Why I’m Leaving Gentoo (and Linux) After 8 Years
This article is a tough one for me to write. After all, I was “the guy who ran Linux”.
The Beginning
Back in highschool, most computers were running Windows 95. Now don’t get me wrong, Windows 95 was a definite step in the right direction from Windows 3.11, however, and it’s a big however, it crashed a lot. In an attempt to run a stable computer two highschool friends pointed me in the direction of Slackware Linux. I watched in awe as they furiously hammered away at a “dos prompt” and caused all sorts of things to happen. I was curious. When they told me if I set the wrong vertical and horizontal refresh rates for my monitor it would burn up, I was excited.
Slackware isn’t for the newbie, and that’s exactly what I was at that point in time. It seemed like I could hardly get anything to work other than my x11amp (Winamp) and Netscape. So one Christmas I decided to do what any Linux aspiring kid did in those days, and I tied up our internet for 2 days as I downloaded Red Hat Linux via FTP. All 600mb worth.
The install went much smoother as it actually had a GUI (Graphical User Interface) and I could understand a little more about what was involved in installing an OS. In Windows, you just watch a blue bar go across a screen, in Linux, you could actually see what the file names were of the packages it was installing.
For a brief while I tried running Windows 98 when it came out just because I wanted to play Quake 2 (and other games) but when I learned I could run Quake on Linux, I jumped at the chance.
The Best Times
My skills increased and I was learning how to build the kernel so it will run faster than Tux the penguin in TuxRacer, and I was enjoying it. I didn’t have to reboot as often as my roommate in college and I could control many neat things through the serial port in my computer such as the regulation of temperature of our dorm fridge for our Cokes. The following year, I set up a “Linux Server” that served as a router for me and another roommate in our college apartment.
I quickly (one week) tried using Windows ME, however, all these mysterious “programs” started installing themselves on my PC without me knowing what they were and Gator seemed to know too many of my passwords and I immediately went back to Linux.
You wanna know how cool the Linux community is?
So I got one of the new (at the time) Soundblaster Live cards and was trying to get the new chipset working in Linux, since there wasn’t a driver for it yet. I found a guy on the other side of the world who was using some of the sourcecode from Creative’s website to build a Linux-based driver. I emailed him not really expecting to hear back, but lo-and-behold, the next morning in my inbox was his latest “driver”…full with instructions on how to compile and install it. Wow. Try emailing Microsoft about a driver and I’m sure you won’t get the same personal attention. Needless to say the driver worked and I was again listening to my oh-so-precious music.
After college I got sick of how sluggish Red Hat was becoming and I was stuck in RPM dependency hell when trying to upgrade one simple package. During a game of Quake 3 (which, btw, was running on my Linux server), a guy pointed me in the direction of Gentoo Linux. It was the freedom I wanted as it had the ability to start with only a compiler and a couple other programs and the flexibility to build what you want on your computer, how you want it built, and nothing more. Sign me up.
Three days later (haha), I finally got the stupid thing built on my P2-400mhz machine and I was so happy. It was quick, responsive, stable, and I put the pieces together. It felt like a final exam of all my previous Linux usage. The forums at Gentoo were the best I had ever seen and everybody was friendly and I enjoyed supporting them by donating to their cause.
This would be the highpoint of my Linux career. I had a cushy job with the government and I could come home to my computer after a day of work and know it would be there for me. That it would be up and running and I wouldn’t have the constantly defrag it just to make it bearable. I grew bored at my job and started to look elsewhere.
The Fallout
As I lived in the basement of a rented house in Boulder, Colorado I realized there aren’t many jobs outside the government for Linux guys. Well, there are, but they are hard to find. For some reason, when I’d interview for a job, letting them know my box had an uptime of 234 days (and counting) didn’t impress them as much as I thought it would.
I sucked up my pride and took a job with Geeks on Call. I exaggerated a little bit on my interview (but who doesn’t when they badly need work!?) that I was a Windows XP expert. Truth is, I’ve never touched a computer running Windows XP, but I figured that if I could write my own IRC bot, I could figure out how to install Norton on a computer. 
(Turns out I was right.)
Discovering how bad spyware had gotten over the last couple years since I last used a Windows based OS was overwhelming. I didn’t realize how automatic it was for that stuff to be on almost every customer’s PC. I felt like I had to learn a whole new subset of skills just to remove that crap. At least my Linux experience came in handy (and actually made me more efficient than other techs) as I could boot a Linux kernel off a CD and mount their drive and delete what I wanted without the spyware complaining.
After a while I left Geeks on Call and started two computer service business, NerdE Solutions (with another partner) and Toid LLC. We took off like a rocket ship and achieved over 1,100 different customers in only 26 months. Eventually we decided to merge/sell NerdE and Colleen and I now only have Toid.
So here’s the downfall to running a business on Linux and now I realize why so many businesses don’t do it.
1) Nobody who needs tech support runs Linux. In 4+ years of onsite support we only received 1 phone call from a person running Linux. One!
2) There’s little to no accounting software that works, and none are as polished as Quickbooks.
3) While there are programs out there to use (OpenOffice), exchanging documents and spreadsheets back and forth with clients creates incompatibility.
4) While Evolution does work with Exchange, it does not work as well as Outlook.
5) As a business owner, husband, tech, (insert other roles here) I don’t have the time to fiddle with package incompatibilities and why something isn’t compiling.
6) The Linux community can never decide on something. Too many flame wars are going on, and Gentoo is falling apart without leadership.
7) My monitor actually caught on fire. 
That’s right. It was the same monitor I’ve had since highschool and started this whole Linux journey on. While I have replaced many keyboards, mice and computer towers, the same monitor has made it with me the entire way. Until this week. I was browsing ESPN.com and all of the sudden it started hissing and letting out a lot of smoke. The screen started shaking and eventually shrinking and I turned it off just before it “popped” and started a flame. I almost cried. The monitor and I had been through so much. However, I got over it pretty fast. I told myself I would not buy a flat-screen monitor until it went, so now to Ebay I went!
I ended up getting a Samsung SyncMaster 205BW 20″ Widescreen…mmmmm! Now, I didn’t want it to explode as well, so I finally said enough was enough and downloaded Windows Vista RC1.
To my surprise the install went without any problems and I have not had to reboot yet (it’s been 4 days) and all the programs have installed pretty much without any problems. I did have to disable the User Access Control and IPV6, but other than that it was good to go out of the box.
I’ll still use Linux for my web server but other than that it looks like I’m now leaving Linux on my primary machines and now supporting the Bill Gates cause. Oh well, maybe he isn’t the Spawn of Satan after all. 
6 comments
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I am really glad that now you have a wife who is there for you when you come home after a long day at work (see the end of “The Best Times”). The down side (for you) is that I ask you to take out the trash. Sorry, I am not a computer!
That’s crazy your monitor caught on fire!
I think you should switch to Mac… I did a few years ago, and I love them SO much more than I ever did my PCs.
Grete! So glad to hear from you!
Macs are cool, I get a call every so often from a Mac user, but really since Windows is what I’m supporting all the time, it’s almost a requirement to have one around, at least as a bench machine.
I checked out your blog, very cool, can I add you to my blogroll?
Yes, I agree with Greta, Macs are very cool!
Do you have any suggestions on digital cameras? I’m looking at the new Kodak EasyShare V610:
World’s smallest 10X optical zoom digital camera.
10X optical zoom
KODAK RETINA Dual Lens Technology
Embedded BLUETOOTH® Wireless Technology
2.8 in. (7.1 cm) high resolution color display
Advanced video features
6.1 MP for prints up to 30 x 40 in. (76 x 102 cm)
On-camera picture enhancing features
Do you know much about cameras too? I want one that has good zoom, but doesn’t have such a big lens purtruding out of it and one that takes good night shots of lights. Got any suggestions?
Lucky I checked back – Sure! Add me to your blogroll… I’ll add ya to my blog’s sidebar links, too.
Lori – I don’t really have any suggestions on digital cameras other than you could look in Consumer Reports which has an electronics issue out this month, I haven’t had time to read it yet, but it’s a good place to look. But you are on the right track, bottom line is: Get what you want, not what everybody else tells you is good. If you want a small one, I know the Canon Elph’s have a good track record.
Grete – Cool thanks!