Matt Loney's Blog
What it says on the box
Sunday 21 October 2007, 11:26 PM
Why I've moved from Vista to Ubuntu 7.10
I've been using Windows since it was battling for desktop supremacy with GEM in the early 90s. In the mid 90s I spent several years producing newspapers on Apple Macs. Since the late 90s I've dabbled with Linux, but there have always been compelling reasons to return to, or stick with, Windows. No more, for two reasons: Vista, and Ubuntu 7.10 (ala Gutsy Gibbon).
Through all this time I have looked forward to each new version of Windows either because I expected it to be more stable, add better hardware support, or correct problems in some other way. Several weeks ago I took delivery of a brand, spanking, £1300-worth of notebook in the form of an Asus V1S desktop replacement. It's a lovely machine, if unwieldy. A quick tour of the stickers next to the keyboard reveals such delights as a SATA hard drive, GeForce 8600 GT graphics card with 512MB of video RAM, Core 2 duo processor and 1GB RAM. It also came with Vista which, after several weeks of concentrated use, has left me with numerous questions.
* Why is Vista so slow (part 1)? On a brand new £1300 notebook built (one would think) with Vista in mind, the operating system should fly, especially when no applications are running. Not so; it's a complete dog. It's so slow that applications often won't register that I've hit the space bar until I'm halfway through the next word. I'm a fast typer, but not that fast.
* Why is Vista so slow (part 2)? After tracking the ever increasing speeds of processors and computers for the past 15 years I'm left somewhat dismayed to see menu bar so sluggish, and finding myself waiting around for the OS to do the most simple of tasks.
* Why is Vista so slow (part 3)? I know, I know, I should by an extra 1GB. I would but for two reasons: First, I would have to buy a 2GB to upgrade to 2GB, and while I may contemplate doing so should I discover I *really* need that much memory for some application, I resent the thought of doing so just for the operating system. Operating systems should be light, run in the background and do everything they can to keep out of my way.
* Why does the screen blank out every time I try to run a program? I appreciate the need for security, but when it comes to user experience I, like many other users, will try everything to bypass such security features.
* Why did Microsoft ignore the first rule of usability and ditch all familiar methods of doing stuff that I'd spent 15 years getting used to?
* Why, after five years waiting for the most important product from one of the biggest companies on the planet, was I left feeling with such an overwhelming feeling of "Is that it?".
And now onto Ubuntu.
I've been through dozens of Linux distros over the years and while I have wanted to like them, I've always found myself a little disappointed in some respect or other. No more.
Ubuntu has the slickest installation I have yet found in any OS.
Ubuntu makes it supremely easy to install extra software packages.
Ubuntu has a wonderfully useful and responsive 3D desktop, in the shape of Compiz Fusion. Ubuntu is fast, and is like a fresh breeze blowing through after my weeks of gazing at Vista, waiting for something to happen.
Ubuntu generally works just fine on my Santa Rosa laptop. I had to spend some time figuring out how to get Compiz Fusion working, but even that is relatively easy.
Sure, I have yet to find drivers for the built-in webcam and HSDPA data card (Asus, are you listening?), but these sacrifices I'm willing to make.
The other reason that Ubuntu does it for me is that over the past 12 months I've found myself increasingly using non-Microsoft products. Google Docs is usually open in a browser Window, OpenOffice.org has been on my home and work machines for some time now, and while I still use Outlook, I find Evolution quite useable. Even for those applications I use that are not available on Linux - such as Mindjet's mind-mapping software - I find there are often quite suitable alternatives with some degree of file compatibility.
Of course this is just my experience, and this is just Ubuntu. Yet I have had a look at SuSE 10.3 which seems to be equally able, and this is not to even mention Apple's Leopard OS which is due later this week and which can be relied upon to deliver a 'wow' factor that people have simply failed to see in Vista.
Have we reached the beginning of the tipping point? I think we may just have.
Funnily enough my colleague Rupert Goodwins documented his - very similar - experiences and thoughts on Vista and Ubuntu late last night, just hours after I posted mine. Of course his write-up is far more eloquent and well worth the read.
PreviousComments on this post
this couldn't be more true. In fact reading this post I feel like I am reading my own story.
I bought a very expensive sony vaio about 2 months ago, which naturally came with vista business. I wasn't too concerned about it even if I had already heard of the worries that others had with vista. I thought: new laptop, very powerful, it should work just fine. I wish...
I turns out that vista needed 26 minutes to boot from scratch. Yes, 26 minutes until I could do anything with the mouse pointer. So I called the sony vaio support line to see whether it was just my problem. So when I asked if I could just remove vista and install my copy of windows XP the answer was a nervous no. After hours of negotiations with many support reps it turned out that sony has a strict contract with microsoft not to give any other support to machines sold with vista than for vista.
So, since I have been playing around with linux distros for a while but never really got the feeling that they would convince me to switch and never look back, I took my laptop to the test and installed ubuntu 7.04 (feisty fawn). It took the whole operating system 47 minutes to install and a whole 74 seconds to boot from switched off. And let me tell you: the fawn is feisty!
Now, I am not one of those computer experts that can program stuff and wear geeky t-shirts with anti-microsoft slogans. I am a conventional marketing exec, I am nothing more than the average-joe windows user just like anyone else working in an office. And yet, Linux Ubuntu was so easy to install and use that I still haven't encountered one question that I couldn't answer very quickly and easily. I strongly recommend to anyone fed up with vista to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and realise that you can get something amazingly better for FREE.
Leopard OS apple may turn out to be amazing, but it is not free. I am upgrading to 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon while I type (yes windows users, a whole new operating system installing WHILE I type!) and my £1600 carbon body sony vaio has never looked so sexy ;)
a note: it would be nice if sony replied to my requests to make available a few more drivers, as some of the proprietary hardware in this laptop is clearly not supported by ubuntu. But it wasn't working with vista either,so...
Ya know, all of these "I'm switching to Linux" articles are find and dandy but you have to take into a consideration of a number of things. There is a reason Windows takes up a large amount of ram to do what it does.
People have blamed Microsoft for every security problem known to man when it comes to their PC. Microsoft got a lot of bad press for IIS5 and IE6. They didn't have a software firewall built-in and people blamed them for problems related to spyware and adware (that most of the time had been installed by users by clicking through a few agreements and EULAs in software they were installing).
So with Vista Microsoft took a much larger effort towards system access and security. For one, UAC is quite nice in that it sandboxes IE7, virtualizes the registry, and virtualizes program files. When a user does not have write access to Program Files, Windows will store configuration data (writes) to a virtual store.
In the event you install some BS application that attempts to take over the registry and program files, at the very least you can log into another user account and they won't be affected.
IE7 being sandboxed is similar to the Linux idea of "chroot jails". If you're unsure what that means, then I don't know what to tell you. Just understand it's a good thing.
With that said, they also preload Defender and keep it updated with Windows updates. In the event some piece of spyware attempts to get onto the system, Defender will usually pick it up and prevent it.
All for a little extra ram usage? heh.
You could argue that "Linux" doesn't have such problems but it will soon enough and you know it. The effects of such problems on Linux will be far more devastating than they ever were on Windows. And the worst part about it? Not very many people will know it happened. There is a lot more freedom to mess with a linux system once an application gets root access. Modify top and some Gnome sources to exclude the application from the task list, modify netstat so you can't see the connections.
You must have a really crappy computer because I am running Vista in a 3800 X2 with a gig of ddr 400 and Vista runs great. I was even happy that I could run Command and Conquer 3 on ultimate settings since I heard that there is a slight framerate drop in vista.
Its fine if you don't like vista, but don't make up total bs.
Do not hold your breath for Leopard. It is just more of the same with extra eye candy from Apple. Tiger works the same as Panther which works the same as Jaguar. The only thing that changes is that Apple chews up more resources with useless trash. Other than hype, nothing useful works the way it is advertised on OSX.
Oh, and I am sick enough of OSX and the way it is going nowhere very slowly, sick of the insular fanatical users, that I am currently switching back to XP and/or Ubuntu.
At least Linux has a direction, and they are working to improve the users experience.
I'm really not sure what your complaining about, your complaining that you paid through the nose for some rubbish branded laptop? I picked up a laptop for about £500 a year ago, windows vista rates it a 4.5 and it flys, I usually dual screen, with the laptop screen and a 22 inch flat screen when I'm at home, and no such lag issues at all.
If nothing else your experience is probably to do with the software installed when you got the system, and it trying to be configured behind the screen, I mean dells and such like come with enough bloatware, and whats worse they usually install free trials of annoying software like norton and such.
There is probably one other thing, after vista has booted a few times it tries to get itself sorted, whenever you aren't using the cpu or ram you aren't using, its usually looking at it self, seeing what it can do to speed up, in fact after a weeks worth of playing, vista will probably have prefeched all your favourite apps so you can boot windows and have word open faster than ubuntu boots.
"Why is Vista so slow"
Considering you just purchased a new system with everything pre-installed, I am pretty sure I can answer that.
Because it's probaly pre-loaded with dozens of useless 3rd party junk the manufacturer added.
I normally don't buy prebuilts, but I am well aware that you basically don't have a choice unfortunately when it comes to laptops. I would see if there is any way the manufacturer could give you the OEM install disk for Vista (not those recovery disks that basically reformat and re-image the drive, that just will re-install the junk that came with it) and just format and reinstall Vista alone.
Vista will probably never be faster than most distros of Linux but it should run much faster on a clean install without a bunch of services and apps the manufacturer decided to add.
I recall once when Dell first purchased Alienware and were making gaming rigs, their XPS models used to run games terribly not because of the hardware, but because of the tons of preloaded junk then came with, a clean os re-install made them run perfectly.
I keep seeing this notion that Vista must be defended simply because everyone keeps saying it's slow when in reality... it's slow. And I don't care how much more fast you can make it because even by eliminating help processes, killing startup routines, and disabling graphic and indexing services it still runs like a bus with a low tank of gas.
Plus, whine and moan all you want about speeding up Vista, it still provides a terrible way to control your operating system from the standpoint of an experienced user. All I want is an operating system I can use to develop on and access some stuff I like and it seems like the only thing Vista is aiming me towards is well... a nice first-time user experience with Vista... and what does that really gain you? Well, at the end of the day you can click the Start button at least.
Hey, I'm not sore about the hardware, I actually find a lot to like in WIndows XP, I'm not holding my breath for Leopard, and I did remove enough bloatware to keep a liposuctionist busy for a week. I did install a couple of games and they worked a treat, but guess what - they were full screen and so don't use the GUI. What I found so frustrating was the experience of just trying to get stuff done, and that was down to both the sluggish speed of the UI and to the clever way that common jobs have been moved for no other reason than to make things look different.
I really don't mind change, except when it is done for its own sake. I often find that to be counterproductive.
My point is that the change is such that, combined with the work done on the latest Linux distros, I found for the first time that it is easier to swtich to Linux than to upgrade to the next Windows. It is also a lot cheaper (assuming you have not already paid for it of course).
I stopped reading when you mixed up MB and GB. Really, are you actually employed by ZDNet? Amazing.
Like the above poster, I too feel like you are telling my story. I just put together a brand new 3GHz desktop with 4GB of RAM and the top NVidia graphics card. I also bought a brand new copy of Vista Ultimate to go with my new machine, and boy is it SLOW. It took forever to install, it takes almost ten minutes to load up (MUCH slower than XP was), and it is constantly grinding my hard drive. In addition, it first tells me it is going to need my permission to perform any administrative task, and then once I confirm it immediately ASKS me for my permission to run said task. The OS also comes with hardly any applications (Microsoft Office is another $400-$500 extra). In addition, Vista is a bit buggy in that some of my games no longer work properly (Half-Life 2, etc.), and that for some reason it cannot see my second DVD drive (the BIOS recognizes it and XP was able to see it).
My hardware purchase left me with an extra hard drive, so I decided to install the beta version of Ubuntu's Gutsy Gibbon on the second one. I downloaded the OS for free and burned it to a DVD. The DVD booted up to the OS and I clicked on the handy "Install" icon on the desktop. If it wasn't for the hard drive install, it would have taken less time to install Linux than it takes for me to boot Vista. Everything worked fine from boot, and Ubuntu even automatically set my computer up to dual boot, so I can choose Linux or Windows right after I turn on the machine. Linux boot time takes about a minute, a full 1/10th of what it takes for me to boot Vista. Ubuntu also runs faster, looks nicer than the new Vista Aero desktop, and uses FAR fewer resources.
OpenOffice works just as good as Microsoft Office (even better if you count the fact that Excel suffers from mathematical errors). Also, I can find tons of software online for FREE, everything from music editing software, to 3D modelers, to productivity tools such as fantastic database managers (MySQL) and graphical flowchart builders (Dia), all available through a package management tool similar to Windows update. The only thing that is missing from Linux is the wide array of games available for Linux. I did however get the games that were not running correctly under Vista to work fine under the WINE Windows Emulator included with Ubuntu!
After spending over 12 years in the Microsoft Camp, I must defend Windows and agree with you on Linux.
I kicked and screamed when they moved from Windows 2000 which was excellent on the speed and memory sections, not to mention Plug and Play. I finally moved to Windows XP with high hopes of functionality, security and better Plug and Play - it took Microsoft several Service Packs, but now I was on board....then came Vista.
I put Vista on 3 computers, (2) HP desktops and (1) IBM Lenovo Thinkpad T60p. ALL my computers run 2GB of memory and run Core Duo processors with SATA hard drives. I did not mention the video because that has little to do with performance compared with the specs mentioned. Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate ran like crap - I could not believe the application latency and operating system response times.
I tried everything to salvage speed and recover latency - all unnecessary apps were removed, compact registry, defrag hard drive, run chkdsk, nothing worked.
I noticed that Vista ate +800MB of memory, so I checked running services and processes. I found the magic bullet:
"Windows Search"
Once the above service was stopped and disabled from ever running again - I noticed an improvement worth letting my family try Vista. the only reason I have not moved from Vista entirely - my wife enjoys the user interface and options of Microsoft Publisher for calendars for monthly planning.
Linux
I have moved all but one of my computers to Ubuntu 7.10 because I prefer the general eye candy appeal, application installation ease of use and "free-ness". I can install and re-install without having to call someone in another country.
Unbuntu finds all my devices, installs quickly and provides instant internet, document and email access. The same can be said for other Linux distributions, but Ubuntu has the support and timely releases behind it.
I tried SuSE 10, but was upset when Novell slept in bed with Microsoft. That is also the reason I do not use Xandros. I would recommend Fedora Core to users who want to try something other than Ubuntu because applications thoughout the internet are largely .rpm packages for Fedora Core or .tar packages which can be used with everything else.
I am recommending Linux, specifically Ubuntu 7.10 to family and friends because we, the people that purchase new computers, should not have to pay so much money to have an operating system so advanced it....well you know the saying "so smart you are stupid"...that fits Vista.
Linux just works...and for the people who say they do not get it - Linux is difficult. We all said that with DOS commands and Windows 3.11. You will get used to it.
To El Jefe: You're right, mistyping MB for GB is inexcusable, and shows the perils of posting at 11.30 on a Sunday night while trying to settle a one-year-old with a fever.
There is a clear story emerging here of people seem to be - as I was - genuinely surprised by their relative experiences running Vista and a Linux distribution. This simply didn't happen with Windows XP, and that makes it all the more remarkable.
Same experience here. Vista was slow as a dead dog on my laptop. I tried Ubuntu 7.04 and it was like a rocket. I am now using Ubuntu 7.10 and will never go back to any Windows.
What amazes me is how many people seem to say 'Well, you can get Vista to run okay on your machine if you do X, Y or Z' when it (a) still will be slower than Linux, (b) costs a lot of money, (c) doesn't come with Office programs and things most people need (more money spent), and (d) is heaps more secure (not needing anti-virus or anti-spyware software, and Linux has it's firewall built into the kernel!).
Even if such people don't get the whole 'free/open source' software thing, you'd think they'd want something faster, more secure and that didn't cost anything but the bandwidth to download and the blank CD to install it from. I guess if they are big gamers they should stay with Windows. Well, also there's the hardware issue: I know some people have driver problems with Linux (but downloading a live CD of any Linux distro will let you test if your hardware is supported before you even have to consider whether or not to install the OS!). For the record, Ubuntu detected everything on my laptop and my scanner and digital camera and webcam all run fine too without any drivers that aren't already there in Linux.
The only thing I ask myself about this whole thing is why didn't I switch sooner?
Myself I am a huge linux fan. I have a friend, an IT manager, who would always say, I'd use linux but I do not want to configure it for tons of business users. So it was especially fun watch him curse Vista as did everything from crashing outlook 10 times a day, to no allowing him to open the files that he copied from his thumb driver, to griding to a halt for hours. when he copied a couple of thousands files. Finally after Vista randomly deactivated itself when he spent a day and half talking to dell and MS trying to reactivate it and failing at it, he wiped it out from the hard drive. This guy is not a fan of MS, he just wants to support his users. As we speak for the last 2 month he has been rolling everything back to XP where peopel really want and installing Ubuntu's (or orderign preinstalled ubuntu dell's) on laptops of those business users who are a it adventerous. At last count that was about 30% of all the users (with about another 20% using macs).
This is a true story about somebody who did not want linux on desktops because of support issues.
Ubuntu has real merits. It is not necessary to make up BS about Vista just to make Ubuntu look good.
Those who cite long boot times for Vista fall into two categories:
1) You are lying or exaggerating in order to prove your point about Linux being a superior operating system. In the process of doing so, you have inadvertently proven a different point: that you are an inferior individual.
2) For all your pretensions of being technical, you don't really know what you are doing. It isn't difficult, even for moderately technical users, to get rid of the crapware that comes with a machine.
Manufacturers get money from software vendors for the inclusion of crapware, thereby lowering the cost of hardware. It's one factor that contributes to PCs' bang for the bucks. There is no need to whine about it.
On my own low-end OptiPlex with 2 GB RAM, Vista Ultimate boots up, from button press to usable desktop, in 1 minute and 17 seconds. That's not fantastic, but it's more than acceptable. First run of MS Word 2000 pops up in 2 seconds, which is great. The Aero interface looks good and is very responsive. The UAC can be easily turned off if you don't like it. Dell hardware is solidly built, fast, reliable, and whisper quiet. Overall, the system is a pleasure to use, and this takes absolutely NOTHING away from the goodness of Ubuntu and Mac OS X.
@bodoveot
"IE7 being sandboxed is similar to the Linux idea of "chroot jails". If you're unsure what that means, then I don't know what to tell you. Just understand it's a good thing."
chroot is not a security measure. It should only be used for partitioning. Traversal to the "host" is not preventable. The remainder of your post is either speculation or fud. I just wanted to be specific about the first part as I would hate to see anyone that read it start thinking chrooting was a good idea.
@MagamiAKO
Wow, Vista runs better for you than the author, and you "only" need twice as much RAM?
@CHENQUAN
Do your shoes run on Ubuntu 7.10?
It is my opinion that Ubuntu is a fairly mangled linux distro, with a number of show stopping bugs that shouldn't have made it out the door. They have many choices that I disagree with. That said, they have done remarkable things for FOSS marketing and have a distro that is adequate for even the most un-savy tourist.
I hope they work out the kinks, and are successful in their endeavors.
Frank
I have had the same experience as I posted on my blog (http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/eai/madgreek/archives/dumping-vista-a-divorce-with-a-happy-ending-19844). I get the same responses from Microsoft loyalists that my computer must be crap. I admit that my brand new Dell laptop might not be good enough for Vista, but that is my point. It is definitely powerful enough for any other operating system including XP. As a matter of fact, my old clunker PC is now running Kubuntu with only 256M and a 1.7GHz processor and beats the pants off of Vista on a dual core processor with a Gig of memory. So throw daggers and scream insults all you want, but I should only have to invest in beefy machines with 4Gig of memory if the applications I want to run require them, not because the OS demands it. On XP, this laptop would scream. On Kubuntu it does scream. On Vista, nobody in my house will touch the laptop. End of story!
