March 5, 2001

Today is a typical Monday morning for me. I wake up to the sound of my own breath through the headphones hooked to my boxy Dell laptop, running Slackware 7.1. It’s been a while since I’ve sat down in front of this machine. The system is stable, but it’s not like it was when I first installed it.

Last night, my colleague Sarah had asked me for help with her Fedora Core 1 desktop setup, which she was trying to replace with Gentoo. She thought it would be a breeze—she’d just follow the online guide and be done in no time. What followed was a week of frustration as we tried to get the thing running. I’ve seen this many times before.

The problem wasn’t Slackware or Gentoo; both are fine tools, but they have their quirks. It’s what you do with them that counts. For instance, the lack of GUI configuration tools in Slackware can be frustrating for users who aren’t hardcore command-line wizards. And while I love the flexibility and power of compiling everything from source in Gentoo, it’s not exactly user-friendly.

But why are we even trying to run Linux on a desktop again? After all, the dot-com bubble had burst, and with it came a period where people were questioning whether running an operating system that was still largely experimental for such critical tasks as browsing the web or checking email made any sense. It’s not like people needed the extra features and speed; they just needed things to work.

I remember when I first started using Slackware on my desktop in 1998. The idea of a free, open-source OS was exciting. But reality hit hard when I tried to set up XFree86 with an old video card that refused to play nicely. That was the first time I realized that while Linux had its charms, it wasn’t quite ready for daily desktop use.

Back then, there were some notable success stories like Red Hat’s Desktop Edition (which we called “That Damn Thing” because of its tendency to crash). But even then, the stability and ease-of-use of Windows 98 made it a hard sell. And let’s be real—most people just wanted their computers to work without having to read a manual.

The Y2K scare had passed, and now we were left with the challenge of convincing people that Linux wasn’t just for servers. Early desktop environments like KDE and GNOME were improving, but they still felt clunky compared to Windows. VMware was starting to gain traction as a way to run both worlds side by side, but it required more hardware resources than most people had.

But there I am, trying to help Sarah set up her new Gentoo system. We’ve got the kernel built and the X server running, but she can’t get her printer working. “Maybe I should just go back to Windows,” she says, exasperated. “At least it works.”

I nod sympathetically. “You know what? That might not be such a bad idea,” I say. “But seriously, give it some more time. The tools are improving every day.”

As we work through the issues, I can’t help but think about how far Linux has come since those early days. It’s no longer just for geeks and servers—it’s become a serious player in the desktop world. But until those graphical environments feel as intuitive as their Windows counterparts, and hardware support is more robust, it’ll always be a love-hate relationship.

Maybe one day, I’ll have a proper desktop environment that doesn’t make me long for the familiar Windows Start button. Until then, I’m stuck with this Linux box and my trusty command line.