It's "placement break," which means I have no classes this week. I finished most of my homework first thing. So, finding myself with a bit of (shock!) free time, I downloaded a copy of Windows Vista RC1 and secured a trial key. I'm no Microsoft fan, but what can I say, the hype over Aero Glass finally penetrated my practiced cynicism. I chose the 64-bit version to match my processor. I knew that the 64-bit version required signed drivers, but I didn't think that would pose any problems.

Turns out it was a problem. If it was the only problem, I still might have written this post in Vista.

Because I have two internal hard drives, I was able to create a partition for specifically for Vista. Good thing, too; the only way I could remove Vista was to reformat the partition in which it was installed. They aren't kidding about making backups. Vista digs its claws deep.

Aero is pretty. The nifty little additions of thumbnails and window switching and all the stuff you see in the screenshots had exactly the intended impact. It's a very aesthetically pleasing interface.

I spent almost two weeks preparing for the transition, thinking I might even make it a permanent one. I downloaded 64-bit versions of my favorite applications, backed up my files, made a partition... and after about two hours of using Vista I booted back into XP and spent thirty minutes figuring out how to get rid of one of the most frustrating operating systems I had ever used (and I used, or tried to use, Linux in the 90s).

What went wrong? Well, I already mentioned the "signed drivers" requirement. It turns out that about one fifth of my most favorite programs cannot be installed in Vista due to unsigned drivers. I appreciate the security concern, even if it is more about enforcing DRM than actually protecting end users. And apparently there is a workaround if you boot and press F8? I don't know.

If that wasn't bad enough, I kept getting interrupted and asked to approve various changes. How annoying! Apparently more security measures. Hmmm. And finally, I run an Athlon 64 3000+ with 2GB of RAM and a Radeon 9600 with 256MB of RAM... and Vista was a little bit choppy.

That did it. I realized that without 20% of my favorite programs, middling performance and a constant system nag, I was not going to enjoy this experience. So, back to XP. As I said, after many attempts to delete the Vista system files, I had to just wipe the partition.

And now I'm thinking to myself, here I've partitioned this hard drive, all fresh and clean for a secondary OS install, backed up my files... hmmm.

So a few minutes later I'm downloading Ubuntu--a decision based almost entirely on the friendly-looking forums and SUSE's ubiquitous "You Can Buy It Too!" (Seriously, it's practically their slogan.)

I should take a moment to note that I'm a relative outsider when it comes to Linux. I'm a computer technician by trade, but I've been working on Windows machines almost exclusively for the last ten years. I'm in law school now, and I have to run Windows on my laptop for testing purposes. Windows plays all my games. I took a Unix class in 1994 and I tinkered with Red Hat in 1996 or 1997, but otherwise I've used Microsoft operating systems my entire life.

It's funny, I spent a grand total of about 20 hours tinkering with Ubuntu before I got it to do what I wanted. I used the 64-bit version for about 18 of those hours and finally determined that it doesn't work (apparently others already figured this out but I'm a slow learner I guess). It's funny, I gave Ubuntu a lot more time than I gave to Vista. And I felt good about that, because even though Vista was more polished, when I told Ubuntu to do something, it did. I was in complete control of my machine.

I broke it, spectacularly, several times. Thankfully a complete reinstall takes like 15 minutes (another major downside to Vista--takes forever to install, though Microsoft has been improving in this regard, and Ubuntu's initial install is very smooth--plus you can browse the web while you install!). And, also thankfully, it has drivers for all of my hardware, which oddly enough is more than I can say for Windows. Finally, I downloaded the 32-bit version of Ubuntu. I followed the instructions for my ATI card here (method 1) and for Beryl here (method 2). And just like that I had Ubuntu up and running, complete with a user interface so slick it puts Vista to shame. It looks like this.

What particularly interested me was the presence of security dialogues, much like the ones I found so irritating in Vista. The dialogues in Ubuntu were less frequent and somehow they seemed more appropriately timed. I always understood why I was being prompted for a password, whereas in Vista it felt almost random. The difference is largely subjective. Ubuntu's nags didn't feel so... jarring, I guess.

So, I announced to my wife that we're officially making the switch. Oh, I'll keep XP around for my games, most likely, but I'm getting older and (though it makes me sad to admit it) I'm lucky if I get an hour of gaming in per week. Yes, law school is time consuming like that. But I'm glad I took some time to evaluate my choice of operating system. The requisite command-line hacking and forum digging is definitely keeping Linux out of the hands of the masses, but 9 years later I have to say it has improved a great deal. I'm not as tech-savvy as I used to be, so I think it's a good sign that I'm able to get nifty features working on Linux.

So there you have it. Ubuntu plus Beryl trounces Vista, and its free, and it comes with an office suite, and the support forums are excellent. After almost a decade of waffling, I'm finally making the switch.

And I don't even work in IT anymore!