My Reasons For Skipping Windows 7…My Exodus to Linux

I have for many years been an avid Microsoft Windows user. I first used a Microsoft product back in the days of MS-Dos and Windows 3.1, Ahh those were the days for Windows for sure. With the debacle of Windows Vista, and a very unimpressive trial of Windows 7, I have decided the Ubuntu Linux I have been using for the last 6 months will now be my permanent home. The reasons I am leaving Microsoft Windows is because Windows has become just too watered down. Furthermore, each successive version just keeps getting slower, and slower and slower. With every advance Intel or AMD makes on a chip to increase speed, Windows seems to find a way to add more, and it slows down and no real speed improvement is clearly percieved.

Windows 2000 was the epitome of Operating Systems for Microsoft. I liked XP as well, but Windows 2000 was slightly better than XP. It was better because it wasn’t severly bloated with needless junk, it was fast, and it was reliable. When using Windows Vista or 7, I feel like I must get a computer knowledge labotomy. It is nothing more than holding your hand each and every step, furthermore, it takes 3 times as many clicks to perform the same task you would perform on XP or 2000. Face it, most Windows users have been using Windows for years, there is no need for excessive hand holding. I think just improving the help system and documentation would have been sufficent.

Another reason I am leaving Windows is due to the DRM(Digital Rights Management) I despise DRM with a passion because honest users get miffed with DRM. By moving to Ubuntu, I have the choice not use DRM protected formats. The user is not stuck or locked into a closed model. You will learn more about using computers using an Open Source Operating system like Ubuntu. Furthermore, all the computer innovation seems to take place on Open Source with the success of such applications as Firefox, Ubuntu, and now Open Office and the ODF(Open Document Format) becoming an industry standard. Firefox 3.5 introduced html 5 support and the ability to embed video into a website without the need of 3rd party plug-ins like Flash or Silverlight.

Since Windows requires so much 3rd party Security tools running on it to protect it, often times, many of these tools become corrupted over a period of time, and mess up the computer(Just Google symantec messed up my computer, or Norton no internet) to catch my drift. It becomes a nuisance to keep everything updated. On the flipside, with Ubuntu, all updates are delivered downstream via the repositories and synaptic, they come from trusted sources, and no need to scour the net looking for them.

The stability of Linux is legendary, many Linux or BSD servers go for years literally without ever havin to be rebooted. This stability means you don’t have to worry about the Blue Screen of Death or other mysterious related issues. Ubuntu has a very short learnign curve, I have had computer illiterate folks make a smooth transition in less than 6 weeks, they state they will never go back to Windows. I see more and more young kids moving to Ubuntu or a Linux flavor of some sort.

Overall, In my opinion, the only reason left to run Windows is if your a gamer, as many games just simply are not ported to Linux eventhough games like World of WarCraft and other plays just fine using Wine. I wouldn’t mind going back to Windows, but until the bloat is stripped out(Windows 7 was a small start, but not enough) I will not go back to it. The WinFS Filesystem that was to ship with Vista didn’t make it, and it didn’t make it into Windows 7 either…its sad really, that would have been a revolutionary file system, as NTFS is a bit long in the tooth..ext4 is on the horizon for Ubuntu.

Linux is also much more secure than Windows, remember nothing is 100% secure, but Linux makes it much more difficult for a bad guy to get in then his Windows counterpart. I have just come to embrace the Open Community, and Open Standards that the Open Source Community gives. They have done an excellent job on all their projects, and this will continue well into the future.