Sunday, June 19, 2022

Writing about My Streaming Life on Linux

I said last weekend that I had a desktop computer set up running Linux, and that I intended to use it for writing the content here. I also mentioned that I hadn't done that part very well.

That has changed, and I've used the Linux computer more. Every new post I wrote in the past week has been on the Linux computer. To be fair, some of the posts last week about streaming services were written the week prior and held until last week. In fact, the one that appeared Friday, on Frndly TV, was one of the first I wrote. But, I didn't publish them in the order I wrote them.

Some of those posts were written on the Linux computer, but some were written on Windows, and maybe one on the Mac. However, I am focusing on writing solely on Linux for the foreseeable future. I want to get used to it, and this is a good way to accomplish that.

I realize the focus of this Website is streaming. And I realize that my writing about writing on Linux really has nothing to do with streaming. But, maybe I'll be able to tie it all in. So, if you are following this Website, do pay attention to how much trouble, or ease, I'm having with Linux. There will be a payoff. Not a big one, but a payoff nonetheless.

I mentioned that I have been writing on both Mac and Windows. So why is Linux different? Well, for one thing, the browser is different. I have used the Google Chrome browser on both Windows and Mac for some time. It's one of the browsers that runs on both platforms. In fact, there's a version for Linux, but I'm not using that.

So, why not use Chrome for Linux? Well, GNU/Linux is an open source operating system. Yes, it's actually GNU/Linux, but most everyone calls it simply "Linux" and so will I.

Being open source, and free, Linux is a different approach to computers. And Linux lends itself to more customization than you are used to. Or want, to be honest. I could spend all day -- heck, all week, month, or year -- talking about that, but I won't. Let's just say that I decided that, at first at least, I want to be open source with both my OS and with my apps. And Google Chrome is not open source.

There is a browser called Chromium on which Chrome is based, and Chromium is open source. But, it has some quirks I don't like. Maybe I'll switch to it later. For now, though, I'm using Firefox.

I've used Firefox before, and was my browser of choice until it ran into some issues I didn't like a while back, and I switch fully to Chrome on Mac and Windows. But, so far, I'm having a good experience with Firefox. Well, mostly. I ran into a hiccup trying to make one specific online purchase, but it turned out the service's Website was the problem, not Firefox. So, with Firefox, so far so good.

But, Firefox is different from Chrome. And it has taken some getting used to. Chrome has some features I like that Firefox is missing, but I'm able to work around them with little issue.

For now, I'll continue to write on my Linux computer using Firefox browser. And yes I will be able to work all this into my Streaming Life when this great experiment is done. I'm just not sure how.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Your comments are welcome. Abusive or off-topic comments will be removed.