Walter Hutchens’ Blog

Conclusion: desktop Linux installation is easy, laptop installation can be hard.

Last night I tried to install Linux on a Sony PictureBook. I worked till 4 in the morning, but when I surrendered the laptop still only ran Windows. By contrast, today I installed Linux on the desktop in my office in less than half an hour.

Indeed, within 45 minutes I had it up and running with all the applications I most commonly use, including Mozilla’s browser Firefox and email program Thunderbird (85% of my computing time taken care of right there) and OpenOffice for word processing, spreadsheets and PowerPoint-like slide presentations (Fedora actually installed OpenOffice for me).

Installing all this was shockingly easy. I never once had to deal with a command prompt–just a simple GUI install. Basically, I just clicked “next” several times to confirm the default settings and changed the CD at the appropriate point during the install sequence. The keyboard, mouse, monitor, CD ROM drive and speakers all worked perfectly from the get-go. I didn’t have to do anything to configure the network access–I never removed the Ethernet line, and Linux easily found an IP address and let me surf immediately upon reboot.

I haven’t yet tested printing or accessing the other drives on our network. But so far, the only surprises have been how easy it all is.

I do expect to miss a few Windows programs. Not Microsoft Word, for sure. But I really like:

Picasa, for managing my digital photos and doing some light retouching;

MindManager, for brainstorming, organizing my thoughts and making diagrams (”mind maps”);

Wenlin, for occasional Chinese input and its phenomenal bi-lingual dictionary.

There are no doubt Linux programs that perform similar functions. But I like these programs so much that it is hard to fathom that I’ll find satisfactory substitutes.

Still, right now, I am quite exhilarated to have joined the Linux community, and I am stunned by how easy it was. This open source thing is real!