Linux is Mission Critical for Me

Article = none , personal experiance

So ,I'm trying to change the songs in my phones, because after you've listenned to the same set over and over and over it' gets boring.

Plug it into my xp machine, and a little window pops up saying it wants to install the drivers. Close it , why ? There are no drivers, its just plug and play. A little drive apears in my computer and you just delete all the mp3 files and dump in new files.

Hmmm... no little drive.

Ok , give installing the drivers a try.
Windows can't find any drivers.
Check the phone literature. There are no drivers, you just plug and play.
How did I get those 500 megabytes of songs onto my phone in the first place you ask ? Well..I just plugged the wire in and ignored the install drivers window and started dropping files into the little disk drive symbol..the one that wasn't showing up this time.

I really hate windows.

The phone reported "please plug in usb cable"
Tried it again . Same thing. I knew the cable was fine because I heard a ding every time I unplugged it and plugged it in again.
Try the drivers window. Failed. But detected new device. After a minute, failed again . But detected new device ... failed again ... after about five times around this circle I gave up and did a search on google for drivers.

There were some blue tooth and driver manager software for the phone. Which might , or might not be what I wanted (blue tooth definately had nothing to do with sticking a cable between your phone and the computer)

So I download the drivers. And I try to install them. And windows pops up a window saying new hardware found. And the drivers pop up a window saying the device is unplugged, please plug it in again. So I unplug it , wait five seconds, plug it in again. And it continues the install , for about five seconds. Then windows pops up a window saying new hardware found... and the driver program stops and says the phone usb cable isn't plugged in , plug it in again....

Three or four times around this loop , and I'm vowing that if Bill Gates were to pass in front of me at that moment I would happily hop up and strangle him to death , confess everything , and serve my 25 years murder sentence with a smile on my face. It would be worth it !

But it worked the first time !!! how come it doesnt' work now ???

I'm thinking I stupidly installed Internet Explorer 7 , and it came with some "required" patches that broke my system and rendered my phone unable to talk to the computer anymore.

"Please plug in the usb cable" says the phone.

THERES NOTHING WRONG WITH THE STUPID USB CABLE !!! see , I'll prove it to you !

Plug it into my Linux Box, running Ubunto 7.1
Ding. Kodak camera detected, do you want to synchronize pictures now ? (no !)
See , it detects it just fine , the cable works great , Linux just sucks at drivers ... whats that little disk drive symbol on my Linux desktop ?

click on the disk ,and it opens up , just like a windows folder. And low and behold , there are all the songs contained in my phone.

Five minutes later I had erased them and put a new selection of music on my phone. Just plug it in and away it went , no drivers required. Just like windows SHOULD be , but wasn't any more.

My experimental toy of a linux box ? It isn't an experiment anymore. Its now what my office managers would call a "Mission Critical" piece of equipment. I can't use my phone as a music player without it. And I'm a guy. I talk on the phone maybe once a week, for two minutes, if that. Using the phone as a phone... I shoulda got a pay as you go phone if that was my intention.

I like to put down windows for it's "sabatage the competition" attitude all the time , but this is the first time I found an alternative that out manouvers that. Normally you're just stuck. You know they sabataged you , but there's not too much you can do about it. This time there was. Sorry Mr Gates. But I think your time is almost up. Ubuntu is sweeping up behind you.