Originally, this blog was intended to keep track of programming projects, such as my level editor/game engine program designed with DarkBASIC Professional (a Windows-only game development application), and any other projects I may be working on. However, as of late, it's turned into a Windows vs. Linux debate, and I must say...and I almost never thought I'd say this...Linux, for the moment, is winning.
Whoa, wait...wha?
Yes, it's true. Windows, in the nine months that I've been running it on this laptop (which itself is only nine months old), has needed reinstalled one time, and a few months after that it looks as though I may need to do it again. So, in less than a year, I'll have reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled Windows
twice.
Who on the planet earth would want to do that? Not me. I thought Windows 7 was supposed to be pretty nifty, and less resource-heavy, but the simple truth (for me at least) is that while it does have some nifty things, it's still pretty buggy and seems to have problems pretty consistently. What are those problems, exactly?
- Freezing up. I can't stay booted into my Windows partition for any longer than a couple of hours without it freezing up completely, thus ensuring that the only way I can get out of it is by hard-booting my computer. Hard-booting is hard on computers. It's not a good thing to do repeatedly. And I've had to do a LOT of it recently.
- Crashing completely. I haven't BSOD'd, but I reckon I've come close a couple of times. Applications lock up; they freeze, close, and sometimes don't start up again, even after repeated clicking of their icons on my desktop. That's pretty infuriating. Again, sometimes it freezes up completely, thus ensuring a hard-boot.
- Internet connectivity. Why, oh why does it take at least 20-30 seconds for Windows to recognize and connect to my wireless network, when Ubuntu finds it immediately? Seriously, Ubuntu finds it and connects to it just after I log in. It doesn't even take two seconds. I am not exaggerating.
- Resource-heavy. Despite having 4GBs of RAM, it slows to a crawl. Whenever this happens, I've learned to just shut it down right then and there, and boot into Ubuntu before I have to hard-boot. Why is it slowing down so much when I have 4GBs of RAM? What's taking up so much memory?
That's it, really. But those are pretty annoying and infuriating problems. The worst part? I can't find anything wrong. At all. There's no viruses, malware, or other such things that I can find. I've removed programs I don't need anymore, and I ran defrags and a few Disk Cleanups. The problems persist; nothing I do seems to work.
I would do a repair, but I'm not too keen on the idea of reinstalling Windows again. Two times in nine months? Nobody wants to do that. It's an annoying, time-consuming process, and is frustrating and pretty confusing. This is why I'm simply considering leaving my Windows partition dormant and booting into Ubuntu exclusively from now on. I'll likely still use Windows once in a while, and I'd really like to know why it isn't resolving its problems, but I doubt I'm going to dig into it much deeper. It's just not quite worth it....
Ubuntu is pretty awesome, once you learn your way around it. While there aren't a whole of lot applications, there's plenty for the average computer user. Support for video editing is increasing, and game development's getting a bit better on it as well. It gains more users with every new release (because it's constantly improving), and it's always pretty stable. It rarely freezes, and the one time it did for me it was on Grooveshark.com. Why, I'm not sure, but I've not visited Grooveshark since then.
Ubuntu does present a couple of problems; for example, it doesn't acknowledge when I have headphones plugged in (my sound card isn't too friendly with Linux), and my laptop's trackpad can't be disabled; thus when I'm typing and my hand grazes it, the cursor tends to jump and I usually end up having to edit my text entries pretty extensively before I submit them. Besides those two annoyances, Ubuntu works, and it rocks. Here's just a few of the features I really, really like:
- Ease of use. You might hear that Ubuntu/Linux in general is difficult to use. Not so. With every release, it gets easier to manage and work with, and you rarely ever have to use the Terminal to install things (and even if you do, the website your downloading the applications/themes from usually provides the code, so you can just copy>paste it into the Terminal and not worry about it). Personally, I like having to use the Terminal to do things; it gives you a bit more control over things and lets you know what you're doing.
- Ubuntu Software Center. This, my blog readers, is a pretty nifty little thing within Ubuntu itself. Linked to a database, the Software Center grants access to thousands of applications for Ubuntu, and installing them is a breeze. If you want to remove the program for whatever reason (wasn't as cool as you thought it would be or it just doesn't work for you), go back to its Software Center page and click "Remove". It's that simple. I love it.
- Rhythmbox Music Player. Within this, you can get access to the newly implemented Ubuntu One Music Store. Similar to iTunes, you can purchase and download music tracks and albums and listen to them in their libraries. Not only this, but you can also access several internet radio stations, which, I believe, is pretty awesome. I like this so much better than Windows Media Player, it's not even funny.
- Stability. Has it crashed? Nope. Has it locked up? Yes, one time only, and that was on Grooveshark.com. Other than that, I've had no stability issues whatsoever. It simply works and runs better on my laptop than Windows does.
- Workspaces. Why has nobody else thought of this? Workspaces allow you to have multiple desktops on one account. For example, you can have your web browser open in one workspace, a game open in the other, your code editor in yet another...and switching between them is as simple as hitting CTRL+Left/Right/Up/Down Arrow key. Once you start doing that, it's faster than minimizing/maximizing a program, and almost more intuitive. It's pretty darned awesome.
- Customization. You can customize everything, something that Windows doesn't seem to believe in anymore. Look at this pretty nifty Mac OS X theme I found and installed:
[Click image for larger view]
Now that is a pretty awesome lookin' desktop, eh?
Yes, I think I am officially a Ubuntu convert. I didn't necessarily mean to become one, but while I've been using it more and more, I'm finding myself wondering how I ever got along with Windows. It just...I dunno, it just works so much better. It's less resource-heavy, doesn't come with a bunch of pre-installed bloat ware, and it's easy. It's definitely my PC OS of choice (I like Mac OS X better than both Windows and Ubuntu, but Ubuntu's definitely above Windows).
So...should I run Ubuntu full-time? What do my readers think? Please tell me in a comment!
