I am writing to you now on my new OS! I managed to get Ubuntu installed - and make my wi-fi work! The OS installation was actually really easy. Partitioning the drives was a little scary (I prepared for that last night by freeing up space and then defragging), but the install went quite smoothly, and it looks great. The hard part was getting the wi-fi working because I needed to use the web to look up information, and I couldn’t use the web without booting into XP, etc. But A let me borrow her computer “for a couple of minutes” (I think it turned into at least half an hour) and after some fancy footwork I got it running. So here I am on Ubuntu! (Yes, firesign3000, this is Linux for dummies.)

Now I just have to figure out how to get the Windows partition mounted. It doesn’t appear to be /dev/hda1 like it’s apparently supposed to be, so for now I can’t access anything on my C:\ drive. That’s okay, though - I have got plenty to play with here on Ubuntu Linux.

Added: Aha! For some reason it was /dev/hdc2 instead. All mounted, problem solved. Thanks xmurf!