Recently, I announced that I’m going to Linux. And I bellyache about Vista to my family. What happens? My father goes to Linux on one of his machines… then converts three more. (He likes his computers.) Now, my 17-year old has taken an old box I pulled from the discard pile at a client site and has reworked it with a Linux operating system.
They are telling me that Linux has gotten alot easier. They tell me there is very little required to get the OS working other than “dropping in” Ubuntu.
Now, suddenly, my son and father have both joined forces and started giving me crap (in stereo) for not having switched over already.
I’m running a business. I can’t just up and switch without a bit of research, some product testing and getting all my systems and software in place and under my belt…FIRST. I can’t just “go Linux” tomorrow and decide not to worry about all the functionality I need that won’t immediately work.
Why? I’m glad you asked…
OneNote Replacement Woes
My project is going well, although I did have to break down and buy OneNote recently. Until today, I was unable to find anything that’s even close in the open source world that runs on Windows to replace my “must have” OneNote application. I found a couple I plan to try once I go over to Linux. But, this morning, I even found instructions on how to install Tomboy on a Win32 machine (Windows XP to be specific).
Desktop Publishing Replacement Difficulties
I’m still a bit worried about finding an appropriate Microsoft Publisher replacement. I’m looking at Scribus right now. I’ve installed it and poked at it for a few minutes, but have found it less that what I had hoped it would be, so far. I need to carve out the time to sit down and read all the documentation and learn the software, I just haven’t had that time lately. So, I re-installed my Publisher 2003 package last week when I got in a bind and needed to turn around a client project. I hate that I failed to go opensource on that. I’ll try again soon.
Balancing My Books in Open Source
I still have the Microsoft Small Business Accounting package (no, not the free one, because I had the professional version before, and apparently the data won’t transfer “down” to a standard version.) I don’t want to switch over to the windows versions of an accounting program that I’ve found. They all appear to be substandard. Besides I just fixed all my categories to match the Schedule C and I don’t want to do and redo this again. The next time I rework that system, I hope will be the last time. I want a system that will grow with me and not require me to start from scratch again.
I do know that GNU Cash is supposed to be a great program for small business accounting — but it’s a Linux package. So that will have to wait until the switch. Here’s an informative site on using GnuCash to run a small business. I did find instructions for installing GNUCash in Windows here, but judging from the bug reports, I may load this to test, but I’ll not trust my live data to it.
My Current Plans to Move to Linux
I may “borrow” my son’s machine to get GNUCash set up and running with my business information before I make the OS switch. This way, I’d know it’s ready to roll with a backup of the financial information before I lose the current system. That would help reduce the stress of the OS change.
It’s taking a great deal of time to find all (or at least most) of the software I’m going to need to run my business on a Linux machine — but I think it’s going to be worth the effort. And, if things keep moving along at this pace between my software research, my adoption of the new software and being surrounded by those who have already done the OS change-over… I may just go there sooner than anticipated.
Only time will tell.
The next step? Alexzandria will get her first private, unshared computer. And it will be running Linux. I’m going to have Byron set it up for her and get it ready to run. She helped me set up a client machine (Windows) this week and is now old enough to move to the next step and start learning about the nuts and bolts on a machine of her own.
Of course, I’ve not told her that yet. It’s going to be a surprise. 
(Note: Penguins image taken from stock.xchng courtesy of photographer jbakoele)
On 04/11/2007 04:00:59 PM, Angela A. Parker wrote:
> Karl -
>
> Thank you so much for this information.
You’re welcome.
> I’d LOVE it if you would share it with others on my WickedBlog. I’ve
> just gone in and changed the requirements to post (making it easier
> and less demanding of visitors). I’m trying to create a perfect
> balance between encouraging wonderful information like yours on the
> blog and avoiding spam.
Spam sucks.
I’ve no answer.
But I just won’t bother to make logins etc.
Most of the time I’ve cookies off, and I clear them regularly
anyway, and I’ve far too many passwords and wouldn’t want
to risk giving the wrong one to a stranger, so logins just
don’t work for me. I will turn cookies on to post though.
Tell your friends. I occasionally google for linux blogs
and a good 1/4 of them require logins. And lots of them
_need_ help.
>
> Karl O. Pinc wrote:
>> Virtual machines are your friend. I hear good things about VMware
>> but so long as you’re Linux inclined my recommendation would be to
>> wait a few weeks and use Xen on Centos 5. Then run both Linux and
>> Windows on the same box in virtual machines and flip between them as
>> needed. Linux won’t have problems with MS Windows disk access so
>> sharing data should be pretty painless, and of course you always
>> have network access from one virtual machine to the other.
>>
>> If I had to guess, I’d say Microsoft will make this difficult and
>> will require a re-install. If you’ve another Linux box just restore
>> to the virtual machine from backup.
>> Solution: Buy more disk.
>>
>> LVM is also your friend.
>>
I only recommend RH/Centos because I know they’ve recently done
Xen work. So has Suse, but they’re “mixed source” so it’s hard
to tell when you’re getting vendor lock-in, so why mess with
them. Debian also rocks, and apparently includes Xen.
An extra hard drive will give you the confidence to break
things. (But have a backup anyway! I don’t prefer dirvish
myself, but some like it. Regardless, a rsync based
backup with hard links is the way
to go for keeping lots of backup. Nobody should do without!
Get and old box and a big hard drive for backups and you
won’t regret it. Physical separation is good.
Uh. More linux:
As a newbie, install _only_ packages that come with
your distro. Otherwise upgrades will be hell.
(Linux makes upgrades easy and they should be
frequent.)
Use binary-only drivers, hate life. (Google if
you don’t believe me.) There can be reasons,
but watch out.
Karl
P.S. Last I checked a year ago LVM2 snapshots were
broken. If you find they’re fixed, let me know.
(Backup a snapshot for true backup goodness.
P.P.S. I’ve my own rsync backup script if you want one.
Sorry for the formatting, if it’s odd. I did a cut and paste from an email.
Thanks for this great response. It will keep me busy checking out your recommendations and trying your tips! And yes, I’d love to have a copy of your backup script on hand, if you are willing to zip and email it to me.
We now have two Linux machines in the house (both children have one) and I’m working on a third (a laptop). I’m a FIRM believer in backups and use external mega-drives to accomplish this (I currently have over a terabyte of external hard drive space hooked up to my tablet PC alone) and most of my home machines have backup internal 320 gig drives too (for backups and redundancies).
Thanks again for the help!