I love Linux. Really, I do. As an operating system it’s compact, powerful, and secure. As a principle it’s free and community oriented. Its position in the server market, particularly in the industry I find myself in, the Web, is the de facto standard. Mature distributions (distros) such as Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu have made installation and configuration a breeze, and certainly simpler than in the Windows domain that I inhabited until a year or so ago.
It was around that time, when I first installed Windows Vista, that I started to question the operating system I installed on my own machine. Vista was slow, unwieldy, clunky – a triumph of style over substance. Yet again, Microsoft believing that an upgrade in software warrants an upgrade in hardware (I can’t believe that that philosophy leads to good coding practices but that’s a discussion for another day). So I thought, 8 years after first attempting it, that it was time to revisit Linux.
Back in the late 90s I installed Red Hat on my desktop at home. The installation was relatively painless, but there was still a fair bit of tinkering required to get all my devices to work. And if I remember correctly, not all of them did. Some peripherals that I had were too new, others too old, a handful too obscure, and as a result I had a machine that was functional, but only just. I wasn’t bold enough to abandon my OS – NT at the time – entirely, so I dual-booted, always intending to play with Linux when I had the time. Time that never seemed to be there, so gradually my interest in Linux faded.
Back to the now, and my decision to reattempt Linux. I backed up all my important data, got hold of an Ubuntu Gutsy Live CD, and decided to bite the bullet. This time, no dual-boot. No hedging my bets. This time it would be a deep dive into the new and not-so-very familiar world of Linux. Back to real-world computing. I would get to grips with the command line and understand what was going on under the covers – covers that Windows had thrown between my computer and me over the years, taking me further and further away from the things I needed to understand to be able to troubleshoot.
Well, I was surprised to find just how easy the transition was. The Live CD showed me what Ubuntu would look like before I even installed it, and the installation process was simple. Things just worked. All my devices were picked up, and I found the process so pain-free that I even recommended the operating system to my father – a retired palaeontologist by trade and a bit of a hobby technologist – and he, too, has become an enthusiast.
I have since found myself a bit of an evangelist. Just ask my colleagues. But there is a nagging feeling at the back of my mind… can I yet recommend it to a non-techie? Would I tell my mother, or my wife, to install it? The answer here is no. And for very good reasons.
I have found that, for all the “it just works” philosphy of Linux, there are too many areas where “it just doesn’t”. Where you HAVE to venture into the command line to work out what’s going on. Where you need to sudo this, modprobe that, dpkg-configure the next thing…. things that I don’t mind (and to be honest really enjoy) doing, but things that I could not ask someone without my interest in the underlying nuts-and-bolts to do. I don’t see how Ubuntu can appeal to the average home user when it’s such a mission to connect your Bluetooth mouse (don’t select the Browse Device option, oh no… you need first to click on Input Service and then find your device), or when I have to reboot 4 times to get my wireless card to wake from a deep sleep.
But also, while the number of applications listed in the repositories is large, there are too many applications that the average user will expect to find in Linux that aren’t there. I haven’t yet found a suitable alternative to Visio. OpenOffice does a very good job with the remaining Office Applications – I don’t find myself missing Word or Excel – but Evolution is a pain when you connect to an Exchange Server. And if my nephew can’t run Spore – well, I just might find myself disowned as an uncle.
I really, really, like Linux. I feel that I understand the applications I’m installing now. I’ve had to learn – and that’s the problem. We’re a lot further down the road than we were when I first installed, but there’s still a long way to go.
This time, though – I’m sticking with it.
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