I am not a fan of Windows. For the last several years, the only time I used Windows was at work. Until now, I didn’t have the authority to choose otherwise. I decided about a month ago to switch my OS to Linux. Of course that means choosing a distribution. I used SUSE for several years, and was happy with it. So, I decided to load openSUSE 11.0 on my desktop. It was a painless install. openSUSE was considerate enough to make room for itself and leave room for Windows and set up dual boot. Very nice.

Time to boot up. Ok, I have two identical desktops running mirrored on both monitors. I find the desktop/monitor settings and set it accordingly. And it doesn’t work. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get openSUSE to correctly span my desktop across both monitors. It insisted on mirroring on both. That sucks. I got tired of screwing with openSUSE, and fired up the Ubuntu 8.10 install. I did have to intervene so it used the existing partition setup, but that was not a big deal. The install proceeded normally. I booted up and was met with a desktop that correctly spanned both monitors without intervention from me. Perfect. Ubuntu wins.

I have used OpenOffice (and NeoOffice) for several years. I have never had a situation where it couldn’t do what I needed, and interoperate with MS Office. But, I need to interoperate with Exchange. So, I installed Evolution  and set it up to work with our Exchange hosting provider.

Evolution seemed like a good solution. It has many of Outlooks features, it sets up quickly. But, it stinks. It’s slow syncing mail. It would frequently freeze when trying switch to the calendar while mail was syncing. And the calendaring synchronization is terrible. It’s slow, it’s unreliable, and it only works with Outlook Web Access.

So, I loaded Thunderbird for email (using IMAP) and I update my calendar by hand.

Every year for the past 6 or 7 has been declared the year of the Linux desktop. The year it takes over the office. It’s not going to happen. Not until the Linux community recognizes and addresses the real obstacles to widespread adoption, MS Office and Exchange. OpenOffice addresses the main components of MS Offices (except Access, but there are substitutes for it). And OO works well. But, Exchange is entrenched in most enterprises, and it won’t be dislodged easily. Sure, there are alternatives for Exchange, IMAP/POP3 servers, iCal servers, etc. There is NO good way to inter-operate with an existing Exchange environment. And without one, Linux cannot make significant inroads in existing enterprises.

In the meantime, I am loading Windows XP as a VirtualBox VM so I can run Outlook.