Wild Month

It has been a pretty wild month. I went on vacation with my family, had a paper rejected, interviewed for more jobs, redid the paper for a different journal, and accepted a job that is literally on the other side of the country! It has been a wild ride.

In the midst of all this, I was frustrated with the software setup on my laptop. I decided it was time to upgrade from Ubuntu 7.04 to the next one, 7.10. I thought this would be safe, as the current version of Ubuntu is 8.04, and I didn't want things messing up with a huge upgrade.

I was dead wrong. For years I have never had big problems with Linux. "It just works!" I may struggle with a sound card, have to use a special modem, not be able to do something small, or be addicted to "online update," but I was able to get my work done. Now, I have problems. I can't seem to kill user processes - even as root. That isn't usually a problem, as I hardly ever used kill, but now I have programs that take over and refuse to die. I also am frustrated by Ubuntu's lack of a pre-installed super-user file browser, especially when compared to my previous positive experience with KDE. Having installed Caldera OpenLinux, Corel, Suse, and Mandrake on my computers, Ubuntu has been a step back. I don't think the reality reflects the hype. And I will do clean installs from now on, as they are much, much less work.

I need to get my dissertation finished in some form two weeks before my oral defense, which is likely days before I move my family across the country. It is crunch time. But, I am also really thankful for Craigslist, as it makes it possible to do things much more quickly.