Ubuntubound
I have changed. It’s been a year in the making this change but it’s almost complete. I’m now totally not in the Microsoft cult any longer. Weird. I have almost made an entire career out of Microsoft products.
Today I am releasing myself from Redmonds final hold over me; the Windows operating system. Feels kind of liberating. Microsofts loss is Ubuntus gain. Yay for open source, another tiny victory.
What made the decision? Vista. I just don’t want it. And I don’t want to want it. It provides no advantages for me over XP but will take a perfectly usable PC and make it slower. No thanks. Other stuff too, like recent business decisions (the deal with Novell and the DRM-crippled Zune, etc) but mainly Vista.
I did consider a Mac, but finances ruled that option out.
My dev box is Centos and has served me well for a year, I figured Linux on the desktop was worth a try. Now I am free from Visual Studio Amys games are the only thing tying me to Windows, she has her Nintendo DS etc though. I might try a multi-boot to keep her happy.
Will be interesting to go back to a Unix-dominated environment. For a short and bizarre part of my career I was a Sco Unix sysadmin. It wasn’t an ideal situation by any means. I dabbled again with Unix when I first tried Redhat Linux using it as a Red Dwarf news group MUD server back in the summer of 1997. The thing that has always put me off is the amount of effort and geekiness to do all but the most mundane things - compiling kernels has never been my idea of a fun night in. That and lack of drivers. Apparently Ubuntu makes these problems a thing of the past … we will see.
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November 23rd, 2006 at 3:56 pm
Let me know how it goes. I’m still stuck in M$ land and will be for years to come, but every now and then I fancy blowing away a windows instal and trying Ubuntu.
P.S. I’ve added your feed to livejournal (where all the ex-atvrder hang) so I can read you easier.
November 23rd, 2006 at 4:19 pm
dude, with the amount of photos you’re taking, you really need Aperture. The prices of iMacs aren’t that bad, unless you’re comparing to a DIY kit PC. But, the kits don’t include those gorgeous displays…
November 23rd, 2006 at 4:37 pm
Muhahahahahaha….
No going back now…
November 23rd, 2006 at 6:30 pm
So far so … umm …. install was a pain. It booted as 640×480 but the dialogue boxes are taller than 480. I had to ALT-F7 to move the window for every dialogue.
I’m having driver issues so am really glad I am dual booting right now :O)
Full update when it is fixed!
November 23rd, 2006 at 6:48 pm
Oh and I would still love a Mac, but I need to recycle my existing hardware for now, purchasing committee is strict at best of times but especially this season
November 24th, 2006 at 9:13 am
Strange, I installed Ubuntu last weekend myself. Still dual booting too, largely because until I get myself a decent ethernet modem, my penguin world won’t be online. I’m hoping to gradually spend more and more time in Ubuntu, until I reach the stage where I just use XP for those things I have to use it for. For example, I haven’t found anything yet to use to record Skype calls in Linux that’s anywhere near as easy as Hotrecorder.
It would be interesting to near what apps you are using in Ubuntu to perform the usual tasks - maybe a comparison of how they perform next to their Windows predecessors would be a cool post to make!
November 24th, 2006 at 10:15 am
Will do
January 1st, 2007 at 2:02 pm
[...] Like Chris Garrett, the spectre of Vista was what pushed me into switching to Ubuntu for my main OS - though my conversion was more successful than Chris’, who eventually went and bought a Mac. [...]