Now don’t get me wrong. I’m constitutionally predisposed towards Linux, the open-source and (mostly) free operating system. I think that most writers could, and should, transition away from the occult horrors of Windows 11 and beyond, towards an OS that embodies many of the values we share here in the Colony. Support, for example – Linux users help each other.
And moving to Linux is fairly straightforward... providing your needs are essentially threefold: word processing, web browsing and email. That covers about 80% of writers, I should think.
But.
The past few days have been a titanic, Gnostic struggle between hardware, software and an operating system (Windows 10) that just won’t let me go.
I can’t begin to tell you to what extent my mind and been consumed by this. It’s like the Lost Weekend without alcohol.
Who won?
It’s a draw. Here is a brief summary of the state of play (mostly for techies… normal folk can jump to the final paragraph, which will be more relevant).
Getting desktop Linux (Ubuntu) working for a more complex usage scenario than mail/browsing/writing is… complex. As a wise Litopian recently said, you can’t get Linux going without diving into the command line. Which has been my life these past few days, gentle reader. Even getting a NAS device to mount itself on the local machine at boot is bloody difficult. So much advice out there, but not much of it actually works. Another day wasted (well, it’s working now… but dang, this is trivial stuff on Windows).
Also, Windows is the only platform for vMix, the live streaming software we’ve used for ever. Yes, I know about OBS and I like it. But vMix is in a different league. Plus, I know it intimately and can script some pretty fancy automations, as seen on Pop-Ups. The arguments in favour of Windows for audio (Reaper) and video editing (Resolve) are less compelling, since both of those apps have Linux versions. However, I do have a fair bit of cash tied up in Windows-only hardware and I don’t relish the prospect of trying to emulate the same spec with Linux audio and video hardware. There are horror stories.
So everything seemed to point towards a KVM, which involved another full day of my life being sacrificed to hardware that isn’t quite what you expect from its Amazon description. It’s gone back to them today.
Final truce is a mini PC as an office beast (Geekom IT 13) and the existing W10 machine gets a life extension. It may, in fact, get a complete software rebuild with W10 and only vMix, Reaper and Resolve on it. Literally nothing else. I will run it well past W10 expiry, until hardware failure.
Anyway… and here’s the final paragraph… things are stable now, in fact, rather exciting. One machine is exclusively reserved for audio, live video and editing. The other machine – running Ubuntu – supports every other usage case. Since a growing number of folk are interested in moving to some variety of Linux – and we are lucky to have quite a bit of expertise here in the Colony – I’ve added a new prefix: “Computer Help!”. Please use it if you’re thinking of making the move, or if you get stuck halfway. Help is just a click away
And moving to Linux is fairly straightforward... providing your needs are essentially threefold: word processing, web browsing and email. That covers about 80% of writers, I should think.
But.
The past few days have been a titanic, Gnostic struggle between hardware, software and an operating system (Windows 10) that just won’t let me go.
I can’t begin to tell you to what extent my mind and been consumed by this. It’s like the Lost Weekend without alcohol.
Who won?
It’s a draw. Here is a brief summary of the state of play (mostly for techies… normal folk can jump to the final paragraph, which will be more relevant).
Getting desktop Linux (Ubuntu) working for a more complex usage scenario than mail/browsing/writing is… complex. As a wise Litopian recently said, you can’t get Linux going without diving into the command line. Which has been my life these past few days, gentle reader. Even getting a NAS device to mount itself on the local machine at boot is bloody difficult. So much advice out there, but not much of it actually works. Another day wasted (well, it’s working now… but dang, this is trivial stuff on Windows).
Also, Windows is the only platform for vMix, the live streaming software we’ve used for ever. Yes, I know about OBS and I like it. But vMix is in a different league. Plus, I know it intimately and can script some pretty fancy automations, as seen on Pop-Ups. The arguments in favour of Windows for audio (Reaper) and video editing (Resolve) are less compelling, since both of those apps have Linux versions. However, I do have a fair bit of cash tied up in Windows-only hardware and I don’t relish the prospect of trying to emulate the same spec with Linux audio and video hardware. There are horror stories.
So everything seemed to point towards a KVM, which involved another full day of my life being sacrificed to hardware that isn’t quite what you expect from its Amazon description. It’s gone back to them today.
Final truce is a mini PC as an office beast (Geekom IT 13) and the existing W10 machine gets a life extension. It may, in fact, get a complete software rebuild with W10 and only vMix, Reaper and Resolve on it. Literally nothing else. I will run it well past W10 expiry, until hardware failure.
Anyway… and here’s the final paragraph… things are stable now, in fact, rather exciting. One machine is exclusively reserved for audio, live video and editing. The other machine – running Ubuntu – supports every other usage case. Since a growing number of folk are interested in moving to some variety of Linux – and we are lucky to have quite a bit of expertise here in the Colony – I’ve added a new prefix: “Computer Help!”. Please use it if you’re thinking of making the move, or if you get stuck halfway. Help is just a click away
