A funny thing happened on my way to Linux…
When I opened up my new Lenovo laptop I was surprised to find that there was no backup software included. It’s apparently a common practice with these budget machines to put that stuff on a hidden hard drive partition instead of on optical media. But that wouldn’t do for me, as I was all set to wipe the drive clean and start anew with Ubuntu. I thought it prudent though, to hold off until I had the necessary recovery software in hand, so while waiting for my backup discs from Lenovo I made do with Windows.
And it almost pains me to say this, but honestly… It’s not that bad.
I’ll be reporting more on this in the days and weeks to come, but so far I can sum things up by saying that the general clunkiness of Windows is offset by the simple fact that more apps work better with it. For example, I can now say with some certainty that web surfing with Windows is significantly faster, even when compared to a faster, more powerful Mac. I’d never have believed it, but the truth is right there in front of me every time I open a new page!
In regards to viruses, spyware and the like I’ve installed some free tools that run in the background—that, combined with some good common sense, like not clicking on an attachment in an email promising free Viagra from a Nigerian banker, seems to be working for me so far.
Now to be perfectly clear here I am not switching entirely to Windows; I still have my desktop Mac for media editing and viewing, and if Ubuntu was able recognize my new laptop’s built-in Wi-Fi card I would most certainly be running Linux instead.
Thankfully, most of the good open source software is also available for Windows, making it a little easier for me to resist the siren call of cracked commercial apps. I think the lesson here is that so long as you’ve got a good web browser and office suite your desktop OS really doesn’t ultimately matter all that much.
So with that in mind let’s consider this little foray into Windows as an opportunity to go slumming…
