by Ethan Johnson
December 23, 2006

Set the Wayback Machine(tm) for November 30, 2005:

I don't intend to bore the [marbles] out of everyone with constant platitudes and gripes about my forays into Linux. What I will say, however, is that I ended up going "all in" about a month earlier than planned. My Windows installation died last night, and rather than repair it, I wiped my entire hard drive out and started fresh. (After backing up everything critical, that is.) There will be no "weaning" here. I'm committed now, and so the fun begins.

Ohh baby, am I all in.

Transitioning from Windows [anything] to Ubuntu Linux wasn't a complete walk in the park, but over the past year or so I am really settling in. In fact, from time to time, I lean back, stare wistfully at my computer, and think happily, "this is the right relationship!" Well, besides the one with Marlena, but she's supportive of my nerdiness.

Granted, I'm "into Linux" like children are "into" whatever [item] came in a gigantic box and are content to make a fort out of the box, etc, and maybe someday will get around to using whatever was inside of it. Scanning through the list of available packages (programs) for my particular choice in Linux operating systems, it's clear that I am hardly scratching the surface of the full capabilities of my OS. BUT, as I explained to a friend recently, the joy of Linux is that it changes with you. Compare that to other, shall we say, rigid operating systems, if not in design, certainly in intent.

Rather than give a dissertation on all of the Neat Stuff that my OS contains (to my knowledge), I'll provide an overview as to how I thought my life would change, be ruined, etc by dumping Windows. If you have been wondering if such a switch is right for you, you'll probably still be wondering by article's end. But good on you for considering switching.

What I Use(d) Windows For:

• HTML/web management: EditPad, totally. Loved it, loved it, thought my life would be meaningless without it.
• Music production: Done using Acid 4.0 (loop-based recording).
• Light graphic design work (resizing, rotating, adjusting color levels): Fireworks 4.
• Watching video files: Windows Media Player, mostly, although DivxPlayer, RealPlayer, QuickTime Players used as needed.
• Listening to music: WMP again.
• Writing/blogging: EditPad, primarily. Word for times when I needed markup.
• Web surfing: IE at first, but eventually Firefox.
• Instant Messaging: Yahoo Instant Messenger.
• Excel/Word/Access: The usual raft of Office tools produced by MSFT (and sold separately, as in, not bundled with the OS).
• Email: Outlook
• Anti-virus: Norton [year].

After Switching to Linux:

• HTML/web management: Done with GEdit, which is as indispensible to me as EditPad.
• Music production: Audacity, although I friggin' HATE Audacity relative to Acid. This is one of those areas where if I get desperate, I use Marlena's computer. Music production doesn't seem to be "there" yet with Linux, although I am seeing rumblings to the contrary by way of Ardour, among other applications.
• Light graphic design work (resizing, rotating, adjusting color levels): I use the GIMP. It was kinda awkward at first, but I got better at it. Fireworks is better IMHO out of the gate, but what d'ya want for nothing?
• Watching video files: KMPlayer, nearly exclusively. I use VLC as needed if a file type is really weird. But KMP handles nearly everything.
• Listening to music: Beep Media Player. It works, I like it. I never got into wacky stuff like AmaroK, but I might have if I were say, 22.
• Writing/blogging: I write my articles in GEdit first and then plug everything in to the web-based publishing interface. When a post gets "eaten", I am a few cut/paste moves away from restoration. Tip: Unless you can't avoid it, NEVER post "raw" in a web-based CMS unless you're into frustration.
• Web surfing: Firefox. Nothing changed.
• Instant Messaging: Kopete, which is kind of like Trillian in that it can work with more than one IM account simultaneously. I am using it for Yahoo (instead of the official YIM for Linux) and am running AOL IM to communicate with my cousin from time to time.
• Excel/Word/Access: OpenOffice. I tried KOffice and it annoyed me. But either choice is free, and the tools do what little I need them to, like display the sum/average of 2+ data cells.
• Email: Evolution, which is OK, but now I am finally actively figuring out Thunderbird. Evolution is on the way out, once Thunderbird becomes fully operational. Otherwise I use GMail anyway, which is fairly OS-independent.
• Anti-virus: Clam AV, which doesn't mean much to me. Linux isn't plagued by viruses in the way that Windows is. Although someone raised an excellent point recently that if you're running Windows-based programs with WINE, then you need an anti-virus program that can stand up to the abuse. Good thing I never got into using WINE.

The Joy of Linux:

• Let's cut to the chase: It's fucking free. Deal.
• Ubuntu is upgraded every 6 months on a set schedule. Since my transition, I went from Breezy to Dapper to Edgy. My work computer, by contrast, went from Windows 2000 to Windows 2000. And that's since 2001.
• Linux is totally customizable. Into astrophysics? There's a Linux OS for that (right? Yes, sorta.). Into multimedia? There's an OS for that too. The graphic at the top of this page is from my current "installation", the Ubuntu Satanic Edition. Yes, it's a joke. (Insert "Devil in my ASCII" joke here.) Yes, there really is a Christian Edition that is not a joke. How long until the Zen edition, which is either a white or black screen? Or the Reincarnation Edition, where if it crashes, it comes back as a more stable OS? How about the Evolution Edition, where you start with Ubuntu or Linux XP and end up with Gentoo? Endless possibilities, man. You know, just like reality.
• It runs on your existing computer. If I wanted to switch to OS X, I'd need to buy an Apple product. Yeah, lemme spend the equivalent of a mortgage payment on a computer that runs OS X. Oh, and lest you think that this is a PC thing, Linux runs on the Mac.
• The package manager (Adept, in my case) is frickin' amazing. It's kinda like The Matrix where 30 seconds ago, you didn't have a fully functional stargazing guide loaded on your system, nor a professional-grade publishing tool, nor 10 different multimedia tools to audit and noodle around with. Now you do.
• Yes, even a "friendly" OS like Ubuntu (I use Kubuntu, the KDE variant) requires a fair amount of time mucking about with the Command Line Interface. But Windows requires some CLI action too, actually. The difference is, the Linux CLI is fun. For example, creating a video with Windows-based software results in a file size around 100mb for 10 minutes of video, depending on the software used. That same file can be dramatically reduced without quality loss using the Linux CLI and a nifty tool called FFMPEG. Can Windows do that purely through the CLI? No, it cannot.
• However, the CLI can be really annoying, specifically when compiling source code. I suppose this is a "minus" compared to graphical installers used in Windows, except you can see the source code chug along and explain what is working and what isn't (more or less), whereas if a Windows installer hangs, you're totally in the dark as to why.
• Kubuntu doesn't nag the [marbles] out of you to install system updates. This may be because "updates" are typically in the form of updated programs that you have loaded on your system, not [security] patches to the OS itself. Marlena's computer has been nagging all week, and I just installed a raft of patches. Sighghghghghhhh.
• Removing a program is as simple as launching Adept, pressing "request removal" next to the offending/unwanted application, and applying the change. Best part: Even updates to the Linux kernel do not require restarts. Hear me? No mandatory restarts EVER. Although I have found that voluntarily restarting once in a while helps things run a bit smoother.
• I have yet to have the entire OS crash. Individual programs, yes, most notably Firefox (a universal complaint, apparently). I think I crashed my OS once but it took extraordinary skill on my part, and it was MY doing, not the failings of the OS itself.

The Pain of Linux (for me):

• Software availability has been the one thorn in my side. For example, for whatever dumb reason, YouTube won't work with Flash 7, but it will with Flash 8. Linux was stuck at 7 for the longest time, which meant no YouTube, or anything else Flash-based, really. Finally, the skies parted and Flash 9 was released for Linux. It still locks up from time to time, but I'm satisfied.
• Video and Music production applications are woefully lacking. I know that I'm expecting a lot from free software. But for-fee software does indeed exist for Linux, and yes, I will pay for the good stuff. But I need to know what/where the good stuff is. Cinelerra is a ball of confusion and probably way more than I'll ever need. But Photoshop is feature-rich too, and I can still "just" resize an image with it. I have yet to successfully do anything with Cinelerra save for getting immensely frustrated. Kino has been utterly useless to me. Audacity is "OK", except I don't like that the effects are half-duplex (they can only be heard during playback, not recording). Acid is just plain wayyyy better, and I need to get over this and try using Ardour some more. Hydrogen is not a replacement in any way, shape or form for FruityLoops. If it is, please, please show me the light. Please.
• Streaming audio and video is really flaky, for me. I think I finally got it to work using Konqueror as my browser, and plugging the URL of whatever the embedded file is into my address bar. Yeah, kinda defeats the purpose of having browser plug-ins that are supposed to do all of that stuff. Windows Media (WMV/A, ASF) was totally out of the question until a few days (!) ago. If I could download the file, however, then yes, KMPlayer can deliver. But that's not streaming. Embedded QuickTime files are equally vexing to my OS/browser.
• The good news: Linux software development is like the joke about the weather in [city]: If you don't like it, wait 5 minutes. Well, Linux is more like "wait 5 months for the Alpha of whatever you were hoping for", but who is complaining?

Anyway, I like Linux. Can't believe it's been over a year since I switched! <EM>