theOlster.net

Yet again I am re-visiting the Mac/Linux/Vista evaluation/switch. Here I will indicate MacBook experiences since mid October, and why I’m want to move away from MacOS X.

I bought my 13inch MacBook about five months ago, and I love it… almost. I love it enough to say that I will never switch back to any Windows variant - ever. But do I love it enough to stay with it?

I’m not sure now.

To understand why, I need to explain why I bought an Apple machine in the first place. For the last couple of years I’ve desperately wanted to like and thus switch from windows to Linux. I’ve patiently installed just about every version of Ubuntu, Fedora and the occasional Suse on my desktop to see if a switch was possible. I’ve often had many problems with a lack of my technical knowledge (although this gap is a lot smaller these days) along with very poor Linux hardware support compared to MS and Apple. I also had some very strict software requirements that I really needed meeting for my work, study and general purposes. At the time these requirements could not be met through choosing Linux, but could with a Mac, and it required little or no technical knowledge, very intuitive. So I bought a Mac.

So what’s changed, why am I thinking about Linux again after only five months?

Well, two reasons… Firstly, MacOS X just doesn’t work in a way that I like. For example, I hate Finder. It is such a pain in the arse to use, and I don’t expect that to change in the next incarnation of MacOS X. It’s not that the way it works is particularly bad, it just annoys me and I can’t do anything about that! Secondly, in five months of using the Mac I’ve learnt not to try and be too clever and live within the limitations of the OS. This may sound a little enigmatic, but bear with me. If I want to give Linux another go I need to accept that although someone else may have installed something, or found a really clever way of doing something else, I need to take a couple of deep breaths, calm down, and try to live within my requirements.

Quite often, when I’ve previously used Linux I’ve tried messing around with the latest features, forgetting my lack of technical knowledge, and broken things. Actually, my MythTV experiences are a notable exception to this rule, but this is just about the only exception. For example I tried messing about with Beryl on my desktop recently, and discovered how buggy it really is! This hasn’t broken my install, but other instances have.

So since I desperately need to upgrade the piddly 55G HDD in my MacBook, I’m going to give Ubuntu a go at the same time.

I also plan to set out my requirements for the system, and document how these have been met in a ‘howto’ kind of way. This can be found here: Ubuntu Edgy on a MacBook (Update: Link removed until this page has been fully completed).