Making the Switch

WARNING: Enormous, boring wall of text ahead!

A post recently appeared on Lifehacker asking the readers why they made the switch to Linux, and that got me thinking about my own gradual migration away from Windows - the reasons, the setbacks, and the three-year journey that's not over yet.

During the summer of 2005, I installed Ubuntu on an old P-II rig from a friend in exchange for some modding work. The install seemed to take forever on that old, ratty 4-gig hard drive, but when it finished everything worked, except the ancient SoundBlaster card. I was so used to pending about three hours with drivers and updates after a Windows install, having that much functionality out of the box was amazing. That was version 5.04, which was only the second release of Ubuntu (their version numbers are based on release dates - 5.04 means April 2005, and their first release was 4.10). Things have only gotten better with time.

I used that machine for about a year, mostly for running messenger clients and surfing the web while I used my beefy PC for gaming. Faced with the steep learning curve, I was reluctant to do anything complicated with it for fear of messing things up, but for day-to-day operations it was incredibly stable and maintenance-free. I retired it from service when I got my first laptop - a Dell Latitude that I ran Windows XP on, and for the next year or so I had several computers come and go from my life, all of which ran Windows.

Last summer, I got an unreliable Toshiba laptop from a friend who was moving out of her apartment. After replacing the dying hard drive and cleaning the heatsinks so its chunky P4 could get some fresh air, I decided to try Ubuntu again to see if they had made any progress on hardware support and usability. I didn't have very high expectations, I just wanted to see how it ran. The laptop reset itself during the install twice. After I opened the casing and cleaned the heatsinks very thoroughly, the install worked on the first try.

When it booted for the first time, I was a bit apprehensive. Everything worked, except the wireless card. Then I found the "Restricted Drivers" panel - not only did it know exactly what drivers were missing, but it knew where to get them! After plugging in an Ethernet cable, I told it to install the missing drivers for 3D video and wireless. One reboot later, and I had full functionality. About 150MB of downloads and one more reboot later, and my system was completely up to date. I screwed around with installing a few additional programs and tweaking some settings. I even got Compiz Fusion working.

Not a month after I got that machine put together, a new version of Ubuntu was released. The Update Manager prompted me to update, and since I didn't have any important data on that machine, I figured I'd give it a try. Astonishingly, it worked! Eventually I moved on to an older Dell Inspiron - yes, it was slower, but it also weighed less than ten pounds and lasted more than 40 minutes on a battery charge. This was the only computer that Ubuntu had a serious problem with. Apparently, the GeForce2 Go chip wasn't getting along with the provided drivers, and when 3D support was enabled the laptop would crash after running for about three minutes. With the 3D drivers disabled, it ran perfectly.

Now I've got a Latitude D400, and that had problems of its own. When I first installed Ubuntu, it had problems with the video. It would crash every time it went into suspend mode, and about 70% of the time when it was shutting down. Turns out I had to add a single line to /etc/X11/xorg.conf - it worked perfectly after that, but it's something a beginning user would have a tough time figuring out.

I've also got my brother's old gaming rig: an Athlon64 with 2GB of RAM and a GeForce 6800 that I've been using for day-to-day tasks. It's incredibly stable, and has so far required little maintenance besides the occasional update.

So, why did I make the switch?
At first, it was mostly curiosity, coupled with the geek cred that comes with Linux boxen.
I lost interest for a while due to frustration with the learning curve, and the lack of a good machine on which to use it.
When I did have a good machine to use, I found it to be very stable and reliable after the initial setup was complete.
Now, I see Linux as an alternative to Windows Vista which, for me, is the most compelling reason to switch.
The only thing I still use Windows for is gaming. For me, that's the only thing that Linux can't do better. Yet.