Mailund on the Internet

Maybe it’s just me, but I am getting more and more frustrated with Linux as a desktop computer. There is always some small problem that you have to struggle with, and I am getting fed up with it.

I’m sitting in a train right now. There is a wireless network here, so I can be on the Net while I’m travelling. All good and well, except that connecting to it through my Ubuntu machine is a major struggle.

Well, in itself it doesn’t sound like a lot: I have to open a dialog to find the network and then connect. For some reason I have to be root do do this, but okay, it doesn’t take that long to type in the password. I have to open just the right dialog to connect, of course, because if I just click the icon in my menubar I am politely told that the wireless interface does not exist. If I go through the Network item in the menu, that doesn’t seem to bother the computer and I can connect there.

So it is a little work but nothing to complain too much about, I guess. The problem is just that network is a bit unstable, so I loose connection to it for short periods every so often. Then I have to do it all again. Forget about keeping the dialogue open. For some reason it automatically closes if you leave it alone more than a few seconds. I suppose it is to be friendly.

I have spent more time trying to connect to the network now than I have spent time using the network.

Anyway, so now I rebooted into my Windows partition. Here, I am informed of the presence of the network, I connect, and whenever the network is dropped, I just right-click on the network icon in the taskbar and repair the connection.

It “just works”.

Of course, there isn’t much else that I enjoy about Windows. I find Outlook an exercise in frustration, and the lack of virtual desktops / “spaces” makes the desktop a mess, but I think my problems with this is simply that I am not as used to Windows as I am to Linux.

I’ve gotten used to Mac OS X since I bought an iMac for the office, so now I’ve decided to buy a Mac laptop as well. Maybe a Mac Air, just for the coolness factor.

For computations, Linux will probably still be my choice in the future. A Linux cluster is the right choice for number crunching. But as a desktop computer, I just can’t be bothered with it any more.

Too bad, since the eye candy on Linux is getting really cool. Better even than the Mac. Eye candy just isn’t enough, though, if it means you have to struggle with drivers and shit whenever you want to do the simplest little thing…

A few days ago I was too tired to work in the evening, so I decided to upgrade my laptop to Hardy Heron while watching a movie.  It went surprisingly well, compared to last time where the upgrade broke a lot of my applications (but my last upgrade was to a beta release of Gutsy Gibbon and this time I didn’t want to upgrade to a beta).

So far, I am happy with the update.  I have had some problems with spam-filtering but as far as I can see I have solved that problem just by changing from bogofiltering to spamassasin, so no worries there.

I had hoped I would be able to synchronise Evolution with Google Calendar, and for a minute I could (although repeated tasks didn’t seem to work).  Trying to include a second calendar didn’t work and instead seemed to break the first calendar as well, so now I have no synchronisation at all.

It is a feature I would really love to have, so I’ll try to fix it, but if anyone has had similar problems (broken sync or problems with recurring events) and solved them, please let me know.

I am very happy with Firefox 3 as well.  It is less memory hungry and the URL bar is awesome!

My internet provider, TDC, now offers a new service: for internet subscribers with at least 1Mbit/s, a large selection of their online music show is now free.  Great, you think, at least so did I, so I quickly went to their webpage and signed up (which was a bit of a hassle, but I managed).  Only to discover that all the music is in DRM protected WMA files.  Just great! Those only play in Windows Media on Windows, not on Linux and not on Mac, the two operating systems I use.  The service is absolutely useless to me!

I am used to Linux being ignored, but I thought I would be at least somewhat better off now that I am using Mac as well, but I guess not.