A few days ago I took a deep breath and logged a help desk job asking for a go ahead to install Ubuntu. Within 1 hour a very helpful fella (and GNU/Linux lover) was down to see me. He said, yep, no worries, but you won’t be able to easily access your work email or local network drives. I said I’d think about it and get back to him…
A few days later he was down with some extra RAM and installing VMWare. What I have now is a computer that is running WindowsXP and Ubuntu at the same time. I can use the XP to access the work email and shared drives, and Ubuntu for everything else. When I start the computer in the morning, I land in XP land, but I start the desktop shortcut the VMWare and tell it to open Ubuntu. It starts up the free world in the VMware window, and then I full screen it.
I’m typing this post on Ubuntu and loving every key stroke of it. Its hard to explain why I am so happy about this - I mean to some people, I’m just using another operating system.. and by choosing to use 2 systems, I’m actually creating more work for myself and you might say the IT Support guy as well. But those people you might just call, users with a rather narrow view of it.
But I think it’s about quite a bit more than just the user. With every key stroke I remember the digital divide that is getting smaller thanks to the work of GNU/Linux and related software. With every key stroke I am thinking how liberating it is to be developing the skills to use free software and never have to be bound to something that costs me a lot of money and likes to change the rules as we go. With every key stroke I feel more and more connected to a community that is passionate about freedom, openness, re-usability, empowerment and many other principles that go way deeper than user, lock in and profits. With every key stroke I feel one step closer to helping that community and contributing back into it.
Many thanks to the Otago Polytechnic IT support unit. They are easily the best support I have ever had in any job anywhere.
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January 25, 2007 at 2:43 am
Sean FitzGerald
So if Michael has been able to put “Windows XP inside a window of it’s own in Ubuntu” - http://liveandletlearn.net/i-love-windows-vista/ - I wonder what can and can’t be done in there? Would you still be able to access your work email or local network drives if you tried that approach? Hmm.
January 25, 2007 at 10:00 am
leighblackall
Yes that would work too. The way I currently have it - launching with windows first, I have access to the shared drives and email too.
January 27, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Michael
Great idea Leigh… I might try the same from work! Great way to help people to try Ubuntu too… yay
January 27, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Michael
and as for which should be inside which, I chatted with Sean about this the other day… think you’ve definitely got it around the right way for work (Ubuntu inside Windows), as otherwise you’d have to install Windows and set it up with all the specific stuff for your work. Much safer the way you’ve got it as the IT support people will be happy, and you get everything you need for Ubuntu.
January 27, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Jude
Congratulations Leigh - are you still keen to have a go at the project - sounds like you are off to a good start. I am thinking our laptops are being replaced very soon, i might propose we use the full set. Also have 12000 funding for mature aged unemployed so may be able to practically apply ideas. What do you reckon?
January 28, 2007 at 7:44 pm
boredkiwi
now - first thing to learn is to keep your updates happening. I make money from fixing new linux users who think they are on a safe OS then get Pwned the very next day. At the very least, run apt-get update; apt-get upgrade every week (I do it on login).
Anyone with a clue knows that only starry eyed fanboys believe that THEIR op-sys is safe. Vulnerability databases aren’t as one-eyed.
January 29, 2007 at 9:00 pm
brent
awesome! congrats Leigh. I was accosted by a bunch of bunch of Microsoft marketing pawns today along Queen St. trying to give me a “free” Vista frisbee — as we say in NZ, “Yea, right!” I think you’ve nailed something on the head that’s hard to describe — that’s the feeling of using an OS developed by thousands and thousands of people all over this whacky globe … there’s something in that that is infectious, far more infectious than Steve Balmer popping a vein in his forehead from screaming Microsoft (”paid for my superyacht”
at a bunch of industry sheep.