So pretty

I like to dual-boot my computers with Windows and Linux because I need both operating systems for my work. Windows is nice because it just works. It never deletes my printers when I do a security update, unlike a certain operating system that shall remain nameless (And yes, it still deletes my printers every time I do an update!). I like Linux, because I run a lot of programs that run on Linux and use X, which can take some time to render over my home Internet service. If I run Linux locally, I can run the program locally and it is much faster.

The first time I set up a computer to dual boot, while I was ultimately successful, I imposed a new rule on myself: Never touch the computer after drinking any amount of beer. This came about because I managed to reformat the existing Windows partition when installing Linux, not ONCE but SEVERAL times. Yes, you would think I would have been more careful after the first time, but no, I wasn't.

I just got a new laptop and fretted a little about setting it up to dual boot, given my track record at this task. Also, my laptop did not come with a Windows CD, so I wanted to be careful that I didn't delete or reformat the partition that the laptop vendor put on it that holds a backup copy of the factory installation. I investigated the available Linux distros to see what would be best for me and this laptop and settled on openSUSE.

As I started to install Linux, I was pretty nervous as I got to the part of the install where you tell it what partitions to use for what. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the openSUSE installer recognized my Windows partition, and told me that it was a Windows partition, and suggested a partitioning plan that did not involve reformatting the Windows partition. I went ahead with the suggested partitioning and am happy to report that it worked perfectly!

After that, I was pleasantly surprised with how very pretty the openSUSE KDE windows environment is. If you are a hard-core command line weirdo, you might not understand my joy, but I really find working much more pleasant if the windowing environment is easy on the eyes. Also, I found the package manager, Yast, to be intuitive and easy to use. I even got wireless working in a few hours, with updates from madwifi.


See, isn't that pretty?