Been kinda busy here doing stupid shit. I read a news article... fuck, I have been doing that a lot, no wonder I don't get very far in the books I read, not to mention the fact that I have several going at once. (I am convinced there is a little ADD... or is it ADHD... going on) So, I read this news article about Microsoft doing a number with SUSE. SUSE Linux that is, produced by Novell. Reputable company, that one. I decided to check out what Novell was doing with SUSE, and it turns out they recently released a new version.

I have tried different Linux flavors - took a course for sysadmin using Red Hat and I have played around with that as well as Debian, Knoppix, Ubuntu and a few others, even multiple distributions on the same computer. It's been fun to fuck around with them, but that's all I've been doing with them. The learning curve is really steep, and with those ADD like symptoms I get frustrated with the stuff quickly, which means after a few weeks. In my opinion Linux has been for people with lots of time on their hands, or professionals that want to do it for a living. I tried to get the boys into it, but they were stuck in the Windows world and that, coupled with my eagerness to help them, created too many obstacles to overcome.

Anyway, SUSE looked promising, but so did the others. Debian and the Debian based distributions was cool cause it automated updating the applications, but it was either command line, or quirky GUIs to get it done. I guess what I was looking for was something I could put on the main computer that everyone could use and use easily. After downloading the DVDs, I installed SUSE on the big machine, and on the laptop as well (which was already set up with Ubuntu), and was pleased with the setup process. I would have been floored if SUSE would have recognized my wireless card on the laptop, but I wasn't surprised when that didn't work. I found out a while ago that the Truemobile card I bought has extremely limited support in Linux. If I were rich I would be buying a new one, but of course if I were rich I would just use Windows and buy all the software I need. So, installation went without a hitch on the big machine, and with a few fixable quirks on the laptop. I had to redo the MBR a couple of times because of burner problems (one DVD was ruined), but installation went good other than that.

I actually got my wife to sit down to it for her Internet. I put the same background up, and opened up all her favorite links to ease her into it. It helped that we have been using Firefox, or rather it helps that the user friendliness of Firefox gained it a foothold on this computer. The only thing that wouldn't work were the videos she likes to see. Some of them require MS Media Player. That was it though, she could get into scheduling and email at work, and look at her bank account. Hotmail worked well too, which was surprising.

She didn't complain... well, after I fixed all her links she didn't complain. I'm an enabler I guess; the easier I make it for her, the easier she expects it. It's good for me I guess, it forces me to learn new shit. Of course she doesn't do complicated shit on the computer, that takes the pressure off a bit. So, I went to work tweaking shit, seeing what would actually work well and what wouldn't 'out of the box' as the term goes. Let's see, MP3, most video are the big ones that give me a hard time, and that story was the same. There were no crashes though, and the office suite still looks archaic, but all the other basic stuff seems to work well enough. Even the DVD burner worked ok right off. I looked into getting into all my websites; bank, this blog, Verizon, and other things I needed my passwords for. Wine is a program that runs Windows programs in Linux, and I needed it to run KeePass, where I store all my passwords. After a few minutes I got that running, and I realized if I could get the mp3 stuff working I might be able to do away with Windows altogether with SUSE.

I've found some good help on the Internet since, and it looks like this might finally be a go. I found a source for getting the update working, which should have flash player and mp3 going, but it still needs work. I got VNC working, and accessed the music computer with it. If I can get it to play MP3s, I just might be able to put this on the music computer, but I might be into a media center OS before that happens. Of course, all the experience with Linux has helped, so it's still not for the average user, but it is finally at the point where it is usable and free, if it is done before the user gets it.