Friends,
Indulge me as I take a moment to vent.
Firstly, my real name is Rick and I live in Canada. I'm a computer hobbiest and build machines for myself, family and friends. As you've probably guessed, I'm well versed in Windows. And you'd think a guy who knows his way around a particular operating system would stick with it. But it's precisely why I sought an alternative. Why? Read my rant.
Now, I don't mind helping people and giving tech advise for free -- I receive on average an email or phone call a day. And I would happily excuse the intrusions if I thought the problems were temporary and that things were getting better. But, sadly, they're not. Bugs aside, you can't go a day without hearing about vulnerabilities in the code, viruses and worms, spam and spyware bombing XP. And I'm not talking minor glitches. I'm talking, computers slowed to a crawl from spyware, browsers that refuse to disply or install plug-ins, broken networking that defies logic, magical disappearing DLLs. corrupted boot loaders and file systems -- I could go on. Some people are honestly afraid to use their computers. This is absolutely silly.
No more can I swallow the propaganda that Microsoft feeds its customers. If they sold cars, the Japanese would have put them out of business. But because they have no competition, they are able to sell such a shoddy product.
Enter Linux.
About nine months ago, in a fit of frustration, I downloaded a copy of Peanut Linux and installed it on a PC I had that was slated for yet another XP reinstall. I wasn't expecting much as my previous and only encounter with Linux was Redhat 5. The install went surprisingly smooth, and when KDE 3.1 loaded, I just stared in awe -- it was beautiful. I played with it for a couple of days, even the kids thought it was groovy with all the cute games and stuff, wiped it clean and returned it to its owner with bare and boring XP. But my appetite had been whetted.
Further trials and tribulations later proved that, in my humble opinion, Debian truly has the best packaging system going. With a Knoppix base, I was able to build a wonderful desktop that I now enjoy on my main PC. Linux has proven to be solid, stable and reliable for most of my purposes. If an app doesn't work, there is a valid reason and usually a fix or an upgrade that will correct it. The PC is now faster and I enjoy the consistant performance of applications. This thing will run indefinitely without a reboot and all on Debian unstable, a misnomer if any. I too like the Debian credo and their dedication to doing things right.
Okay, I sound like a cheerleader. It's not perfect -- I can't manage to extract multiple .rar files into one, and Open Office still can't handle real complicated Word documents. But it's 98% there. For most people I deal with, it's 100. And when I'm completely comfortable with my level of competance, I will offer this option to my relatives and friends.
It's been a long time since I've harboured excitement and anticipation for anything computer related. My first PC, with Windows 95, intrigued me until I discovered how utterly untrustworthy it was. Further releases got prettier and more bloated with features, and somewhat more stable, but the vulnerabilities remained. I hope that the rise of Linux will knock Microsoft off their pedestal of complacency and force them to build security into their operating system. I certainly don't wish to see them obliterated -- competition is a good thing -- as they do have some neat things that are easy to use and a lot of people like.
As for me, Linux meets my needs and most definitely serves me well. And it will only get better.
I look forward to reading everyones' stories of why they run Linux.
Cheers.