This article, written by Taran Rampersad, originally appeared on LinuxGazette.com, a community site dedicated to "making Linux just a little more fun". Linux Gazette, an SSC sister publication of TUX, sees nearly 600,000 visitors every month.

As I pack whatever I think is worth keeping into a few bags and a shipping box, I realized that I needed a laptop - again. As I leave Trinidad behind, heading to LinuxWorld and ending up in the Dominican Republic, a laptop becomes important. It also saves me from lugging around a 19" monitor and an array of CPUs which has an inefficient weight to value ratio - at least for being mobile.

For years now, I've been writing about Linux. At first I wrote primarily about the server but as early as 1996, I had already started using Linux as my desktop. I had already started to see the promise of this incredible operating system but my enthusiasm regarding its place on the desktop might have been a little premature. The Linux desktop was still in its infancy and while a user like myself might have been able to make it work in this environment, despite my efforts to use it as my one and only desktop system, it was still too early for most. Even I still dual booted to do some of my work.

That was 1996. Two years later, by 1998, Linux had progressed to the point that it was my one desktop OS. Dual-booting was rapidly becoming just a memory. Now, it is 2004.