Linux

A while back we did a show on Macs vs PCs and didn’t tell you which one wasn’t not better than the other.

Now were going to pay attention to the third group that we didn’t not forget to not tell you about… Linux. The one with the penguin. Why did we ignore it? Um, because we knew barely anything about it. But all that’s changed. We’re experts now.

My friend gave me her old dell laptop and I installed Ubuntu Linux on it. Ubuntu? Obuntoo? Ooboontoo? [Pointing at himself] Expert. Why do they make these things so hard to pronounce? I entered into a new era for my techno-social life. I call it: Linux, my time among the mole people.

Now I have done a minor amount of work on unix based servers before, and I know enough to be dangerous in the command line. r m dash r forward slash? Okay. I’ve put together a shell script or two. I have even done that “make” thing a couple of times. Oh yeah. I am real black hat.

Why mole people? Well most of the linux guys I know prefer the dark. Mayby it’s so they can see their monitor better? I don’t know. But it is also because they belong to the technology underground. They choose to reject the tech established overloads, and defy the nerd worship that takes place in mac and pc culture. Maybe they worship that Linus guy… or penguins?

Tangent! Which is it nerd not geek? While both definitions refer to a socially inept individual, a geek is a circus sideshow freak while nerd were considered intelligent to a fault. But now since no one bothers to look up the definitions, both essentially mean the same thing. Someone that is better at using technology than you are.

Where was I? Ubuntu!

My biggest problem after the install was that the driver for the wireless card on the computer that I had didn’t work. Now it had an automatically updating software application, but I couldn’t use it because I didn’t have the internet because I didn’t have the driver for the wireless card. It’s a classic catch 22. So I used a different computer to poke around the internet and followed the manual install instructions… and it didn’t work. So I checked it again, I did it again and it still didn’t work. So I went looking for more instructions, and I tried those and they didn’t work either.

It was a brand new experience in user hostility. It’s like they didn’t want me to solve the problem… Who are they? Penguins!

Eventually I went to a place where I could physically connect my machine to a router and I got online, ran the auto updater and magically it worked. Yeah I did it the backwards way. Snicker all you want. Hind sight is 20/20. And I don’t really care, I was really excited. Maybe this whole counter-tech culture, mole people thing could work for me. I mean, the machine worked and that’s a good start.

Why so interested in going through the trouble? Well there’s really big upside if you can handle the tech parts of being Mole-inated – virtually everything is free. And I love free, and you love free ’cause we’re cheap like that. That is right. There is Firefox to browse the web and it’s free. There’s Open Office to do all your office work and it’s free. There is photo software and media players and games and pretty much anything you want or will ever need. And It’s all free. And that is a real up side for people who don’t have any money… and don’t like to pay for things.

And counter culture is catching on, you see I have seen Linux based laptops for sale at Target for a lot less than their windows equivalents. And with all the money you save on the operating systems and cost of software, you could probably pay the nearest mole to surface and fix your machine whenever it has any issues. If it ever has any issues.

I mean, it’s designed to survive the cold harsh underworld. It’s got to be pretty tough Don’t moles eat worms? And viruses, and trojans, and… other bad things.

I was really surprised at the interface too. ‘Cause there was very little difference in terms of ease of use. Point, click fancy effect. Point, click, fancy effect. If someone set up a computer like this for my mom and gave her a little tech support now and then, I think she could totally use it. Which honestly is no different from a mac or a pc. I mean we set up her computer now… and take support calls.

[On the phone] Now click that one. Not that one, the other one. Yeah with the mouse. Click it with the mouse. Yeah. Okay. It’s not working. What do you mean it’s not working? You click it with the mouse.

Actually my moms pretty tech savy, she’s moved on to video conferencing.

Here is the bottom line. For those of you that have messed around with the command line like the Mac Terminal application or DOS prompt, you should really give it a try. Pick some flavor of linux and install it on an old drive and dig in. I think you’ll like it. But if everything I’ve talked about seems really scary to you, and you have no idea how to google up a solution to a tech problem… or implement a googled solution to a tech problem, you probably won’t be very happy as a resident of Mole city.

Hidden from the world, Mole city is a place where your software is dirty… but free!

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