I’ve been pretty quiet about my linux escapades because it usually means I set myself up for failure and go back to Windows, but lately it’s all I use at home. I haven’t found myself wanting anything or missing anything and surprisingly it is now working better than xp on my aged laptop.
Specifically, on my laptop, the fans are insanely loud. To control this, I use Speedswitch XP which allows me to throttle my CPU. It works for a few months, then for whatever reason Windows will stop respecting my cpu throttle settings. Then, after a few more months, it’ll defer to the higher stepping for even the most mild of tasks. I originally thought it was spyware, but over the last few years I spend less and less time on the internet and more on other tasks, like music sorting. It seems the more often I do CPU intensive tasks, XP quickly decides to override my settings. I don’t mind running my laptop at 600mhz for web surfing or typing up documents or even tagging music. I don’t need that horsepower all the time.
So, oddly, one of the biggest reasons why I’m using linux on a day to day basis is because cpu throttling is set at kernel level, so whatever the system is doing, it’s doing it at my whim – even at boot time (throttling only happens once I’m logged in under Linux). This issue seems to be dogging my laptop only. Lisa’s laptop is silent, and even my sister’s laptop, which is also a Centrino, is largely silent. But mine is the prettiest.
Second reason is virtual desktops. I do NOT use any of those fancy graphic plugins. I like being able to move windows around to multiple desktops, increase and decrease desktops on the fly, and have it all bound to keyboard shortcuts.
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I originally was dissuaded from macs because of the double toolbar – one up top and one at the bottom. Since I started using gnome (and loving it), I’ve relented on that aspect. Now I just want a decent implementation of virtual desktops, and I’ll be completely sold.
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I don’t think my laptop is going to last much longer. The DVD drive is failing, the keyboard is having some issues, and the glue between the bezel and the lcd wore out, so now particles of dirt are in the LCD, so there are spots on the screen that I can do nothing about. My hope (fingers crossed) is that Lisa buys a new laptop for her practice so I can ‘inherit’ hers. If not, I’ll give a Mac a long look. Or maybe this, though it’d be a used model 5 years from now when it comes down to a price I can afford.
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April is going to be fantastic. Ubuntu 10.04 LTS comes out, which should be the best implementation of Ubuntu yet (and it’ll be accompanied by a thorough user manual) and Glee comes back on (on my birthday no less). And of course, we should have a 12 week old by then (!).
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