Finally managed to get one of my computers to run Team Fortress 2 but only because I could hear the music playing. It looks like my X850 videocard is no longer supported by ATI and so I have to run third party drivers and even then, it doesn't really run. On one of my many reinstalls, I found Steam will work with the 12.04 LTS version of Ubuntu and will install Gallium 0.4 on llvmpip drivers that fix the issues I have when trying to start up Team Fortress 2 but apparently they are not quite the best drivers for this card. I think I will really call it quits this time on trying to get this machine to run TF2 at least until I get a newer videocard. I did manage to get a Linux penguin in my backpack though.
After trying for three days to set up an Ubuntu Linux machine I give up. I tried to set up two different machines with Nvidia and ATI videocards but neither install would recognize the videocards. Trying to update the drivers would take like 10 minutes only to not work and some times gui would stop loading and I was stuck in a terminal. Reinstalls are a pain in the neck because some times they work and some times I get stuck with an error message over and over again. Steam requires Ubuntu 12.10 and I originally started with 10.4 so I had to burn an iso of 12.10 and even the next day it was out of date and required more downloading from the Internet which would take like an hour by itself. I had disconnected the gaming machine's hard drive and put in another one so I didn't screw that machine up but now that one needs to have Windows repair itself and has been running for like 20 minutes trying to do that.
So frustrating. When I am employed again I plan to throw away every computer in the house and buy all new ones. The Windows laptop is too slow to load anything, it and the Linux server laptop have no battery life, the original server is too old host any Steam games or run Plex, the Dell can't run any games anybody wants to play, the old gaming machine takes like 20 minutes to boot up, can't run some recent games and can't be used as an Ubuntu client machine to try Steam on Linux becuase the ATI videocard is too old, and the main gaming machine's audio cuts out all the time.
Throw in my bike too. New brake pads, cables and rims and I still can't stop when trying to do tricks.
The second interview went well. It wasn't so great to come home to having a cold though.