Back to the World of Windows
A good friend from #wordpress, Podz, has been chronicling his switch from Windows to Ubuntu Linux, and now back to windows on his blog. His latest post about the switch explains why he made his choice. I must say, Podz must have infinite patience, as he stuck with Ubuntu for a bit of time. I, however, couldn't even last a day with it being my primary OS. Ubuntu markets itself as Linux for Human Beings, and yes, it was more user-friendly than other Linux systems I have tried (gentoo is not for the faint of heart), but if Linux ever wants to make it to a wider audience, it has to make it so Joe Schmo can install it and use it with ease. I realize that the reason we find Linux hard is because, as Linux groupies would say, we've been trained to do things the wrong way with Windows our entire lives. While this may be true, that's not going to help them get any converts. The #ubuntu support channel was helpful when I installed it, but the learning curve was steep enough that I gave up, and returned to XP. Knowing that uber-genius Podz did the same, I no longer feel like such a dolt. So, if you really do want an alternative to Windows but don't want to learn Linux and suffer the trials and tribulations that Podz and many others have suffered, maybe you should, I can't believe I'm saying this, get a Mac.