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| The entire assembly. The heater and connectors are missing. |
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| All the .08' acrylic sheet parts. The air sparger has a bunch of .03" holes in it to make the bubbles. |
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| The main sides of the tank. |
Although I've been using Linux on a few of my computers since 2006, It wasn't until November 18th of this year that I finally made the switch to Linux (Ubuntu) as my main platform. I've been thinking about why I finally switched, and why Windows has such a strangle hold on the world.
I've wanted to switch for a while (I'll get to the reasons in a bit), but I've been held to Windows by three things for the longest time.
Games, Ventrilo, and Visual Studio. (none of which work very well under wine).
In other words, proprietary software. Everything else I used was available on Linux already (Firefox, Thunderbird, etc...) or a decent replacement existed.
The things that finally sent me over the edge with Windows were the stability and worthless 64 bit support from both Microsoft and vendors. I've actually been a defender of the stability of Windows, blaming slowdowns and crashes on user error (which is often the case, just take a look at most peoples installed software...). However, after dealing with windows for long enough (and having weeks of uptime on Ubuntu :P), I now honestly believe that, even with the best users, Windows is unstable.
This cannot be blamed entirely on Microsoft. It's mainly the fault of applications trying to take over as much control as possible. For example, my MX-518; I just want my mouse to work, I don't care about Logitec's drivers, but alas, I have to install them for the mouse to work decently. And what do they do? Attach to every single running process to do something with the mouse, slowing down the system in the process (no I don't have benchmarks). There are so many applications like this, which, for "legitimate purposes", attempt to become omnipotent.
For my computer to be of any real use to me, I either have to use these applications, use something that doesn't mess up my computer while not doing what I want, or write my own (no way I'm spending years on a DVD burner with the features I want). However, open source software doesn't have these problems. The whole Unix (and therefore Linux) philosophy is that of separation and specialization. Applications do one thing and do it well, but can still be composed into greater applications (Instead of reinventing, bugs and all). I can use truly useful applications that do what I want, how I want, and without them trying to take over my computer.
Now onto how my switch went.
To be honest, it was a pain, but I'm glad I did it. It took about 5 days to get Ubuntu setup and working with almost everything I wanted. The things that took the most time were my dual monitors (which are still a bit off) and sound recording (which still won't work for over 20 seconds in wine). Most of my time was spent reading documentation and the Ubuntu forums (which are simply amazingly useful, no RTFM at all).
I did have to give up a few things. Visual Studio (although I actually like KDev more after using it), Ventrilo, Photoshop, and a few others. However, Steam (Counter Strike, etc..) works perfectly under wine. And UT 2004 runs beautifully on native Linux, even getting higher FPS and much less non-network lag than on Windows.
As for what I spend most of my time on, programming, I honestly find coding on Linux to simply be more fun than on Windows, but what else is to be expected from an OS written by the same people who love and use it all day?
I must give a major thanks to all those who've worked on Linux, Ubuntu, and open source in general. After all, without them we would be stuck with Windows, or even worse... Mac!