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I think I neglected to mention that I have switched to a linux operating system at home. Well I have. And since you asked nicely and you raised your eyebrows when you did it I'll tell you why. I used Microsoft Vista. I think there might have been one or two details I've left out in the past few posts so let's play catch up one line at a time. I am no longer in the construction industry. I took a position as a computer programmer which I have done off and on for many years now. It's kind of my fall back career. If the money was as good in programming as it is in construction then it would be my primary career. I enjoy it and for the most part I'm pretty decent at it. But calls were coming in about this or that application that we partially support not working with Vista. I finally bought a computer to set on my desk and have the ability to actually see and use this problem child first hand. It has been a nightmare. Every day I use it I encounter a problem without an error message. I'm not trying to be witty, I really get many errors that have no error messages. Things just fail to work. I spent more than two weeks with one company, we'll call them Steam/Valve (you may have heard me touch on this topic but fret not, I'm not going to bring them up any more than that,) trying to diagnose why I was unable to install their product which clearly worked on other installations of Microsoft Vista. I have created directories to have Vista completely lock up on me. It would seem that Vista hates me. And I'm ok with that. Because the feeling is mutual.

I absolutely LOATHE microsoft vista.

I decided I didn't like the way things in the windows world were going so I was getting out of the game. I was going to make the break and switch over to linux. I'm not the best with linux but I have been using it (well, actually not linux, but other unix-based systems that are very similar) for servers for several years. I made the switch. Goodbye moneysuck microsoft. No more $250 operating systems every 3 years or so for me. I was going with one that's free like beer and free like thought. On a sidenote I did not receive any free beer when I installed. I'm hoping I at least get a coupon.

So that's why I made the switch. I recommend you, yes you, the one reading this, at least consider it. You know they let you download it, burn it to a cd, and run it without even changing your windows hard drive. It's something of a test drive and I'm really shocked Microsoft hasn't done this yet. HA! Perhaps in a later post I'll give directions on how to do this. I think everyone should at least put their eyes on it and see if it would suit their needs. You'll say, "Oh, I can't switch to linux because I have to have Powerpoint. Guess what? They have a free replacement. You'll say, I can't switch to linux because I need all of my files in My Documents. I'll say I didn't lose a single file. You'll say you don't have the time to learn it. I'll tell you there isn't much to learn unless you want to customize it in some nonstandard way. Add / Remove programs is there and guess what? It reads the files from the internet and you can install more stuff than Bonzai Buddy used to install. The difference is the stuff in there is free. No strings attached. Use it if you like it. But I'm not going to try to convert you. I'm no salesman.

It isn't a bed of roses though. I do find deficiencies that sometimes make me wish I had the functionality I had with windows. I enjoy, among other things, games. Linux has lots of games and some of them are downright addictive. Some are fresh ideas and others are remakes of other, well known games. But all the games in the world won't make you not want to play games you love. My favorite game of the past decade has been a capture the flag type of game. Only you're armed to the hilt and ready to blow the other guys away. It's a lot more fun than my description might let on. I've read that it will work in linux but I have reservations about running it on linux. See, it's a game where if you are caught cheating you lose your account. Losing your account basically means you lose your game. The linux users that do play this game do so through a program called a Windows emulator. They trick the game itself into thinking that it is running on a windows computer. The thing about this game is that they update not only the game regularly to combat the cheaters but also to introduce new bugs bugfixes. As a general rule their program has the ability to scan your computer while you play to ensure you aren't cheating. I'm ok with that. I think the benefit of knowing you can play without cheaters is worth the potential security risks involved. But I also understand how complex programs can be. While the Windows Emulator might be able to fool the game to run it might not be able to tell the anti-hacking engine that some process that is currently running is not a hack, it's simply this or that. There are no users that I know of that are having problems with this but I'm unable to say it couldn't become a problem in the future. And I'm not willing to risk losing my account for that.

So what to do what to do?

On the occasion when I can't stand the desire to play even a moment longer I plug in my old windows hard drive and play until I get my fill directly from windows. Alas that hard drive is failing and I don't currently have one to fill its place. So I start looking for similar games that will run natively in linux. I found one that is a capture the flag with guns and I gave it a stab. It is enjoyable but just not the same so I started looking for others. It is shocking to find how few commercial games are available for linux.

Hi, my name is John and I use linux. This does not mean I stopped being a consumer. Yes, many of the programs for linux are open source and free.

But I'm not against paying for software. It seems to me that developers either forget this or overlook it. Just because changed operating systems does not mean I do not wish to use supported, commercial applications. I like to take home videos and then compile them into dvd's to give to family and friends. Thus far I've yet to figure this out with linux. I found a guide on how it can be done but there is no easy, ready made off the shelf version that I can find. When I log into web sites where I have purchased content, such as my audio books at audible.com, I am unable to even access the data I have rights to.

So yes, it's a hard row to hoe for the moment, but its getting better every day. Even a day when I don't touch a computer it gets better. You might wonder how it gets better. Well it was one more day without the conglomerate that owns the near monopoly on operating systems. Perhaps some of these vendors will come to realize that we are out here. Maybe they won't. It seems people are still ignoring the Mac platform.

Time will tell, time will tell.

Would I change my decision if I had it to do over again? No.