Wednesday, October 10, 2007

More howl from a Wolvix Linux user

How did I get in this blogging business anyway? Being a guy who rarely spoke out about anything, over the years a lot of stuff was left unsaid. Blogging is a way to tell it. Computers are a daily part of my life now and I have seen things come and go in the computer world. It is amazing what other people (computer users) are totally blind to, unaware of, or will kill you over if you change what they are using. Some are even claiming supremacy in spite of having to pay for stuff and not having complete control over what they bought. Lets see, I have to purchase one copy of the OS for each machine I own because it is illegal to do otherwise. I have to pay big bucks for major "professional grade" software that I only use some of the time. These are what the stores are selling and everybody is buying it. There are hundreds of reasons why people don't know about Linux and open source software. Then when they find out, they don't want to break old habits or stop using what they are use to. I am not talking to you people. If you are curious, fed up, want a change, want a choice, want to escape, ta da, ta da, ta da.........and still get your computing done, now we can talk.

In my try this and that world I am looking for the best all around Linux that runs on my assortment of equipment. That was impossibly hard 10 years ago, today we have liveCDs.
Linux can be tried out without messing up your precious MS Windows install. Yes, I still have XP but it doesn't get much air time. If Linux only had Incredimail and what's the name of that other program.................it's been so long. I am using Kubuntu by day, it's big full bodied but it still doesn't have a few utilities I found in Wolvix. After five I switch over to Wolvix, the howl of the wolf is very intoxicating. Don't let the gray clothes fool you, it can be tweaked. If you like the shadowy, smoky stillness then Xfce is the desktop for you. But if you like color with flexibility go with Fluxbox. In a lot of distros having more than one window manager creates confusion. In Wolvix it is nice to see some synergy. I have a hard time deciding if Xfce or Fluxbox is better. In any case KDE and Gnome are not missed at all. Less is really more here. I get pizazz just short of eyecandy and stability I can count on. Does Wolvix come up short in anything? Well, being Slackware based does put you at a variety disadvantage when it comes to applications but who needs 4 or 5 versions of programs that do the same things. But you can learn to compile programs from source and have practically any program you want. Besides I am not a programmer, nor a avid gamer, just a user who does "stuff" on the computer. And I don't as yet have a laptop with wireless, so I don't see special needs or exotic hardware. Wolvix is great for me, you, what are you looking for? Would I recommend Wolvix to a new user? I think a newbie to Linux could do well with Wolvix if they didn't dig to deep into its secrets. Wouldn't want them to learn something now would we? Lets see, plug-n-play, gui's, menus, oops there's a command line. It kills me, MS Windows users try to pretend their computers have a big off/on switch that they flick and it does everything. It is not true folks. If you don't like MS Windows you also don't have to buy an Mac. Linux is very good, 10 years of testing by yours truly has proven it.

No comments: