{"id":37,"date":"2008-08-05T15:00:21","date_gmt":"2008-08-05T07:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/play.datalude.com\/blog\/?p=37"},"modified":"2008-08-19T08:51:34","modified_gmt":"2008-08-19T00:51:34","slug":"primetime-linux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/play.datalude.com\/blog\/2008\/08\/primetime-linux\/","title":{"rendered":"PrimeTime Linux"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I've been thinking of setting up a company to set people up with Open Source workplaces, and every year that goes past makes me think that the time is almost here.<\/p>\n<p>There are a number of factors which are conspiring to make Linux a viable alternative:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The fact that Linux, via distributions such as Ubuntu, Mandriva, Suse et al, are now easy enough to install and intuitive enough for the Everyday User. I set my girlfriend up with an account on a spare laptop and just let her play. Soon enough she was asking for it on her laptop as well.<\/li>\n<li>OpenOffice. Enough said. Hardly anyone uses the full feature set of Word, so why do we slavishly upgrade every time a new version comes out? Well actually we don't &#8230;<!--more--><\/li>\n<li>The nightmare of Vista. Hardware incompatibilities galore, a confusing new interface with more eyecandy than improved usability, increased hardware requirements. The security enhancements which, ahem, aren't really all that more secure, are they?<\/li>\n<li>Open source = no license fees. Can't argue with that.<\/li>\n<li>Reduced downtime due to viruses.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>All of these are great reasons, as well as the more emotive reasons for doing it. (Hate Microsoft!; Can't afford a Mac!  Irritated with bloatware!). However while Linux is great for me, I still spend more time fixing it than most people are prepared to spend.<\/p>\n<p>Take last week for example. A standard Update to my OS suddenly starts installing a different kernel &#8211; it decided all of a sudden that I'd like a laptop kernel. This would have been alright in itself, but then suddenly<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>my display driver doesn't work. I install it again.<\/li>\n<li>My microphone stops working in Skype. I try for a few hours to get it going again, but can't. I use my spare laptop to do Skype calls.<\/li>\n<li>My VMware server doesn't work. I try to re-compile it, but in the end can't get it to work,<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So I roll back, eventually to the desktop kernel. I reinstall the display driver. I manage to get VMware back up. The Skype Mic problem is still with me.<\/p>\n<p>I've still no idea why I was given a different kernel. I'm experienced enough after 4 years with Linux to get it back working again, but that really shouldn't have happened in the first place. And its things like that which I think is hampering the progress of Linux.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I've been thinking of setting up a company to set people up with Open Source workplaces, and every year that goes past makes me think that the time is almost here. There are a number of factors which are conspiring to make Linux a viable alternative: The fact that Linux, via distributions such as Ubuntu, &#8230; <a title=\"PrimeTime Linux\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/play.datalude.com\/blog\/2008\/08\/primetime-linux\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about PrimeTime Linux\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,6,4],"tags":[48,134,47,38],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-it","category-life","category-linux","tag-kernel-update","tag-linux","tag-skype","tag-vmware"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play.datalude.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play.datalude.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play.datalude.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play.datalude.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play.datalude.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play.datalude.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play.datalude.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play.datalude.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play.datalude.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}