Tag Archives: Linux

Trying to go Open Source

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Don’t throw anything at me, but I’m not a fan of Mac products.  I don’t own an iPad, iPod, or iPhone and have never used iTunes.  Windows XP has it’s flaws, don’t get me wrong, but it basically just works and I can use most products with it as I choose.  Other than my operating system, I only use free/open source software.

I booted my laptop with an Ubuntu flash drive the other day, determined to give it a shot.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t get it to recognize any WiFi networks and gave up.  I can’t do a whole lot with a computer if I can’t connect it to the ‘net wirelessly.

Thus endeth my attempts with Ubuntu for now.  :)

Open Everything

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The ideal is obviously using a totally open source environment to develop things with a RepRap/MakerBot.  For the most part I use open source software – FireFox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, Pigin, PHP, MySQL, WordPress.

However, I’m still tied to certain closed source proprietary software.  I still use Windows and haven’t made the leap of faith to Linux/Ubuntu.  I really like the ease of use and intuitive nature of Google’s Sketchup.  But, I can’t help feel like a little bit of a sham – still clinging to Windows and Sketchup because they’re easy and familiar.  All the while cranking out wonderful plastic goodness with my open source hardware ‘bot.

I have a feeling I could get used to Linux/Ubuntu if I gave them a shot, but the alternatives to Sketchup I’ve seen and tried are nearly unintelligible.  Does this mean I try to run Wine or break down and spend the time to learn something else?