About six months ago, I installed Linux on my IBM ThinkPad. This was not an effort to save money, it is an effort to turn away from all the zombies using Windoze. If you're a fan of John Carpenter's: "They Live", you'll understand this analogy.
Using Linux is difficult. Understanding Linux is difficult. Luckily, there is an entire community of Linux users throughout the world that can assist you with a wealth of information. Unluckily, only 1% of that information applies to you, so wading through lines and lines of Google searches can be blinding. However, I found a pair of sunglasses!
Most of Linux was written by 20-something people in the last 30 years, and UNIX (which Linux is based upon) was written 30 years earlier by 20-something people. For someone like me (40-something), one might think it is too late to break from conformity. Good thing I have my sunglasses!
It is not widely known to the masses just how often Linux is used and/or implemented. Linux is used by major and minor companies alike. Most of the time, Linux is used on servers so companies can save money on the implementation costs. There are other costs that companies save by using Linux. In essence: There is someone out there manufacturing sunglasses!
Linux is not a cult. As the Linux community grows, Linux itself grows. 10 years ago, Linux was still an operating system that only hackers and programmers could use. Today, Linux is packaged like any other Graphical User Interface (GUI). However, it is not packaged so anyone (read: those who do not possess sunglasses) can jump in and use it. If Grandma wants a Linux computer to check her emails and browse the web, she has to rely on her grandson to set it up for her so she won't keep telling him: "Sonny, I clicked on this thing, and the computer restarted". Those people who distribute sunglasses have work to do!
"Don't wear the glasses too long, it starts feeling like a knife turning in your skull", Roddy Piper, John Carpenter's: They Live.
Yes, unfortunately I'm still using sunglasses. And also unfortunately, I have to take 'em off every so often. The reality is that Linux can't do everything we need it to do. Not yet. Linux is improving every day. There are those who wear the contacts ("There's less interference"). They are the ones who are living the dream that one day we can destroy the signal generator, and the whole world will see with their own eyes that we are being bred as livestock....Sorry, got lost in the movie.
Anyway, I want to occasionally post my problems and solutions here, in case someone else likes what I've written, or is an experienced Linux user who can help, or someone who'd like a pair of sunglasses.
In the mean time, I'm trying to solve my video problems, and playing GTAIV and KILLZONE2 during my breaks.
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