Living without Microsoft

Here's the piece I wrote about running my Advent 8700 computer with only Linux installed. Now that I've built the new computer, I'm back to a dual-boot system so that sometimes, if I have to, I can run Windows too.

It may sound like an impossible dream, but it's what I am trying to do. My old Advent 8700 was starting to feel slow and clunky, but I didn't want to rush out and buy an expensive new piece of computer machinery which would probably come equipped with Microsoft XP. I thought that first of all I would try Linux again.

(I first used Linux about 2 years ago, but at that time I became interested in PDA's, Handspring Visor and later Palm 505, and in those days I couldn't find a way of making them work apart from Windows. So after a couple of months I closed down my Linux partition and went back to running Windows only.) Getting ready to try again, I uninstalled as much of the junk my computer had accumulated as I could, created a partition for Linux (only about 2Gb) and installed Suse Linux 8.0, which I'd bought at PCWorld.

It was OK, but took ages to do some of the things it tried to do. I realised I'd probably have to do something about the computer specs after all, principally with a RAM upgrade. The Advent only had 68 Mb of RAM, and even a standard Linux installation wanted more than that. But a RAM upgrade seemed like a pretty scary thing. I hadn't done anything like it since the old Amstrad PCW days, when I upgraded the memory myself, from 256K to 512K (those were the days). I ordered an extra 256 Mb from Offtek, and it was delivered less than 24 hours after the order was placed - excellent service. Putting it in was the work of just a few minutes, much less than taking all the cables and connections out of the back of the computer and putting them back afterwards. When I booted up again, I suddenly had a computer that flew, with 320Mb of RAM.

And Linux ran.

A fortnight or so later, I felt ready to take the bigger plunge of removing Microsoft Windows from the computer. No matter how much people urge you to back up, back up, back up, it's virtually impossible to back up absolutely everything. But I did the best I could, and so far I haven't discovered anything too terrible that's got lost.

Then: reformat the hard disc, and start from scratch with a Linux installation. So, since October 1st, this has been a Linux-only, Microsoft-free machine. When the Bugbear virus was bringing people out in panicky sweats, I was in danger of succumbing to complacent chuckles.

OK, it hasn't all been plain sailing. The thing I miss most is playing The Sims. And I've had some fun and games learning how printers work under Linux - notorious problem! But now I've even got The Gimp (GNU Image Manipulation Program - brilliant! And FREE!) printing in something that looks like the correct colours.

And Star Office is great too. Yes, I've paid £50 for the proprietary version, rather than using the free OpenOffice.org. It still beats Microsoft Word for price. It's possible to break free from Microsoft and survive. Could you do it too? Why not be brave and take the plunge?

See also John Naughton's sites: A Brief History of the Future, and Living Without Microsoft.

PLUS!! Everyone should read: John Naughton on Bill Gates' 'stealth tax'.