Procrastinating is so much fun. Although in this case, extremely frustrating as well.
In the midst of proofreading, I've been tinkering around with my new Linux install (and the new Windows install, too, but that's not so much tinkering as it is setting up). Speaking of proofreading, this last round of proofreading is finally done, and the next stop is the printer! Anyway, let me give you the extremes of my love/hate relationship with Linux.
Love: I found this great utility called sshfs that allows mounting a remote directory via SFTP. For example, this would allow me to mount the BitWise web site in /mnt/website, giving me file-system access to the entire site. That would be very handy!
Hate: I have a [somewhat aging] Hercules Game Theater XP sound card, powered by a Cirrus Logic chipset. I have the Linux Kernel 2.6.11 with the latest and greatest ALSA support, but nonetheless, ALSA isn't finding that I have 4.1 capability. Consider this output, found in a forum, from someone with a very similar card:
$ cat /proc/asound/pcmI get only:
00-00: CS46xx : CS46xx : playback 31 : capture 1
00-01: CS46xx - Rear : CS46xx - Rear : playback 31
00-02: CS46xx - IEC958 : CS46xx - IEC958 : playback 1
00-03: CS46xx - Center LFE : CS46xx - Center LFE : playback 31
$ cat /proc/asound/pcmI shouldn't say this publicly, but I spent a couple of hours today trying to figure this one out. Blech. I exhausted everything I could think of and came up short. I believe that ALSA is possessed by the devil.
00-00: CS46xx : CS46xx : playback 1 : capture 1
So for now, I think I'll continue migrating to the new Windows install and leave Linux alone...
PS In case anyone is wondering why I'm redoing my setup, consider that it takes about 20 minutes to log in to Windows and has, on occassion, taken 45 minutes to shut down. Some programs are getting slow, DNS lookup has become glacial, etc. Hopefully that's enough of a case for you to grant me this pleasure. :)
I would like to ask how long it has been since your last install of windows. I have found I probably get a good 4 months before my machine begins to show signs of slowing and 6 before I should reinstall. My old machine could go a month but 2 week was best.