Charlie's Diary

[ Site Index] [ Feedback ]


Mon, 07 Jul 2003

It's that time of year again ...

When I wake up and say, "if this is Tuesday, I've got to install and review the latest release of Red Hat". Happy Joy.

I write a monthly magazine column about Linux and free software in general. I can't get away without doing these reviews at least once every eighteen months. And it's fascinating to see just how the field has evolved. I currently use Mac OS/X as my desktop environment on this here TiBook, but my CoLo server is on Linux, my text processing tool of choice is Vim, and there's a lot of commonality under the hood.

Quick impressions: very slick. The latest SuSE and Red Hat distros are easier to install than any Windows version I've seen, and no harder than Mac OS/X 10.2 (Jaguar). When you get to the turn-it-on experience you're confronted -- assuming you have reasonably standard hardware -- with something that looks not unlike Windows XP, albeit with a shitload of applications that don't all work quite the same cluttering up the iconic button that both KDE and GNOME seem to think we need in order to better ape the Windows "Start" experience. And the stuff just works. I could quite happily install SuSE 8.2 or Red Hat 9.0 on a laptop and, modulo full hardware support (don't get me started on IrDA or Bluetooth!) I'd never need to install anything more -- beyond a couple of Perl modules I need for my eccentric writing toolchain.

Bluntly, it's just not exciting any more. The revolution's over, Linux is the fastest growing OS environment, and barring any truly spectacular cock-ups -- which at this stage would have to be inflicted via corrupt legislative back-channels involving the WTO or WIPO treaty frameworks -- there is now a de facto free alternative to the Beast of Redmond.

It's good enough that if I didn't already have this really cute six month old Mac kit sitting to hand I'd be thinking about buying a PC laptop (say, one of the graded refurbished Toshibas that Morgan Computers are selling -- probably a Portege 4000) and wiping Win2K in order to install SuSE 8.2, on grounds of ease of use and general flexibility.

So why am I bored?

A big chunk of the reason I got into computer journalism in the first place was because I'm hooked on the shock of the new. That -- and the money, of course -- sucked me in. Computing was the fast, cheap, and out of control field of the 1980's and 1990's. Now it's gone corporate and stable, double percentile compound growth replaced by linear projections. The end is in sight for Moore's Law, and even if quantum processors show up it's hard to see how they can possibly have the revolutionary impact that the first PCs had.

Then there's the question of what have we done with these engines? It looked for an exciting couple of years as if the internet was going to eat the political infrastructure of the west. Instead it's been coopted into the new television, policed by net nannies and propagated by media corporations. Far from raising the consciousness of the masses, the masses dumbed down the consciousness of the net. The big dumb, that's what we've created. An industry that trucks out bits of plastic and metal with built-in obsolescence raised to a level far beyond anything the 50's auto industry could imagine. Software produced by corporations to line their pockets at the expense of consumers, promising that each upgrade will bring relief from the copious bugs inflicted by the last. Spam, spam, more spam, and viruses.

Feh. I need a new hobby.

(On Wednesday I have to head off to Shopperlabs for an annual get-together. Guess I'll see if there's anything new to whet my appetite with there. But I'm not optimistic. The barriers to entry in the field have risen high enough that they're nearly insurmountable to the fascinating eccentrics who made the industry what it is -- and by the same token, an industry dominated by suits with powerpoint presentations is unlikely to produce anything interesting.)

[ Discuss Free Software ]



posted at: 21:21 | path: /writing | permanent link to this entry

specials:

Is SF About to Go Blind? -- Popular Science article by Greg Mone
Unwirer -- an experiment in weblog mediated collaborative fiction
Inside the MIT Media Lab -- what it's like to spend a a day wandering around the Media Lab
"Nothing like this will be built again" -- inside a nuclear reactor complex


Quick links:

RSS Feed (Moved!)

Who am I?

Contact me


Buy my books: (FAQ)

Missile Gap
Via Subterranean Press (US HC -- due Jan, 2007)

The Jennifer Morgue
Via Golden Gryphon (US HC -- due Nov, 2006)

Glasshouse
Via Amazon.com (US HC -- due June 30, 2006)

The Clan Corporate
Via Amazon.com (US HC -- out now)

Accelerando
Via Amazon.com (US HC)
Via Amazon.com (US PB -- due June 27, 2006)
Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC)
Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB)
Free download

The Hidden Family
Via Amazon.com (US HC)
Via Amazon.com (US PB)

The Family Trade
Via Amazon.com (US HC)
Via Amazon.com (US PB)

Iron Sunrise
Via Amazon.com (US HC)
Via Amazon.com (US PB)
Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC)
Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB)

The Atrocity Archives
Via Amazon.com (Trade PB)
Via Amazon.co.uk (Trade PB)
Via Golden Gryphon (HC)
Via Amazon.com (HC)
Via Amazon.co.uk (HC)

Singularity Sky
Via Amazon.com (US HC)
Via Amazon.com (US PB)
Via Amazon.com (US ebook)
Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC)
Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB)

Toast
Via Amazon.com
Via Amazon.co.uk


Some webby stuff I'm reading:


Engadget ]
Gizmodo ]
The Memory Hole ]
Boing!Boing! ]
Futurismic ]
Walter Jon Williams ]
Making Light (TNH) ]
Crooked Timber ]
Junius (Chris Bertram) ]
Baghdad Burning (Riverbend) ]
Bruce Sterling ]
Ian McDonald ]
Amygdala (Gary Farber) ]
Cyborg Democracy ]
Body and Soul (Jeanne d'Arc)  ]
Atrios ]
The Sideshow (Avedon Carol) ]
This Modern World (Tom Tomorrow) ]
Jesus's General ]
Mick Farren ]
Early days of a Better Nation (Ken MacLeod) ]
Respectful of Otters (Rivka) ]
Tangent Online ]
Grouse Today ]
Hacktivismo ]
Terra Nova ]
Whatever (John Scalzi) ]
GNXP ]
Justine Larbalestier ]
Yankee Fog ]
The Law west of Ealing Broadway ]
Cough the Lot ]
The Yorkshire Ranter ]
Newshog ]
Kung Fu Monkey ]
S1ngularity ]
Pagan Prattle ]
Gwyneth Jones ]
Calpundit ]
Lenin's Tomb ]
Progressive Gold ]
Kathryn Cramer ]
Halfway down the Danube ]
Fistful of Euros ]
Orcinus ]
Shrillblog ]
Steve Gilliard ]
Frankenstein Journal (Chris Lawson) ]
The Panda's Thumb ]
Martin Wisse ]
Kuro5hin ]
Advogato ]
Talking Points Memo ]
The Register ]
Cryptome ]
Juan Cole: Informed comment ]
Global Guerillas (John Robb) ]
Shadow of the Hegemon (Demosthenes) ]
Simon Bisson's Journal ]
Max Sawicky's weblog ]
Guy Kewney's mobile campaign ]
Hitherby Dragons ]
Counterspin Central ]
MetaFilter ]
NTKnow ]
Encyclopaedia Astronautica ]
Fafblog ]
BBC News (Scotland) ]
Pravda ]
Meerkat open wire service ]
Warren Ellis ]
Brad DeLong ]
Hullabaloo (Digby) ]
Jeff Vail ]
The Whiskey Bar (Billmon) ]
Groupthink Central (Yuval Rubinstein) ]
Unmedia (Aziz Poonawalla) ]
Rebecca's Pocket (Rebecca Blood) ]


Older stuff:

June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
May 2003
April 2003
March 2003
February 2003
January 2003
December 2002
November 2002
October 2002
September 2002
August 2002
July 2002
June 2002
May 2002
April 2002
March 2002
(I screwed the pooch in respect of the blosxom entry datestamps on March 28th, 2002, so everything before then shows up as being from the same time)



[ Site Index] [ Feedback ]


Powered by Blosxom!