Karma Chameleon

If you look really hard, you can see it. Little signs of spring, little shoots of new life and growth. Day by day, week by week the season rolls round and we notice how it affects our being. We too, like the new baby lambs, will have a little spring in our step as the days get longer and warmer. Our lives will feel brighter and more positive as the sun feels stronger. The vibrant green from the new seasons foliage will fill us with a feeling of happiness towards our fellow humans, animals and nature. Its just a shame I'm going to miss it all, trying to get my Scanner to work with Ubunto. My guess is that geeks must have the most sun sensitive skin on the planet. I enjoy the feeling of the sun warming my skin, but I fear that I too will be looking like an anaemic albino this summer.

The OS leap from Windows to Ubunto, was painless enough. Even I managed it without calling on external help. Initially, this lead me to ask the question “Why the hell aren't there more Linux users out there?”. To my surprise everything went smoothly. My fears mainly centred around how I was going to get it to recognize the broadband connection. No problem at all - it recognized everything and did it by itself. Just like that, magic! This is what you need when you want Linux world domination. Something so simple that a non geek, average Jo (like me) can quickly put on their system. I was impressed to say the least... but what about my scanner? A quick check on the sane project website reveals that my scanner isn't supported. (please – NO answers on a postcard. I'm very aware of the little acronyms you geeks have, like RTFM, and I am...OK!) Obviously no such drivers came with my scanner.

I never had this problem before. Gone are the days of impulse purchasing a device, plugging it in and away to go. Now 'Jo' has to know before hand whether or not the device is supported. I would have been at my local LUG asking questions, but I live an area where they meet only once every three months. Great! fantastic sense of community!

I think the only way Linux is going to make a break through in the home user market is when the nation is more IT savy; when we're all a bit more technically educated. At the speed most people learn at, this may take a while. You can't teach an old dog new tricks may be an appropriate adage, but we can certainly rely on the next generation to make a change. I've noticed that there are several projects encouraging schools to have Linux boxes for their students. This will surely have an impact on the future success of Linux; and hopefully no one will then waste good money on a scanner that doesn't work with their Linux set-up! Surely the hardware manufacturers want to maximise their market segment by providing a solution for all platforms and not just Windows. It doesn't really make sense to me as a future proof business model of success for these companies not to provide this level of support. Maybe we should lobby them, if not for your sake, for me and my obscure scanner!

So, it seems my Linux skills are improving. I'll beat this scanner thing if it kills me. The only person really suffering in all this, is my good husband. He's been so excited about this change in me that it has had a strange but pleasant effect on our relationship (how weird you geeks are! you get turned on by the most strange things). I had to shut him out of the computer room while I was changing the OS in fear that he'd take control and click all the buttons. I'm not quite sure if this helped at all, because its a little difficult to concentrate when there's someone scratching at the door asking “have you done it yet? Is it partitioned?”, “What partition strategy did you opt for?”, “what percentage is it on?”.

I'm not quite sure I'm sold on the 'human brown' thing though. I found an interesting answer to the question “Why is the desktop default in Ubuntu Brown?” . In short, the answer is “it emphasises warm, human colours -- brown”. No mention of any scientific theory on the thoughts and feelings that are evoked when looking at the colour brown...such as Casual, Safe, Dull, Reliable, Stable, Simultaneously Cool and Warm, Ultraconservative.
DULL seems to be the operative word. The colour scheme is a bit bland, a bit drab. Whilst the layout is very clean, spacious and all round Zen like, I can only hope that if Ubuntu hit their release date goal for V6.04 this month that they change the muddy water to something a little more appealing. If brown is the new black, can green be the new brown? If we're going to be locked away in our rooms pale and pasty, can we at least have a bit of spring on our machines please?