A Productive Linux Desktop

I was browsing some of my writing and computer notes. I have been using Linux based systems for 18 years. Somewhat revealing about these writings and notes is I have been using Linux systems as my sole daily operating system for 11 years.

That is not a long time but notable is sole daily operating system.

I started tinkering with Linux systems in earnest around 2001. My earliest notes and writings are from 2002. The years between 2002 and 2008 were transitional. I used both Linux systems and Windows. The couple of years before 2008 I used Windows only for email. Eudora.

I migrated my Windows NT4 physical installation to a VirtualBox virtual machine to run Eudora. I used Samba to provide VM access to a host partition where I stored my data files. I configured Eudora to save the emails to that network share. That allowed for easier backups on the host system without needing to do a full backup of the VM.

I still have my Eudora emails archived. The last date stamp is October 2008. At that time I migrated from Eudora to KMail. Hence the 11 year benchmark.

While work related contracts required me to use Windows on site, there was no such requirement or need at home.

Can people be productive with Linux based systems? Without using Windows? Yes, there are notable gaps with certain desktop apps — of which I have no need, but I think more than a decade of daily usage is testimony.

While I tinkered with several distros in the early days, Slackware has been my primary distro for most of the 18 year period.

Posted: October 22, 2019 Category: Usability Tagged: General, Slackware

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