A pain in the OS (operating system)

Put my thoughts into action. Finally ditched Windows XP. Ok.. I didn't really fully ditched it yet. However, I finally got my long awaited dual-boot system.

Installed Ubuntu. Actually was planning to use fedora. However, without an easy way to configure internet access, I turned to Ubuntu instead. However, Ubuntu is not without woes. Sadly, it doesn't support WPA well as I'm using a USB wireless adapter and the linux driver doesn't support it.

However, the results have been quite satisfying. Other than the occasional freezes, usually due to the keyboard malfunctioning as the driver support isn't that fantastic. However, I don't mind pressing the power button to reboot again as unlike booting into Windows, it doesn't take eons just to see the desktop. In fact, it takes me about 15 minutes to boot into Windows, waiting for all the services to fully load. Compared to that, Ubuntu loads in under a minute. This is probably due to the lower level of requirements to just run the base system.

Moreover, from my point of view, my Ubuntu installation seems to have more desktop effects, especially since I installed beryl, which emulates some of the Windows Vista features like ALT-TAB preview switching, thumbnail preview when you have minimized applications and also a 3D desktop with as many virtual desktops as you want.

Currently still learning how to use as most of the things, even some common things need to be done in the console/terminal (command prompt in Windows). However, security is and has always been higher as you don't get root access to system folders, a feature Windows recently adopted in Vista. I don't think I ever felt safe to enter the net without a firewall and anti-virus.

Anyway, here are some screenshots:

Main Desktop


Desktop 3D effects (desktop cube)