Charlie StrossFeb 13, 2025

Time for a footnote to this: nearly 40 years of writing my stories on computers has taught me two things:

1. Always have backups. More than you think you need, too (backups can go bad).

2. Always have an exit strategy from a hardware, operating system, or writing software choice: vendors can go bad or remove support for older products.

Sub-footnote: Linux isn't an exit strategy, it's a 9-5 job. Open source is less bad than closed, but rug-pulls are still possible.
https://wandering.shop/@cstross/113995800386923701

Charlie Stross (@[email protected])

Time for Day 13 of #WritersCoffeeClub , many thanks to @johnhowesauthor . How do you organise your writing projects? I work in Scrivener. One project per novel. Possibly supplementary notes in SimpleNote, before I import them into Scriv when I begin writing. Each project lives in a folder along with supplementary stuff, namely generated drafts in export file formats, backups, and so on. Current "live" projects temporarily reside in a separate folder in my Dropbox (for cross-device syncing).

The Wandering Shop
Show threadDaniel LakelandFeb 13, 2025
@cstross
Linux requires work, but 9-5 job is a bit hyperbolic. The FAI (fully automated installer) project's USB image can wipe your computer and give you a working Debian install in like 5 minutes and 3 keystrokes. So worst case if you're just trying to get shit done and have data backups is you "reset to factory default" in 5 minutes.
Show threadCharlie StrossFeb 13, 2025

@dlakelan See, you're talking like a sysadmin there, not a lowly user. When I say it's a 9-5 job I'm talking from the PoV of Getting Stuff Done. And if you want to accomplish a task and ask about it on the net, these days 95% of the time all you'll get is a fucking youtube link at best and "get in the sea, n00b" at worst.

This is not a viable ecosystem for users. (And I don't have the cognitive bandwidth to pick up from where I used to be all over again, 20 years later.)

Show threadKarl Auerbach

@cstross @dlakelan We've run our entire company administration on Linux (Fedora/KDE) for years.

I've found that Linux requires rather less fussing than Windows, is easier to install, is easier to back up, and is far more reliable (and runs on older hardware too.)

The applications have gotten fairly mature. At our office we seem to have developed two camps - those who use LibreOffice and those who use Google Docs.

I am personally far more of a fan of the IBM/RedHat/Fedora distributions of Linux than of the Ubuntu and Debian distributions. And I find KDE to be a lot more rational of a desktop system than the more common GNome desktops.

Feb 13, 2025 at 5:33pmWeb
Show threadCharlie StrossFeb 13, 2025
@karlauerbach You may find Linux is less fuss than Windows, but I *absolutely refuse* to use Windows, so that's not much use to me.
Show threadKarl AuerbachFeb 13, 2025
@cstross Linux is decidedly *not* Windoz. So your concern about using Linux ought to be assuaged.