Ubuntu: Linux for Human Beings
A while back, during my open access rants, Jeremy predicted (in this post) that I would become a Linux user soon. Jeremy, it seems, is a bit of a prophet. At the time, I had already partitioned my hard drive so I could play around with it. I finally got some of the kinks ironed out, and now I think I’m ready to make the full switch.
Ubuntu is great, and you don’t need to be a computer hacker to use it. It’s Linux for Human Beings.
Many of the reasons for pushing for open access in journals seem like they ought to push one toward open source software. I think that’s right, and I think that explains Jeremy’s prediction. In fact, Richard Chappelle over at Philosophy Etc. has a great post that is sort of related to this issue here (Although his post is limited to open source word processing).
Philosophical reasons aside, there are other some pretty good practical reasons to switch to Linux(Ubuntu)
- Security
Linux was made with security in mind. The Linux system is WAY more secure. You don’t have to use anti-virus software. - Speed
You don’t have a bunch of anti-spyware/malware/anti-virus software/crummy software you’ll never use that comes loaded with your windows machine. In Vista, it takes 2-3 minutes minutes from the time I push the power button to the time I’m actually doing something online. In Ubuntu – it’s 30 seconds (that includes the time it takes to enter my username and password). - Cheap
In the future, all that I will need to pay for to get a nice machine – is the machine! Everything else I need is FREELY available – including great open-source alternatives to many of the cool proprietary windows programs.
LaTeX
I’ve also been playing around with LaTeX. I know a lot of philosophers out there have been hip to LaTeX for awhile, and I’m sad that I am only now just discovering how great it is.
Making the switch can be a little odd for someone unfamiliar with markup languages, but there are so many template TeX files out there, that even someone with very little experience with these can jump right in.
I love LaTeX. I’ll probably stump for LaTeX a bit more in my next post.
There’s a reason that my pseudonym on many forums is themuteprophet.
The two reasons I’ve never completely switched to a linux distro are gaming and support. I know all of the penguin lovers out there can spout wine to me all they want, but frankly, I don’t have another 512 ram to spare all the time just to vm windows. Additionally, if I have a hardware issue, hp’s going to completely ignore me just because of my os. It’s ridiculous, but true.
Ubuntu’s stuck in the middle as “too restricted” for the linux people and “what? a terminal?!” for the windows people. It’s sad, considering that it’s the only absolutely free linux distro (not that the others are expensive by any means).
On the other hand, LaTeX has no such stigmas. It’s book-style publishing format makes anything look sweet. The loser above me turned in homework using it all the time.
Hi, just a question – how is LaTex different to say a word processing program or publishing program? Is it made with different purpose in mind?
I’m quite comfortable with w/processing and some publishing (though I really would like to get to know how to use Scribe and Gimp when I get a chance, having only ever used Pagemaker and Publisher in the past) but I found somewhere that LaTex had a feature for making crossword puzzles which is what i’d like to do.
So, excuse my igonarance but everything I have read about it doesn’t tell me how it is different to a wordprocessor or publising file… and as it doesn’t have a gui I’m a bit limited in what i can ask it to do at the moment…
Hi Francesca,
It’s not that much different, and I’m still a little new to LaTeX so I haven’t unlocked everything it can do.
The appeal of LaTeX for a philosopher is that it makes using logical notation very easy. It integrates very well with BibTeX (a bibliography manager) – although I think there are some ways to get BibTeX to work with a normal word processor. Once you learn the tools you can easily switch styles (Chicago, MLA, APA.). It also seems that if someone ever wanted to start philosophy journal (something I may want to do somewhere down the line), then he/she would definitely want to know LaTeX.
There is a bit of a learning curve, but once you get over that LaTeX enables one to do all of the above in a way that is a bit better than any word processor I’m aware of. (But I’m new to this – so I’m not positive about that).
Another irritating thing about standard word processors is how much extra stuff a simple document gets bogged down with (this is much more true of something like Microsoft Word than say Open Office).
There are WYSIWYG/gui interfaces for LaTeX out there where you can switch between the tex file and something that looks like the output file. I haven’t tried any of those, but it might be helpful.
I suspect that making crossword puzzles in LaTeX would have to do with making tables, but I bet you could do that in OpenOffice.
I haven’t tried Scribe, but GIMP is great. It’s nice, free alternative to Photoshop – if you’re not a Photoshop power user, but like to use it for some simpler photoshop tools – you’re going to love GIMP.
I don’t know how good it works but you can export a .tex file through Open Office:
Do the “File>Export” command.
Really enjoying your site, Andrew. Thanks for posting those philosophy BibTeX files.
I’ve been using LaTeX for about a year now. Can’t imagine life without it.
The only problem I’m having is that some philosophy journal editors still insist on submitting your files in Word format, at least at the final level after acceptance, which sort of defeats the whole purpose. At least most of them will accept a PDF for refereeing at least.
Just switched to Ubuntu on my desktop last week. Also loving it. But also considering Linux Mint for my laptop.
Jeremy, FWIW, Wine is not a VM, and shouldn’t take up extra RAM. I don’t have a lot of experience with it. The only thing I’d really want it for is gaming anyway, and I’m more productive without playing games all the time anyway. 😉
You could also dual-boot, which only costs you harddrive space.
Thanks Kevin,
I go back and forth between LaTeX and OpenOffice. One of the reasons is that journals sometimes don’t accept PDFs.
The other is that OpenOffice integrates well with Zotero (an excellent open source Endnote killer).
Also, given my open source software proclivities, I want to be familiar enough with Open Office to help people who might be willing to try out Ubuntu but wouldn’t be willing to try LaTeX.
So, I’m currently playing around with both.