The Linux thread

My first real attempt to use Linux was with Mandrake, back before it became Mandriva. I found it to be a little too limited (I had a lot of trouble installing applications and the like... it was almost as though it shipped without make). Anyway, it's been a couple years or so, and I'm using Ubuntu 6.10 right now.

One of my teachers had us perform an Ubuntu install on some machines in a class, and I really liked how it turned out. That class has focused pretty heavily on learning Linux (probably due to the leanings of the teacher), but a few days ago, he had us boot into Windows and things started going nuts. Keyboards and mice weren't being recognized, the network bogged down due to all of the machines downloading spyware and antivirus updates all at once, etc. It was pretty funny.

I've been using Ubuntu for something like a month or two now, and I'm still learning new things (esoteric terminal commands and such), but I've gotten pretty accustomed to it. Aptitude and all the various repositories are such a great idea. Imagine how much people would love to have something like that for Windows--but it will never happen due to licensing conflicts. I wish I could switch over to Linux completely, but there are a few things that I just can't do in Linux that I can in Windows, so I'm dual booting Ubuntu and WinXP. I really only boot into Windows when I need to rip a DVD and encode it to XviD or when I want to play some Windows-only game.

Jam it back in, in the dark.