…from a Windows user’s point of view.
I’m writing this as I’m upgrading. Keep checking back for progress.
I’m a Windows guy at the moment, but am attempting to see if I can make Linux my primary desktop. I’m starting off with the Linux distro Ubuntu 8.10 “Jaunty Jackalope” from a VMWare “virtual appliance” that had Ubuntu 8.10 already installed. All I had to do was download it and start running (no installation needed). Obviously, I’m running this in a VM (virtual machine) with VMWare. Tonight, I decided to get back into IM (Instant Messaging… I do this about once a year and end up uninstalling it after a month or so because it’s too distracting). I redownloaded Pidgen for Windows, got it configured with AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Google, ICQ, & Facebook. Then I decided to do the same in Ubuntu. Turns out this distro already has Pidgen installed. Cool.
I then wanted to make sure I was upgraded to the latest version of Pidgen. This is where the differences between Windows and Linux really slap you in the face. For example, here’s how to upgrade to the latest Pidgen for Windows version via the Pidgen website:
Couldn’t be simpler (unless, Pidgen auto-updated itself). Here’s how to update Pidgen for Linux (same website):
As much as I’d love to see Linux take off with the masses, this is why it won’t any time soon. No, not because of this particular Pidgen upgrade, but this seems to be a constant theme for working in Linux. Normal computer users (those that aren’t Geeks, like us) won’t put up with this or can’t put up with it.
Anyway, that was just a diversion from the primary task here of upgrading to 9.10. Ubuntu notified me that it had found a new version (I didn’t have to go looking). I told it to go ahead and update, while I was in the middle of chatting with a friend with Pidgen. It finished downloading while we were still chatting, so I had it start the upgrade.
Wow! 12 hours?!?!? It kept changing from 7 to 14 hours. It’s currently estimating 9 hours now (about 15 or 20 minutes after I took that snapshot). Anyway, that’s a LOOOOONG time. To be fair, this is in a VM, which is expected to be slower that running it natively. I’ll continue the article after it finishes this 9 hour task…
Here’s part 2 of my upgrade experience: