Well I have finally made my final move to Linux. It took quite awhile due to lots of quirky issues and figuring out how to get Linux to do what I wanted. Also I was always finding I had to switch back to Windows to do something or to play a game.

Vista really motivated me to work at understanding more about Linux because it was so horrible and I had no idea when the next version of Windows would release. Linux has made huge strides and 99% of the quirks are gone. So finally Windows 7 is going to release this fall. It is a huge improvement over Vista in many ways but way worse in others. Lets talk about Windows 7 for a second to get it out of the way before moving onto why I made my final move to Linux.

Windows 7 has finally figured out something from Vista. Provide drivers! So on install you will find that it installs 90% of your drivers. This is way better than either Windows XP or Vista. Other than that Windows 7 has nothing to shout about. People talk about all the wonderful stuff in Windows 7, but the reality is that most of it is all marketing hype. Lets go through the list of new features:

1. Pin items to taskbar – this was called quick launch in XP and Vista and it worked better as quick launch.
2. Snap to windows to half the window screen. Nice but you will almost never use it, Linux has it.
3. Aero shake clears windows out of the way. Even less chance you will remember to use this feature, really not worth the effort when you can use the icon minimize to desktop that has been in XP and Vista.
4. UAC or User Account Control – slows down the system and is just plain worthless security.
5. Customize the tray – oh boy that is a huge reason to buy Windows 7.
6. New look for paint and calculator. Another worthless feature. Why didn’t they just integrate paint.net which is free and way more powerful?
7. Wifi has been tweaked and is even more worthless than Vista. I had the worst time trying to connect to a secured wireless connection that I finally gave up.
8. Touch screen – yeah this won’t be used by most of us.
9. The UI has been re-arranged again from Vista boy that really helps.
10. File manager finally works after being broken in Vista. Your point of reference stays the same where in Vista it always changed.
11. Boot a 5 seconds faster than Vista and about the same as XP.
12. More DRM control.
13. ISO burning you will still most likely want real burning software.
14. Better multi-monitor support.
15. Better projection screen support.
16. DirectX 11 – but hey there are no games to play yet and there won’t be any for at least a year or two. I am betting Fable2 will be released at the same time as Windows 7.

So there you are with the features. There are other minor features but the reality is that you are getting a fixed version of Vista with DirectX11. You will spend $250+tax for the Home Pro edition.

I ask the question why??? Why not stop spending money on Windows and get an OS that gets upgraded every 6 months for free???

This April I finally made the final move to Linux. I love Mint Linux which is based off of Ubuntu and you may want to check out Ubuntu as it is great as well. But Mint Linux has the Windows feel that I like. With the April release Mint Linux boots in 18 seconds or less on my computer, way faster than XP, Vista or Windows 7. 100% of my drivers are installed and instead of a DVD it fits on a CD. It comes with:

1. Gimp – as good as photoshop for me being a non-designer.
2. Open Office 3.1 – which opens super fast now and is as good as Office 2007.
3. Brasero – a great disk burning software.
4. Firefox installed with the latest version of Flash.
5. Apt – which allows you to easily install a vast array of software for free.
6. Tomboy – quick note taker.
7. Compiz – awesome 3d graphic effects!

Mint Linux also reads my NTFS Windows hard drives and can write to them so it was easy to work with data on those drives. With Wine I was able to play my favourite free MMO Runes of Magic. There were still certain windows apps that wouldn’t run.

Well in Windows 7 there will be Window apps that won’t run either and because of this they are including a Virtual PC version that runs Windows XP. So under Linux I found that I could purchase for $190 ($60 cheaper than Windows 7) Vmware Workstation that runs DirectX games and runs seamlessly in Linux so it looks like it running as a Linux program.

As a web developer this allows me to run to IE and Safari to test webpages. Flash and Photoshop though I am using Gimp more. You could also use Office 2007 if you wanted instead of Open Office.

With Linux you also get a way better UI than Vista or Windows 7, the system is super fast compared to Windows and you can run all your applications now with Vmware Workstation. The only thing you don’t get is DirectX11. Even when games are finally developed, they will still run on DirectX 9 for the PC. Mint Linux also has tons of features and the ability to customize your system to suit you perfectly.

Also in 2 years there will be four releases of Mint Linux. Wine will make huge strides beyond where it is now, which will include DirectX 10 and 11. Open Office and other open software will keep moving forward even faster. So it just keeps getting better and better.

This is a great time to make the move to Linux and it will keep getting better as time move onward.