Bit of an update in general

Ok in my last post (a few weeks ago at this stage) I said I was liking 12.04 in general but didn't really have the best of luck with the AMD graphics drivers, well I remember trying out Xubuntu (ubuntu with XFCE interface) a few years ago and ended up liking the lightweight nature of it alot. It's a more light weight UI and running environment then the likes of Unity and Gnome 3 but since it's still ubuntu 12.04 it gets all the updates that the Ubuntu team release. I must say I like that I can install all the same programmes that I would normally but the desktop environment never really gets in the way with effects and eye candy. Don't get me wrong the eye candy has it's appeal (I have eyes that can be candied :P) but I've found out that I like responsiveness and multitasking more. Sure there's the argument that my specs (core i5, 4gb ram) are overkill for Xubuntu and other lightweight distros, but it just means it's all the more responsive.

As for my adventures with LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) well I did indeed install it in virtual box, and although I am quite taken by the nostalgia trip that is Mate and the retro/modern Cinnamon and was sorely tempted to switch over and may still yet (so sue me, I do this sometimes before I settle) but the idea of reinstalling all my apps, themes, music etc is holding me back and as I've said I'm quite happy with xubuntu for the time being at least. Mate has finally matured to be 90% of what I remember gnome 2 to be (not bad for a 1.2 release) and Cinnamon is quite compelling also.

As for my long leave of absence well my parents left me to my own devices for two weeks and between social nights in Dublin city (of which there were at least 3 if not 4) and being lazy and ordering pizza a few too many times then I should have I ended up just about getting away with it. I've a few accounts and 400 is supposed to go into a savings account on the same day every month (it's automatic there's no flex in it) and anyway I've about 401 in my current account now and won't get more till Tuesday (yep that's how fine I've cut it). I can "borrow" 50 from that savings account till Tuesday to tide me over the weekend. It was a close call but it looks like I might get away with it. Well my parents don't check my account balances, as long as I have an X amount of savings by September (college fees) I should be ok and between my two savings accounts I'll be on track as long as that 400 a month never gets interrupted.

General Geeky History

I've used pretty much every version of Windows from 3.1 to 7 except 2000, but that was pretty much ME except it didn't suck.

I'm 25 now so that means my dad had a 3.11 machine when I was very young and I remember windows 95 was the thing to beat all things when It came out. Dad upgraded the 3.1 machine to 95 (I can't remember was more ram installed but I've a vague memory of it. Next there was a new desktop with 98 SE and we cept the monitor, keyboard, mouse and ancient printer from the old PC. Those were the infamous and much detested dialup years (this video will bring you back http://youtu.be/gsNaR6FRuO0). 

We moved onto a new Dell during the pentium 4 time (with xp) and that's still the "family" PC (though dad uses it exclusively). My first laptop was in or around the purchase of the Dell (maybe 6 months to a year later), it was pretty basic and slow my parents paid 400 new for it off dell. My parents were probably under the "new car" philosophy to get the kid a basic model and it'll incentivise them to work to get something better even though I was 19-20 and wasn't gonna spill crap all over it. It had a 1.4ghz celeron singlecore that could barely run xp). It prompted me to work and save and blow over 1000 euro on a 1.66ghz core 2 duo Acer (just before vista was on the cards so I got XP MCE). That was my well used (and abused) personal workhorse for ages (saw manys the OS experiment including vista, quite a few ubuntu releases and the various public, and not so public, test builds of windows 7). I'm currently on another acer that's 1-2 years old and has a 2.26ghz core i5 with 4gb ram.

Around 05/06 I heard about this thing called Ubuntu and that it was a free OS. I looked up the website and screenshots and I didn't like the Gnome top panel and dismissed it as too OSXy. I then heard about a "windows user friendly" version called Kubuntu. Our house had slow broadband at the time and I thought I wasn't gonna download it as it'd take ages. So I saw that they'd post it out for free to any country so I opted for that. I installed it on my laptop and wifi didn't work out of the box and this was a deal breaker. I wanted portability and needed wifi for college so back to xp I went (I had a system install cd).

From about 9.04 (or possibly earlier) began an on again off again flirtation with ubuntu, monitoring it's progress and doing a full install (as I wanted to go full out using as my main OS to give it a fair chance, and also I hadn't heard of virtual box at the time). I always was left thinking it's 85% there to being my main OS, ... ok it's 90% there,.... ok it's 95% there etc. But If i'm prefectly honest it wasn't until 11.10 and Linux Mint 12 that I thought "I really can use this as my full time OS and not have a niggling 1% instance where I want to use windows. I have a PS3 for gaming and Libre Office is now at a level where I don't have to install Office 2007 under wine anymore (it's possible and works 100% but after a while and the rate I tend to distro hop or try out new stuff in virtual box, the functionality gain isn't worth the hastle of installing as I don't use it really). Any games I do run are mostly emulators and casual stuff.

Terminal, I don't touch really unless it's a "copy these sudo commands into the terminal to install". I've gotten used to the fact that ubuntu and mint are easy to install software to and Wine is now virtually bomb proof unless you need direct x or .net framework or something).

In conclusion right from the beginning I was fascinated by the prospect that a full desktop OS can be completely free but in a way that has hindered it as it doesn't have the financial resources of Microsoft and Apple to iron out the niggling aspects as quickly or to get huge software vendors to support their platform. For me it has taken this long to rival them in my mind and cause me to possibly switch for good. I'm more mature now and so are (some) Linux distros. The back and forth with windows has stood to me well as both my parents and the vast majority of my friends use 7 and I can help them as I've used it extensively since the public beta.

Windows 8 hasn't impressed be at all thus far. I realise it's just a developer preview but I guess it's a "love it or hate it" interface. It's geared towards touch input (tablets and in the case of Windows Phone 7, phones) I understand that, and they are making a huge gamble by porting it over to the ARM architecture. What I wish they would do is have an option upon installation to install the Metro UI (what they call it) or to just stick with a refined and updated Windows 7 interface. I was quite pleasantly surprised by the Windows 7 "Superbar" (the bottom panel) and the Ribbon interface they employed in Office 2007 and 2010 as well as MS Paint and Wordpad and a few others. I find it's pretty intuitive yet powerful.