A paean to OSS

[BoldUlysses]

I wanted to take a page from Millenia's playbook for a second and rave about open source software. I know this may be no big deal for most of you, but to me, a recent addition to the computer geek crowd (though profoundly geeky in many other ways), it's a revelation.

The facts, then:

Computer: 5 year old IBM T41 laptop, refurbished
Peripherals: IBM optical mouse with scroll wheel, roughly similar vintage
OS: Red Hat Fedora 10
Software (all open-source and free):

• Bluefish for coding

• GIMP for bitmap graphics

• Inkscape for vector graphics

• Filezilla for FTP

• Wine for cross-browser testing

• Built-in Apache server for local (!) PHP script testing

Total outlay: ~$325
Web design capabilities with a little elbow grease invested to get everything set up (including fonts) and learn the programs: Priceless

What prompted this was getting Apache set up last night to test PHP locally. My wife didn't really understand my elation so I figured I'd share it with you who do. Thanks.

[Apostropartheid]

I myself have an old P3 machine running with a 15" monitor upstairs somewhere with Ubuntu, and it runs like a dream, although, were you to try something heavy with it I daresay it'd not be pleased. It's good enough for light internet use when I'm occupying the more up-to-date desktop (because the last time my loved one touched my laptop I got a bluescreen. Joy of joys.) Open source software definitely is a second-class citizen on my laptop, though, purely because I like my current work environment. I do keep a Wubi install if I want to try something out, though. It's good you enjoy it; I wish you a pleasant future with open-source! ^^

[BoldUlysses]

Web design, in my experience, doesn't involve a whole lot of number crunching and/or heavy lifting processor-wise, so I figured I could get away with the older, cheaper laptop, and so far so good, especially running an OS that uses system resources as well as Linux does.

I can understand wanting to use a different platform--I'd actually prefer a Mac like I have at work--but for the price, I can't beat it.