Man's Creation

It's been a while since I've written anything new here. Rest assured, my absence from the blogosphere has not been for lack of inspiration (commitment maybe, but not inspiration). In fact, I've got several pages of brainstorms floating around, tucked into different books, left lying on different desks, and stuffed into my briefcase or my backpack as each occasion dictated.

Partially to blame for my absence are myriad computer malfunctions, a quirky internet connection, and some new technological endeavors. This post also marks the first time I've written for this blog from anywhere but my home computer. Thank you, Fayetteville Public Library.

At the top of the list of my new adventures is a the revival of my computer. Almost two and a half years ago, my friend Isaac and I started work on "The Beast". We built it from parts and in many instances modified the parts. For almost a year, it's been sitting in the corner of my living room unused because I've had no operating system to put on it. Finally, I decided to take my first bold steps into the world of Linux.

Don't get me wrong. I've tried it before, but it never took. I usually had Isaac do the installation for me, and then I never really used it for long. Windows was just too easy and ubiquitous for me to give up. This time, on the other hand, I've been on my own. Isaac suggested I use the Slackware distribution and from that point on it's been me and the man-pages.

This is not about my Linux experience, however, it's about my Linux epiphany. All this prolog is just setting the stage for my current state of mind. In a word:

Wow.

I've been a Windows user for years and I know it's huge and complex (and buggy) with some ungodly number of millions of lines of computer code. But It's easy to forget all that when you're using the (usually) straightforward interface. Enter Linux. It's smaller; more compact. In many areas it may be downright elegant, but it's never simple.

I've installed the operating system. I've compiled and installed Apache 2, PHP 5, and mySQL 5. I'm about to tackle compiling a custom kernel. This has taken me three long days of reading and poking around to make sure I didn't screw anything up. What I am left with is:

Wow.

This is man's creation. People, human beings, have spent many, many hours writing these incredibly complex pieces of software. And they work. Despite occasional bugs and glitches, mistakes and bad design decisions, they work. There's probably more in Linux than any one person could ever know. That's pretty incredible if you ask me.