Living without Windows!

Introduction

Welcome to the "Living Without Windows Vague Ramblings" page. There are a bunch of things that I wanted to write up somewhere. Sometimes just for the record, sometimes to explain certain things and sometimes just because they need to be said. So, no clear structure on this page. Just a bunch of non-related texts. You can expect this page to extend over time.

Method of Operation

Those of you who have read some or all of the main articles will by now have figured out that I do not follow a structured, rigid, method of operation. I regularly run into all kinds of problems that could have been prevented had I taken the time to do a thorough study of the available documentation. There is quite a lot of documentation about Linux and Linux-related topics: first of all there is the source, then the manual pages, don't forget the HOWTO documents, also the README's, additionaly the various web sites and finally a vast amount of mailing lists. There is so much data that it hardly is information any more.

I do not have the time to do careful analysis of all these sources of knowledge: instead I trust my existing knowledge of Unix and my talent for improvisation. I solve problems as they pop up, and solve them with the knowledge and tools at hand. If I later find out that there is a better alternative, I change my solution, or not. As a result, I sometimes lose a lot of time by running into problems that could have been prevented had I done some study beforehand. On the other hand, I usually gain time by just plunging in and doing it.

Living Without Windows is not unique!

I think it should be said that I realise that my "Living Without Windows" project is not unique. I have collegues and friends that have not used Windows for many years, and they get by allright. What is unique is that I do a lot of work in Windows environments, and am therefore prone to more integration challenges than most. I have collegues that develop Unix software or only work as Unix system administrators. It is easier for them to live without Windows. I on the other hand am expected to exchange documents with co-workers who use Microsoft Office and I participate in projects that revolve around the Windows NT platform (although I do my best to convert them :-). I like to believe that "Living without Windows" takes a bit more effort in my case.