The idea came about some time ago, but as it tends to be with ideas sank in the yet another to do list (I don’t launch my Things app any more, not that it’s not a brilliant software, but it hits me in the face with a list of approximately 40 un-done things first thing off. No, thanks). Today however, since the Lug Radio Live extravaganza is approaching fast and the boys at Linux Outlaws were nice enough to mention me in their lats episode (as a huge Diablo fan, my geek cred is 40 points up) I decided to get my ass in gear. Oh, and also I was paid recently so I can afford that 500 giga hard drive…

Here’s the deal: I haven’t used Linux since the age of 15 so we can pretty much safely say I never used it. I’m your token Mac Bird, I’ve been working on macs for about 5 years now, I physically cringe when I have to even look at Windows (yes, say what you want, aesthetics of daily tools are important). I’m semi-tech-savvy, actually for this project I might ignore some of my knowledge and just go with basic way of doing things. The set up is: I want to switch from Mac’s operating system to Linux. I want to do all the things I do on my macbook in open source apps. I really don’t care about the guts of it, what and how, I want it to work. I’m not willing to change any of my usual habits to go open source, I want it to work around me. Ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seat belts.

The hard drive that I’m buying is not in its entirety dedicated to the Linux project. As a matter of fact I will give it about as much space as my Mac OS Leopard gets: 50 giga. (I’m buying the disk primarily to carry footage I’m working on around with me). I shall meet the new toy in Liverpool, where I arrive on Thursday. This is handy, since I’m going to be at Dan’s and so, if I run into trouble with the Linux Mint install (I chose it because it seems stable, I like the name and I like the look – this is how, my geeky friends, people choose what they work on), there will be a linux master at hand to help me out.

Linux Mint desktop courtesy of adventuresinopensource.blogspot.com

On Saturday, July 19th, we are driving down to Wolverhampton for a, quite appropriately, a geeky Linux fest that is Lug Radio Live. The only way I can get through it without getting completely scrutinized for sporting Steve Jobs’ marketing child, a MacBook, is that I open it up with a fresh and steaming Mint operating system running. But there’s few things I will do there except drink beer with the rest of the IT crowd: take photos in huge amounts with my digital SLR, film geeks in action (of sorts) on my Sony HD camcorder and blog, blog then blog some more. My Linux has to be able to handle this.

Here’s the 1st installment of the challenge
- install Mint on a hard drive and get it running on my MacBook,
- get a web browser that works like a dream,
- get a photo upload/management application (not necessarily editing, i’ll do that later),
- figure out a way to upload footage from the cam corder,
- find out the absolutely best open source text editor.

also, right after the Lug Radio Live exceses I am off to a small town in Andalusia, Spain for two weeks in the sun with no interwebz. You read correctly. I will need to download all the podcasts I can and quite gladly would stash up on several websites and blogs to read while I’m there, if I’m not to go cold turkey. So for the challenge installment 1.5:

- podcast downloading app that syncs with iPod touch
- application/browser extension that will suck up entire websites quickly and neatly.

I shall report back on the progress of the challenge here (look under the linux challenge cathegory) and probably to the Linux Outlaws crew. It’s also consulted extensively on the LO’s forums.

We will see how easy it is to go open source.

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