The Struggle That Went Behind

I was not quite sure what I'd call myself when I start using a Linux distribution. I'd a few options at hand:

• A simple Linux User
• A whoever, why should I care?!
• A Linux Junkie

Though I don't smoke pot, the word "junkie" seemed to draw my attention many a time ;-) Anyways, that's the story behind my blog title. Since some of my friends are quite interested to see how Ubuntu performs over a period of time - my laptop is sort of their guinea pig. I hope to scribble some of my experiences while using, configuring and customizing Linux every once in a while.

It might be worthwhile to write about how my tryst with Linux began and how I ended up being its user.

Given that I had about 10 years of experience at using a computer with the Operating System (OS) being (yeah, you guessed it..) Windows! Here's a chronology of my experience:

1995 - 1999: Windows 95
1999 - 2003: Windows 98
2003 - 2004: Windows 2003/XP
2004 - 2008: Windows XP Professional

December 2005: I bought my first laptop - IBM Thinkpad R50e - Pentium M 725 (1.6 GHz), 768 MB RAM (customized), 40 GB 4200 rpm HDD, 15" 1024x768 LCD, Intel Extreme Graphics, CD-RW/DVD-R, Intel 802.11bg wireless, Modem, 10/100 Ethernet, 6c Li-Ion battery, WinXP Professional.


Now I'm like any typical user of Windows. Here are some of my grudges against it.

• Adjust. Whatever its look/feel be, I had to be contended with it. Why? Because I didn't have a choice. If I tried out some themes like WindowBlinds, etc., it added to my memory load and it didn't serve my laptop well.
  
• Slower and Weaker. With every passing day, I always felt that my Windows OS got slower. I never knew why. Alongside, I felt the need to constantly upgrade my RAM. I somehow attributed this to growing complexity of modern-day applications, which is true in many case.
• Virus attacks! Yes, this is one thing that I learned to be cautious about. Though Norton Antivirus was "fed" to me since 1999 or so, I was never completely satisfied with its capability. It, somehow, had minor chinks in its defense mechanism that led me to suffer from viruses/malware/trojans. Luckily for me, while at the University, I had the option of purchasing McAfee Antivrus at a student price. I felt a little bit relaxed with this, however, a really bad, bad attack in the Spring of 2006 led me to install AVG Antivirus Free alongside it for my-personal-foolproof-system. However, an experienced user will realize that running two anti-virus software programs will be severe on the computer's memory.
  
• Reinstallation. This was a nightmare. Though my ThinkPad had a recovery partition, which formats, installs the OS and drivers, the whole process takes about 1 hour. On top of that, I have to install each and every software program to customize the laptop to my liking. For all of these software programs like VLC Player, Azureus BitTorrent Client, AVG Antivirus (of course!!), MS Office, etc., to be installed, it took a few more hours. I reckon that anyone will vouch for this!

It was the Summer of 2006. I was pursuing my Master's degree in College Station, TX at that time. The Summer Semester was quite laid-back as I did not take any credits. My roommate and good friend was at his geeky best during that Summer. He had downloaded/ordered Live CDs from the internet and was trying out one such Linux distribution. Whenever I was around, he used to showcase how superior it was compared to Windows. He even offered to give me some Live CDs. I somehow was quite reluctant at that time due to many inhibitions such as

• It appears to be Unix-based OS - What do I know about Unix?
• I'll probably take a lot of time to get used to it. Why take the trouble?!
• What if I have issues with it? There is no toll-free number for me to reach out to.

Soon I got busy with my thesis and time flew. Towards the end of the 2006 Fall Semester, I'd acquired Live CDs of the Ubuntu Linux Distribution. I went for it with the recommendation of my roommate. The best part was that I probably shelled out just $5-10 for the postage and I had at least 5-6 Live CDs along with Ubuntu vanity stickers. Not that I was going to try it out, but I wanted to have them with me in case I happen to try it at a later stage.

Fast-forward to present: Time flew and it was 2008 - a little more than 2 years since I purchased my laptop & exactly 2 years after I reinstalled my OS after the Spring 2006 Virus Attack.

I did not really like the amount of time my Windows XP OS took to boot. I got used to the habit of powering my laptop on, completing my morning rituals, and then come back to see it ready for any use. I have a fair bit of an idea about how systray (System Tray) functions and one can customize it. On several occasions, I attempted to remove applications that hogged the RAM, sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully.


I installed an application called as the FreeRAM XP Pro, a free Windows-based utility, that frees up the RAM (through an optimization algorithm??). It has a nice visual icon in the systray that showed the amount of RAM available for your applications. As I got used to this tool, I realized as to how Windows kept using my RAM on a constant basis, over a period of time. I thought that Slower and Weaker meant that my laptop configuration was about 2.5 years old and hence needed additional impetus.

I ordered and installed an additional 1 GB RAM for my IBM ThinkPad. Though I have not upgraded it fully to the maximum 1.5 GB, the effective RAM in the current stage is 1.2 GB on my laptop. Despite the additional 512 MB RAM, my laptop's behavior was the same - only that I offered Windows additional memory for supper. I felt disgusted and irritated.

The Day of Reckoning!
It was December 17, 2008. While I was flipping my CD pages, I found the Ubuntu Live CDs that I ordered way back in 2006. I chose to try it out and see how it felt. Here's a short preview of Ubuntu before anything else.


More later in the next post. Now, you'll believe that I'm not really a Linux Junkie. In fact, I'm just teething now!

God speed,
Schumi