This article has nothing to do with student life, even University happenings. Will even be fairly arbour in nature. I want to ask you a simply question. Why would somebody remove Windows Vista on their laptop? Well, I took the honour to type up a little list earlier.
- Frustration
- Annoyance that everything runs slowly even on the fastest system
- Every waking hour is blighted with pop-up system messages
- The constant disappointment that Windows Aero was never that great
- Increased key pressed to find even the most simple system item
- Frustration (again)
So now that we have drawn up a list (feel free to comment your own) what should we replace Windows Vista with? Although I would like to avoid the word ‘replacement’, a ‘replacement’ for Windows Vista would be stray fuse around the house, a broken spoon on the floor or a novel written by Alan Titchmarsh. No, what we are looking for is an improvement. What we need is a system which is fresh and exciting. So, I took the liberty to type you another little list.
- A system that provides more eye candy than a lap dance
- Remains at the forefront of operating system (OS) developments
- Will not cost you a single penny or leg
- A human literate system
- Easy expandable options
- Up right stiffening joy
As the horribly obvious title of this article suggests I have replaced Windows Vista with a Unix based OS. As the sadder ones of you may know Unix comes in two large variants, commercially and publically. Notably, the Apple OS and the very slightly underdog Linux OS.
This month Unix celebrates its 40th anniversary and so what better way is there to celebrate Unix than to install Linux on my laptop? Using Linux as a main OS is a bit like diving into a swimming pool hoping that the man fills the empty abyss with water in time. Questions have plagued my technological corrupted mind, such as: Will I be able to do all my work on Linux? How reliable will the system be? How compatible will my hardware be? Basically…
Will Linux fulfil all my personal needs for stiffening joy and as a student constantly hitting essay deadlines?
If you excuse the cliché, I suppose time will tell. Even though I have knowledge of how Linux works I have never used it as my primary OS.
My advocacy of using Linux as an OS is quite timid though. I would never recommend that a friend should use Linux. Whilst the open source movement is an ideal that should be admired, it would be impossible to follow completely unless you avoid all commercial gadgets in the world. I even have to brush embarrassingly past some of the criteria I made earlier. It is widely known, a simply Google will prove it, that Linux systems always encounter compatibility issues.
Issues regarding hardware wired deep within the guts of computer and issues with software compatibility. A handful of companies have actually made official Linux drivers for hardware and even some of those don’t work. Linux is not nearly commercial enough among consumers to have any holding on how hardware or software companies should produce their goods. For this reason the majority of software on Linux has been written only for Linux. Usually by people within the computer industry working on a side project or by hardcore Linux enthusiasts (usually these two people are the same person).
So there is my little update. Perhaps not particularly interesting to you (in which case congratulations if you have read this far) but I’m afraid the prospect of diving into the world Linux and submerging myself in a different world of computing is exciting. Could be considered subversive but for me technology is only for pleasure.
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