getting legal
Saturday, March 31st, 2007
About to get geeky on you – so I apologize in advance. I’ve been thinking about it for a long darn time, but hadn’t yet put my money where my mouth was. That’s right, I’m talking about going 100% legal. Legal software that is. I’ve been about 90% legal for several years actually. All the application software that I’ve been using on my home PC is legit. There’s great open-source free software that is just as good and in some cases much better than the stuff that you have to pay for. And I’ve actually shelled out cold hard cash for the software that I can’t live without. There’s always been one piece of software, that’s critical, that’s been in the gray area of legality. The OS. I’ve been using licenses from work, up until now (and previous versions have really been legit), but I’ve always felt just a bit uneasy about using that. It seemed wrong for some reason.
After seeing some very impressive you-tube videos recently, and after several discussions with Suzy’s bro, I decided it was time that I gave Linux a try. I set out to read everything I could about Linux and what software would be a good equivalent to what I’m using in my current OS. I finally decided it could be done, and the distro of choice would, of course, be Ubuntu. So I downloaded a copy of 6.10, also known as Edgy Eft or just Edgy for short. I wasn’t brave enough to try out Feisty Fawn (version 7 is now in Beta), but it looks even better. Using some open source CD burning software, I burned an image of Edgy onto a CD. After a quick reboot, the system boots to the Live-CD which is basically the Ubuntu OS running off of the CD. It’s only temporary though, and any software installed will be wiped away with a reboot.
I wasn’t completely sold yet. I had some concerns. The first concern is that I have a good amount of data, pictures, music, video trapped on my current OS install. I need read/write access to that stuff and it needed to be air-tight and crash proof. I’d heard that NTFS was read-only in current linux distros so I was worried about this. I quickly discovered NTFS-3G which so far, has been rock-solid. It couldn’t have been any easier to install with Ubuntu. I just added the package, ran the configuration utility and blam-o! My drives are up and running with full read/write capability.
I also have several critical peripherals that need to work, and work well with the OS. The first being my iPod, the most important device that attaches to my computer. Secondly, my digital camera. You’ll be happy to know that both are fully supported and are actually a breeze to use. Dare I say, easier than my previous OS to configure. Actually, I can say it confidently, it’s MUCH easier now. I’m in LOVE with Amarok. I am serious. In my humble opinion, Amarok is years ahead of anything else available. I laugh at iTunes, WinAMP and all those other klunky pieces of software I used to use. This program alone makes the switch to Linux worth it. It synchs with musicbrainz, tags, album-arts, organizes, manages the iPod, makes playlists, shows lyrics and band information, you name it… it looks pretty to boot.
So far, so good, I’ll keep you posted. I’ve been living in a tux for almost two weeks now and loving it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not for the faint of heart (you’re still required to use the terminal prompt – can’t live in the gui all the time), but it’s getting there and it’s good enough for what I need it for.
Until next time…