I’m the most wishy-washy Linux user in the universe.

For the umteenth time, I’m phasing out my Ubuntu Linux installations in favor(?) of Windows XP. This was my longest fling with Linux — our dalliance lasted three months — it was a summer thing.

It’s over, though, at least for now. I won’t rule out hooking up again, but for now, it just doesn’t meet my needs without a whole lot of concessions. I always feel like I’m walking on eggshells when we try to do things together, y’know?

You want me to get specific? Air our dirty laundry? Okay, but I’m gonna drop the whole relationship metaphor because it’s getting tired.

Here’s the deal — I’ve always said the tool cannot get in the way of the craft. In almost every respect, Linux was working out fine.

But audio recording and production is becoming very important for me again, and that’s where the trouble lies. I need to be able to plug in a microphone and press record without having to worry about weird engines and Jack and lag times and whatnot. In Windows, I can use Audition or Audacity and be pretty much okay. In Linux… I had to dual-boot into Windows!

Also… I like to listen to music when I’m writing, and often I work remotely, away from my office. I want to be able to listen to my five-weeks-and-counting worth of MP3s wherever I am. Couldn’t find a Linux application that would do that. I’m also a big fan of Last.fm — listening to the fIREHOSE channel as I write this (Gang of Four: “Paralysed”) and there’s no easy-to-use Linux solution for that service.

Finally, I do a lot of editing of other people’s works, which requires a common revision system. Open Office is amazing, and I use it for almost everything, but I need Word for that one purpose.

So, as much as I like supporting Open Source efforts, I gotta go back to Redmond for the OS.

However! I am using many Open Source applications:

• OpenOffice.org – full-featured office suite
• The GIMP – excellent bitmap graphics editor
• Inkscape – SVG (vector) graphics editor
• Scribus – desktop publisher
• Filezilla – ftp client
• Audacity – audio recorder and editor
• VLC – all-purpose video and audio player and streamer

I’ll be adding an Open Source outliner / mind-mapper and an html / css editor when I can settle on one.

That’s my compromise, I guess. I can live with it… and I hereby promise myself not to drift back to Linux for at least another three years. It’s a damn time-sink making the switch, and I have enough opportunities to distract me from my real work!

There’s that.

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