Love/Hate Linux

Srijith has announced that he has managed to get his Palm Pilot to sync on his Linux box by resetting the permissions on the device with which the Palm syncs (usually /dev/ttyUSB0 or /dev/ttyUSB1).

Srijith's post illustrates both what is right and what is wrong with Linux. On the one hand, Linux supports the Palm and it gives the user full access to the software so that it can be tweaked when there is a problem. On the other, all too often the software requires tweaking, rather than working right out of the box, and the support for the Palm is, at the moment, rather limited. (This is in no way disparagement of the excellent work of David Desrosiers and J.P. Rosevear).

I love to play with Linux, even though I am not fundamentally a very technical person. I love the fact that it is fast and clean: what it does, it does very well. I love the philosophy behind open source software, even if my contribution has been very small (documentation for GNOME System Monitor).

However, for the foreseeable future, it is unlikely that Linux will be anything more than a toy for me. Case in point is the fact that I rely on my Palm Pilot for essential tasks in my work and my life; it is far more important to me than my Linux box. My life as a lawyer is structured around calendars, deadlines, and to do lists. My Palm keeps track of my money, my diet, and my weight and syncs all this information with my Windows box. I keep a number of books on my Palm for emergency reading or reference; it includes a portable dictionary. The fact that Palm support on Linux requires painstaking configuration and supports only the most basic Palm applications is a reason why I am unlikely to move exclusively to Linux in the near future.

A second reason is that althought Linux does provide word processing and spreadsheets, it does not at present support the kind of third-party software for chess or languages that I am interested in using. Until it does, it looks as though I will grudgingly put up with Windows' slow, crusty, virus-ridden, unstable interface.