Apology to Linux

[johnridley]

Last time I tried Linux on the desktop for real was probably 3 or 4 years ago. When I installed it back then, I didn't like it, but figured I'd stick with it for as long as possible and see if I grew to like it. I didn't.

Since then I've maintained that while it may work for a lot of people, it didn't work for me.

However, this latest attempt looks like it may very well stick permanently. Everything has been quite easy to get going. I've found Linux native equivalents for nearly everything I do. The only hard exception is that my Epson scanner simply is not, and never will be, supported; Epson just isn't interested in even releasing specs. So for that reason I have a virtualbox install of XP with just those drivers and Photoshop (I think I will actually try using GIMP instead, to see if I can get used to that).

There are still a few programs for which I can't find equivalents, mainly astronomy software. For those, I'm using Windows programs, but WINE (the system that allows running Windows software under Linux) is apparently pretty mature and these programs seem to be running just fine under Linux.

I've been moving all my hard drive data over to ext4 volumes; I've never liked NTFS anyway, and I trust an OS running its native filesystem better. Also ext4 seems blazing fast compared to NTFS. But moving a number of terabytes over to a temp space, reformatting the drive, then moving it back takes a lot of time, especially since mostly I'm moving the data over USB. Start a copy, go to work. Start another copy, go to sleep. etc.

Comments

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

To be fair to *Linux*, it's been in pretty good shape over the last few years. Its UI elements, however, needed a lot of work the last time I touched it. I liked Gnome for a lot of the desktop stuff but found the KDE apps to be a lot more mature.

But it's good to hear that it's continuing to get better.

FWIW, I still run windows on my mac to get access to the scanner functionality of my canon laser printer.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

I agree about the UI elements being bad a few years ago, but it's actually very nice looking now. I've got no complaints at all, and that's coming from having used Windows 7 for a couple of months, so I was acclimated to "pretty" stuff.