My Linux skill is going backwards:(

I always take my old laptop Compaq Evo 800 as a toy to play with. A Debian Linux is installed on it for a long time. In my spare time, I play with it to taste some cool features of Linux. Actually, as a tech guy working in MS, I think running a Linux system is more useful without any illegal copy issue.

I was familiar with Linux once before. On BIT FTP Union forum, the first master of Linux board is me. At that time, I was almost an expert who can help others to use Linux to finish regular jobs. Install and maintain Linux server, setup and optimize Linux desktop, rebuild kernel and drivers, resolve software problems, and coding small kits for Linux, all of them I can do. Because when I was a student in school, I have passion and time. And also I believe I can get improvement when I resolved some problem of Linux. With efforts I contributed to explore and study, most of problems I can resolve. The experience of resolving tough problems let me feel very good.

Now, I feel some kinds of frustrated with my Linux skill. My current situation is that my laptop needs a special design accessory to support WLAN, I got one from taobao.com about one year ago, I want to enable the cool 3D desktop environment for Linux (Xgl + compiz) on my system, and also the system boot process I want a cool user experience to replace the plain text process. OK, as I know, I need to setup wireless device with some special driver, enable Xgl + compiz, rebuild kernel with bootsplash support or install splashy to get all my requirements satisfied. Targets are clear, steps are easy. Seems I will get a more cool Linux system soon. But I tried, several days passed, now, none of them works. Besides, gdm which is always running well breaks.

I have to recognize that Linux system is becoming more complicated than before. And most of my daily time I spend on regular jobs. Maybe I should spend more time to focus on these problems and face them with another kind of attitude as I was a student. But another fact I should be clear is that my Linux surviving skill is really going backwards. Or say my knowledges of non-Windows are out of date and I can hardly catch up.