Bringing Ubuntu to the World, One PC at a Time

So a little while back, a co-worker brings in his dads (Ted) computer for me to look at for him. Turns out it is riddled with viruses and spyware and other crud. The worst of these seemed to be some sort of Zlob-Media Codec infections which mess with the start menu (removing just about all the menu items), puts VIRUS ALERT by your system clock, and just plain messes with the registry.

He had an older version of AVG on there, so I tried to do a scan with that, then downloaded the newest version as well as SpyBot Search & Destroy. I was able to pick off a few of viruses through AVG, but at this point it wasn’t 100% updated because I was not about to plug this thing in to my network and let it online. The aggravating thing with that was that SpyBot didn’t seem to want to run until I let it to do an update. Long story short, some of the stuff got detected and dealt with, but now the computer won’t boot up at all. I get some sort of Virtual Device Driver DLL initialization from command.com and that’s about it.

So after talking with Ted yesterday, they agreed to let me to just wipe the drive and put Ubuntu on this thing. His main use is email, so while I could try something like gOS, I’m familiar with Ubuntu and this way I can help him with things if needed. The computer itself, it’s more than a perfect candidate for conversion. A Compaq Presario with 512K ram, 160GB hard drive, AMD Sempron processor with an integrated ATI Radeon Xpress video card. It also has a lightscribe burner, which I know I could get working for him, but he doesn’t use it so not sure I’ll bother.

I went and grabbed a fresh copy of 8.4.1 off the web and burned it to a CD. While it was downloading, I hooked the harddrive up to my laptop with an IDE to USB cable I have and pulled the few pictures that were on the hard drive off for Ted. After burning it, I popped it in the drive and did a re-boot… and the damn Windows came up again.

Ok, check boot menu, select CD, and it boots… to Windows. Go in to system setup, verify boot from CD is before boot from HDD and try again… and get windows. It’s like Windows is now a virus itself. Feh. Ok, check the CD in another computer and it boots fine. So I break down and try the system restore… which basically wipes the drive and resets everyting to a like-new condition, and that’s when I discover it’s not a software problem, it’s hardware. The system sees the optical drive, but can’t read anything on it. I tried a few different disks… all the same. So… pull the drive, put in a CD drive I have laying around, pop the Ubuntu disk in, reboot, and bingo!

Ubuntu is now busy installing on the computer behind me as I type this. I’m sure it will go just fine. Then it will be customizing a few things and getting it ready for Ted’s big adventure.