I installed Mandrake Linux 9.2 on my Shuttle test machine here.  I had originally planned to test Ximian Desktop 2 on it, but when I went to download Ximian I noticed that they don’t support Mandrake.  I’ll need to install Red Hat 9 or SuSE 9.0 in order to put Ximian through its paces.

Mandrake 9.2 really is simple to install.  Easier (and faster) than a Windows install, especially when you consider that once you’re done with the Mandrake install, you have a full office suite (OpenOffice.org) and many other applications including Ximian Evolution for email, news, contacts, and scheduling.  Evolution is a bit too Outlook-like for my tastes, but I’m going to give it a shot.  My main beef with Outlook XP (I haven’t tried the latest version) is the user interface.  It’s cluttered, the defaults are mostly opposite of  my preferences, and finding anything in that mess of an Options dialog is damned near impossible.  At first look, Evolution suffers somewhat from a cluttered UI, but their Options dialog is a little less confusing.  Other than looking at Evolution and poking around here and there, I haven’t really put the system through its paces.

In my November 2, 2002 entry, I wondered here if I could go Windows-free at home.  Shortly after that I got sidetracked with some major .NET stuff and had to put those plans on hold.  I’ll have to maintain a Windows machine so I can continue my .NET Guide writing, and maybe for a few other applications, but this time I’m seriously looking to move most of my work to the Linux platform.  The hard part is deciding on a distribution, and making sure I get all my data across.  As I said before, it’s going to be an interesting ride.