Another reason to hate Windows Vista...

... As if you needed any more.

I'll set the scene.  A friend of mine purchased a shiny new Sony Vaio laptop. It came pre-installed with Vista as most computers do nowadays. It quickly became a bit of a running joke - his two favourite wording being 'fucking' and 'Vista'. 

Now I took it upon myself to tout the advantages of Ubuntu Linux - free software, easy installation, can easily dual boot with Windows.

Or so I thought.

Apparently Vista doesn't like it when the partition it resides on is split or resized. I discovered this halfway through partitioning the drive using gParted.  This, as you can imagine, caused me quite a bit or worry. I had rendered my friend's computer unusuable (well, it was running the Ubuntu Live CD fine). 

After much googling I found that Vista required me to insert the Vista DVD and perform a system repair which would put everything back to a nice workable state.

This would be easy if it were not for the fact that my friend has a Sony Vaio. I like Sony, I think they make excellent consumer electronics but the fact that they don't include system disks when you buy a computer is awful.  What you get is a 'Recovery Partition' that not only steals 9GB from your hard drive but can only be booted from Vista (What the fuck!?!). 

So to fix my friends computer (well, I say fix, I mean return it to it's previous state.  To fix it I would have to continue with the Ubuntu installation) I had to illegally download a copy of Vista just to use the system repair utility.

I am now too scared to continue with the Ubuntu installation for fear of destroying everything on the Windows side. I am sure that this is a devilish ploy by Microsoft to stop people exploring the wonder that is Open Source computing and frankly, it will work. 

I know I use a Mac, which is probably the most locked down system you can buy, but at least I made a conscious decision to buy one. Most people don't know about anything outside of Windows and Microsoft is making it impossible for people to enlighten themselves. I'm not saying Windows doesn't have it's uses (such as gaming) but a basic Linux installation would be sufficient for 80% of computer users. We just need to move away from the Windows-centric model where everything on the internet is explained as though you are using Internet Explorer.

Anyway, this is probably a subject for a whole other post... 

Xubuntu

I've been meaning to post about this for a while now. As was mentioned in the previous post, my girlfriend's 7 year old Apple TiBook died... well, I think it may just be the power adapter as it was making some iffy, sparky sounds in the proceeding weeks. This forced me to dig out our old 12 inch Samsung ultra portable (PIII 700Mhz, 192MB RAM, 20GB HDD). It was running Windows ME (eugh!) so I decided it was time to try out the streamlined, Ubuntu  derived Linux distribution Xubuntu. 

I am really impressed with it so far.  Obviously my RAM is really hindering performance (the website recommends 192MB RAM but that's probably in the same way that Apple recommends 512MBs for Leopard) but overall, it's definitely usable.

Our living room PC was running Ubuntu 7.10 briefly before it kept confusing guests (and myself a few times I have to admit) and I do really think that this is the version that has 'made it'. The one problem I had when I first tried to use Ubuntu back in the days of 6.06 was my wireless card.  My card used a Broadcom chip and back then it was a real Linux no no. 

Now with 7.10, this is no longer an issue. 

It just pops up with a helpful message informing you that Ubuntu needs to use a 'non free' driver to properly operate your wireless card and once it is clicked... bam... internet without restraints!

I doubt I'll ever ditch Apple for Linux completely but I am seriously considering purchasing a cheap Core 2 Duo Wintel laptop and using Ubuntu rather than forking out £700 on a Macbook.