Commentary: Vista Rage

I have finally begun the liberating experience of converting from Microsoft Windows-based installations to Linux. My final straw was constantly watching my CPU peg on an IBM X61s core duo 1.8GHz laptop with 4GB of physical memory. I can honestly say my user experience is worse on this machine than the 1983 IBM PC I first used (and that is not because of the hardware). Yes, the graphics are wonderful and what would I do without my Football Manager 2009 program? However, most of the time I just need to answer email and type documents. I just can’t take 10 minute startup/shutdown times (I’m not kidding) and complete lack of responsiveness of such a high end system – not to mention the random complete hanging of my system which requires a shutdown. But practically speaking, I really just want a system that keeps up with my typing!!!

OK, so yes, I’ve debugged why my system is slow. With all my training in computer science I still really just don’t care. Computers should be like electricity. You should turn them on and they should work. Do you really expect to stand in the dark for 10 minutes while the light bulb gets bright? If you’re really interested, it turns out that with the new release of Windows Media Player Microsoft hides a plug and play and DCOM Launch service into the same SVCHOST process. If you kill this process Vista  requires you to shut down. Oh boy there goes another 20 minutes which can be shortened to 10 mintues with a single finger salute. And don’t even get me started with why everything is now hidden in an svchost process. Do I really need to go get svchost viewer, find the culprit and then Google for a sol’n? Wait until you see how to fix this one [SPOILER ALERT - control panel->sound, select speaker icon, then properties, then advanced tab, uncheck advanced features, reboot (oh joy) and you're good to go.] How about non-techies? What are they to do?

So, all that is bad enough but really seriously, how can a process which is checking for changes to computer hardware eat up so much processing? Why would Microsoft allow such a rogue program to have such high priority access. I really wish this were the only example but there are more (can you hear me HP printer driver writer – you’re next). Who needs to write viruses for Vista when Microsoft does just fine on its own.

I’ve been a long time Windows user but no more. Of my 7 PC’s half of them are now converted to Ubuntu Linux and all but one are dual boot. One is for my 15 year old daughter and I have not received a single complaint from her in the 6 months she’s been using it. Openoffice, pidgin, amarok, and a browser for Facebook fulfill her life. As soon as Pristontale runs under wine my sole remaining Microsoft user – my 17 year old son – can also convert. At work my desktop computer has not crashed once and Evolution has saved my life for Exchange access – I don’t even need a VPN connection! I wish someone at Microsoft would explain to me why Outlook can’t do that.

And the most amazing part of all this – it is free. Yes, that’s right – free. Not only does it work better but its free, free, free.