Julianna Yau’s blog

I have been without a netbook since this summer, after selling my 701 (first generation) EeePC because the keyboard couldn’t keep up with me. After a relatively quiet summer, I picked up a new 1005HA EeePC, mainly for the 10.5 hr battery. As with all things you fall in love with, it is making me rethink some of my life choices… and in this case, the way I compute.

For a few years now, I have been a mostly a convert of open source software, using OSS for everything from my operating system (OpenSUSE) to my office suite (OpenOffice.org). This was driven primarily by:

1. My dislike for the unfinished state in which all Windows releases are made
2. The vulnerability to viruses of Windows
3. The lack of money to buy closed-source software

Because OpenSUSE is a Linux distribution and doesn’t have perfect drivers for all of my hardware, I still kept Windows on my laptop as a backup, just incase. With one computer, this worked fairly well, as I could use my operating system of choice about 95% of the time.

Now, I’m faced with the problem of having to maintain not 2 operating systems, but 4 – 2 on my primary laptop and 2 on my netbook. With the increased frequency of updates and upgrades for operating systems and software, keeping everything current is not only daunting, but feeling like it may be detrimental to productivity (e.g. having to run updates on all my OSs and software before I can do anything). Then, of course, there is the problem of maintaining parallel sets of user settings in all 4 operating systems and the software in each of them. Thinking about having to do all of this makes me feel like my own IT department.

After looking at the time I have at my disposal and the work I have to accomplish, maintaining 4 copies of an OS is simply not an option. This leaves me with the very disappointing option of running Windows, with only open source software, rather than running OpenSUSE. It feels almost like defeat to have to return to Windows as a primary operating system, but the sad fact is that Linux stability and hardware support just isn’t good enough for it to be a primary operating system for everyday use. It’s a good OS, but only if you have the time to maintain it.