Linux - a quandary!

From: Steve (nospam_at_nospam.com)
Date: 01/14/05 

Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 20:51:59 GMT

Hi Folks
I`ve been using Linux for about 5yrs now after throwing the towel in
with Windows 98 and its sodding blue screens and recently thought I`d
upgrade my desktop pc from Core 2 to Core 3 so biting the bullet went
for it and low and behold the usual things that worked before and don`t
now occured- bog standard Robotics external modem - no chance (why
Kinternet doesn`t like it I don`t know), usb scanner - nah!, onboard
sound - sort of!, Epson printer - nada! and so on so I thought "Sod it
here we go again" now at this point I would have taken days configuring
and retrying things to get it all to work but its christmas so I put pc
away for a day or two.
My other half unbeknown to me buys me a laptop with Windows XP on and I
thought `Soon have that off and Linux on` but thought again as its been
paid for and part of the package and really I should give it a go and so
I did and found myself really enjoying using it and everything works
straight off. It took 20mins to create a wireless network with my laptop
and win98 partition on my desktop ( yes I kept win 98 just in case;-))
using the XP wizard and I`ve never tried networking before and it seems
to be able to cope with anything I throw at it god knows how long it
would take me to learn and configure a Linux/windows wired network let
alone a wireless one!.
So theres my quandary do I embrace Bill`s brave new world where
everything `seems` to work ok or continue burning the midnight oil
configuring the latest version of Linux?
Don`t get me wrong I have enjoyed using (and abusing) Linux immensely
over the years and have learnt a lot but I find it so frustrating the
backwards (or should that be forwards!) compatibility with various
versions of Linux I`ve tried over the years why the hell a pc working
fine on version 8 say of a distro goes tits up with version 9 I don`t
know ?.
I don`t suppose for one minute anyone gives a stuff which os I end up
using but I do feel a certain loyalty to Linux but comments from folk in
the group would be welcome.
I suppose I`d save six quid a month not buying `Linux Format` excellent
mag BTW.
Steve

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