*gets out guidebook [google], scrolls…”emacs…emacs…emacs…hmmm”*

The linux adventure continues, slowly, and with much putting on of reading glasses… I’ll keep you posted.

I’m definitely delighted to be in OpenSourceLand, though, and not beholden to Microsoft anymore.

I did have a bit of an issue with wireless connectivity, but that seems to be sorted*, and my system is now doing everything I want in jig time. Admittedly my needs are simple, mainly internet browsing and Office apps. Everything is working perfectly so far.

Thanks for the encouragement and explanations (although lots of that is admittedly still pretty obscure to me).

*I used the Network configuration window to set up the wifi connection initially, trying to fill in every blank space provided, but although ubuntu could see the device, it couldn’t connect successfully. I went online (with a cable) and read lots of impenetrable technical stuff which made me no wiser. Eventually, as I poked around, I “deleted” the wireless device as set up and “added” a new wireless device, with less information this time – basically just the SSID. Luckily, this seemed to do the trick. Works straight away, like a charm.

Yes, Ligne, I may have a few slightly unusual programmes, but I think that the point I am making is that there is much software that does not run on Linux, but very little (nothing found so far) that runs on Linux and not Windows.

I do, however, have one worthwhile use for Linux; I put it on very old machines (as old as PII) with browser, email, and Office configured, to be used as emergency backup machines for friends whose Win machines I support, in case of some sort of drastic outage when I am not about.

Sure you can have a lot of fune playing about with Linux (as a home machine)and typing those weird commands, but it is always going to be a minority interest, so give up all hope of Linux taking over the world, unless you can get it onto mobile phones.

the vast majority of people people rarely go much beyond browser/email/IM/media player/image viewer/word processor (i fall into that category myself much of the time, and i work as a linux systems administrator).

Where Linux (and to a degree Mac) is not getting new users is in the gaming world, and probably that’s just fine. There are plenty of things that run on gaming consoles that don’t run on Windows machines. Apple may be irrelevant, if they have long-run plans to basically stop having a Mac OS and make everything a subset of their Tablet/iPhone/iPod OS, but Linux has potential – you can install it on gaming consoles, after all – to be the computer you can boot up to do work or boot up to do games in the not-too-distant future. If rebooting makes gaming faster and better, people will do it. And the need for a universal machine that runs office and home media software then suddenly runs gaming software is, I think, highly exaggerated.

Try showing that post to somebody who is just a user – somebody who has never installed an OS in their life, when the machine gets slow because of congestion, they assume it is “wearing out” and just buy a new one.I guarantee they will not read the entire post before glazing over and giving up. You have Zero hope of persuading them to abandon Windows, which is already installed on their machines, and strike out into the unknown wilderness of Linux.

Now let us take a more likely candidate – myself. Technically quite literate, I build my own main computers, and when I was working I ran quite large Novell networks, so fairly geeky stuff is not a problem.

Not very long ago I decided to investigate this Linux business. I took an old machine and, after a cursory investigation on the net, installed Ubuntu. (Lippy Linx, or Moronic Meerkat or something – and these giggly in joke games DO NOT look serious to outsiders). It was quite easy, and the machine ran faster than under the Windows ME that had been sitting on it, so I started trying to set it up with all the stuff I expect to be able to use on my main computer.

And that is where it all came apart. I just couldn’t run the software I wanted.

First I looked for Linux versions of the applications.

Then I looked for compatible applications into which I could import my data.

Finally, I tried setting up WINE (and some other app for running Win apps, whose name escapes me).

After several weeks of digging around on the net, trying all sorts of options, typing incomprehensible commands into the command line, and achieving precisely nothing, I gave up.

I should probably explain the programs I needed to be able to run, but I should also make it clear that on-line or cloud software is not a substitute, as I am sometimes in locations with no form of internet access – not even dial up or GPS.

1. Autoroute. Old now, but remains the only satisfactory off line routeing software, as far as I am concerned.

2. Birdguides. A PC based version of a feild guide to birds.

3. TideMaster. A universal tide table application.

4. Astronomy. A universal guide to the night sky from any position on earth at any time.

5. Microsoft Access. I have a reasonably sophisticated Access database. I do not wish to take the time to re-write it in a new application, so I either have to run Access, or a program which will import and run not only the data, but the application as well.

None of the above could I get to run, and until they will ALL run, Linux remains an unuseable system. Having put in many hours of work on this, I am unlikely to try again unless I have hard evidence that I will succede.

Sorry guys (and gals) but there it is.