Wednesday, September 05, 2007

MacBook-less: Day 8



My friendly Apple dealer sent me an SMS and confirmed that I can pick my MacBook up from him tomorrow. So after-lunch tomorrow, I'll be back to using Mac OS X and its time for my Linux-powered iBook G3 to have its hard drive replaced.

For the past 8 days, I've been using Ubuntu Linux on my iBook. The experience is a real eye opener because I discovered that I can still exist without Windows or OS X. I was able to do the things I do daily exclusively using a Free and Open Source software. One of the "extra" thing I was able to do was to revisit some IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channels, my old haunt back when majority of internet users were academics, scientists and hard-core geeks.

I was still able to download some files to install on my Nokia e61i, I was able to do my personal emails and blog. Incidentally, a colleague was banging her head earlier this afternoon because her computer crashed -- caused by a computer virus infection -- something that won't happen to my iBook unless I'm really, really careless. :)

So here's what will eventually happen to my iBook once its hard drive is replaced. I will configure it to dual-boot OS X and Linux. I still need OS X on it so that my kid (see avatar) and my wife can still use their favorite applications. Meanwhile, if I need to use it, I can boot up Linux and continue on with my Open Source advocacy.

2 comments:

Aja said...

I was trying to get myself into a "state of FOSS" as well. Unfortunately, my family would get lost on a Linux environment. And we are usually using Windows on a fast-user switching mode because of running downloads [left by one while the other is using] and such.

So, I just promised myself I'd start this the day I got my own computer bought from my own pocket. I just don't know exactly when. :(

Berniej said...

@aja: If you can mess around with the family PC, you can always have it configured to dual-boot Windows and Linux so you have the option to explore Linux whenever there are no downloads running.