It is nice to see that the fun can be put back into computers. I
got my start on the Apple II and experienced the same joy then that I do with
Linux now. In between were my wilderness years.

I recently read a blog where a man said that he spent a couple of days
re-building his wife's computer which runs Win 2K. He had to do this every few
months and found it to be drudgery. He did not describe what he did, but I have
had to do the same thing on my wife's laptop recently, so I know the feeling.

Everything needed to be backed up and then the drive needed to be re-formatted.
My reluctance to doing this is that my wife can only use her computer if it is
the way she expects it to be. Not an icon out of place, not a file lost, not a
setting changed or she does not know what to do. Computer training is out of the
question. She simply does not care about the inner workings and only about doing
what she needs to do, in the way she is used to doing it. She was in agreement
that it needed to be done, but I knew that I had to do it just right or she
would be lost.

I had to re-install Windows XP and then search through my disks for drivers and
programs, installing each one separately and doing online up-dates for some. I
had to get the firewall, anti-virus and Winpatrol going and up-dated and then
Windows updates took quite a while, with re-boots in between some of them. I
could walk away while some things happened, but it was time consuming and it is
not something that I look forward to. She was happy that her laptop ran almost
like new and was none the wiser for all of the work it took.

When the new Mandriva came out the blogger spent less than an hour installing it
on his own computer and it was pure pleasure for him. For him they were two
totally different experiences. One was work because he had to do it and the
other was a joy because he wanted to do it.

When I install Linux, I get the same experience. Everything is on one CD and I
never have to fumble through a wallet of CDs for drivers or programs. I am not
ever asked to re-boot and if the kernel is updated and a re-boot is in order, I
can wait for days, weeks or months if I want to and not re-boot. Since my
equipment is very standard, I have no driver issues and things seem to work out
of the box no matter what distro I install. I even get to keep my settings and
bookmarks because I re-use my home folder. Unfortunately, our second Windows
machine is slow and it needs some attention. I have been trying to avoid it, but
it looks like I will have to steel myself and do it soon.

I can install any distro in an hour or so and I do it willingly because I know
beforehand that it will be fun! When I get it working perfectly, I want to start
all over again. The reason may be that I am a bit bent in this respect, but it
is also because Linux can be fun!