I've switched. Not from PC to Mac, but from Mac to Linux.
That's right. I'm a card-carrying geek.
But I've switched to the friendliest Linux flavor I could find: Ubuntu. It's free, it's open source, and it's MINE.
Mine, because everyone that uses Ubuntu owns Ubuntu. Everything is customizable, from the Desktop background down to the very kernel the operating system runs on. I can even use entirely different desktop environments if I want, kind of like being able to run a Mac OS 9-style interface on Mac OS X's code. Unlike a Mac, I can change the code anyway I want, and no one'll come after me with a lawyer.
In fact, if I make it better, they'll thank me. That's how I get tech support now: from other users, who have tweaked and poked and written code and twisted things to work just how they want, then published how-to's online. Check out the Ubuntu Forums for some examples.
So yeah, I've gotta use a command-line interface a little more now than before. And yeah, I've gotta spend time testing and tweaking some things to get them to work. But I *can* get them work, and I didn't have to pay a dime for them.
Oh, and did I mention I can get Windows games to run, in Linux, without booting up Windows? Check out the Wine project. That's the power of open source, folks.
3 comments:
Sweet. I am jealous.
Laura and I just jumped to Macs, mainly because we needed new systems, Vista=Vile, and we didn't feel like we had the time to teach ourselves Linux.
My lonely Ubuntu CD taunts me, though...
Dude, pop the Ubuntu CD in and try it out. You can even dual-boot OS X and Ubuntu on a Mac; that's what I'm doing on my Macbook.
And I understand hating Vista. Our new computers at work came with it, but we had to downgrade to XP to get anything done.
Nice blog! How did I miss this?
I tried Ubuntu a while back to resurrect my kids P3, but it seemed like Wine wouldn't lower itself to acknowledge their bargain bin games (Garfield math?).
They have our XP machine, and we got a Vista gaming computer. Vista > XP Sp 1 and 2 as far as speed. The Macbook is rocking too.
Howard County, MD library PCs all run on Ubuntu.
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