Well, I’m not entirely sure I love Hardy Heron but I did like the install process - it couldn’t be any easier. I downloaded the iso, burnt a cd, and did a quick install. Once it was done installing I logged in and BAM! everything worked. I’m amazed at how far Linux has come.
The first time I ever tried Linux (Slackware) was in 1995 on a POS (not point of sale) Compaq I had bought while in the Army. It installed but man was it a pain to get working. In fact, at the time it was so shaky that I was offered a Job with an ISP in Portland Oregon if I could successfully get the machine connecting to the net within Linux (using the built in dial-up). You would think that was an easy task but I basically would have had to hand crafted the drivers for my modem (something I knew nothing about at the time).
Now, here I am 13 years later on a Dell XPS laptop (M170) and I had to click 2 buttons and provide minimal information (my name, a username, and my timezone) and the whole thing was installed. I didn’t have to figure out partitions or tweak an odd boot loader to get things running. Instead it just did. Very nice.
The first thing I have done so far is post this blog post. Next I’ll muck around with customizing the environment and getting my development environments running (Apache, Eclipse, PHP, CF, Ruby for fun) and see where I go from there. If I can get the secure remote desktop working with one of our clients then perhaps this will become my primary dev machine over my windows box.
To be honest I don’t mind windows in general. I’m comfortable in it. I use an alternate shell (GeoShell with Launchy). The only thing I might miss from windows is Media Monkey. I haven’t found a music library manager I like nearly as much.
After I get everything installed that I need I’ll let you know what I think.