Over the past several years I’ve been interested in switching to a full time Linux user.  After evaluating a possible upgrade of my laptop to Vista, I decided against it.  Two of the main reasons for this was the crippling DRM and bloated operating requirements.  Then it occurred to me that now would be the perfect time to make the big switch to Linux.

I decided on a dual boot with XP/Ubuntu as my OS’s and a shared partition between the two.   Everything went relatively smoothly during download/install, meaning that after reading through a few how-to’s I was able to do it without doing anything disastrous to my computer.  However I soon discovered that my wireless card was not fully supported.  I was determined to not let this setback dissuade me from switching.

After about a month of using a wired connection I noticed that the new beta version of Ubuntu (Fiesty Fox) had improved wireless functionality.  After installation, it worked beautifully!

As a first time Linux user I was amazed at how the user experience rivalled windows.  Many software packages even blew away my expectations of what was possible.  I love the repository system for keeping everything up to date and running smoothly.  Also the open source nature of all things Linux is a constant source of pride and joy to me.

Of particular note I am super pleased with the performance of Linux compared with XP.  The two running the exact same types of programs have remarkably different memory footprints.  With XP running I have been using up amost all of the 1.5 Gb of RAM installed on my laptop.  Whereas in Ubuntu I’ve been using between 500-700 Mb.

Its gotten to the point that I hardly ever boot into XP anymore.  In fact I’m so happy with the move that I would recommend it to anyone considering or so inclined.  In retrospect I should have done this much sooner.