I will be the first to admit that I have not spent any time recently in Second Life. But my consulting duties now require me to jump back into the melting pot and I am happy to do so. Just one issue, the Linux client is in Alpha and there is STILL a lack of support for Vista.

Now, I would love to hear some thoughts here: do we blame Linden Research for dropping the ball and not making sure a smooth transition to Vista was possible, or instead accept that Microsoft’s once famed developer relations is, basically, not what it used to be? Well, it seems that while it is officially not working in Vista yet, people have had some limited success with it.

So why not just use the Alpha Linux client? Well, as a rule with my distaste against Linux purist nonsense, I refuse to compile unless I am beta-testing an application of my own team’s design (more on this another day). Either offer me a Debian/Ubuntu package, Java installer, or something else that means I do not need to ever “configure; make; make install” ever again or go away. I believe that having the opportunity to learn to use this method for software installation is great for those pursuing a career in software development. But for the everyday Joe, give me a break. Moving on.

So at the end of the day, it appears that I will need to make sure and keep XP running in the meantime, thus setting up a Tri-Boot machine. Believe it or not, I have heard that it is not all that difficult. OK, maybe it is some work, but this looks like fun!

[tags]Linux, Vista, Second Life, Windows, Ubuntu[/tags]