Windows fan

II can’t believe I’m typing this (I have not used windows since Ubuntu 05) but I bought a cheap laptop which had Windows 7 installed, with the intention of installing Linux. As an experiment I downloaded the 10 upgrade and to my amazement have found it rather good (even taking into consideration the pain in finding and downloading new software and inevitable slowing down of the system).

Battery life is exceptional and it is a good looking OS and very well integrated. As Microsoft has no doubt spent £millions on it (and Linux distros are often maintained by a person working from home – I think) it is not a fair comparison. I was so unnerved by this that I have taken out a LinuxFormat subscription and hope that I find a Linux distro to compare ( I have hopes of Solus, for example). KevinGarner,Shropshire Neil says: Shocking! you’re right, it certainly looks like Microsoft learnt its lesson with Windows 8 and booted Balmer out of the company, which is now far more focused and delivering products and services consumers and businesses want, which includes integrating functionality with Linux on the cloud side. Frankly though nothing has changed for Linux on the desktop, until box shifters pre-install Linux, there won’t be any major swing to using it by consumers. The one big exception here is with Chromebooks, but many Linux users wouldn’t consider this a traditional GNU/ Linux distro for good reasons.

Personally, even in just the two years I’ve been on LinuxFormat, I think we’ve seen huge shifts for many desktop Linux distros in stability, ease of use and performance. So when people now get to use a Linux distro they’re more likely to stick with it.