[Technology alert: If you're not into PC tech, especially wonky stuff about operating systems and such, you might want to give this post a pass.]
As some of you may know, I almost never use Microsoft Windows anymore — at least, when at home. (At work, there’s no other option.) Until a couple days ago, in fact, I hadn’t used Windows since, oh, August, maybe? July?
That phrase “almost never use Microsoft Windows anymore” catches a lot of people by surprise. Especially when I clarify further: “…and I don’t own a Mac, either.” Like, what other option is there? And all other considerations aside, why would someone NOT use Windows or a Mac in the first place?
Answering the second question in full would require a completely separate post, I think. (Briefly, though, it boils down to the cost and arrogant obtrusiveness of the one, and the cost and closed world of the other.)
As for the first question — what else is there besides Windows and OS/X? — the main other option (and yes, there are several) is something called Linux. (I’ve heard the i pronounced both as a short and a long i. Personally, I prefer the short.) Again, not to belabor you with details, Linux comes in multiple flavors, each offering some advantage over the others. In fact, you could say that Linux was practically designed with differentiation in mind: anyone with proper skills can alter the way the operating system (OS) behaves.
Oh, they can make the changes to their own copy. But they can’t do so to the “official” versions, because these are vetted and updated by hordes of volunteers.
This is good news/bad news, for sure. The good news is that not all flavors of Linux, but most of them, are completely free for the download. The bad news is that when you run into a wall, those volunteers — who are generally smart, talented, and helpful — are your only real hope for getting answers and workarounds. There’s no Megasoft Corporation to sue if the whole thing goes south on you.
Anyway, the flavor of Linux I use is called Ubuntu. From Wikipedia:
It is named after the South African ethical ideology Ubuntu (“humanity towards others”) and is distributed as free and open source software. Ubuntu provides an up-to-date, stable operating system for the average user, with a strong focus on usability and ease of installation.
Until recently, that’s exactly what it’s been for me, and I’ve happily been using Ubuntu for several years and through several versions. (My PC is set up so that it boots into Linux by default, but I left an escape hatch open: I can choose to boot into Windows XP instead.)
It so happens that Ubuntu — unlike other variants of Linux — is driven by a published, regular schedule of updates: one version every six months, in April and October. The versions are both numbered and named, so that 9.04 (for instance) was released in April of 2009. The names for the different versions are a little goofy: each is a two-word alliterative phrase, the first word an adjective and the second the name of a species of animal. Since version 6.06, the names have been working their way through the alphabet, starting with the letter E. That version was Edgy Eft. The most recent version, 9.10, is Karmic Koala. Whatever the full name, the releases are generally, informally known by the first word only, as in: “I just installed Karmic. What are you running?” “I never upgraded past Gutsy.”
All of which is a prelude to the real point of this post, as hinted at by the image at the top.
Over the weekend I decided it was time to upgrade from 9.04 to 9.10. The upgrade process is simple: you click on a button labeled “Upgrade,” the new version is downloaded and installed, and the computer restarts. Occasionally a status message pops up saying, like, “About to replace [some system file X] with the current version. Is this all right?” You click on a Yes or OK button to get the current version of X, or a No button to hang onto your old one.
Alas…
After I did the upgrade, every single character in the graphical user interface (GUI) appeared as a little rectangle. The image at the top, for example, is the new Shutdown screen. The only two buttons whose functions I’m pretty certain of are the first two; the rest are a mystery to me.
Now, all my files seem to be okay. Especially, of the ones which I care most about, all my word-processing documents are there. But the only way I could even tell that much was to restart the computer, select Windows XP, and when that desktop comes up get into Windows Explorer to view the files in the Ubuntu area of the disk.
But from Ubuntu itself? Nah.
I don’t know how this is going to play out yet. I’ve posted two messages on Ubuntu “support” forums and so far have received one suggestion, which didn’t affect anything that I can tell. Probably, what I’ll need to do is (a) back up my document files from Windows, and then (b) run a completely NEW installation of Karmic, rather than the upgrade. (It might even be wise to forget Karmic altogether, and downgrade back to Jaunty.
In the meantime, I can still do much of what I need to do using Windows instead. It just really bugs to have to deal with a recalcitrant operating system — or any other misbehaving tool — when I’m in the middle of writing a novel, y’know?
See, this is one of my major fears with alternative operating systems NOT supported by Megasoft Corps. If something goes south, you have to wait for the kid in the basement to stop playing his MMORPG and get to your question, IF he feels like it.
I know, I know, I’m stereotyping and being a little facetious, but there’s a modicum of truth in it. With SUSE, for instance, yes, there’s a fee; but Novell is there behind it. You can get someone on the company’s nickel to work on your issue with you. And it’s not that one’s a bank-breaker.
Still I feel your pain here, JES. I know how hard it is to be hamstrung by a computer issue you can’t resolve yourself.
Hope it gets better soon. Oh, and I’d back down to Jaunty too, if it were me. Just sayin’. Stick with what works; if it ain’t broke, y’know?
As someone mystified by all things computer, this is a Halloween horror story. Gives me shivers. You are a brave soul.
This is why hubby is the brains of the operation. I’m just the mincing minion, taking orders and NEVER upgrading anything unless told to do so. I’ll pass this along to the significant other and see what he says…although you can probably guess…
I used to have a Commodore 64 (fun times!) and on the screen everything would look normal, but on the printed page it looked like every symbol ever suggested to a computer except actual letters in any sort of order. I never figured that out–I am a computer idiot.
Good luck with all that!
Hello John!
Bit off topic this, but I didn’t know where else to write. Thanks for dropping by SoIAR the other day. Nice to know some of the old gang is still in touch. Did you ever make it over to Authonomy? It would be great to have you over there – lots going on, lots to learn. Lots of crap, too, and that, oddly enough, is one of the best parts. All my life I have been reading good literature, telling me how to do it right, yet here is a place with scads of bad stuff, showing you what NOT to do. Make no mistake, there are some great reads as well (er, um, The Beauregarde Affair for example), so it’s not just picking apart lousy manuscripts. Anyhow, if you have a manuscript you’d like some feedback on, come on over. It’s not as scary as it looks. It’s much scarier . . .
Hope everything is otherwise fine as we sail into these pre-Christmas days (daze). Are you still in touch with Kate or any of the others? If so, wish her/them the best from me.
Best wishes from an old Burning Liner,
- Brian
Aka Son of Incogneato
Aka Robert J. Roid Jr.
Sorry, couldn’t resist this. Here are the tags from a book on site, ‘Einstein’s Road Trip’: albert einstein, arizona, dreams, dwarfs, einstein, fantasy, fate, french quarter, hawaii, literary fiction, magic realism, maui, midgets, murder, mystery.
I ask you , Sir. Can you seriously afford to miss Authonomy much longer?
Darc: I knew you’d appreciate the story, not in its particulars but in its general form: being simultaneously confident in one’s own tech abilities, and frustrated by the intractable novelty presented by some particular form of tech hell.
The gearing-down to Jaunty is… in-progress, let’s say. I expect it to be complete (as such things go) sometime tomorrow.
Squirrel: I’m flattered to be called brave by someone who’s attempting to write 100 stories in 100 days (and to all intents and purposes succeeding in the effort). If I could execute a sweeping bow in HTML, I would!
cynth: “See what he says,” she says. Somehow I don’t imagine it involved a lot of actual speech — rather, a lot of chortling. :)
marta: I never had a C64, but my first PC (actually belonged to The ex-Missus) was from about the same era. (It ran the CP/M operating system.) The word processor was WordStar — text showed up onscreen as amber-on-black — and I remember the little shudder of anticipation when you printed a document… waiting to see what the dot-matrix printer would do with it. Heh.
Son: Whoa — a ghost walks among us!
I wrote about Authonomy a little over a year ago. At that time, I felt ambivalent about it. You’ve put some of that muddlement to rest, but I still wonder about the time commitment — at least, if I were to do it “right” (as it would feel to me).
I’ll indeed mention your re-emergence into Scandinavian late-fall sunshine to the other Burning Lines, uh, participants. (As you may have noticed, things sputtered out practically overnight once we got into 2009.)
But I gotta say, that summary of Einstein’s Road Trip sounds dangerously like a ripoff of BL Story #1 (The Way Home) to me, not counting Monsieur. Ha!