-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi,
It's now been eleven days since I installed Mandrake, and I'd like to share a few thoughts. This may be a bit long, so I apologize in advance for my sound-byte challenged condition. First, I want to thank all of the very helpful and patient people on this list...you're all great! You've not only helped me with technical issues, but have also given me an appreciation for the community effort that is Mandrake in particular, and Linux in general. I'm going to keep working on tweaking my Mandrake and associated programs, but I'm also going to slow down the pace of my Linux project. You see, I'm a busy person, and I'm realizing that I'm spending way too much time staring at this silly screen, and not getting, amongst other things, enough sleep. Do beware though...I'm not through with you yet! No doubt I'll be back, sooner than you might hope...to ask more stupid and silly questions. :-) In another thread - "leaving linux again" - "Void" was concerned about not being able to get the television tuner working. Both the original post and the several replies allowed me to ponder the irony of the value of spending so much time staring at one type of screen or another. At the end of the day, how much real difference is there between watching television and watching a computer screen? I may happen to agree with many that between the two, spending time with the computer *can* be more productive than spending the same time looking at a television, but what about the time taken away by either from the rest of life? Remember the world just on the other side of our windows? No...not the "Windoze" or "xWindows"...but those transparent glass barriers between where we are at this moment, and all that fresh air out there! And what about spending some quality time curled up by the fire with a cup of tea and good book? As I said, my life is busy. I'm a musician, a kayaker, a boat builder, a chess player, a bicyclist, a reader, a beach bum, and another thing or two or three. I know the rest of you have lives beyond your computers as well, so I know you understand. I do enjoy keeping in touch with my friends via email, and I use my computer when I write poetry and prose. I use the computer to research things I'm interested in, and to play a bit of chess with people all over the world. It's a wonderful and rather amazing tool. However, it is the world beyond this keyboard, mouse, and monitor that fascinates me even more, and I'm feeling like I'm missing too much of it as I sit here for hours on end typing Klingon phrases into a little black Konsole (again...who's in charge of spelling around here?! :-)). Though tweaking software can be interesting to me - to a degree - I really only ever do it out of necessity...never because I just like to tweak. I'm finding that to be a Linux user *is* to tweak and to tinker, and in reality, I find myself doing more tinkering than emailing, playing chess, or writing. Worse yet, I'm doing more tinkering in the glow of this screen this past week than I am paddling my kayak and walking on the beach, and this I find disturbing. I know that after these initial weeks of understandable intensity I *should* be able to do a bit less tweaking and a bit more of other things, but I can also see an emerging pattern of increased screen time devoted just to the machine and OS itself, rather than just doing what I want with this tool, then moving on to other things. There are, after all, only 24 hours in each day, and I must balance my life a bit better than I have these past several days. A few thoughts about Windows versus Linux... I've come to really appreciate the Linux philosophy, and the community of users/developers that make all this possible. It really is pretty amazing. In spite of my general dislike of the "Microsoft way", I must also acknowledge some of the really sophisticated and refined programs written for Windows. I'm not talking about MS applications beyond the OS itself, but about many third party applications that I truly enjoy using. Sometimes, when we're so passionate about one way of doing things over another, we can overlook some practical realities. There are indeed some really wonderful Windows programs that just don't have truly comparable Linux counterparts...yet. The email program I'm writing from at this moment (The Bat!) is one of those very elegant programs written for Windows, and is not, at this time, ported to Linux. For the sake of Linux users everywhere, I do hope someday it will be. I've been told that since it's written in Delphi, that may make the transition easier. I don't really know what that means in technical terms, but several people more knowledgeable than myself have told me this...and I hope it's true. With all the corresponding and writing I do, I've always been a bit of an "email client junkie", and once I found The Bat!, I've never looked for another default email client. My curiosity keeps me looking at and playing with others that hold some interest for me (naturally, the abominations MS calls their "email clients" are *not* amongst the ones that interest me!), but I've yet to find *any* email client for Windows or for Linux that really comes close to The Bat!. I'll keep looking, especially at Linux clients, but I assure you, it takes a lot to impress me at this point, and I'm not impressed yet. It's not at all difficult to find email clients vastly superior to Outlook and Outlook Express (eek!...sorry for swearing!), but it's going to take some time for other Windows *and* Linux email clients to catch up to the power, versatility, and sheer elegance of The Bat! I'm certainly not saying that one can't find their "perfect" email client from amongst the other choices (indeed, many do), but until you've tried this one, you may not know what you're missing. I certainly didn't know what I was missing before I discovered this client a few years ago. There are some other "Windows only" bits of software that deserve a great deal of respect from *any* computer user, as I'm sure there are Linux only programs that can't be matched in the Windows realm (including perhaps the OS kernel itself). I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's not always so simple to be all for one way, and all against the other. Each can learn from the other, and both could be better for it. I'm certainly rooting for Linux to come out ahead in the end. In a "perfect world" according to me, know I'd be using Linux exclusively, but considering the current reality of software development and availability, I know that I'll be dual-booting for some time to come. Maybe someday I can happily claim to operate a "100% MS free computer". :-) Thanks again to all of you for helping me so much in my first few clumsy steps with Mandrake/Linux! To quote a certain governor..."I'll be back!" :-) - -- Melissa PGP public keys: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]&Body=Please%20send%20keys -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iD8DBQE/ycS4jVbXUvsE8ukRAvziAJ9WJSFktbFYo9v4GmHl2lWpp5EdLACeJqUI 2hoZc52uuPzTqMEGHY1MghY= =l6uc -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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