Simplify, simplify

Near Chez Borepatch is Walden pond, one time home to Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau got tired of the hassle of modern life, moving to a tiny cabin on the shore of Walden Pond to get away from it all.

Henry David Thoreau got tired of trying to get Flash to work on 64 bit Linux.

Thanks to the several readers who left comments on yesterday's Bleg. As the song goes:

You know time comes when a wise man knows the best thing
That he can do is just look her up in the eye
And beg for mercy and face the bitter truth

Here's the Truth about Linux:

1. Linux is flat-out ready for prime time, for the mass audience. That means you (yes, you). You should try it out - it's free, and you'll never need to worry about malware again.

2. It's really ready for prime time - Mom could use this. Srlsy.

3. However, if you stray from the Path of the Masses, yea ye shall wander in the Wilderness. Sudo is your staff and your support, but it may not be enough.

4. 64 bit Linux is not the Path of the Masses.

So I installed 32 bit Kubuntu. Start* -> Applications -> Software Packages brought up the application searcher, which found and installed Firefox. Firefox told me I needed Flash, and one click (!) had it automatically installed.

No sudo apt-get install firefox. No "Did I copy it to to /usr/lib or /usr/lib64"?

I bailed out of 64 bit hell did like Thoreau and simplified, and in the 20 minutes it took to download, I'm up and running.

So how to you get started? The easiest way is to use unetbootin to make a bootable USB drive so you can play with Linux - sort of a "try before you buy". It runs on Windows, too, so you can use it to make a Linux boot dongle straight from your current computer.

Yes, I know that I keep telling you "Free download" is Internet speak for "open your mouth and close your eyes." Yes, yes, but if you know - and most importantly, trust - where you're downloading from (like, say Microsoft, or Ubuntu, or SourceForge), then All Will Be Well. unetbootin is from SourceForge. All the Cool Kids hang out there.

So try it, but stay away from 64 bit (anything with "64" in the title). The easiest distributions (you'll have to pick one; think of it as the quiz at the end of this post) are Ubuntu and Kubuntu. Kubuntu is slightly more "Windows-ish", but only a bit.

So what are you waiting for?

Thanks to commenters Les, Grumpy Student, and reflectoscope for showing a Linux Brother the love. And shout out to #1 Son, who had the skinny on unetbootin. All Growed Up and using Linux. Heh.

* I know, it's the "K" (for "KDE") button, not the "Start" button. You know what I mean.