I made a switch for very similar reasons around the same time. In
addition to WGA and the sort I also was not happy with the EULA changes
which I understand MS has now backed down on as of today.
Unlike the article though, I moved to Novell
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) not to a Mac. To ensure I wouldn't
find myself slipping back in to Windows when I wasn't familar with how to
do something in Linux I blew Windows XP and Vista totally off my Thinkpad.
I have been amazed at how easy the transition has been and how much I am
enjoying using Linux and open source software. I have all my critical
hardware working fine in SLED. Although there are a couple of devices
that are not working presently, they aren't croitical at the moment and I
am sure I will get them both working in time. One of the devices
(fingerprint reader) doesn't work presently in Vista either.
I work through the day in a corporate Windows environment and find by
the end of the day I am excited to get back to Linux. As an experiment
I took my Linux Thinkpad to the office and found I was easily able to
connect using Linux and access everything I could in Windows. I seem to
get better performance using Microsoft Exchange using Evolution than I
ever did using Outlook. I had been unsuccessful getting Outlook to
connect to Exchange using an https connection yet Evolution was configured
and working in seconds.
Typically in a Windows\MS Office install I would chew up about half of
my hard drive space with the operating system, office, Adobe and other
programs installed. With Linux and a full install of comparable open
source programs I was amazed by how much free drive space I ended up with.
I seem to have about 90% free.
I have been really amazed at how much you can customize the Linux
environment. It seems as though if you like working in a particular way
and find the default settings to be unsuitable you can easily customize
the system to work the way you want. Not only that, but the choice of
different distributions and the different look and feel (KDE\Gnome)is
also incredible. Some of the Desktop Effects (Xgl) are not only amazing
but also useful.
I was also quite amazed at how easy it has been to move to open source
applications. I was already using FireFox and Thunderbird but I'm liking
Gaim, Evolution, Pan and Open Office just to name a few. Citrix is
working well and allows for remote connections to my full corporate
desktop.
Add to all of the above the fact that Linux is more secure, less
vulnerable to viruses, updated more frequently, doesn't contain all
the anti-piracy technology that MS products now contain and the fact that
there are free distributions that can be had for the cost of a blank CD or
DVD, I don't think I will be going back to MS and Windows or upgrading to
Vista any time soon, if ever.
On Thu, 02 Nov 2006 18:46:13 +0000, Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> I've had it up to HERE with the likes of Microsoft
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | When WGA was first implemented, certain free downloads from MS
> | were unavailable unless you installed something to "verify" you
> | didn't "pirate" your OS. Then comes the WGA "tool" that phones home
> | several times a day/week/month "verifying" your installation, and
> | now most interesting downloads from MS are blocked unless you
> | validate your OS. Add to this the certainty that Vista is going
> | to up the ante on WGA and MS found one less customer.
> |
> | Speaking of Vista, I tried out RC1 and found it slow, ill-conceived
> | and just plain ugly. You cannot change basic interface elements like
> | menus without warning. Things are moved all over the place, never got
> | a sense of uniformity, etc, etc. Bottom line - I hated it. Add this
> | to the unrest in my stomach over WGA and I found myself at the
> | crossroads.
> `----
>
> http://www.applexnet.com/node/549
|
|
