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January 09, 2006
My Linux Holiday Home
Happy New Year!
I've spent the better part of the past couple of weeks (a) clutching my head in pain because, it turns out, Botox totally sucks as a treatment for my kind of headaches; and (b) playing with various distributions of Linux.
There may be eerie and mysterious connections between these two things.
I started off some weeks back using a very nice, very easy-to-use Linux distribution called Simply MEPIS. It's fabulous. Updating the software is painless, it works just right immediately, and you don't spend all your spare time fighting off viruses and downloading security patches. It's sweeeeeeeeet.
But then I got all curious. This led to a brief dalliance with a distribution called KNOPPIX, which I didn't think much of, but I did like the more recent version of the KDE desktop environment (yes, I know that's a tautology). Then, one fateful Sunday afternoon, while patrolling a newsagent's Linux magazine section (truly, not a very big section), I found a special issue of the British mag, Linux Format, which was all about Fedora Core 4 Linux.
Some years ago I dallied for a while with various flavours of Linux then available. It was a bad time, man. Text-based installation interface that assumed the operator knew a boatload of stuff about Linux already (which I didn't), and knew what to do in the event of a problem (which I certainly didn't). The installation process took forever, involved "compiling the kernel", an arcane process which personally I found extremely frightening because at no point did you really have any idea what was happening. Then, if you got the thing installed (oh yeah, there was also partitioning my hard-drive, which was something that would also do your head right in), you found out that it was fairly nice.
Until you tried to go online, or install new software. The problem I had with going online was that my Windows computer only had a so-called "WinModem" (a stripped back bit of circuitry that would only work in Windows because Windows contained a lot of software voodoo to make it go). WinModems would not work in Linux. This took me over a week of slogging through HOWTO documents, frequent reinstallation of the software with different options in case I'd stupidly missed the bit about "activating internal modem", and much cussing and grunting, etc, before I found it out. Then I tried to install fresh software from a CD. Turns out installing software in Windows makes things look very easy. In Linux at the time, the user was required to take all the countless little bits of files and stuff involved in a typical software package, and put them all in their correct places in the Linux directory tree--manually. If, like me, you didn't know how to do this, you were pretty well screwed.
Flash-forward to now: I've got a new computer, with a proper hardware DSL modem (yay for broadband!), and new versions of Linux make software installation, finally, pretty easy. Not, it must be admitted, as painlessly easy as the Windows InstallShield system, but easy enough for a plodder like me to deal with, anyway. This past weekend I downloaded and installed a whole new updated set of system software, including a revised kernel, a revised version of KDE, and much else. It took ages, but it went very smoothly. I was way-impressed.
I find I'm spending increasing amounts of time hanging out in the Linux partition on this computer. When I go back to the Windows partition, I get harangued to download the latest Microsoft security update, and similar nonsense. It's like coming home after a fabulous holiday. This led me to think of my Linux partition as like a holiday home. And, like a holiday home, I've been gradually moving in more and more of my stuff from the Windows side. Most of my Internet bookmarks are there now, my writing stuff is over there--er, here, and slowly but surely it's all starting to look a lot more permanent, and I'm feeling increasingly reluctant to go back to Windows.
Next computer we get--unless it's a Mac--the first thing I'll do is get rid of Windows and load it up with a shiny new copy of Linux. Phwoar!
Posted by adrian at January 9, 2006 07:56 PM
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Comments
David--I'm currently enjoying Linux *as much* as if it was actually a Mac. I know current-generation Macs are sorta secretly running UNIX under all the shiny stuff, and Linux is UNIX for PCs, so it's a case of near-enough-is-good-enough for me, for the moment.
As for the dire bloody Botox: I'm hard pressed to tell if the stuff has had any kind of effect whatsoever. So far it just makes my forehead feel "heavy", but that's it. Big *$@)(_* deal!
Cheyenne--I have heard that "the GIMP" is a Photoshop-level graphics manipulation package, and that it's the bee's knees, etc, but I have no background with Photoshop, so even if I really liked GIMP, I could hardly recommend it in all fairness. If you could get your tech-savvy buddy to show you the thing running so that you could compare functions, etc, that might be a better way to go.
As for getting a good, painless Linux installation thingy, look for Simply MEPIS. No command-line scariness, unless you deliberately go looking for it. It's shiny, it takes the pain out of even partitioning your hard-drive, and is very very good. Doesn't update the software it comes with as often as you might like, but otherwise, it's the goods.
Pastamasta--I'm currently at the point where I'm saying, in conversation, ridiculous things like "I [heart] Linux!" I mean, I'm besotted with the damn thing, which is ridiculous. It reminds me very much of the time, years and years ago, when I got my first Macintosh. Love at first sight. Just smitten.
Posted by: Adrian Bedford at January 17, 2006 09:58 PM
That's awful about the failure of the Botox, but you look years younger right..?
Excellent to see you're getting off that MS junk, you won't know yourself once you're clear of it. Penguins aren't bad, but Macs are better. Windows is just insufferable.
Posted by: David S. at January 16, 2006 06:51 PM
Sounds like you're a convert - maybe not the full-on, road-to-Damascus type convert with the unkempt hair, mad rolling eyes and tendency to froth at the mouth when discussing your feverishly-clutched beliefs, but a convert nevertheless. I'm more a sort of lapsed agnostic of the Holy and Unreformed Church of UNIX, but I have Linuxistic leanings and suspect I will indulge in a Linux partition when I finally get around to building my new computer. Bring on the penguins!
Posted by: pastamasta at January 11, 2006 10:52 PM
That's too bad about the botox. Can you get a refund?
Look at you go with the tech stuff though, w00t!
I have often thought of switching to one of the Linux builds. I even have an install file for one a computer-genius-whiz friend recommended to me as being "the best" for "sort-of reasonably" computer savvy types like me. I forget which one it is though.
The biggest thing holding me back is that I would lose Photoshop. I must have Photoshop. Last time I checked, they still weren't making a Linux-compatible version, and even if they were, I already have 7.0 and couldn't afford to get it again. Oh, I know there are clones out there like Gimp and whatnot, but I would hate to have to convert my whole massive archive of .psd files to whatever clone I chose. Or, I could be risque and try installing a Windows shell in the Linux OS and running Photoshop that way, but my computer-genius-whiz friend made dark mutterings about that and didn't recommend it. And, like you, I wouldn't want to go through all the trouble of having both platforms on the computer just for that one program.
Alas, maybe one day... : ) Have fun with yours though!
Posted by: Cheyenne at January 10, 2006 08:41 AM
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