Monday, August 6, 2007

Linux we hardly knew ye

I gave it a shot.

I tried. I really did.

But Linux isn't for me. Or, at least, not for my computers.

Oh, I really, really want to give it a shot. It's just more work than I'm wanting to put into it right now.

Here's the deal. I've been interested in running Linux on a computer for some time. Linux has lots of things I like.

For one thing, it's secure. Or, at least, much more secure than Microsoft Windows.

And it reminds me of the "old days" with computers. Before Windows.

You see, I've had a computer in one form or another for ... gosh ... 25 years. Actually, longer than that.

I had a Tandy Color Computer 2 (the "CoCo 2"), an Adam (remember those?), a TRS-80 Model 4, an MC-10 ... before joining the PC universe with a Tandy 1000.

The Tandy 1000 ran MS-DOS 2.11 ... and actually still ran the last time I booted it up, just a few years ago. I eventually added Windows 2.03 to it. Of course, it was running DOS 3.2 by then. Later DOS 5 and DOS 6 ... and, of course, Windows 3.0 then 3.1.

I had gone beyond the Tandy 1000 to a "put together" PC. I used Windows 95, then Windows 98. When I bought my first Gateway, it came with Windows ME (which sucked then, and still sucks today). I upgraded to Windows XP almost as soon as it came out.

Eventually, I broke down and bought a laptop (Gateway) ... and eventually replaced it with a newer laptop (Dell). They still run Windows XP Professional.

Only, the whole time, I wondered if there was something else. Something ... well, if not better, more exciting and fun.

And I've been tinkering with Linux for a bit.

I bought SuSE Linux (now Novell Linux) back when version 9.0 came out. I tried it on a couple of computers. A Compaq server I bought 2nd-hand, as well as the Gateway (which had retired from service).

Frustrated with issues with performance ... related to hardware, I thought ... I decided to use Windows 2003 for a server instead, and did for a bit.

I stopped hosting myself, and took the servers down, wanting to find something for a side project.

That's when fellow blogger Joe pointed me to Ubuntu Linux.

I really liked Ubuntu ... except for one thing.

It works very well. Very fast. Very friendly. It surprised me just how well it worked.

Except for one thing.

The Gateway M305X video card won't work with Ubuntu Linux to give a resolution higher than 800 x 600. And I want 1024 x 768. And I won't budge off of this. Anyway, some of the screens don't fit 800 x 600 very well.

So, with much misgivings, I took Ubuntu off and put Windows XP on.

I'm not saying I'm done with Ubuntu. I am saying that it's done as far as that computer is concerned.

Which means, for me anyway, I won't be using Ubuntu for my personal PC. I'm still looking at setting it up as a server. But not for my personal PC.

For that, I must stay in the Windows XP world.

For now.

But that might change.

Very soon.

Very, very soon.

More about that ... and a trip we took ... later.

2 comments:

  1. XP: eXtra Pain
    Vista: Vile Interface Sure To Agonize

    ReplyDelete
  2. LOL!

    But, you might be surprises where all this is going. More later.

    ReplyDelete

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