I’m A Switcher
In 1984 Apple Computers introduced the Macintosh. Later that year, my dad introduced the Macintosh to my home. Since then my entire family are Mac people, save a few siblings who were forced to use Windows by their spouses, but the bulk of us are Mac people.
Well as of today* there is one less Mac person in my family; me. I’m switching to Ubuntu. Now before I continue about why, let me paint a picture about my experience.
Not only have I’ve used Macs since ’84, I’ve serviced Macs since ’97. I’m familiar with the hardware and the software. I’m currently paid for my understanding of Macs and OS X. I’m not a casual user who makes home videos. I’m a geek how gets into the guts of the OS and makes it do things my way. Now back to the post.
About 1 1/2 years ago a friend of mine, who recently switched to Linux, invited me to participate in a user group he was creating. Our first meeting I installed Ubuntu in a virtual machine and started playing. The months following, I started to understand why people chose to live a Linux life opposed to living with Apple or Microsoft.
I started seeing Apple as a company and not the God of Computing. As the months rolled on the negatives of living in an Apple world started to become more and more pointed, and my need for Mac only apps decreased as I found useable FLOSS alternatives.
A couple of weeks ago an opportunity arose for my wife to sell her MacBook Pro (MBP). Since she has no desire for Linux, I told her if we sold her MBP she could take mine, and I’ll buy a cheaper non-Apple laptop and use it with Linux. She took me up on the offer and now I have a Lenovo SL410 on the way.
I will be documenting my transition to Ubuntu Linux on this blog and how I will set up my environment. If you find some tips that I seemed to have missed, please let me know in the comments. If you like what you see or have questions on how I did something, or how to do something, let me know and let’s see if I can help.
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*Today meaning this time in my life. I’m waiting for my Lenovo, but once I get it then I’ll be off of my Mac.
