Open Up Your Windows So We Can Air Out The Linux: A Migration Story.

Posted: 08/28/11 07:11:36 Updated: 08/29/11 18:31:53

Circa fall of 2010, I made a decision to completely become "a Linux guy," abandoning Windows forever to start a new life using exclusively open-source software.

I even formatted all my hard drives in Linux-only partitions so I couldn't be tempted to go back -- that's my version of burning the ships upon hitting the New World. It was Linux or bust.

Well ... it's not even a year later, and I'm busting. I'm going back to Windows.

Why?

First, let me clarify. When I say, "I'm going back to Windows," I mean, "I'm going back to Windows as my primary OS and will have Linux as an alternative boot option."

I've been using Linux in some capacity for about five years; I love it. Without hesitation, I will argue it's the single greatest software project/experiment ever created. Its free/libre core philsophy and the community behind it is nothing short of amazing.

... but I'm still jumping ship, backsliding for but a single reason.

Life Is Hard -- Fucking Hard -- In the Outer Rim

Immediately upon switching to Linux, I was assaulted by incompatibilities, restrictions and things that just didn't work. Simple things. Things I've been taking for granted for years, if not a decade or so.

For perspective, here are my top ten such items.

You can't:

None of these things are obscure! Most of us do this stuff every day simply by cruising around the web and not giving 'em a second thought. In Linux, however, they take a second thought. And a third. And a fourth ...

What Distros Was I On, You Might Ask?

Good question. When I refer to "Linux" I'm talking primarily about Fedora, Ubuntu/Debian, and Arch.

I'm Only a Hobbyist Crusader

As mentioned above, I love open-source software and the free/libre philosophy at the root of Linux. I think it's admirable and great for the web and for innovation in general, and I think more things should be handled in such a way. But I'm not deeply passionate about it. I don't make advocacy campaigns for it or attend conferences about it. If it was a political issue, I probably wouldn't picket or protest for it.

I merely think it's ... great.

If I possessed a true, deep-seeded and burning desire to champion the Linux way, I would say, "MP3 is a proprietary codec. Proprietary is bad. I'll find an alternate route."

Instead, I found these hitches to be a tremendous pain the ass. A friend would share a link to a Flash video and suddenly I'd be spending the next 45 minutes compiling the Flash player from source, manually wrapping it in a 32-bit compatibility layer on my 64-bit system, and getting the thing to play nicely with Firefox. That's a significant amount of effort to watch my friend's cat video.

Granted, setting up Flash playback only needed to be done once. But there were a million little things like that. Everything required a level of effort above and beyond what I was willing to accept. There seemed to be no straight lines, as everything needed some kind of special setup.

In the end, the required level of effort crossed my threshold of tolerance.

Isn't That Just Laziness?

I don't think so. I think it's a logical cost/benefit analysis I'd assume is incredibly similar to being a vegan.

Being a vegan is difficult; animal products are everywhere, and it takes a concerted effort to seek food, clothing and normal items that are acceptable to your way of living. It's something that must be on your mind when you're shopping for groceries, buying a new pair of shoes, or going out to dinner with your friends.

You have to spend energy to deal with the little things everybody else doesn't need to think about, and unless you've got a compelling reason or belief motivating -- and justifying -- that energy expenditure, you're not likely to stick with it.

That's where I landed with Linux. I weighed the level of difficulty against the depth of my free/libre philosophy and opted out. To me, it just wasn't worth it.

Am I Done With Linux Altogether, Then?

Dickens, no.

Up top I mentioned I've been using Linux for years and I've no intention of ditching it. I'll likely split my time between Windows and Linux in the ballpark of 70/30.

Aside from the interest in open-source software, I'm especially intrigued by the great UI experiments going on in the Linux space right now. If you're even remotely interested in seeing what desktop software is doing outside of Windows and OS X, I'd highly recommend you peek at the new Gnome 3 shell available in Fedora, and Ubuntu's new Unity interface.

Despite my decision to re-introduce Windows to my life, my interest in Linux hasn't waned in the slightest.

So ... Sum It Up

I'm going back to Windows as my primary operating system strictly for practical reasons. While I love open-source and free/libre software, the level of effort required to exist so far outside the norm -- aka, Linux and Linux alone -- overwhelmed my hobbyist enthusiasm for being an open-source crusader.

Things always seemed to get in the way of tasks I'm able to take for granted on Windows. Living in the Linux bubble was just too damned much work.

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