Back from vacation

Yelena & I drove back from Tahoe yesterday, in Amy's newly-repaired-and-still-broken car (the damn mechanic fixed the coolant problem but still didn't fix the heater!).  Got to my mom's house, picked up the hamster, dropped off all the gear that she couldn't fit in her car when she left, and headed down to SF.  The rain was close to the worst I've ever seen; sometimes it was impossible to even do the speed limit.

It was nice to get home.  After synchronizing all the photos from the trip (they'll be online soon, I promise), I installed Linux on my laptop.  Something I've been waiting to do since before finals.  So far the process has reinforced everything I've learned lately about the differences between Linux & Windows.

If you want a dual-boot with windows and linux, you have to install windows first.  Why?  Because linux plays nice, but windows tries to take over everything if you install it second.  So, ironically, in order to install linux, you must first install windows.  I couldn't find the system cd for my Toshiba laptop.  Called the manufacturer, but since the computer is more than a year old, they wanted to charge me $30 for a new set of cd's.  Screw that.  I called CompUSA, where I paid for a $200 deluxe warranty, and they said I should talk to the manufacturer.  Thanks a lot.

So I used my standard retail version of Windows XP (which I got for my desktop way back when).  It had a terrible time detecting my funky laptop hardware, and when I tried to update the software it gave me a hard time about being a genuine windows copy (remember: one copy of windows, one computer).  Also, it wouldn't recognize my wireless card, so I had to carry the laptop to the storage room and use the "emergency" ethernet cable to access the internet.  But, I got it limping along, which is all I need.

Then, linux.  Ah, glorious linux.  It boots first and uses a graphical installer (which windows doesn't). It automatically detected my wireless card, and everything else.  The initial screen was classy and pretty (which is more than I can say for windows' glaring blue-and-green).  Right now I'm running Automatix: with a few mouse clicks, it's installing all the software that should have come with linux.

"Ah yes, but you're still trying to install XP.  Surely Vista will be better."  First of all, Vista hasn't come out for consumers yet, so technically I'm still using Microsoft's latest consumer OS.  Second of all, I tried the Vista beta and it was GOD AWFUL.  "Yeah, that was the beta.  I heard they made it much better after that."  I also heard it still has a ton of holes and problems.  And I'm not sure it would run on my laptop hardware at all (even though it was a $1200 laptop 18 months ago).

Conclusion so far: not only has linux been classier and easier to use, but it was WAY better at hardware detection.  Out of the gate, it wins hands down.