Well, I am trying out Linux again.  I have installed a few different distros over the years, and never been particularly successful with any of them.  One of Michael’s friends, a computer-science major, recommended that I try Ubuntu, so I installed that the other day.  The installation process was not encouraging.  It took me 14-1/2 hours to get it installed.  At one point, I had it half-installed, and the boot loader apparently was half-installed, so I couldn’t even get to Windows.  (It was still there, but I couldn’t access it.)  I do not need a crashed computer!  After that I was quite anxious to get the thing to install completely, and it finally did.

Using it is much more promising, so far.   The interface is fairly intuitive.  I haven’t had a chance to really explore it, though, because I have to keep switching back out to Windows.  I can’t get online from Ubuntu (at least not yet – this is the biggest drawback to Linux, in my opinion: getting online always requires jumping through major hoops), so every time I have a question I have to reboot into Windows.  And I can’t install any programs, because the package manager requires an internet connection.

(Not sure what brilliant person came up with that concept – building an operating system to require an internet connection to install software, when said operating system makes it nearly impossible to get online.  If you do have an internet connection, the package manager greatly simplifies installing software, but there really needs to be an alternate option, besides understanding how to install everything from a command line, which is fairly advanced usage.  With my last distro, I couldn’t get online because I didn’t have the right modem driver, and I couldn’t install the modem driver without getting online!)

Anyway, this looks fairly promising, if I can get the internet connection working.