Life as I find it

I had been longing to get rid of my Windows OS and begin using Linux. However, as there always is, there was a catch to the story. I have horrendous amounts of data on my machine. Stuff that I couldn’t afford to lose. Easy. I backed it up.

But the problem was that the data was a daily thing. I use my desktop to run my business, a couple of websites, learn coding and stuff…….. there was an incredible amount of data piling up every day. Even with regular back ups, restoring was going to be a pain. Not to mention what would happen if the all too likely destruction of my hard drive happened, and I was unable to use my computer until I could fix it.

I’d been surfing around for a long time, trying to find ways in which Linux would “become easier”. The only thing I succeeded in discovering was that it was one of those things where you needed to fall into the water to learn to swim. Not funny!

Then, I happened to come across the website for Ubuntu. From descriptions by online friends, it was very good. Not to mention the community itself on the forums, where queries were very helpfully dealt with. Plenty of Indians there too. I decided to give it a shot, and to my surprise, not only were there options to download the OS, but a very considerate and generous offer to ship it free of cost to people with slow connections, who couldn’t download the massive iso file.

To make a long story short, I downloaded the thing, backed everything up, crossed my fingers and went for a dual boot according to the detailed instructions on the site. To my surprise, the CD seemed to read my mind. Everything happened exactly as the instructions said, and before I knew it, I had a smooth as silk dual boot with my Windows. No loss of data at all - I never used that back up.

What’s more, my PC is running like a rocket. The Ubuntu simply went ahead and recognised my network settings and everything else it found, and I was simply using it. I took to this new experience like a fish takes to water. Yeah I’m raving.

Meanwhile, I got myself a nice new laptop with a Vista, and well….. I fail to see what’s advanced about Vista. Surely the more developed a software gets, the more compact and faster it is? Apparently Microsoft doesn’t agree. The “place holder” OS is hogging 15GB out of my 80GB hard disk on the laptop, and still doesn’t manage to look snappy. 15GB!!!! Its way slower out of the box than my rarely maintained XP even then and I dare not compare it against the Ubuntu unless there’s an option for reverse gear. The Ubuntu just picked up that 1GB RAM and turned it into speed - like its supposed to.

After spending all that money for software, turns out that the best thing in life is indeed free. All software for it is free. It updates or installs automatically if you want a new software for something. I’ll keep my Vista for a bit, since I’ve paid for it, but the minute I get serious about working on it (I like working on the desktop), the first thing that will happen is a format of the hard drive.

For all those reading my post and wondering about their ancient, slow computer, pirated Windows, legal Windows, anything…… don’t take my word - just go for it and see for yourself! If there is stuff you need Windows for, go for a dual boot, or just save yourself the space otherwise. Believe me, I acclimatized within a day and have to simply do a search or ask for what I don’t know.

Life will never be the same again.