Alright, everybody, time for some serious geekery! For the first time in probably ten years, I have built myself an entirely new computer. It's not bleeding-edge, but it gets the job done. But this is not about my new hardware--rather, this is about how pleased I am with Linux, both on my new wireless router and with regard to the progress desktop Linux has made in the last 18 months. In fact, I daresay Ubuntu is about two steps away from surpassing Windows Vista by every conceivable measure.

First, the easy stuff. My 802.11b Netgear Router has been misbehaving for over a year. It has been a good little router for about half a decade, and I have never been less than satisfied with its robust firmware. And strictly speaking, it still works well enough for basic home networking requirements, so I can't complain about "throwaway consumer electronics."

But I was hoping for something a little more robust (and needing fewer reboots!), and I happened across this article about the Linksys WRT54GL. It's a little expensive for an 802.11g router ($60 instead of $40), but it runs on Linux... which means there is a ton of custom firmware available for it. I flashed it with Tomato Firmware and... wow. Just... wow. The QoS settings alone have changed my network forever; they were easy to set, and now when I'm choking my connection downloading Linux DVD ISOs, Aprilynne can still use the web without complaint. In addition to vast customization options (antenna boost, anyone?), Tomato firmware provides me with graphically rendered usage charts, real-time bandwidth measurements, all sorts of bells and whistles. It easily doubles or triples the relative value of my router.

Which renews my belief in the cultural and economic value of open-sourcing software. The hardware most of us use every day is capable of significantly more than the hardware manufacturers, service providers, and marketing minions would have us believe. The argument that a person has a right to be compensated for their labor falls awfully flat when they actively labor to cripple the devices they create, finding more and more ways to charge extra for what would otherwise come free. Imagine purchasing a car that would fit perfectly in your garage if it weren't for that unsightly and functionless metal pole sticking six feet straight up from the roof. If the car dealer told you "garage parking is $1000 extra," you would walk off the lot immediately.

Digital restriction management, or "DRM," is a big metal pole welded to the roof of your car for no reason other than to charge you more for less. But more, closed-source devices are similar--a padlock on your hood that can only be opened by authorized mechanics, who must pay a hefty franchise fee. The technology--the actual, physical objects that we interact with--are worth more to us when their inner workings are open to modification. I have never purchased a Linksys router before, because I was completely happy with my Netgear. Frankly, the Netgear was a much better-looking piece of equipment! But now I'm a happy Linksys customer--and what's more, as a source of computer advice for several households, I will likely encourage others to purchase this fine router (but not the crippled WRT54G, which Linksys apparently started selling because a flashed GL does more than many of their costly, "high end" routers). Linksys may not entirely appreciate people manually improving their products, but they keep selling the GL to folks like me, whose business they would otherwise likely never have gotten.

Well, I hadn't intended to gush about the router so much, but my Tomato-flashed WRT54GL is just awesome.

The other thing I did, once I put my computer together, was install Windows Vista SP1. I did this temporarily in order to have some fresh impressions. Vista actually looks a lot better than I remembered, which is saying something, because I remember it looked very good, even in beta. With my new machine, the only driver that didn't install automatically was the sound driver, so that was a major improvement. With my new video card, there was no stuttering... but the OS took forever to install and another small eternity to boot from restart!

Once I felt I could compare them fairly, I went ahead and installed Linux. After almost a year of Fedora 7, I decided to give Kubuntu another go.

I admit I was a little floored when the fresh install made all of my hardware work without additional effort. Yes, even my video cards, with its closed-source drivers, was up and running full steam without a single command-line installation requirement. It did take a bit longer to install than I remembered, but it boots with astonishing alacrity. The desktop eye-candy was likewise installed without resort to the command-line, and puts Vista to shame.

This is not to say that the experience was without its frustrations. I started with the KDE4 install of Kubuntu, which uses a new program called "Plasma" for the desktop. It clearly has a ton of potential. But it was a nightmare to customize and very frustrating to use. Every customizable feature I had come to expect from KDE was gone; I was left with something more akin to Gnome, only less functional. Google revealed that KDE4.1 is supposed to have all this functionality re-implemented...

...but until then, I'm back on KDE3.5.9, which works great. It's funny, I'd forgotten how smoothly Kubuntu runs. I switched to Fedora because Ubuntu stopped working with my wireless card, and Fedora was extremely dependable, but it seemed chock-full of irritating little bugs. No deal-breakers, just a lot of tiny frustrations. It's nice to be back on an Ubuntu distro.

So there's your daily dose of geek chatter. My new system is humming along (much more quietly than the old one) on Kubuntu 8.04, my linux-based router is running Tomato firmware... life is good! And so is Linux.

P.S. The two things I mentioned Ubuntu still doesn't beat Vista on. First, the fresh install lacks media playback capabilities that are central to today's computer user. Medibuntu fixes this easily, but it needs to be even more automated. Second, the games library... and there's not much to be done about that except try to grow the market. Otherwise, Ubuntu slaughters Vista in every conceivable way... especially price.