Since I don’t have a full time job yet, I’ve been messing with Linux in my spare time. Today I finally decided that Gentoo Linux is not for me. I’ve had too many problems configuring it and installing it for it to be of any use to me. I don’t like to spend a whole day solving problems when all I want to do is install a simple program. In retaliation, I installed Ubuntu Linux on my test computer.
Ubuntu installs fairly easily, you don’t have a lot of choices, but to be honest, I don’t want a lot of choices. If you want to have some say in what is installed, you simply do a server install, which leaves out a lot of programs you wouldn’t need on a server. I wanted the system to install with most of what is needed for it to work properly and be useful. Now I can spend some time getting accustomed to how the Linux system works and later I may change it into a test server.
Tomorrow’s challenge is to install a printer on the Ubuntu computer and then share it on my network. If I can get this working reliably I will have a good reason to spend sometime converting my Gentoo server to a Ubuntu server. The main function of my server is to function as a large shared hard drive for my media files and to function as a print server, which I couldn’t get to work with Gentoo.
So some of you may wonder why in the world I’m trying to learn Linux. The first reason would be because it is free. I don’t have to pay $90 dollars for every new version. When you don’t have a lot of spare income, or any income for that matter, you can’t afford to pay for MS Windows. Since I don’t think its right to just install a MS Windows OS without a proper license, I have resorted to using what I can get for free.
My second reason for beginning to use Linux is to try and stay a head of the industry. I think Linux is gaining popularity in the corporate market place. I also think as MS continues to increase its licensing fees and force the corporate users upgrade, more corporations will consider switching to another platform. Currently the other options are mainly based on a UNIX like operating system, so if I learn how to make Linux useful and program applications in Linux, I should have some desirable skills for the future.