Windows 8

This week, after a lot of thinking whether to upgrade my desktop from Vista to Widows 7 or 8, I finally decided to go with Windows 8. So far the experience has been good. I ran into the following issues and I found the solutions on the net and I am listing the solution that worked:

When I re-installed Cisco VPN client on Windows 8, it did get installed but when I ran the client, I got the error that the Adapter is not enabled. When I went on the net, I found that many people had this issue and the following solution worked for me:

 Open Registry editor by typingregedit in Run prompt
·    Browse to the Registry Key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Services\\CVirtA
·    Select the DisplayName to modify, and remove the leading characters from the value data upto "%;" i.e.
o    For x86, change the value data from something like "@oem8.inf,%CVirtA_Desc%;Cisco Systems VPN Adapter” to "Cisco Systems VPN Adapter”
o    For x64, change the value data from something like "@oem8.inf,%CVirtA_Desc%;Cisco Systems VPN Adapter for 64-bit Windows” to "Cisco Systems VPN Adapter for 64-bit Windows”
·    Try connecting again

Another issue that I encountered was that my wireless connection was slow. I did the following and I saw a quite a bit of improvement:

- Left click the Internet Access icon in the bottom right corner(Next to sound icon), and then right click the Wireless Network you are connected to and select "View connection properties".

- In the security tab of this window, click the dropdown box for Encryption type, and select 'TKIP'.

- Press okay.

I went to speedtest.net before making the above change and my download speed was 0.56 mbps and the upload speed was 5.6 Mbps. After I made the above change, the download speed increased to 12.24 Mbps and the upload speed to 7.49 Mbps. Overall at this time, my Wireless internet appears to be fast enough. Another option If I face any issue with this is to download the Wireless drivers and reinstalling them again. I hope i don't have to do that. 

Ubuntu 12.10

I was getting bored of Windows Vista and wanted to experience another OS. I heard a lot about Ubuntu and I got the Windows installer of Ubuntu 12.10. When I downloaded the installer (wubi.exe) and double clicked on it to install, it could not because by default it will try to install the 64-bit version of Ubuntu. So I had to run the file by giving a --32bit parameter

http://askubuntu.com/questions/132745/how-to-install-ubuntu-32bit-with-wubi

After that Ubuntu got installed and I ran into another problem. The Wireless connection was not working. I tried a lot of things and none of them worked. Then I hooked up a wired connection and then installed the Broadcom wireless driver for Ubuntu by following the commands from the following link:

http://www.howopensource.com/2012/10/install-broadcom-b43-legacy-wireless-driver-in-ubuntu-12-10-12-04/

Then I went into System Settings > Software Sources > Additional Drivers >
 and selected the Broadcom Wireless Driver and clicked on Apply Changes. It activated the driver and after the system restart, it started recognizing the Wireless connections. It's been heck of a challenge to make it work and now I am enjoying Ubuntu.

The next step was to configure Cisco VPN client and do a remote desktop to my work machine. The first step is to install the client:

http://handytutorial.com/install-cisco-vpn-client-in-ubuntu-12-04/

I actually had a .pcf file from my company. So after I installed the client, I went into the Network Manager > VPN Connections > Configure VPN > click on Import button and import the PCF file. Make the appropriate changes for the username, password etc. and save the VPN connection. 

Then the next step is Remote Desktop client. Ubuntu comes with Remmina Remote Desktop client which is the best for Ubuntu based on my research on the internet. Click on Dash Home on the top left side and type Remmina and you will get the application. Click on it.  It will open the remote desktop connection to your work machine. Adjust the resolution to your choice or match it with the work computer.

I think I have everything in Ubuntu now that I normally do on a windows machine. I will try to use Ubuntu instead of using Windows and see how the experience is.This is the only way to learn something. If we try to find a windows alternative, we will never learn. I plan to upgrade to Windows 8 during christmas holidays. So I will experience Ubuntu until then.