No, not Linux. Me! I was hitting all the usual Linux blogs as usual today, trying to find some inspiration for a new post, and I came across this. What was it that Terence Mann said to the Kevin Costner character in Field of Dreams? Something like 'build it and they will come'; the Linux equivalent would have to be 'rant and a few will groggily paw the sleep from their eyes and click through'. Naah, too long.
Well, on second thought, Linux is hitting it big. Seems like everybody and their Grandma is perking up their ears and wondering: 'what is this Linux you speak of', not so much with disdain, but open curiosity. I'll try to distill the knowledge of what I've learned about Linux in the short time (about six months) that I've been using it, though don't expect anything as insightful as a comment made by antirove in yesterday's diary.
First of all, why are you using or considering using Linux? Is it more from wanting to try something new, or based on a negative reaction to the platform you've been using all along? I never imagined I would be one of those Linux freaks; in fact I was perfectly happy using OS X Tiger.
I was trying to reinstall XP Home on the laptop of someone who had been a wee bit careless and let it get infested with over twelve thousand viruses, spyware, adware and various other malware (including some really nasty rootkits that would not die!), and when faced with the lengthy process of going through that whole ordeal again, and recently having heard from a colleague who was one of those Linux enthusiasts, decided to try OpenSuse.
The more I fiddled with OpenSuse, the more I liked it, though the experience was not without its pains; getting a Ralink rt61 wireless card to work under that distro was a truly infuriating and exasperating time.
When I did get it going, though, it was with a feeling of having been challenged and overcome the challenge; truly an 'a-ha moment'. I really did hate OpenSuse for a short while there, and the experience nearly killed my wanting to get to know any more about Linux; though after installing Dapper Drake (Ubuntu 6.06) and getting the same wireless card to work in a fairly short time sucked me further in.
So you could say it was not so much a rejection but a stronger attraction that led to the current state of affairs. Mac and Windows are great, but Linux just has so much more to offer me right now, and it only seems to be getting better.
Do you have newer hardware, or are you trying to keep an older rig around? If it's the latter, then expect to face some frustration, especially if you have some wireless setup that requires some severe fiddling to get going; if that is the case, and if at all possible, try to get an Ethernet connection for that older rig.
Your next best bet is to choose a distro that uses the latest kernel (2.6.21-x as of now); by the next kernel release, many of the troublesome wireless drivers that were unsupported natively will be in it. You can always check what distros have as far as their packages at this amazing site; the maintainer keeps absolutely meticulous records of what is included in every distro, including the kernel number.
If you've got a newer rig, then you might consider dual-booting or just using liveCDs, particularly if you're holding on to that second boot partition for gaming. If it's because of some mission critical app, then you might also consider using virtualization software that lets you run Windows inside of another operating system.
If you do decide you want to switch to Linux full-time, then your best bet is to choose a distro that is more user-friendly and easier to setup; something that has all the necessary audio and video codecs, either out of the box, or just a short graphical click or two away.
Six months ago is not today; the odds are that you can find a distro that is the absolute right fit for you, without a ton of fiddling; if you do want to check out what is under the hood to see how Linux really operates, then there are distros specifically with that in mind, though their number is ever dwindling --not the distros themselves, or even the communities surrounding them, but the Linux distros that require an absolute lock on the literature and familiarity with the command line interface.
Not that some knowledge of the CLI is bad, or terribly difficult, it just will take some adjustments in the way you think about your computing experience, and if you are like me, then you will want to get stuff done as quickly as possible; sometimes waiting for the pretty graphical menu is just so time-consuming, when you can just pop open a terminal shell and type in some quick thing, like (if you're in Ubuntu)
sudo apt-get install ttf-liberation
which will net you the GPLed TrueType fonts from Red Hat and Ascender Corporation with metrics similar to the Microsoft Fonts.
Just for a brief detour; if you are a big fan of music, then this is the site to hit, and now that Firefox has added its own torrent engine you don't even need to add another program. Get it and go. And when Firefox is shutdown, it still continues your download to completion. Pretty sweet. I still prefer ktorrent, but nice to know it's there if you need it.
And here's a nifty vid; installing OpenBSD in five minutes: