Andy Cunningham

Well after about 18 months running Linux as my primary desktop at home, I finally admitted defeat and swapped back to Windows.

The reinstall wasn’t too painful – the hardware in my PC hadn’t changed significantly so the re-activation was painless.  The new graphics card caused some problems – it took about 6 tries to find an Nvidia 6200 driver that worked.  But otherwise it’s been fairly smooth, though I still have some bits of re-installation to do – and check all my backups and so on.

So why did I switch back?  A couple of reasons.

Firstly there was just far too much hacking around to get basic things working – every kernel upgrade meant an hour messing to get vmware working again, for example.

But most importantly the applications I want to use now has changed significantly since I made the decision to switch.  There are a couple of Ham Radio applications – most notably Ham Radio Deluxe and UI-View32 that just don’t work on Linux, and don’t play well under VMware.

I haven’t completely switched back though – I still run a Linux VM for the few things that work better there, and will continue to do so.   It works well as a test server environment too – only the VM is exposed to the Internet.

A few more tweaks needed, but the bulk of the work is done at this point.

Sorry, Linus.

I upgraded my home PC to the latest Ubuntu over the weekend.  Seems to have been uneventful without the usual VMware chaos that I’ve seen in the past.

Shame the work PC (Kubuntu amd64) wasn’t so easy.  Still beating that one into something representing a working operating system.  Oh hum.

This will be a useful quick ref for moving to Linux.

I’ve been debating moving my home PC to Linux for some time now.  In theory the process is pretty simple.

• Back up all my files to a USB hard drive.
• Install Ubuntu from CD
• Install VMware Server so I can boot up Windows under VM for legacy applications.  I expect issues with activation when I do this.
• Restore my files into Ubuntu
• Never pay for software again.

Of course, it’s a little more involved than that, because I have a number of applications I need to transfer over.

• Email – well I use Thunderbird, so no change there.
• Web Browsing – there’s a few sites I use that really need IE.  IEs4Linux looks like a solution here.  For everything else, it’s still Firefox.
• Word Processing etc – can all be done with Open Office.
• Image Editing and uploading images from my camera – GIMPshop is a good start.
• Rip CDs and DVDs to my MP3/Video player
• Edit Video (occasionally)
• Edit HTML.  Bye bye, Dreamweaver.  Hello Nvu.
• Keep track of my finances.  Currently using MS Money.  GNU Cash looks like the option here.
• I need an alternative for AutoRoute for route planning.  Moving Autoroute onto the laptop could be one approach.
• Scanning documents to PDFs using my HP All in one printer/scanner.
• I can use Pidgin (formerly GAIM) for Instant Messaging.
• Synchronise contacts and calender to my Pocket PC. Hmmm….

Things I need to test (using the “Live” Ubuntu installation)

• How do I get DVDs from DVD to the Creative Zen player?
• Can I easily grab images off my camera?
• What’s a good video editor for Linux?
• How much of my existing hardware will work under Ubuntu?
• Can I get a second monitor?
• What else have I got installed that I need to take over?
• Does the printer and scanner work under Ubuntu?
• What’s the solution for Pocket PC?  Do I still need to go back to

This site has more on the transition to Linux.