Linux

Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows XP, Linux Mint. My laptop has had four operating systems since I got it last year. It already had Windows Vista on it when I bought it. I later upgraded to Windows 7. Because 7 was causing a whole load of issues I rolled back to XP. Soon after that I decided to take my friend's advice and give Linux a whirl.

So here I am on Linux Mint 8 Helena.

Why I didn't go with Linux years ago is beyond me. Booting Linux from a CD provides a faster user experience than using Windows when it's fully installed so imagine how much faster Linux is when it's fully installed compared with any kind of Windows operating system, and I'm not exaggerating, that's actually the truth. It's simply so much faster.

But...

My laptop has a SiS Mirage 3 graphics and video card. Rumour has it that SiS drivers have a bad habit of not being compatible with Linux. This is slightly annoying. But a friend of mine who knows Linux backwards fixed it. Now I have a proper screen resolution. I still don't have 3D though. That's a small issue because I can't take advantage of full desktop effects.

Nevertheless...

I've had no other issues. There was a small issue with a media player which seemed to enjoy crashing as soon as I tried launching it and selecting the track I wanted to play. So I installed Songbird instead. Now I'm using Windows Live applications in Windows XP running through Virtual Box. It's quite a weird experience having never used another OS via emulation programs before.

On a whole I am loving the Linux experience and it's so much better than anything I've ever had to put up with Windows. I'm probably going to end up converting loads of other people to it...

...So watch out.