That’s mostly been my impression of Linux. I suppose it would be easier if all you were doing was checking email and browsing the internet, or doing one of the several other ‘normal’ things on it, but for a power user… BTW, I’d have better known what I was getting into if I had read your backlog before I posted. Imagine dukeing it out with a self-described Ubuntu evangelist.
I’ll heartily agree with Internet Explorer’s basic ineptness at rendering basic websites. I do quite a bit of CSS and PHP web development (I’m apprenticed to a web developer who owns her own business, works full time as a web developer, and home schools her three kids. I’m not sure how she does it all) and routinely have trouble making things look right in IE. I actually have five browsers for testing installed on my computer.
I found some programing jems in the backlog–I’ve bookmarked a lot for later reference.

Let me guess…was it a Windows server that crashed your site? Too bad about that–there must have been a lot of good writing there.
As for the book like responses, I always have enjoyed learning new things–and having a lively discussion is even better!

Have you heard? Bill Gates actually retired!

Quote: “A dual install is definitely a solution, but I don’t want to swap back and forth between OS’s.”

Are you referring to keeping your files up to date on both systems? Or are you worried about switching back in the middle of the day? I’m not sure about XP and Ubuntu, but I can set quite a few applications to share files (like email databases in Thunderbird) between the Vista and XP. I also use a browser plug in called Foxmarks that synchronizes Firefox bookmarks. Also, GRUB allows you to hibernate your system and choose which OS to boot back up into; A process that gets quicker the in proportion to memory you have. Read: quicker with less memory. I’ve had some instability, but only on my first try; since, everything seems to have worked fine.

Speaking of apple, have you had much experience with macs? I know your dad got one. I would kind of like to get one, but the sticker shock is substantial. Do you know how much you actually have to spend to get a decent mac?

Do you need your network drivers for your Novell network, or a windows network, or a Linux network? I’m assuming it wasn’t for a windows network. I don’t know why Microsoft never really took the time to add any decent networking functionality into Windows. They have caused me so many headaches since we got a second computer, about two years ago. Vista seems to work a lot better in that area, but I’m still not convinced Microsoft got it right. I don’t even worry about security; all I need is something to keep the neighbors from stealing our wireless internet. To run a Novell network, you have to have a server, correct?

I’m running HH Ubuntu: v8.04.

Quote: “You will not find that on ANY Windows system as most software written for Windows costs money”

And 90% of it drags on your computer, even when you’re not running the program!

Quote: “In about 60 seconds I can insert a disk and break into their system without any effort at all on my part, and I am not even a hacker.”

Microsoft’s policy: if the 3rd party is in physical possession of the computer, it’s not considered ‘breaking in’. Or some such thing.
Quote: “Americans will be migrating to Linux out of necessity rather than by choice.”

People have been wondering what Microsoft will do (other than fixing what they have already) when they finally create what Vista was supposed to be: the perfect operating system. Maybe they will go out of business.
Quote: “Idealistically, I believe in a completely open internet society where no one person and his/her technology dictates the terms by which we live our electronic lives.”

The truth (and and open standards) will set you free!
Quote: “we can stage a bloodless revolution of getting back to quality of life rather than the economic driven, fast-food oriented existence that is now called the United States of America.”

Now that’s something to pray for!

Struggling with all His energy, which [can] so powerfully work in [us].

Jonathan.

P.S. You’ve given my the determination to try Ubuntu again this weekend. We’ll see how it goes…

Now, to be perfectly honest here, I use and rely on XP for many things. My hopeless addiction (and enormous investment) to Adobe is what keeps me running on a MS based OS. However my Open Source experiment was an attempt to replace mostly Adobe. I do a lot of design work so I need a design oriented system, and while I found I could replace very specific applications with open source alternatives, I was still tormented by the fact that I spent an enormous amount of my own personal money for the Adobe suite and I felt that I was somehow wasting my money by going the open source route. I tried several emulators but found that the Adobe software was far too sophisticated to be handled by things like ‘Wine’. A dual install is definitely a solution, but I don’t want to swap back and forth between OS’s. I was able to play all kinds of media with the Linux system, but I need to clarify this a bit. I use ‘WinAmp’ and there is some back end hacking so you can play certain extensions. This is where the ’support’ part of my job comes into play. I would not expect an average user to do this as it requires a certain level of application understanding.

Regarding Vista: Don’t take me wrong, I think Vista is one of the most beautiful interfaces I have ever seen. Second only to Apple. Apple pretty much runs the show in my opinion as far as aesthetics and reliability. The only problem with Apple is the sheer expense of the units, which they are working on. Apples are starting to really come into the correct price points for actual market penetration, and they need to do that if they want to be viable on a large scale, and not just for the Apple snobs. In addition I really like the new MS office 2007, not only is it beautiful but it is remarkably useful and functional as well. Now to clarify, I don’t have problems with drivers necessarily, just that I have to go looking for them, which is basically the same with Linux. A base Linux install will have the core components necessary to get up and running, however you will have to go looking for drivers the same as with a Windows installation. One difference I have noticed is that I have NEVER had to go looking for a network driver for a Linux install but about 90% of the Windows I install I have to go download it and install. I am basing this on the fact that I install Windows on a couple of hundred systems per year at the school district. True there are some systems that you will not have to go get drivers for a Windows system however when you work on several hundred you get a much better statistical look at how much work a Windows OS really is. You can read much of my Linux experiement in the earlier posts of this blog and see the trouble spots I hit during the trial. One thing I will mention however is that last year Ubuntu was in its ‘Feisty Fawn’ stage, it has now introduced a new iteration called ‘Hardy Heron’. I actually installed ‘Edgy Eft’, ‘Feisty Fawn’, ‘Gutsy Gus’ and ‘Hardy Heron’ iterations. The ‘HH’ iteration is extremely robust and the use of the package manager is seamless and extremely remarkable. Using their Synaptic pack manager searches repositories for just about ANY Open Source software you can name, and the installation is fast and seamless. You will not find that on ANY Windows system as most software written for Windows costs money and when you multiply those lisences on a public school scale Windows systems costs thousands per machine. This is something most users will not see as most use just a small handful of programs.

When migrating to the Linux world on a ‘user level’ the transition can be a bit on the difficult side simply because Linux is somewhat unfamiliar. However, people have found that migrating to a Apple OS is much more painful as the two OS’s don’t have anything in common in actuality. The GNOME interface on Linux is so similar to Windows most users don’t have a problem at all using it, once shown where everything is, such as Open Office stuff, and the Internet, which is where almost 100% of people spend about 100% of their time. Firefox is not only faster than Internet Explorer, but it is also much more stable, it is much more secure and it is much more safe. Firefox is the ultimate web browser where this is concerned, however again, most people are used to clicking on the big blue ‘E’. In addition, Internet Explorer does not support the web rules that the entire world has pretty much adopted as standard. The reason why is because MS wants to rule the world where the Internet is concerned and is pretty much refusing to adopt any standards written by anyone but themselves. It is this arrogance that inflames me the most with regard to MS and Apple, although Apples ‘Safari’ browser adopts more standards than MS and will even support CMYK images which is far superior to the ‘RGB’ standards on web-based images in quality and usability. Firefox has yet to support CMYK, but I presume it is on it’s way. MS barely supports CSS 2 let alone CSS 3 which is coming soon. However Firefox supports CSS 2 stylings plus a majority of the CSS 3 stuff.

With regard to Brazil, yes, it is still pretty much Jungle however its major cities are bigger than the major cities in the U.S. Here is the thing, the United States believes that they are superior in ALL aspects of life simply because the economy is so good, however what people in general fail to realize is that there are other aspects to life other than economy. Many nations who do not enjoy our economic status are superior in technological usage, overall health status, fulfillment in life, educational status and overall human capital. The United States lags behind a lot of the world in many, many issues. With regard to computer technology the Finish and the Irish pretty much rule the landscape, and the programmers there are much more sophisticated and write much more beautiful code that is much more elegant and sustainable. We don’t see alot of this because we are 1. Trapped in American idealism, and 2. Trapped inside a computer world ruled by Bill Gates. As soon as we begin to drop this infatuation with Microsoft we will start realizing a world much more broad.

Idealistically, I believe in a completely open internet society where no one person and his/her technology dictates the terms by which we live our electronic lives. There are tons of applications that are so superior to anything Windows can produce, but we will never see them, because we are not really looking for them. Most of the rest of the world refuses to use Microsoft if it is even given to them simply because Windows is the most non-secure operating system on the planet. Hackers and identify thieves love Windows users because it is so easy to get important information from a Windows unit. At the school district teachers often forget their passwords of their windows machines. In about 60 seconds I can insert a disk and break into their system without any effort at all on my part, and I am not even a hacker. The biggest problem with Windows is that it was NEVER designed or meant to run on a network which is why a Windows network is the most shoddy ever created. Windows constantly has to come out with fixes, to patch the humongous holes in their networks, and the thing never has much more than a 90% uptime. I would never run a Windows network on any organization that relys on protecting information such as a school district. Now to be clear, you can run a Windows machine on a non-Windows network which is what we do at our school district. The Novell network is the most superior network in my opinion in all the world, and it interfaces with Windows with no problems, but it interfaces with Linux machines seamlessly. Novell own the Suse Linux distribution and I will soon be migrating to Suse (although I don’t like it as much as Ubuntu) simply for this fact. In the past year we have not once had an issue with our Novell network and have pretty much maintained a 100% uptime provided the electricity stays on. In addition, with GroupWise, and Zenworks and the very competitive pricing any organization that is NOT using Novell to manage their network either has sub-par admins, or the ‘weenie’ effect is in play. I can say this without any guilt or fear as I have run both types of networks.

Finally. With regard to your mothers question, there are many, many, many levels of IT workers, so she may be getting some of the roles confused. A Novell network administrator should be remarkably competitive in todays market. If I took my current Novell skills to a large metropolitan area I could quite easily command a 100k plus salary. With my current Linux expertise I could pretty much command roughly the same salary. But in the Windows world, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a Windows guy, so going by supply/demand principles I would be hard pressed to say that Windows admins get more capital, except for the idea that Windows admins work 24/7 simply because of the instability of the Windows network. That is not the way I want to live my life. I get paid only around 40k per year, but my weekends belong to me and when I leave the school district my time is mine, which is much more valuable to me than a six figured income. Again, I have personally made the choice that economics was not going to run my life and I was going to look at a FULL life rather than one dictated by the almighty but failing dollar.

One of the reasons why I started the WildCraft site is because I have begun breaking away from the norm and an economic ran lifestyle. I want fulfillment, and joy and I don’t see these things in the coorperate world of charletons and flim-flam sales representatives. The cost of our goods is enormously over priced so I am making small moves to get away from this for me and my family. This is plays somewhat into my dislike of Microsoft. If the rest of the world is not using Microsoft then why? Is it because they are so inferior and uneducated than Americans? I don’t believe so. It is also my personal opinion that in the not-to-distant future Americans will be migrating to Linux out of necessity rather than by choice. The public school systems are being hit very, very hard by economic woes at this time. A 40 pound bag of dehydrated milk has gone from $30 a bag to $110 a bag in less than a year. I see this as a sign of troubled times ahead and am looking for ways that my family can enjoy a rich full life, without the burden of an economically driven country. America doesn’t have better people, or necessarily a better national system we just have more money. Proof of this is the declining morality, increasing costs, and the overall dumbing down of our citizens. However that is a different rant for a different blog.

I appreciate the dialogue immensely and for what it is worth, your questions and comments have actually helped me galvanize my ideas. It is readers like you who are willing to ‘enter the conversation’ rather than being an observer only, that help us better this world. Keep asking the tough questions, keep making the tough comments and never apologize for your inquisitive nature and suspicion for the status quo. I believe together we can do much more than make a difference, we can stage a bloodless revolution of getting back to quality of life rather than the economic driven, fast-food oriented existence that is now called the United States of America.

Peace be with you, and yours.