Blue Parachute II

A postmortem of my career as a librarian, Part 2

Someone recently asked me why I was documenting all of these horrible memories. I’m hoping that doing so will help me put them into a lasting perspective, and perhaps even “get them out of my system.” Let’s see what time decides.

Continued from earlier.

The National Audio-Visual and Conversation Center was built from a re-purposed, cold war bunker designed to house survival supplies and hard currency to help maintain the eastern United States in the event of a nuclear strike. Clearly that contingency never came about, so after some negotiations the facility was sold to the Library of Congress. With the help of a private foundation, the facility was converted into a storage center for nitrate movie films, videotapes, audio recordings, photographs, and similar media that required climate controlled storage. Given that the building was largely underground, it was very well suited for this purpose.

When I started at NAVCC, it was still establishing standard operation procedures. All of the functions had been transplanted from offices in the Washington, DC area, facilities in the Dayton, Ohio region, and some storage facilities in Pennsylvania. When I first reported for work, my department was still being re-structured, and the Library was still searching for a department head. My primary project involved digital media files from video games and television commercials, which had been a large part of my focus back in Washington. My first year at NAVCC was fairly quiet, but some of my recurring concerns remained. The largest one being my tendency to get distracted. I told myself that I was getting adjusted to a new location and work routine, and that things would settle out in time. But even so I had a sinking feeling, deep in the back of my mind, that something wasn’t right.

I had been there for roughly a year when the moving images section got a department head. I’ll refer to her as Zelda. I didn’t have many dealings with Zelda for the first two or three years she was there, largely because she was dealing with larger, more urgent matters. But she and I had an awkward relationship from the very start. When we first met, I was in the first of what turned out to be the first of many deep depressive phases that made my existing problems increasingly worse. I think she picked up on this, and while she was busy elsewhere, she kept a watchful eye on me.

I wanted to do well at NAVCC. I was pretty sure that I had messed up my career on several fronts, so I had to make things work and get back in good standing. I tried to learn the new procedures and techniques for cataloging movies, but they never clicked for me. I initially approached moving images as just another media, and that the basic cataloging principles that I had been using all along still applied. I just needed to figure out the specifics.

That was not the case. When cataloging moving images, I eventually realized that one has to view the material from totally different angles, and that relying on techniques used for other media will ultimately mess you up! Again, I can only say this with the benefit of hindsight. I think moving image catalogers are born, not made. It requires a very different mindset. A good comparison may be when someone has an “eye for art” or an “ear for music.” Most people will watch a film, or look at a painting, and say “that was good!” But others will see layer upon layer of hidden meanings, and see significance in details that most other people would never notice in a month of Mondays. In the world of music, most people will listen to a symphonic masterwork and think “that was good!” But others will hear all kinds of subtle counter-melodies and harmonies deep within the score, that most people will never pick up. I will admit that I do have some of this skill with music, and when listening to symphonic music especially, I often find new elements that I hadn’t heard before.

I think a similar is needed for motion pictures. There are people who will always view movies things from a different perspective than most everyone else, and apparently that different perspective is a necessary and defining attribute. If my experience is anything to go by, those who do not have this magical “sixth sense” will never do well in that particular part of the library world. I may have an ear for music, but I do not have an eye for film.

Part of this unique perspective appears to be a way for viewing and processing details. Every little detail related to a moving image can completely re-define every other detail, and in order to truly understand and describe such materials, you need to instinctively notice each and every one of these details without effort. In the computer science world this type of thinking of often called “bottom up design.” Sometimes the most effective way to handle a project is to look at the individual details, at length, and come to conclusions based on the cumulative observation of them. The approach used by the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, deductive reasoning, is an example of this “bottom up” approach. Dozens of facts that do not appear to have any connection to one another, actually do connect and form a composite picture. But the composite picture can not be seen until all of the scattered details or examined at length, and put together in the correct way.

I do not think this way. I fall into a school of thought called “top down design.” This is a far more common, but less nuanced thought process. Basically someone looks at a problem or project, then breaks it into smaller pieces that can be examined and worked with. Some of these pieces can be further broken down if necessary, until eventually the entire project is complete. When I cataloged material in the past, like a book or sound recording, I had the item in front of me. I knew what I was working with at the very start, and could start extracting the relevant descriptive details.

This approach didn’t work with moving images. For starters I rarely had the physical item in front of me. What I had was a collection of documentation, and I had to glean the relevant information from these documents. The overall nature of an item sometimes wasn’t truly apparent until numerous details had been examined at length. The lack of a “top” to work “down” from often sent me into low level panic. I knew that details needed to be examined, but I found that without a “top” from which to reference from, I had no idea which details were relevant and which were not. Someone with that magical “eye for film” could apparently pick up on this without a second thought, but it was never clear or apparent to me. That Sherlock Holmes method of deductive reasoning never happened with me.

If you’re familiar with the exploits of Sherlock Holmes, then you probably know that he had absolutely no patience for people who couldn’t perform deductive reasoning at the same rate as he. I found that the people in the moving image cataloging arena had a similar contempt for people who lacked an affinity for film, like me. I was generally disliked by my co-workers, and had a reputation as someone who “doesn’t listen,” or “doesn’t learn.”

It didn’t seem to matter how often something was explained to me, or how long I worked at describing an item. I could never truly apply it, and most of it never made sense to me. Often I wasn’t able to retain the training I received. Within a day or so the copious notes I had taken during the training session had devolved into another set of gibberish babble! As time wore on, this grew continually worse.

It was after about four years that Zelda started hovering closer. My work often had errors, often of omission or misunderstanding, and she had to bring these to my attention. This happened with increasing frequency, which caused me more anxiety. That anxiety made more more nervous, which eventually let to more mistakes, which let to more pressure from Zelda, which let to more anxiety, which let to more mistakes… you get the idea. I was caught in a vicious cycle, with no idea how to break out.

My last two years at NAVCC were the worst. Zelda was now on frequently my case, and unfortunately for me she had good reason to be. I need to point out that one of her primary objectives was to restructure and redesign the department to be more in line with other large film libraries like the corporate ones in California, or at some of the academic centers that specialize in film studies, like New York University. That meant that one of her functions was that of hatchet-man: things that didn’t fit in with this new vision needed to be removed. That included people. I wasn’t the first one to be forced out, and I probably wasn’t the last. But I may have been the most difficult to deal with, at least for Zelda.

Every two weeks we would meet, officially for training and review. For me it was abject humiliation. She reminded me, at every possible opportunity, that as a GS-12 this material was supposed to be second nature to me, and that I should be handling larger and more complicated projects that just cataloging items. I wasn’t fulfilling what was expected of me. She also pointed out, often with a certain amount of contempt, that I seemed to work best at things that followed a pattern. I never argued that point, because it’s true. I figured that moving image cataloging followed a logical pattern like just about everything else, and that if I kept trying I would eventually find and master that pattern. I now think that when she pointed out that I worked best when following a pattern, she was trying to tell me that this type of cataloging does not follow a set pattern, that each and every item is unique, and that someone like me doesn’t belong. Zelda would tell me that I needed to un-learn what I had learned and use a different thought process. I tried, but never could. The “bottom up” approach was something my brain simply refused to do. The apparent absence of internal logic, a pattern, was not something I could work with.

I’m now convinced that she was trying to compel me to resign, because I wasn’t of any use. Why did I stick around? Because I had no where else to go, I had a family to support, and the prospect of searching for a new job terrified me so much that I was willing to endure anything Zelda dished out before facing the prospect of having to find a new job. I also knew, deep down, that finding a new job would be almost impossible for me. I knew I had totally lost my way and I couldn’t see any possible way of finding a path again. Sadly, I know myself well enough that the only way I was going to leave the job was if Zelda, or her immediate superior, had told me in straight no-nonsense words that can only be interpreted one way, that I needed to quit. But because of regulations and laws, I don’t think they were allowed to say that.

[Remember the guy at the public library who actually did say something like that to me? I’m pretty sure he got into some trouble, but nothing very serious. Perhaps the state of Maryland is more forgiving than the Federal government.]

Anyway, it was horrible. At least once a month I would come home and lock myself in a room somewhere and have a meltdown. No matter how hard I worked, and no matter how hard I tried, it wasn’t going to be enough for even the lowest of Zelda’s expectations. Things were also getting very bad at home. Zelda had become the single most important person in my life. She was more important than Lisa, Caitlin, or Michael. My every moment was spent trying to improve my job performance, in the hope that Zelda would accept me.

But the reality that I was forced to accept was that Zelda needed people with a certain set of skills, I did not have those skills, and she wanted to replace me with someone who did. The only thing she really wanted from me was a resignation. When my final evaluation came down, with the recommendation to remove me from federal service, my world collapsed. So much of my self-worth had been invested in my career that the knowledge that it was probably over and done for was more painful than anything I had experience up to that point. Even the death of my mother was easier for me to handle! I felt like a broken piece of trash that was being placed on the curb to be picked up and carried away to the dump. Forgotten, and of no further use to anyone, anywhere.

That was how I felt at the time. Empirically I knew it was untrue, but the mind of the mentally troubled doesn’t work logically. I had a full scale nervous breakdown.

My last fwo months at NAVCC were surreal. Since it had been firmly established that the best thing I could do for the collection was to never touch it again, I spent most of that time searching for a new job, and cleaning out my work space. I was ashamed beyond description. I did my best to not speak with anyone. Which was easy because everyone else seemed to be avoiding me. My professional guild (similar to a union) had been trying to help me salvage my career. What they did manage was to set me up for involuntary retirement, based on medical disability. Or at least try for it.

On my last day, I left the building using one of the service entrances, far away from where everyone else would be coming or going. I was so ashamed that I didn’t want anyone to know I had left until after I was long gone.

By this point it was clear that something was very wrong with my cognitive functions. I had been undergoing some testing and therapy to figure out exactly what was going on. But that process had a while to go yet, so it wasn’t going to change the immediate situation. I was lost in a state of frantic despair, with little or no hope that things would ever improve. I think the only reason I didn’t commit suicide was because of Lisa and the children. Even there I was filled with despair because of what I had put them through, was still putting them through, and would continue to put them through. I really didn’t want to live any more, but somehow I had to keep going.

This story will continue.

Blue Parachute

A postmortem of my career as a librarian, Part 1

One of the things I learned during the last year was that I do not, and never have had much affinity for career management. I feel that the majority of the professional decisions I made during my 25 year journey proved to be unwise.

Let’s go back to 1991, when I chose to enter the library and information science profession. Before I get started I need to say that this is difficult for me to address. Just about every book or article about career management, or every career or life coach, will ultimately ask questions about what we want, what our dreams are, or what we love to do. They will also suggest we choose a field or profession that “speaks” to us, or involves something that we love unconditionally, and are prepared to spend the rest of our working lives doing (to one degree or another).

I was never able to answer those questions. For starters, there wasn’t really any profession or vocation that “spoke” to me. What did “speak” to me was the need for a vocation that would allow me to pursue what I wanted from life. But as for an occupation that I truly loved or wanted to enter, that changed every fortnight. My interests seemed to bounce around like a swarm of bees, moving from one place to another, and never holding still for long. I could never answer that age old question of “what do I want to do when I grow up.”

And this created a real problem. I was 24 years old and had my bachelor’s degree, and it was time for me to choose a career. I had reached that point in my life, and before I could make any other decision, I needed to choose a career path. This wasn’t negotiable. It was how I was brought up (for better or worse), so it was what I had to do. Fumbling around the world, drifting from one job to another was not an acceptable option. But my interests were so fickle and mercurial that I could never make a choice. Because my interest shifted around so much, I was compelled to start ignoring many of them. I couldn’t base a major life decision on something that was so unstable! To do so would have been totally irresponsible. But a decision simply had to be made, and it couldn’t wait. (Or so I thought at the time.)

This created another problem. I have never seen what I do for a living and what I like to do as ever being the same thing. I don’t know if there is anything in the human experience that appeals to me so much that I would be willing to make it the core of my life. I was also pretty sure that whatever I do for a living would periodically make me angry, and lead to resentment. Many of the things I greatly enjoyed, like music and writing, needed to remain safely in the “hobbies” column. The things I love to do and what I do to support myself have never been and never could be the same thing.

When I apply hindsight to this period of my life, and then look at the events that followed, I found that I never made a career decision based on what I wanted, what I loved to do, or what my dreams were. Ever! My decisions have always been based on what was prudent at the time, what had low or manageable risks, and where I stood a good chance of success.

My first major job out of college was as a para-professional cataloger at an academic library, and all things considered I was pretty good at it. I took that core skill set, figured out some possible ways I to apply it, and ran with it. I chose the profession of library cataloger not out of a love for libraries, a fascination for organizing knowledge, or even a passion for books, music, or movies. I became a librarian because it was the prudent decision at that point in my life.

In the fall of 1991 I started working on my master’s degree at the School of Information Science and Policy at the State University of New York at Albany. I enjoyed graduate school, though not as much as undergraduate school. Most of what I learned about the library field was done in a largely practicum style through a graduate assistantship. I also handled the library school newsletter for a semester, and worked part time as an abstracter for a member of the faculty. It seemed to work for me.

But the actual work force proved difficult for me. After graduating with my master of science in 1993, I soon landed a cataloging and abstracting job with a major university. Fairly quickly I found it hard to stay focused. I had grown accustomed to what could be considered a production style approach to cataloging, which could be approached in much the same way an engineering project could be approached. But a lot of the time, that wasn’t what was required of me, and so at times I struggled. But since the job was based on a grant, I knew it wouldn’t last forever, and that I would choose more wisely in the future.

I failed to do so. My next major job was at what I thought was a corporate library position for an academic research foundation. It actually turned out to be a sales and public relations position with some library related duties thrown in. That job was a complete disaster. I lasted only four months before being thrown out into a cold New England winter. That was arguably one of the darkest periods of my life, and I seriously considered suicide.

But I pulled myself back together and landed a contract librarian job with a government agency in Washington, DC. In truth, this job worked out for me. My primary task was to handle cataloging and acquisition tasks with methodical regularity. I became a one man assembly line for catalog information, and for a few years I did just that. I also got along well with my co-workers, so I even had a modest social life. All in all, I was content with it.

Unfortunately, contract positions are inherently temporary, and eventually that position fell to a budget cut. My company moved me to another contract at another agency, doing much the same type of work. And this one also worked, though the environment was a bit toxic, with two contracting companies constantly trying to drive each other out of the picture. But even so, after almost three years I was the head of the cataloging project, with two librarians, three paras, two technicians, and a translator reporting to me. It was actually a pretty good gig, and looking back I suspect it was actually the high point of my career.

The problem was the political climate at that agency. I was constantly being pressured to expand the contract, and help develop more business for the contracting company. These were things I had no real ability at, though I did try. Eventually I found myself caught in the middle of a battle of wills between my company and a few of the federal employees we reported to. No matter how that battle turned out, things didn’t look good for me in the long run. So I started looking to move on.

Note again that I said this job was likely the high point of my career. From this point on, things seemed to either stagnate or deteriorate. My supervisor from that time period would probably say “I told you so.” But I left that job and went to a public library position, which I held for about two years. I was a happier person, because the political mess was gone, but in all honesty the job wasn’t very rewarding one. What I enjoyed was the decent paycheck, and the freedom follow my own interests outside of work. I took that job for personal reasons instead of professional ones. And ultimately it ended badly.

Another budget cut eventually resulted in my position being eliminated, and I was moved to a reference position at one of the branch locations. This was a complete fiasco. I was not suited for working with the public, and the branch manager didn’t want to deal with a re-purposed cataloger. After three months he told me, flat out, that I should look for a new position, because he wanted to remove me, and was going to start setting me up for failure if I remained much longer. I now suspect that the neurological disorder that would eventually ruin me was starting to have an effect, though I don’t think there was any way I could have seen it as anything other than vanilla stress and depression.

When the opportunity presented itself, I returned to the world of contracting. This was another prudent move, in that it kept me working while I figured out what to do next. I took a contract in the library of yet another government agency, and was relieved to be cataloging again. I liked the material I was working with, but my personality didn’t mesh well with my project manager. I think my work pace was too slow for their liking, and my problems with distractions persisted. In hindsight, whatever is amiss with my cerebral cortex was in play by this point.

When that contract expired, I started working for the Library of Congress. At the time I thought I had finally made it. I thought I was set up for life, at an agency with a solid reputation, a certain amount of prestige, and doing what I honestly thought I was best at.

This was in 2003. Lisa and I had gotten married that year, we were planning to start a family, and generally were setting up the foundations for the rest of our lives. I thought I was in a good place. But here too, I was wrong. The culture of the Library of Congress turned out to be very toxic. I was again having trouble focusing, which I attributed to the pressure-cooker environment of the place. But there seemed to be more. Things that were obvious or second nature to some other catalogers, never entered my thinking. I seemed to be running on a completely different frequency from nearly every other cataloger there. But, I thought, so long as I keep getting good evaluations, I should be fine.

I was hired at the GS-9 level of the civil service ladder, which was typical for a cataloger at that agency. The usual promotion path goes to GS-11, then GS-12, and perhaps GS-13 or higher. This is an over simplification, but the Library pretty much forces people to ascend that ladder to at least the GS-12 level. To effectively do that, you need to be running in sync with the rest of the pack. And I wasn’t.

The process of moving to GS-12 proved extremely difficult. At least two of the higher catalogers told me, point blank, that I didn’t seem to have the necessary mindset. I was struggling with the job, and the promotion that I was being railroaded into didn’t seem like a good place to be going. But I was committed to the process, and kept slugging forward.

To complicate things, the Library went through a re-structuring that resulted in my particular unit being disbanded. If memory serves, I was slated to be transferred to one of the book teams; physical sciences, I think. But I wanted to continue working with digital media materials, and most of that was being moved over to the moving image section, which was in the process of re-locating to a recently opened branch location in Culpeper, Virginia. So after a lot of negotiation and maneuvering, I was transferred to the moving image team, and my family and I relocated to Culpeper, Virginia.

Professionally, this would turn out to be my largest, most costly, and final mistake.

This story will continue.

The Ephemeral Constant

Looking back at 2022, and forward to 2023.

Well, it’s that time of year again. The time when we look back at the closing year, and make tentative plans for the upcoming one.

Most people agree that 2022 was an eventful year, especially on the national level. Between the surprising outcome of the mid-term elections and the findings of the January Sixth Committee, the news has never been stagnant. From my perspective, some of the divisive partisan trends seem to be receding, so perhaps the insanity that has defined this country for much of the last decade is coming to a close. I hope that’s the case, though I’m not willing to place any bets on it, and I won’t fully believe it until I see it. But that’s all I want to say about the national political scene today. I’m sure I’ll go back to parts of it in more detail sooner or later.

I’m looking at things on a more personal level. For me, 2022 saw a lot of self-discovery, and re-evaluating a lot of long held beliefs. Most of these were not what would be considered drastic or life changing, because they tended to deal with specific topics and issues. But there were a lot of them, and their cumulative effect has been, shall we say, comprehensive. Social issues that I didn’t give much attention to in the past were pulled to the forefront, and their importance and relevance in many areas is very apparent to me now. Issues with my mental and physical health, which didn’t overly concern me, surprised me (any my family!) in some very unsettling ways. As a result I’m gradually re-arranging many aspects of my life, and am actually starting to take better care of myself. This is also something else I hope to delve into later.

Change is everywhere. There is a cliché expression about change being the only real constant in life. All kidding aside, there is a lot of truth to that. The Buddhist tradition often speaks about how ephemeral the world around us is. The word the core writings like to use is “impermanent.” What seemed like an absolute truth on Monday is written off as a passing illusion by Friday. What seemed like a trivial issue on Saturday turns out to be something of paramount importance the following Tuesday. Elaborate plans made on Tuesday needed to be changed around by Wednesday, re-organized and re-structured again on Thursday, and then postponed or even scrapped on Friday. Day to day events, even small ones, can have lasting effects on our lives in ways we can’t really anticipate, control, or immediately notice. But when we do, the only real option we have is adjust.

One thing to remember is that our perception of things at a specific moment isn’t necessarily wrong. On Monday, we may have a picture perfect take of the world around us, and the plans and reactions we set forth make perfect sense. But by late Tuesday we realize that our plans either need to be adjusted because something changed, or something new entered the picture. We may ask ourselves if we made a “mistake” somewhere, by not anticipating changes, or by not having contingencies for it. But did you actually make a “mistake” on Monday? Could you have anticipated everything that could have happened on Tuesday? Or even events on Monday that you had no way or knowing about, or even have any reason to consider? Could you have possibly anticipated every possible change or had a contingency for every possible variation of every circumstance? Of course not. These new and unknown events are what forced you to re-design Monday’s plans. It doesn’t have anything to do with your life management skills.

So I guess if you’re going to make big plans for the future, it’s a good idea to have flexibility in your overall schedule. Plan things so that the specific day to day details can be adjusted without notice, and allow for flexibility in your timetable, should one detail or project need to go on hold so as to make room for another. If you keep most of your wits about it, you should still eventually reach your final goal. Though you may end up taking a route you didn’t expect.

This idea of impermanence is not an easy one to describe or explain, and I don’t have a good history of dealing with it. One of the things I discovered about my self during the past year, was that I’ve made some downright stupid decisions along the way, and I often didn’t handle change well. Now that I’m more aware of this fact, perhaps this year will be different. For example, once again I hope to update this blog on a weekly basis. I’ve tried this before but never maintained it, but I’m going to try again.

Let’s see what 2023 compels me to talk about.

Open Source Shell Game

As I continue to set up my computer for creating game resources, I’ve been looking at a number of development platforms that are open source. Many of them fall outside of my scope, while others intrigue me. Here is a run down on the ones I’m looking at.

  • Windows 10
    OK, this isn’t open source. Not by a long shot. But like it or not it is the dominant operating system for most home computers, and if I’m going to do any development of any type, I need to have Windows on hand. My computer came with Windows 8, which over time has been patched up to Windows 10. I don’t know if it has started reaching for version 11 yet; I’ll ask my daughter. While the operating system isn’t open source, there are open source development tools available for it. In the past I have used Lazarus and CodeBlocks for programming in Windows. In the long past I used versions of Delphi (Pascal), Visual Basic, and others. Lazarus and CodeBlocks are still maintained and in use, so I expect to be making use of them again. They are also available for many of the operating systems I discuss below, so I’ll be using them over there as well.
  • FreeBSD
    As I said earlier, this the primary system I expect to be using. My somewhat older computer runs like a champ using this system,  far better than with Windows. I can’t say that was always the case, though. When I first got the computer, Windows was amazingly fast, and the performance difference between it and FreeBSD (PC-BSD version 1.5 at the time) was negligible. But today, Windows 10 has succumbed to the code bloat problem that has plagued the operating system since the 1995 iteration. It has become slow, bug ridden and cranky. FreeBSD isn’t immune to code bloat either. I’m not sure any operating system is. But even though the disk footprint of FreeBSD has grown, compared to Windows, it’s still pretty lean.
  • GhostBSD
    I tried this one a few months ago, and had some issues with it, so I didn’t retain it. FreeBSD has given me some problems as well, especially with my printer/scanner, and some features on specific applications. So I gave Ghost another try, using the latest version, and targeting the printer issue. Unfortunately the printer problem hasn’t improved, so once again I will not be retaining GhostBSD.
    What does FreeBSD have against printers anyway?
    Even so I will continue to watch the development of this distribution. The biggest hurdle for new users to FreeBSD is the instillation process (in my opinion). GhostBSD has made this considerably easier.
    Regarding the instillation process…  I suspect that FreeBSD, regardless of distribution or flavor, doesn’t like to share a hard drive. Whenever I’ve tried to install it in a partitioned drive, or tried to partition the drive during install, the setup has always failed. It only seems to work when I tell the installer to use the entire drive. I find this mildly annoying, but not a showstopper. More on that some other time.

Technically these two operating systems are the only ones I “need” for the work I’m doing. But I still want to explore some others, if only for testing purposes.

  • Solus Linux
    I’ve only periodically used live Linux CD’s for specific tasks. GPartED, for example, is a very good system tool. But generally I have actively avoided Linux for over ten years. However, Linux is no longer the side show it used to be (and which FreeBSD still is!). It is now an important player in the personal computing arena, and I figure if I’m going to do any type of development, even as a hobbyist, I should reacquaint myself with it. Solus is a distribution that has always targeted personal computing, with a focus on desktop and laptop users. It also seems to have decent reputation of stability and adaptability, and a small but active support community. I’m also curious about the Budgie desktop environment, which has long been part of Solus (though apparently it has recently gone independent).
  • RoboLinux
    Another Linux distribution I’ve looked at is RoboLinux. According to it’s primary designer, John Martinson, RoboLinux was designed for people who don’t want to give up the flexibility of Windows. Just the cost. I like and agree with his approach, even though Martinson himself sounds a bit eccentric. I’m guessing that RoboLinux has the Wine system fully integrated to allow for lateral compatibility with Windows. I find Wine useful and fun to experiment with, so I’ll see what this one has to say. My plan is to set up both of these Linux installs on a two terabyte internal drive. I figure they can each have a primary partition and share swap space, since they obviously won’t be running simultaneously.
  • ReactOS
    This one is different. This project aims to create an open source functional clone of Windows 2000 (I think), with the aim of running most if not all software that was designed for that platform. I’m planning to try a few things with this one, and see if the programming tools for Windows will work on this one. I like the idea of this project, especially with all of the legacy software available. But based on the apparent slow development progress it has, I don’t know how active this really is. I’m hoping to install this to an actual live partition on a real hard drive and see how it fares.
  • FreeDOS
    This one is pretty well known. The various versions of Dos were the norm for almost two decades, and it saw a lot of software development. FreeDOS has allowed that development to continue, and made it possible for many legacy programs to see continued use. I don’t know how much use I’ll get from this one, but I’m curious enough to find out. I’ve used FreeDOS before via VirtualBox, and from a live CD, and have been satisfied with it. I’ve never tried it in native mode, though. I don’t know if my current computer will accept it, but I’ll be looking into it. If I can install this to a logical partition, I’ll try that. I understand it can also be installed to a USB stick, so that’s another option.
  • Haiku
    OK, confession time. I ran BeOS on an IBM Aptiva computer back in the late 1990’s, and I really liked it. I found it to be a fresh, new take on personal computing, and with a lot of interesting features. I really wanted this one to take. I was gradually making BeOS my primary operating system, and was populating my BeOS partition with a variety of applications, when things went totally sideways for BeOS. After watching the community and support network fall apart, I reluctantly abandoned BeOS. That being said, I have long wanted to see BeOS reincarnated as an open source system. Haiku is a long running attempt to do precisely that, and I would love to see it succeed. But progress has been slow, and there are parts of the system that are still being worked out, even after 20 years. In computer terms, 20 years is an eternity, so as much as I hate to admit it, Haiku isn’t likely to ever reach maturity. But if I can get an install of it working, and do even a little development for it, well, at least I can say that I tried to help.
  • Minuet
    This one is pure curiosity. The idea of a microscopic operating system written entirely in assembly language is intriguing, so I’m going to look into it. I’ll probably install this one to a USB drive, or use a VirtualBox image, and see what is has to offer.

This rogues gallery of operating systems is currently being assembled and deployed on my poor computer. How things work out remains to be seen, but I’m pretty sure it will be quite an experience.