My Failed Move to Linux
Over the past week, I decided to attempt a move to Linux. This post explains how I failed.
For background, throughout my entire graduate school experience, I primarily used Linux (started with Fedora 3). Linux is a higher productivity environment than Windows with keyboard-centric usage, avoiding the mouse, and quick-to-launch low-memory-consumption applications and text-editors.
I joke sometimes that I’m losing my technical soul as I get further and further away from my engineering roots in what I do day-to-day. I rarely code anything anymore. When I do, it’s lame website stuff, not the awesome accelerated computing stuff my team can do.
Anyway, I wanted to regain my technical soul by moving back to Linux. I can count on 1-hand the reasons I’m still tied to Windows: MS Office (we use Google docs internally for most things, but Powerpoint still rules), Quickbooks, Quotewerks, and iTunes.
So I thought I could move to Linux and just use a Windows VM for those times when I need to launch Windows applications. I burned at least two full days trying to figure that out and failed. I tried Fedora 19 and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Here are my notes from the process:
- VM software is broken. I tried VirtualBox, virt-manager, and Fedora Boxes. I was able to install Windows in several of these. But important things were broken in every configuration I tried, including networking, shared folders, ability to install iTunes, and ability to pass through USB devices.
- I found myself still spending a lot of time configuring Flash, Java, and other things you need on a machine. I had to get into user forums to figure out errors repeatedly.
- Ubuntu was much better than Fedora.
- I was worried about the ability to interface with projectors as I travel, but didn’t get far enough to substantiate that fear.
- I was not willing to mess with dual-boot and the complexity of sharing files between operating systems.
The straw that really broke the camel’s back for me was that Shared Folders for VirtualBox are buggy in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. If those had worked properly, I probably would have figured everything else out.
In the end, the inability to run those four Windows applications drove me away from Linux again. I can install emacs, cygwin, and putty in Windows and get most of what I want.
But Linux is much, much better than it was 8 years ago! Ubuntu is fantastic. I predict that we will see more and more Linux adoption as browsers become more central to how people work, mobile devices pull people away from Windows, Linux becomes more user-friendly, and Microsoft continues to struggle.
Have you considered moving to Linux?