Alcides Fonseca

In this holidays I’ve spend some time hacking my OS setup. My Windows XP install had more than two years. And it was still solid without virus or spyware, and It has never seen any anti-virus or so. So guys who say proudly that you Macs or your Linuxes don’t get virus… Well, so doesn’t my Windows!

However I had installed a lot of stuff I don’t use anymore and I find faster to just format it and install a new one. One of my rules when setting up a new computer is to make two partitions. One for the OS and programs, and the other for data. So whenever I have to format it, I don’t have to bother with backups.

I decided to give Vista SP1 a try, since it might not be as hard to use as RTM, but I decided to test os x86 in between. Last time I didn’t have success last time.

Specs:
- Asus P5LD2 SE
- Intel Pentium D
- Asus EN6600 Silent
- Asus WL-167g (wireless dongle)

I installed KALYWAY LEO 10.5.1 intel SSE2 SSE3 and everythin just worked out of the box, except for Wireless and Audio. Better than last time (in which I had no wired network, so no internet at all). Luckly there were guides to install ALC882 (the codec I was missing for audio) and also an hack for Ralink Wireless Driver in order to my Wireless dongle to work, and after some hacks it worked! I felt like installing linux, but with success!

So now I have one and a half Mac, since I don’t get the same experience as with my MacBook, but I get much more integration between the two! I am even using teleport to control my macbook from the desktop. It works really well without any hard configuration or hacking like I had to do with Synergy that made me let it go.

At the moment I am installing Windows Vista on a virtual Machine in my desktop, but It is being really CPU intensive. I bet I’ll return to XP in a matter of weeks!