A New Writing Era

I've been thinking about making this move for a while now...and I really doubt anybody'll be surprised (more on that later.) See, I finally got myself a new computer.

For the past several years the majority of my writing (I'd say this number approaches 95%) has been done the good old fashioned way: with a sharp No. 2 Dixon Ticonderoga and some nice, crisp white paper. After completing the first draft I then bust out the wife's laptop for the transfer to digital. Said laptop is several years old and is wheezing along on its original installation of Windows ME. Oh yes, wheeze it does. Wait-cursor's show up for no apparent reason (time for "recess"!) , applications lock up just for fun, and every once in a while the whole system goes catatonic. It's then time for the good 'ole power button.

Mostly, things go along smoothly (if I can just calm myself and not allow the blood pressure to rise during all of the impromptu "recess periods") and I get my second draft created. For the typin' in phase I use the ancient, powerful and rock-solid Gnu Emacs. Yep, I've gotta type the HTML tags in myself but it's worth it. Speedy, no-nonsense, mouse-free text entry. Once the text has been created it then gets stuffed into the application OpenOffice so as to check the spelling.

Now that I've got my post just about ready I email it off to my work address so that I can post it the next day. That's it, I'm done.

Now, what's with all the computer angst? Well, I've been dealing with computers and writing software for about twenty years now...and I've developed a severe case of Windows-itis. I've got to use the stuff every single day and, take it from me folks, it's second-rate. Oh yes, it's getting "better", I'll grant you that. But "better" in the way that Ruinite is "better" than, say, Thunderbird. It'll get the job done. What I've had a hankerin' for recently is something more solid. So here was the answer: Linux.

But....one thing I have no experience with is computer hardware wrangling. Nope, I'm not interested in looking under the hood, formatting drives, installing this, that & the other. No, I want my computer to be somewhat like my toaster: turn it on and it just does its job. This desire has caused me to sit around on my hands looking for a solution. Sure, I could have gone the Mac route, but that involved more money than I wanted to be flinging at this point.

Then the solution appeared: Walmart began offering PC's with various flavors of Linux pre-installed. Now, I'm really no fan of big-box retail but to me this move struck me as a bold one. Heck, they even offered computers with no operating system installed. Can you imagine that? This seemed like something of a political move. A computer can actually run without software from Microsoft? My gawd!

Anyway, my more-than-fast-enough computer arrived a couple of days ago. The flavor of Linux I selected was Sun's Java Desktop System, which is really Sun's branded version of SuSe Linux. Setup was a snap: I plugged in an old monitor I had collecting dust, attached it to our home router with an Ethernet cable (phew! close to my technical limit there) and turned it on. It asked me a single question: what do I want to name this computer? Well, 'MarkBox' was born. I set up my account, fired up Mozilla and was connected to the Internet. All things computerish should be that easy!

Now I feel as though I've made my own computer/political statement. And...that's $99 less in the pocket of Mr. Gates & company (only how many billions to go?)

(First posted on Mark Is Cranky)

Article Author: Mark Saleski

Mark Saleski is a writer and music obsessive based out of the Monadnock region of New Hampshire. He has contributed to Jazz.com and also writes reviews for Blogcritics.org. He produces the weekly feature The Friday Morning Listen. …

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