironed that out. Not completely though.

When I boot Linux I have a blank screen after Grub until the login screen comes up. It also takes quit a while to boot. Also sometimes I have stripes all over the screen and I don't see anything. I can log in by blindly typing in the password but I don't see the desktop, only stripes across the screen. Only help, reboot by pressing the power button. Instead of logging in I tried to get a console window to make a controlled reboot instead of the power button option but since I don't see anything I dunno what I'm doing.

I didn't had that problem with Windows although I must say I probably booted up Windows only 5 times or so.

After a long search I figured out that almost no repositories had been included by the package manager (really, really strange that....) I was finally able to install some more needed programs. But I still haven't been able to activate Compiz. Although that is probably the most unimportant part.

Another problem I have is how to get my address book from Thunderbird and the bookmarks from Firefox off the other HD. Since I can't export them because the old laptop is not working anymore.

Every morning, when I boot the computer all I can say is: PRAISE GOD. Because He knew ahead of time when I really needed a new laptop.

Greetings from the MatriX,

neo