The Linux Saga, Part 1: The Leap Home?

A tale of operating systems & stubbornness, with one too many relationship analogies.

Part 1 | Part 2 (sooner) | Part 3 (soon)

The permanent desktop.

First, two disclaimers:

1) Yes, I am a walking contradiction… 2) This is not a review of Linux Mint.

So, I just obliterated my Windows 7 installation and installed Linux Mint. No dual booting, no safety nets…How did this happen to an Apple fanboy-turned-Windows 7 fanboy? (Subquestion: Did it have something to do with my third Xbox 360 dying? You’re goddamn right it did!)

After being seduced (the perfect word for their marketing) by Apple’s Macbook Pro in 2007 and succumbing to the ear-shattering buzz of the 1st generation iPhone, I was later disenchanted with constant hardware failures and a steady feeling of “well, Mr. Jobs, this isn’t just working.” After stubbornly defending all products coming out of Cupertino, I think it was the fact that it took Apple 2 freaking years to put a copy and paste function on this ‘groundbreaking’ smart phone.

Know what else? I recently traded that 2007 Macbook Pro for an HP Pavillion dv6000 series laptop.  Straight across. Yep, that happened. And my once amazing iPhone has been relegated to a $300 skype phone with 1 hour of talk time per charge.

(I also came to realize I had essentially paid $2000 for Garageband. But these are different stories.)

The one that sealed the deal.

Before the love affair with Apple, around 2005, I flirted with Linux because it appealed to my then-developing inner power user. I read Distrowatch religiously, reading at least 3 reviews each for flavors of linux like Redhat, Fedora, Debian, and SuSE, and then simply deciding to try them all. I would spend hours upon hours well into the early dawn setting up my hardware, tweaking the look and feel of the desktop, learning the installation routines until I could do them in my sleep. At the time, Linux felt like a just-out-of-reach paradise whose requirement for entry was a ton of frustration.

Let’s flash forward to October 2009. I got myself a taste of Windows 7, and realized Microsoft had finally delivered a proper sequel to XP. Still a bit bloated, but damn light on its feet. It booted fast, it understood my hardware, it was sexy. Except, remember that laptop I acquired? The HP DV6208nr? It slowed to a crawl with Aero activated. It protested my furious multitasking. The cooling fans threatened to spin right out of the case at the mere hint of audio editing.

Then the 360 crashed yesterday. All things Microsoft were about to get kicked to the curb on principle (and somewhat literally.)

Tomorrow:

• The surprisingly easy installation of Linux Mint. Everything just worked. Out of the box. Srsly!
• How all of this ties into Indie Arcade & Insomnia Radio. And my next podcast idea…
• How exactly Mint blows away Windows 7, in very non-technical terms.
• Why after being afraid to fall in love with Linux, I’m finally ready to commit.