It's not even 2006 yet and I am giving up on my new year's resolution.

I took the time a couple days ago to download a more recent, although not most recent, version of my favorite Linux distro, Slackware. It took 2 days to download version 10.1's disks 1 and 2.

After burning the images to CD's and installing it, I made the attempt to configure the system.

Step 1: Video I jumped over to the NVidia site and grabbed the most recent installer for their Linux drivers. The new installer features an auto-update for the xorg.conf file, so it was virtually painless.

Step 2: Mouse This is where I had a bit more problems... The mouse I have is the Logitech MX510 - a 7 button wheel mouse. The xorgconfig utillity detected it as a standard PS/2 mouse, and created the entries in the xorg.conf appropriately.

I knew that this would be a bit of a hassle, so I headed right for the search engine I hate but use every day. It took me a while, but I finally noticed that this mouse uses the ExplorerPS/2 protocol. This is the key to making the whole thing work.

Step 3: Audio HA! The Advanced Linux Sound Architecture(or however it's spelled) (ALSA) is a big pile of steaming dog poo. Not to mention KDE's x-based sound mixers and volume controls don't work worth a flying crap.

At this point, I am giving up. Trivial daily tasks such as changing the volume of the "Line In" input on the sound card, disabling the annoying "BLEEP!" whenever I am at the beginning/end of a line/file/road/galaxy, and just making my system USABLE are not as easy as they should be.

I will continue to try new distros and versions as they are released, but for now I stand firm on my opinion that Linux is the only choice for a server, but shouldn't even be considered for a workstation at this point.