So, I am sitting in my apartment in the North East Georgia mountains, an unlit cigarette is hanging out of my mouth, I have no idea what to write, and I am realising that this unfortunate bout of writer's block is likely due to the fact that nothing is really going wrong with my Linux box(es).
It's funny in a way. I used to "distro hop" constantly because nothing ever seemed to work quite right (and I got bored easily). As I became more knowledgeable, more experienced, and most importantly more comfortable with Linux, I realised that the distribution choice is rather irrelevant. At the end of the day, packages are available (or at least source tars) and most things can be accomplished in any distribution (though the work everything may take is of varying amounts).
Of course, there are things that I would like to see change. There are things that I would like to see various projects achieve and/or simply implement. There is still a lot that I wish to learn. All of these things can and will one day happen when I find the motivation, but for now... things work. I can't really say that about any other operating system. I certainly can't say the same about OSX or Windows anyway.
I have VIM, Firefox, GNAT, XAMPP, VirtualBox, Mutt, hotplug support, stability, relative security, some video games, and an office suite (since I never got around to setting up LaTex, antiword, and sc). My Palm Pixi acts as my media player and portable document reader (among other things) and I can drag and drop my files to and from that, and it syncs with GMail which I can access through the web and through Mutt. So, at the end of the day, everything works and I have no need to change anything.
I guess, the only enemy left is peace... and boredom. With nothing broken, my validation of endless tinkering is all kinds of messed up. Heck even the Via Chrome chipset drivers are working relatively well. Intel chips are working well too. Did Hell freeze over?
I finished my cigarette. Change tracks on cmus. Cool.
I guess, similarly to the former Mutt tutorials, I could start a series of tutorials on other topics: Vi, Ada, PHP/MySQL, Linux distribution development... who knows?
Did a new Gentoo release just come out? I guess I'll go f--- around with that.
7 comments:
Its so reassuring to see a fellow Georgian having the same problems as I do with his Linux installations. Day to day, month after month I press a button and the appropriate application comes up "no errors" its days like this I often wish for an update to come down the pipe just so maybe on the off chance I would have something to fix, but no such luck.
I really do believe that the other OS's have trained our minds to expect something to go wrong and in my early days of using Linux it didn't disappoint but since distro hopping got old and I have moved to pure Debian its really boring just to turn on my computer get my work done. What the heck does Linux expect me to do with all this free time I have not chasing down errors, bsd's, male-ware, apps closing with warning! Its a conspiracy I tell ya!
There's always that little extra hint of polish, that spark of innovation that keeps things improving to the point that you feel silly looking back at what you used yesterday. It's just happening at a much calmer, more business-oriented rate these days.
I for one see many things that could be made just that little bit easier, both in the software and the community. I have long since learned to be satisfied and grateful for what I have. I often reflect on the similiarities between computers and past inventions that changed the face of human life on Earth. And computing may be the most profound to date- it is extremely important that something like this is free.
And, aside from that ethical issue, Linux has proven itself to be extremely useful and freeing to use. The open source community really does deliver in so many ways, so well. It's sad to see people who just want more Windows/OSX and can't see there's something else in front of them. I'm technology agnostic, but I know what I like, and why.
Here's hoping the escalation of innovation continues to benefit us, even if most people are running sparse amounts of FOSS on Windows instead. ;D It could be a lot worse. XD
Thinking about posting
Get out of the apartment for a while and see the outside world. You'll come up with a multitude of ideas. Sure, Linux is boring when it "just works", but there is always room for improvement.
And, if peace is your enemy, you have bigger problems than just writer's block.
I enjoyed this post. Very "zen." I no longer distro hop myself either and experienced a similar change as I grew in experience. Thank you!
@djohnston,
I do get out of my apartment. Quite often actually, I am also a writer, photographer, and programmer... which consume a lot of time, and are often done while out and about as that is when ideas come flowing in. Plus, I am a recreational marksman.
Peace being an enemy is taken from the rifleman's creed, I am a US Marine.
An operating system more interesting than a washing machine- that can allow one to do powerful tasks. I've always enjoyed putting Linux power users in the "maker culture" category. We actually care to notice how things work and to customize. Life should have balance, but those qualities are to be admired, not scorned.
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