I spent most of Sunday afternoon doing technical support for my father (for which I was paid in beer). The task was to set up an 802.11g wireless network around his new cable connection so that the three different computers in the house could all talk to the outside world. Two of three Windows boxen were set up with relative ease -- plug in hardware, start up, insert CD, keep pressing OK, reboot, done. The third Windows box was somewhat more recalcitrant, but we eventually traced this back to a serious hardware problem, for which we really can't blame the Operating System.
A cow orker also spent the weekend setting up a wireless network, except he was doing it under Linux. I arrived to the office to hear stories of having to fool the kernel into accepting the precompiled driver module, thus avoiding the hassle of having to merge the module source into the kernel source tree and recompile everything. He was really happy about getting it done over the weekend, because he was afraid he'd end up wrestling with it for weeks.
If you made a Venn diagram, there would be two non-overlapping circles, one of which was labeled, "Times when I am truly happy" and the other of which was labeled, "Times when I am logged in as root, holding a cable, or have the case open."
Once upon a time, back before I dropped out of university, I enjoyed all the mindless arsing about that was necessary to get a Linux box to do anything mildly useful. Linux's inconsistencies, the plethora of weird and wonderful configuration files, the ever-changing procession of desktop environments, all of this was a challenge. Something new to learn. I felt my horizons expanding.
Nowadays, the novelty has decidedly worn off. I can't just skip a lecture if I want to spend time configuring BIND. I don't find it very interesting any more to have to think too much about my computer. The time I spend thinking about my computer is time I could be spending thinking about the things I want to do with that computer. Wading through long instructions on how to get Postfix and SASL working together is not how I enjoy spending my afternoons any more.
I still run Linux at work because I can't program without the Unix tools around me, and every time I use Cygwin I feel the immense philosophical disjunct between the Unix tools and their Windows environment. But I think the above explains why at home last week, I turned my last Linux box off and now it sits unpowered next to its year-idle Win2k counterpart.
So Charles, what operating system is used to serve this blog? And who has the root password? Hmmmmm?
Amen! Everyone tried to tell me in college that I should run my personal server, which only hosts my resume and my experiments, using Linux rather than Windows. I said "I could do that, or I could actually have time to program." I watched these same people pour hours and hours into trying to get their Linux machines to work right. It's that's Windows is better than Linux by any means. It's that my time is worth something.
I'm in the process of going a similar way - my existing Linux workstation will fall back and be a fairly dumb file/web/application server/firewall, and I have a new iMac on the way.
I'm more interested in Linux as a server than a workstation these days - it fits a lot better with the space I'm working in, and I want a desktop that Just Works. I find that Windows doesn't sit well with me - too many years working in a Unix-a-like environment, I'm hoping that with OSX there will be less of a disconnect between the way my mind works and the OS.
I believe Linux on the desktop has a future. I'm just not that sure when that future is going to happen. The desktop itself seems to be coming along okay but the hardware support is still pretty flakey and isn't so well integrated. My plans are to migrate towards Linux as my desktop but I'm not fooling myself that it's going to be a easy journey. If Apple ever brings out OS X for Intel then maybe I'll switch but until then Linux is the only Unix I'll be looking at.
Yeah, I think us linux bods are finally starting to admit this to ourselves as well. It's gonna improve. Webmin's a step in the right direction, but of course, you need to install apache & php and then find the correct URL before you can use *that*.
If you're lucky enough to have OS X, I can understand not being happy to muck around with Linux. However, one reason I think Linux has a future on the desktop is it's potential to support people who want (or can only afford) to use older machines and don't want to be locked into Micro$oft upgrade cycles. But there's obviously a long way to go before Linux on the desktop is a relatively painless experience.
To me, the question of OSX vs Windows is an easy one: OSX for sure. OSX vs. GNOME? For now, OSX wins out, but as Fedora Core and other usability oriented distributions improve, along with newer versions of GNOME (and more apps of course), my answer will change to GNOME. Yes, that sounds optimistic, but being close to the development community, you get to see things being done, and can gauge the future somewhat.
Even though I'd prefer OSX now, I still use GNOME cause being the poor student I am, I don't have RM 4-5k or more lying around.
I at home use windows because I can't find any spare computers to try out linux on. I had a linux computer but then the motherboard went...long story...anyways for daily desktop work I use Windows. I would switch over to a Mac OS if it ran on Intel x86. But linux is the next best for me. I don't exactly like using windows on a daily basis, it drives me insane and booting on it takes 5 mins using Win98se on a P3 450mhz. Linux has improved majorly recently, and now is a serious competitor on the desktop market. It was a serious comptetitor quite a while ago in the server area, but I personally think it is ready for the desktop. I'm still looking for a spare computer to install my copy of blagblagblag linux on ( www.blagblagblag.org ). I hope linux will eventually replace Windows because I'm sick of it and its BSoD's and M$ with all their money.