Eric Lee

As I discovered entirely by accident, today marks the end of my first year using Linux.
When I began, I wrote a number of updates for my blog with titles like ‘Linux: the first nine days’ or ‘Day Eleven: The experiment continues’. I think I was amazed that it could go on like that, day after day.
There were probably two reasons for my own surprise at how well it has gone.
First, I’d had a bad experience using Linux in 2002. And second, I hardly knew anyone who used Linux on their desktops. (I still don’t know of a single trade union anywhere that has moved over to open source — unfortunately.)
After one year using Linux, I can say with confidence that I’m never going back to Windows.
Keep reading …

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I haven’t written much about Linux since early June when I made the switch over from Microsoft Windows, which I had been using since the early 1990s. But I thought that after 100 days, I’d write up a summary about how it feels and what I’ve learned.

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Over the course of the last few weeks, I’ve installed a new operating system on my computer. I no longer use Microsoft Windows XP and instead now use Ubuntu Linux. That’s nice, you may be thinking, but what does that have to do with the trade union movement?
Before I answer that, I should mention that I have access to some privileged information about unions and computer operating systems. As the founding editor of the LabourStart website, I get to look at the statistics. I know how many people visit our site every day, I know what countries they come from and which web browsers they use. And I know which operating systems they are using as well.

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I realize that my original plan was to try out Ubuntu Linux using the Wubi dual-boot system, making sure that everything worked and then after a full month, switching over. But I lost patience — having Windows on my disk was slowing me down, consuming scores of gigabytes of space, and forcing me to postpone what was becoming increasingly inevitable.
As a result, I took the decision last night to spend this morning backing up everything I had of value in Windows, and then making a clean install of Ubuntu Linux 7.04. As of a few minutes ago, Linux is the only operating system on my computer.
See my earlier entries to see why I chose Linux in the first place and my experience in two weeks of using it. Below are some notes on the install for anyone considering doing what I’ve done.

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I’ve reached a decision. In another 18 days — on the first day of summer — I will completely shut down Microsoft Windows XP on my computer and move over to using Ubuntu Linux as my sole operating system. I’m waiting 18 more days because I want to be absolutely sure after one month of using Linux that everything works. So far, it all does.

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I’ve been using Ubuntu Linux for nearly five days now — see my previous report — and am still very happy.
First, however, the bad news: The system has crashed twice, requiring hard reboots.

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It has now been some twelve hours since I began the process of moving over from Microsoft’s proprietary software over to Ubuntu Linux. In this blog entry and the ones that follow, I want to write about why I took this decision and what has happened as a result.

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