Ok now, that I have my Laptop running Ubuntu and Have been Using the Gnome Desktop for the last few months, I have been having problems with Beryl crashing alot atleast once a Day. So I decided to switch from GNOME to KDE window manager, The first thing I did was get all the KDE Packages installed which was a very easy apt-get deal. Open terminal and type the following….

Step 1 - Obtain Full KDE

Open Terminal, and copy/paste the following

    sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

Now this is a large package, and will take afew minutes to get but it’s well worth it. After everything downloads, then reboot your Window Manager with CTRL-ALT-DEL, and select session KDE. This will open a KDE Splash screen and boot KDE in just afew mins. Now when mine first booted, my Beryl was already opened and setup Perfect. No changes were needed

Customize KDE

Well after browsing KDE it appeared everything was pretty much just like I wanted really lol. I did change my Taskbar Panel to Remove the Desktop Switched and Taskbar applets, as I use the Avant-Window-Navigator OS-X Style Docker bar for my Taskbar. From what I’ve seen so far I Havent had to make to many changes to KDE except edit my fonts to switch back to what I Liked in Gnome, you can Open the K Menu, Goto around the Bottom and click on System Settings thing change your Fonts to match up to your Gnome Fonts, I Personally use Lucida MAC Fonts to match my OS-X Style Desktop. I’m planning on using KDE for atleast a month before I decide to switch back to GNOME or what to do. Currently I just added 3 screenshots of my current KDE Desktop to my Flickr and afew more pictures of my 1 year old son also. You can view them at the bottom of the screen.. Which BTW I Found one execellent application that worked in both GNOME and KDE that I use to maintain my FlickR account which is called KFlickR you can get it with a simple

    sudo apt-get install kflickr

As the month goes on I will finish this page with the config modifications I had to do to make this work properly but it’s still to early to list to much.

In Around July 1st, 2007, I woke up and my Right hand was very numb. I personnally felt it was asleep as if i sleep with it under my body that night or something. After afew days went by the numbness was replaced with severe pain and i lost all movement in this hand. As I am right-handed person that was a serious loss to me. I managed to maintain my day-job for afew weeks but eventually my Boss decided that I might hurt it worse and in his greed he decided I could no longer work there after 3 years of solid employment with him. In this time from July - August I went to 4-5 Different Doctors trying to find Answers as to why this is happening, and more importantly when will this End as Loss of my Dominate hand was a very important thing to me, keeping me from living a normal life. In this first month I succumbed to severe depression, wondering why this is happening to me and all the normal bs from a major accident. Since there was no actual Accident I couldn’t claim this as workman’s comp claim and since I live in a rather poor area I did not have Health Insurance so all my Doctor’s bills and medicine’s were paid in Cash costing over 1000 US Dollars. In all these Doctors, the first doctor had no clue what he was looking at, he requested 300 dollars worth of XRays that solved nothing. He prescribed me a Cortizone Shot, and 15 Vicodone pills for the severe pain, which did nothing to help. Next I decided this guy had no clue, so I found a better Doctor. I went to him and he knew exactly what I had. Offered the same shot as the last doctor and prescribed me with 60 Loricet 10-650 pain pills for the severe pain. Which that actually helped with my pain and made it so I could function. He Refered me to a Orthopedic Doctor who immeditely said the same thing as Last doctor, charged me 150 USD and sent me to a Special Nerve Doctor. He also reduced my pain medicine to half of what the last doctor gave me so once again I was in extreme pain with no relief. I attented the nerve doctor in the begining of Augest. She seemed a very knowledge and friendly Doctor. And basicly said i will be unable to work for at least 4 months time. She removed my pain medicine for some Lidocaine patches which work for about 10 mins and cost 50x the price of the pills, I was taking so now once again I am in extreme pain with no relief and as I have no Job with very little money coming in each month, I can’t even afford the medicines she prescribed to me. Now due to my lack of employment my wife of the last 3 years has decided she pretty much kicked me out of the house as we are agureing alot as she can not belive i can possibily lose all control of my hand in no time at all. We are presently tryin to work things out but as I can see her point but she should have some sympothy IMHO in my time of need.

Next Month, I have to have a Electric Mamograph Test done to determine where the nerve is pinched, what is causing it and if it is healing properly, This test will cost 600 USD which I am tryin to solve how I will generate this amount of cash just to have another useless test done when so far my 1000USD I’ve spent on Doctors in this month have solved nothing I have not already learned on the Internet.

I will Post Part 2 of this series of my life as it unfolds thru September, I am only posting this information as In the last month i have spent days searching for information involving this problem and have found very little useful information and actually no information from someone that is suffering from this problem, And I hope someone will see this information as useful to them. My current advise to people who are having problems of this nature please, do not fall into the Depression pit of hell and try to live your life as best you can. This is a temporary problem that will eventually get better. It is a very painful problem and there isn’t alot of relief from this you will find. My other tip is do not fall for having all the Xrays done as that is useless since Nerve damage is not visible in XRays and if you don’t regain movement within 1 week, then your stuck without movement for Atleast 4 months. Hopefully you will not require surgery afterwards thou.