For a variety of reasons I've come to the conclusion that it's time for me to give up Windows and make the switch to Linux. Eventually my goal is to have a Windows system around that is dedicated to the task of playing games, while everything else I do is done on the Linux box. However, it seems I still have a ways to go.

Based on a series of recommendations from people whose opinions I value I conducted my first experiments using the Open Circulation Edition of Xandros Linux. I quickly discovered that Xandros is easy to set up and works extremely well, but certain aspects of it are crippled beyond repair. The only way to fix this problem is to give Xandros money to upgrade to the current Standard or Deluxe editions. Since I'm inherently cheap, in addition to being Scottish, I decided that there was a better way to do things and went off in search of alternate distributions.

I came to the conclusion that the two best distributions for what I wanted to accomplish were Mandrake and Fedora Core. I set about downloading the install sets for both distributions. Fedora Core downloaded easily enough, but I had a devil of a time getting Mandrake to download so eventually I said to hell with it and installed Fedora Core.

For the most part I'm happy with Fedora Core, but there are some oddities that I need to correct before I have what I would consider to be a fully functional system.

The first item on my list is certainly an oddity, but it's an oddity that was put there by design. For some strange reason the good people at Red Hat decided that they were going to remove the capability to play MP3 files from the packages they included with the distribution. I know they did this because when I tried to play files from my MP3 library I got a wee little pop up that told me they did it and explained their reasoning: they were trying to avoid copyright infringement issues. On the one hand I can understand their reasoning, especially when you consider the fact that Fedora Core is really intended to be used as a corporate workstation OS. On the other hand, this is a genuine pain in the ass because one of the requirements I have for a fully functional Linux box is the ability to listen to my MP3 collection while I work.

I'm not sure if the next oddity in my list was put there by design or not, but I know that it's annoying the living hell out of me. Under normal circumstances when you install Linux you have to go in after the fact and manually create access to all the other drives in your system, including defining where in the file system you want to mount them. This process is extremely easy once you get used to it: all you really have to do is make a new entry in your fstab file. Linux does the rest when you restart. I did this and was able to gain access to my D partition, but not my C partition. The C partition doesn't really concern me because all it contains is Windows XP, but the D partition has all of my data files and so being able to access that partition from Linux is nothing short of a godsend. Problem: when I am logged into Fedora Core under my user account I only have read-only access to my D partition, meaning I can read what's there but I can't make any changes. I don't have read/write/execute access unless I switch to the root account.

Now one would think that this problem could be easily fixed by simply altering the permissions for the folder in question, so that's what I did. The computer set them right back where they were. So I tried doing it from the command line. The computer set the permissions right back the way they were. I've tried unmounting and then remounting the drive. No joy. No matter what I do I simply cannot get Fedora Core to give me full access to my D partition under my user account. Every time I want to work on one of my current projects I have to copy the project folder over from the D partition to my home directory. Annoying, but not crippling. When I go to copy back to the D partition I have to do it from the root account. Again, annoying but not crippling.

I know there's a way to do what I want to do, because I had that kind of access under Xandros. Now I just have to figure out how to make it happen under Fedora Core.

CD burning is another issue. The wonderful folks at Red Hat were kind enough to include a copy of k3b, the Linux equivalent of Nero Burning Rom, for burning CD's, but k3b doesn't seem to recognize my DVD burner, so for the time being I still have to boot to Windows to burn a CD or a DVD. This one has to be a driver issue, and it should be pretty easy to fix. I just have to sit down and spend the time doing it. While I'm at it I also need to make my scanner work, but I don't think that'll be too tough. Red Hat were kind enough to include the SANE libraries for that purpose, which Xandros did not do with the OCE.

While I've been at it I've also been fooling around with applications. I had pretty much settled on using OpenOffice as my office suite of choice, but I've found a wee little program called AbiWord that has me rethinking that decision, at least for creative work. It does everything the word processor in OpenOffice does, supports some file formats that OpenOffice doesn't, and does so in a much leaner and faster package. I'm writing this in AbiWord right now. I also finished writing Rising Star in AbiWord. Highly recommended.

If I can't get my file access problems straightened out then it looks as if I'll have to give Mandrake another try. but for the time being it looks as if Fedora Core is the clear winner. However, I would like to qualify that statement a little: if you know little or nothing about computers and you want to use a stable, easy to use Linux distribution then I recommend spending the money on the Deluxe edition of Xandros. If you're like me and can act as your own guru if you really have to, then go with Fedora Core. Stick to those guidelines and everyone will be happy.

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