osama i. al-dosary

The Era of the Penguin …
As far as my desktop goes, its Linux from now on.

In the workshop I attended at APRICOT, the machines we used were Linux (Fedora Core 3). I found that it was pretty easy to use. (The only application that I need that has no decent Linux alternative is Visio.)
I had used FreeBSD as my desktop about 5 years ago, but it wasn’t by choice. I worked at ISI /USC when I was doing my M.S. and the main platform we worked on was FreeBSD. I didn’t do any GUI work, though. Most of my word processing was done on Windows. I believe FreeBSD to be an excellent server platform, but I’ve tried using it as a desktop and it is too much work to get it to do what I want it to do — not necessarily the the OS itself as much as apps that I want to work on it.
I’m not totally new to Linux. I installed Linux on my notebook several times to try it out, but I had never comitted my self to totally working on it.
Now after using Linux for almost everything in that 4day workshop, I’ve decided to make the jump once and for all.

I Just came back from APRICOT in Kyoto, Japan.

I really enjoyed the conference, and enjoyed visiting Japan. I wish I had more to see Japan or even just Kyoto, unfortunately because of work, I wasn’t able to have more time to visit. I’ll post my photos once I get around to it. Stay tuned.