So here I am, officially my six month on Linux. Things are really starting to take shape and I am finding that the platform is so much more flexible than I had imagined and I am able to do more than I have thought possible. For example, I took the lemons of last night and in building the new server took the time to add media capabilities by configuring Jinzora, a nifty little php application that serves up dynamic playlists. It was easy to set up, just drop the files into the www-root locations, run the config and then launch install.php in your browser. The only catch being setting up the correct permissions for the location of the media files so that Jinzora can read the tags.

Any regrets? None so far. The transition to Linux was bumpy at times but that is largely due to the learning curve, which is steep anytime one changes core operating platforms, but it is paying off in dividends by making my home computing life more flexible. I run this site out of my house, can listen to my music collection anywhere there is an Internet connection, run regular backups that dump to a secure PC on the network regardless if I am at home or on the road. Doing all of this with Microsoft would have either crippled me financially or meant that I was a pirate.

Where to from here? Well, now I’m thinking about Media PCs, firewall applications, and running NIS. I would like to increase my knowledge about security and networking with Linux and maybe polish up my resume in the process. Thanks to Ubuntu and my ever patient wife seems like my computing life has been given an extension.