Live CDs Are Awesome
For those who don't know, you can put a Live CD with Linux on it into your Windows or Mac computer and it'll become a Linux computer temporarily. It's like hypnotism. It's as if your computer is clucking like a chicken. Then you take the CD out, and your Windows or Mac wakes up, yawns, shrugs, and goes about its business as if nothing had happened. None of your data is touched. It only uses the CD, it doesn't use the hard drive at all. It's called a "Knoppix" Live CD. You want one, you need one, you can download it free or get one from me.
Wanna know a secret? {Whispers} I'm using a Live CD right now. On my Windows computer. Just a one-night stand with Linux on my precious main computer. Not on a cheap testbed lounging on a card table in my basement with its hardware jauntily exposed. I'm using Linux on the respectable one I come home to at the end of the day. I'm using a commitment-free Live CD right now, to type this, and when my casual recreational computing is spent, I can take the disk out, and throw it away, and my Windows computer will never know how I used its body while it was HYPNOTIZED. Does that turn you on? Yes it does. You want to ask for pictures. Right now my computer looks like this.
This is the genius user interface called Mezzo, on a flavor of Linux called SymphonyOS. Seriously, check out that slide show even if you think you already know what Linux looks like. This desktop environment is new and teh slick. When the computer turns on, SymphonyOS has a cool startup sound where an orchestra tunes up and a conductor taps his baton. (The sign-off sound is very Beethoven-esque.) I clicked the lower left corner of the screen and it gave me a list of all the applications that come with it. I mean all of them. At one time. No nested menus. I clicked web browser, and here I am typing this from within Symphony OS. So I'm typing this post right now and I say, "hmm, what were the specs of this computer exactly? Oh wait, I can hit the upper right corner of the screen and there are all my hardware preferences and configurations." I mean all of them, covering my whole screen at once, not buried in a million tabs and "advanced" buttons. The web browser goes away into the MacOSX-style dock, and the whole screen fills with everything that I would have had to hunt around for in tabs if this were any other system. So I click "About My Computer" and there it was: 1463 AthlonXP 1700+ with 48254kB memory. Instead of a desktop, SymphonyOS gives you widgets for weather, traffic, clock, movie showtimes, connection speed, anything you want.
I am now going to count to three and take the CD out. When I reboot, this computer will be Windows again, and will remember nothing of this. One... you're getting sleepy... Two... your eyes are getting heavy... Three...
Wanna know a secret? {Whispers} I'm using a Live CD right now. On my Windows computer. Just a one-night stand with Linux on my precious main computer. Not on a cheap testbed lounging on a card table in my basement with its hardware jauntily exposed. I'm using Linux on the respectable one I come home to at the end of the day. I'm using a commitment-free Live CD right now, to type this, and when my casual recreational computing is spent, I can take the disk out, and throw it away, and my Windows computer will never know how I used its body while it was HYPNOTIZED. Does that turn you on? Yes it does. You want to ask for pictures. Right now my computer looks like this.
This is the genius user interface called Mezzo, on a flavor of Linux called SymphonyOS. Seriously, check out that slide show even if you think you already know what Linux looks like. This desktop environment is new and teh slick. When the computer turns on, SymphonyOS has a cool startup sound where an orchestra tunes up and a conductor taps his baton. (The sign-off sound is very Beethoven-esque.) I clicked the lower left corner of the screen and it gave me a list of all the applications that come with it. I mean all of them. At one time. No nested menus. I clicked web browser, and here I am typing this from within Symphony OS. So I'm typing this post right now and I say, "hmm, what were the specs of this computer exactly? Oh wait, I can hit the upper right corner of the screen and there are all my hardware preferences and configurations." I mean all of them, covering my whole screen at once, not buried in a million tabs and "advanced" buttons. The web browser goes away into the MacOSX-style dock, and the whole screen fills with everything that I would have had to hunt around for in tabs if this were any other system. So I click "About My Computer" and there it was: 1463 AthlonXP 1700+ with 48254kB memory. Instead of a desktop, SymphonyOS gives you widgets for weather, traffic, clock, movie showtimes, connection speed, anything you want.
I am now going to count to three and take the CD out. When I reboot, this computer will be Windows again, and will remember nothing of this. One... you're getting sleepy... Two... your eyes are getting heavy... Three...