People say linux is an awesome OS. For many years I put off trying it. Then some people suggested "If you want an easy to use version, use Ubuntu!"

The laptop used: Acer Aspire 3000. The battery is pretty much non-existent. It was getting slow using XP thus my attempt at linux, everyone always says linux/ubuntu/whatever can make any pc fast and run like new.

So here is my basic Linux journey:

1. I got the latest Ubuntu at the time: 7.10 (2007). After downloading and burning it onto a cd, the installation UI looked quite nice. The installation went smoothly. Then it asked to reboot, which was okay. Upon rebooting, that's when the first issues happened. The screen was all noisy. Like, unreadable. It had structure and color, but completely unusable (See: noisy.jpg). People suggested using the Alternative install CD. Tried, same issue.

2. I didn't limit myself to Ubuntu, I tried 3 different ones: Ubuntu, DSL and some other one with a weird name I cannot remember. They all had the same visual issue.

   So I re-installed Windows XP. Works great!

   So much for "linux works on anything! You can install it on a toaster!" :P Yes, you probably could with a lot of tweaks and changes. But you could probably do the same with Windows.

3. Fast forward a few years and I feel like trying again. This time, Ubuntu 10.10 (2010). Huzzah! It worked! I can see the desktop. Although, it now has a new "Unity" desktop thing. Which is IMO really ugly, unintuitive and very annoying. It is also really slow on my laptop. Not a good first impression.

   The next step is to run a browser, which it included FireFox. Uh oh... it's not connecting to the internet! Atleast, the wifi doesn't, which is the most important type of internet for my laptop use.

   Luckily I have a desktop connected to the internet! If I didn't have a desktop, my laptop would pretty much be useless and I'd need to go buy a new Windows pc/laptop.

   Turns out, the issue is fairly common. However, the only fix I could find was in a forum attachment from 6+ years ago. If that post and file attachment didn't still exist I might have been screwed. But if the issue was so common, why has it not been implemented officially in the last 6+ years it has been known? It was just 1 file.

4. So now I have internet and a slow OS with an ugly UI on my laptop! Great. It works. I'm able to watch Youtube and other video sites. Yay. Although, Unity is quite ugly I hate it. No titlebars on windows (you need to focus a window to see it), 1px wide margins to resize a window (horrible for a touchpad), Scrollbars that disappear and have like a 1px margin to make it show. So many horrible things.

5. UH OH! My mouse broke! My mousepad is not working anymore! Help! I never really used the Terminal before but I knew what it was. I somehow opened it up. Now how to restart the computer? what command do I enter? restart? reload? reboot? quit? exit? I tried HELP but didn't really get any info. Turns out REBOOT was the word needed. However, it yelled at me for not having permissions, it said I needed to login (or whatever). I have no idea how to do that and there were no instructions telling me how. So I just held my power button for 5+ seconds and hope that would shut it down, it did.

   Next day I googled how to reboot via Terminal. Apparently I needed "sudo" before it. Which is not obvious at all for a 'new' user.

6. So I decided to try and get an alternative desktop environment. It went smooth, fairly painless thanks to clear instructions on the site. Still not perfect (like Windows :P), but a little faster.

7. Finally got sick struggling with Ubuntu and my mouse dying and everything being poorly designed (IMO), so I tried to get Windows XP back. Apparently I can't though. Ubuntu is being a clingy little <censored>. It won't let the XP bootloader overwrite it.

   I've tried many programs like DBAN and some Partition manager stuff and some extra stuff on the XP install CD, but nothing works. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, I don't know. I've asked for help and followed step-by-step instructions from friends who are IT people.

8. So here I am, 2014. Ubuntu 14.04 / Windows 7. Horrible experiences with Ubuntu on my laptop and why I love Windows. "It just works".

   • I've had more BSOD's (black screens of death) on Ubuntu than Windows. Due to poor hardware support.
   • Window borders/titles/scrollbars on Windows are all nice sized and visible out-of-the-box.
   • Windows is quite customizable too, get shell replacements like bb4win, bblean, bbclean, and many others.
   • Windows has a much better file extension system, such as the use of .exe for executables. Ubuntu often has many files with no extension. You need to know which one to run.
   • People hate Windows due to the need to "install programs". But many programs don't need to be installed. And installing a program is basically the same as building and compiling on linux, minus the need to alter config files and choose paths relative to your machine. An installer lets you choose those paths.
   • Many other things. I'll stop here.

Note: this is my opinion. I'm sure some people have flawless experiences. wifi/internet work out-of the box. No visual issues. No speed issues. They enjoy buying a 564 page manual and learning how to use their OS when they have a problem or want to 'install' a program the linux way.