Friday, August 12, 2005

windows xp confession

Forgive me, Tux, for I have sinned: I’m using Windows XP as my desktop OS of choice at home, and I’m liking it. This may not be a big deal for many folks, but as a Tux-huggin’ console-sluggin’ wannabe, this affection for XP is distressing, and tastes of blasphemy.

It is not as though I’ve given up Linux completely - this blog (and several other applications) are hosted in my home office on a tired old PII server running Gentoo Linux. I’ve been running Linux on my home server for several years now, and extremely happy with it. So when we decided to replace our ancient family PC with a new notebook earlier this year, I was convinced I’d replace the pre-installed Windows XP with the latest Gentoo Linux release. Tux would have free rein in our home at last!

But from the moment I unpacked the notebook PC and turned it on, Windows XP began to seduce me. Fast user switching. USB and the built-in SD card reader, all working seamlessly. Heck, the internal wireless card works flawlessly, and I don’t even know which chipset it is using! The deal clincher, though, had to be the operational power management and suspend/resume. Support for all of these features can be accomplished under Linux, of course - you just need extensive knowledge and the patience of a saint.

Perhaps I’m becoming less adventurous in my old age - or simply increasingly lazy. But I find that the combination of Windows XP on client PCs supported by a home server running Linux hits a sweet spot that just works for me. I hope Tux will forgive me; my spirit is willing, but my flesh is weak.

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