I think I may have completed my transition to Linux geek.

Our downstairs neigbours (Sandra, Hernandez, David and Abraham) have a Win2K box running on some cheap hardware someone sold them (for a bit too much). I built the Win2K install for them, as the store had neglected to actually install or configure any of the software.

Today I got a call that OpenOffice (a 1.9.xx alpha, so my own fault there, should have given them the old version... it's just I'd never had a problem with the alphas on my Windows machine, and 1.9.xx is so much more familiar feeling for MSOffice users) wasn't able to save a file ("operation not permitted on this operating system"). Went down, and the printer wasn't able to print (that developed as we were walking down to check out the saving problem).

Started downloading the 2.0b OpenOffice, but their connection is dog-slow (neutred Rogers Cable service), wound up killing the download to reboot and try to get the printer working again so she could print out the doc for school tomorrow. Reboot... and the printer is entirely gone... the multi-function software reports that the printer software hasn't been installed... nothing shows up in the printers tab in control panel. Try re-installing the drivers... no effect.

I'm pretty sure something is messed up on the hard disk. Going to go down tomorrow afternoon and fix it when the boys aren't needing to get to bed (computer's in their room (garn, networked computer in your room in grade 5, must be nice)).

What amazed me is that all the time I just kept thinking "If this were Linux, I wouldn't have to do this"... which is kinda nuts, after all, there's still lots of problems with Linux (heck, I didn't exactly have the easiest time setting up the printer for my machine)... but I'm to the point now where fixing the problem in Linux seems so much less annoying than fixing it in Windows. Moreover, if it were Linux, I wouldn't have to fix it all while I was down there, I could just shell in from here and fix it while they were all out at work/school without even interrupting my own work.

The family, however, are planning to replace OpenOffice with MSOffice ASAP. Can't blame them I suppose, this was a pretty huge failure. Sigh.