OS Chasing (Part 3)
Ubuntu: Options, Options, Options
After a few more nights of playing around with my install of Ubuntu I have learned a decent amount about Linux. I had the pleasure of easily installing* and switching between three different window managers. For now I'm using XFCE, a lightweight manager that comes packaged as the Ubuntu variant Xubuntu because it runs the fastest in my virtual machine. I also briefly looked at about 5 or 6 different MP3 players and got to bungle my way enough menus and control panels to understand there wasn't much about my desktop or system that I couldn't configure exactly the way I wanted it. I read newsgroup postings about how use my screen's measurements to adjust the appearance of my fonts to perfection. I got my desktop configured decently well, but still felt a little unsatisfied. I thought I didn't have a good reason to, but then I remembered a book I read a while ago, The Progress Paradox by Gregg Easterbrook^.
One of the main themes of his book is that there is often a disconnect between how well we think we doing at something and how well we really are doing. Of particular relevance to me was the idea that in some of these situations, we feel unhappy because we have so many choices that we don't trust ourselves to have made the best one. So if there are 500 cable channels and you are watching something you like, you may be unhappy because you're worried you are missing something else you'd like more on another channel. So, to apply the parallel, if I see that there are around a million ways to customize my Ubuntu install, I may feel unsatisfied with my current configuration, because I might be able to come up with a better one if I try again tomorrow. Easterbrook is right to lament this kind of feeling as irrational, but it is certainly a good motivator to keep trying new things.
During these past few nights of using Ubuntu through VirtualBox on my Macbook running Vista' , I also got to observe the following phenomena:
Windows Live Writer Gets Angry (but then takes a timeout and cools down)
I have been having issues with Windows Live Writer (what I use to write blog posts), ranging from it always setting off UAC warnings even if I set it to run as admin, to occasionally locking up Vista, to sometimes just making the whole screen go blank. Thanks to Joe Cheng from Microsoft for suggesting that I copy all of the installed files into another directory and then run Writer to avoid UAC. It worked; it doesn't really make me happy that it worked since it seems of kind of kludgy, but you can't argue with the results. Also, I was using Beta 1 and after upgrading to Beta 2, my other problems have disappeared and Writer is much better behaved. Overall it is a nice and free piece of software, especially Beta 2.
VirtualBox Gets Lonely, Demands All Attention
Speaking of behaving, VirtualBox, while it has performed admirably overall, developed the occasional habit of routing all keyboard input to the virtual machine even when it was minimized. Even after connecting and reconnecting my keyboard, VirtualBox still held a tight grip over my interaction. I solved this problem by rebooting my real machine and it has not reoccurred since. In fairness to VirtualBox, this behavior occurred when the old version of Writer was open, so maybe the two were collaborating.
* Literally just "sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop" and I had KDE. Excellent.
^ Easterbrook is also the author of the excellent Tuesday Morning Quarterback NFL articles on ESPN.com.
' I couldn't help myself, I just had to mention that this was my configuration