so much for Linux

It's been about a month since I began my experiment to reacquaint myself with Linux. The experiment was partially motivated by the fact that I was out of shape and didn't want to be carrying more weight on my bike than I needed to. The laptop, being the heaviest item in the bag was the first thing I looked at getting rid of. Hence my return to Linux.

So, it's been a month, and my commute of around 11 miles per-day (round-trip) has greatly improved my ability to pedal with ease. What that means is that I no longer have to avoid carrying the laptop unless I want to.

So where am I going with this? Well, things are moving at work at a pace that's faster than normal. This happens in summer, but it also happens when we're nearing the start of a training program. Right now, it's both. So a few days ago, I was packing up my panniers to head to the office and was thinking about what I needed to do that day. It took less than 10 seconds for me to realize that there was a great deal that I needed to accomplish and that more importantly, I just didn't have the energy to fight with the linux laptop anymore.

I packed the iBook, headed to the office, and haven't booted the linux laptop since.

Now, don't get me wrong, I continue to think that Linux is a great choice for most people who have to do email/word-processing/etc. The reason it didn't work for me is that a lot of my work right now involves email and scheduling meeting, and here at PTP, we run a Microsoft Exchange server for our email and calendaring needs. The Ximian Connector that is supposed to make Evolution work with Exchange just didn't work effectively. I got tired of needing to kill and restart processes, load my mail before loading the calendar, and just generally never knowing if the program was going to suddenly crash right in the middle of my workflow.

For right now, that means that I'm back on my mac, but if we ever get rid of Exchange, or if I see that there's a new version of the Ximian Connector out, I'll be sure to try returning to Linux again.