1) High Speed Internet
The reason I gave up on Linux five years ago was that I couldn’t get my dial-up modem to work. I have high-speed now, but I tried to set up the modem just to test how difficult it was. After failing with three different distributions of Linux on four different computers I have to recommend that new Linux users make sure they have high-speed. I’ve never had any trouble getting my Ethernet modem to work.

2) Double whatever RAM the distro claims you need.
I’m putting Linux on my older computers, and I assume most new converts are going to try to do the same. That usually means we’ll be working with slower computers. One of the selling points I came across when I started reading about Linux was that it works fantastically on older computers. However, I’ve found this isn’t entirely true. I tried Ubuntu, Xbuntu, and D@m# Small Linux on an old lappy that had the supposed bare minimum RAM, but nothing worked. I eventually just installed Linux without any kind of windows system (and that’s how I discovered the joy of the command line). Recently, I installed Fedora 9 on a 3 year old desktop which meets Fedora’s minimum requirements for RAM, but I’ve discovered it’s safer to stay in CLI, and I’ve ordered more RAM. Whatever the distribution you’re using says you need, go ahead and double it, and you’ll enjoy yourself a lot more.

3) Terminal Skills
The best way to prepare yourself for the trouble you will have is to learn some basic Unix commands. Most of the on-line help discussions use terminal commands, so you must learn your way around a terminal if plan on fixing any of the problems that come up. (These problems happen on M&M too [that's Microsoft and Macintosh] but I’ve found fixing them is easier when working in the terminal.)

Don’t stress out about this point; learning these commands won’t take much time. I went to the library and got an old book on Unix that had most of the information I needed. I spent about an hour scanning the book and picked up most of the basics and a couple cool tricks. Every new Linux user must do this. Eventually, you will read something that will use these commands and if you have a basic understanding of them, you’ll be able to follow the discussion more easily. Spend an hour learning these commands now, and it will probably save yourself several hours in the future.

We have an old laptop (Compaq Presario 1275), with 64mb of ram. So basically it can’t even run the Windows 98 OS it was shipped with. I tried using it for a few months just to write on, but it was ridiculously slow, and I couldn’t get it to recognize my USB drive (who uses floppies anymore), so I couldn’t transfer my writings from it to any other computer.

Well, what do you do with old computers? Install Linux. I tried several versions, but the 64mb ram held me back. I looked into upgrading the ram, but that clashes with my tight-wad personality. I couldn’t even get D@M^ Small Linux to work right (because it’s a laptop). I eventually settled on a command line Ubuntu. With 0 images the OS works lightning fast.

My first experience of computers was back in the early 90’s, so I was familiar with DOS, and the command line didn’t intimidate me too much. I went to the library and checked out Unix for Dummies and spent a night bringing myself up to speed on 40 year old software.

My primary use for this laptop is word processing, which leaves me with two programs, nano and Vim. I tried nano, but gave up on it because of it’s word-wrap/line-break issue. So Vim won, and I’ve had fun figuring it out. I’ll never be a die hard Vim fan (because I use the arrow keys to navigate), but I’m enjoying tweaking it, and it’ll work for what I’m doing. Plus, the paranoid side of me likes the fact that maybe 5% of the world would know how to navigate the OS and read my writings.

I’m looking for more ways to hack Vim to make it a better word processor. There is a ton of information about Vim out there, but most of it is about coding in Vim. I like messing around with various languages and scripts, but I’m trying to limit my hobbies, so I’m staying away from that world.

Here’s what I’ve got so far in my vimrc file. I liked the way nano had their F# keys set up so I imitated that.

(update: I’ve added a post just for my vimrc additions, but I’ll leave this post here because it has some of my bashrc additions as well. Eventually, bash will get its own post as well, then I’ll delete the information below.)

“My additions

“Display, or not display line numbers
set nonu
“set nu

“Mapping

“Save and Quit
imap <F2> <Esc>:wq<CR>
map <F2> <Esc>:wq<CR>

“Save
imap <F3> <Esc>:w<CR>i
map <F3> <Esc>:w<CR>

“Force Quit
imap <F4> <Esc>:q!<CR>
map <F4> <Esc>:q!<CR>

“Search for Scene - (This is how I subdivide chapters for easy navigation since I don’t use line numbers.)
map <F12> <Esc>/Scene<CR>
imap <F12> <Esc>/Scene<CR>

“Auto Indents
set ai

“Ignore Case in searches (in case I type “scene” rather than “Scene”)
set ic

“Turn off that irritating beep so my wife doesn’t hate me as well as the visual bee (flicker).
set noerrorbells
set noflash

“Abbiviations
ab teh the
ab Teh The

Here are two web pages I’ve enjoyed:

• rayninfo.co.uk/vimtips.html
• www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxTutorialAdvanced_vi.html

And here’s some stuff I’ve done to my .bash_aliases file. Mostly just stuff to make navigating my files quicker. Even though I only use this computer to edit text, I still like things to be neatly organized.

PS1=’$'  #My distro had a big ugly command prompt by default so I got rid of that.

alias novel=’cd /home/douglas/writings/novels/currentNovelName’

alias words=’wc 0*.txt’ #this way I can get a word count of the actual story and ignore other files in the folder that have just have notes about the story, research, etc.

alias scenes=’cd /home/douglas/writings/novels/currentNovelName; vim scenes.txt’

alias characters=’cd /home/douglas/writings/novels/currentNovelName; vim characters.txt’

I’m currently using Fedora 9, and command line only installation of Ubuntu 7.10.

My first attempt to switch was 5 years ago with Mandrake. I only had dial-up then, and I couldn’t get my Winmodem to work (I couldn’t log on to the internet to get help), so I gave up after a couple months.

I’d recommend Ubuntu 8 to anyone interested in switching.

I don’t really know enough about Linux to make an thorough comparison of the distributions yet, but that’s why I switched–to learn.

Ubuntu 8 is the easiest distro to get. You can download the whole OS on one CD. Fedora 9 took 6 or 7 CDs. Of course, you can always to go to the mall and buy a magazine with Fedora 9 or other distros. And, I bet you can go to the library and get some distro of Linux from a book/cd combo in the computer section, but those will probably be older versions of Linux.

I still haven’t figured out how to get my wireless working on my laptop with Fedora 9, and Ubuntu 8 did that automatically for me.

All the apps I used on Ubuntu are available on Fedora. And all of them are free. Maybe later I’ll do a comparison of Linux apps with Windows apps. I could write a lot more about that topic.

“I have a 10 year old laptop that can’t handle X, so I installed a stripped down version of Ubuntu.
“I use the laptop exclusively for writing, which leaves me with nano or vim. I chose vim.

“These are the changes I’ve made to my vimrc file to make the vim editor work more like a word processor.
“I’ll add more to this as I learn more about vim .

“”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”
” Environment ”
“”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”

“Display, or not display line numbers
set nonu

“Auto Indents
set ai

“Ignore Case
set ic

“Turn off the annoying beep (so my wife doesn’t throw something at me) and the visual beep (flicker)
set noerrorbells
set noflash

“Adjust wrap so it wraps at word boundaries rather than characters, but without including a line break.
set formatoptions=l
set lbr

“Displays the mode you’re working in at the bottom right of the screen.
set showmode

“”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”
” Mapping ”
“”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”

“Save and Quit
map <F2> :wq<CR>
map! <silent> <F2> <Esc>:wq<CR>

“Save
map <F3> :w<CR>
map! <silent> <F3> <Esc>:w<CR>a

“Search FORWARD for Scene - (This is how I subdivide chapters in long text files).
map <F5> /Scene<CR>
map! <silent> <F5> <Esc>/Scene<CR>a

“Search BACKWARD for Scene - (This is how I subdivide chapters in long text files).
map <F6> ?Scene<CR>
map! <silent> <F6> <Esc>?Scene<CR>a

“Force Quit
map <F12> :q!<CR>
map! <silent> <F12> <Esc>:q!<CR>

“Move up and down _ inside_ a wrapped line.
map <Up> gk
map! <silent> <Up> <C-o>gk

map <Down> gj
map! <silent> <Down> <C-o>gj

“Fancy Scroll
map <s-Down> <C-E>
map! <silent> <s-Down> <C-E>

map <s-Up> <C-Y>
map! <silent> <s-Up> <C-Y>

“”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”
” Abbreviations ”
“”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”
ab teh the
ab Teh The