Sunday Quickie!

I won't be able to do this right away, because I've gotta work tonight.  I'm off Monday and Tuesday night, so I'll be spending some time reorganizing the living quarters and cleaning up.  Part of that routine will involve removing Microsoft Windows from all of my computers.  They will all have Ubuntu on them from here on out.  For official business I'll be sticking with the LTS releases, especially since 12.04 will have support for five years.

The reason why I'm doing it is simple.  Microsoft has been making some horrible decisions as of late.  If it's not UEFI, it's their vision of what an interface should be (and no, calling it a user experience is antithetical to what an actual user experiences when using Metro UI).  At least with Ubuntu I can choose a different interface if Unity annoys me too much.  Truth be told, I don't mind it, but I'm glad I have other options because Canonical has the good sense to allow spinoffs.  I don't do a lot of gaming, but with Steam being ported to the Linux platform, it could be available in Ubuntu before we know it.  While I won't be able to use the dedicated graphics with dedicated memory on my notebook, I'm sure the Catalyst drivers will catch up to the point where I can just switch.  Besides, the dv7 has enough power on its own to where it doesn't really matter anyway.

All of this preparation will assist me in a transitional point of my life as well.  I've got an important decision to make, and if everything's nice and cleaned up, it'll make everything so much smoother.

Shattering Windows.

On two out of three of my computer systems, I have Windows 7 Pro 64-Bit installed.  Lately, the OS has been having trouble completing startup on the notebook.  This got me thinking about what I should do about the situation.  I'm considering having Ubuntu on all the systems while leaving the spare partitions for other distributions.

Why Virtualization is Not an Option

I initially was going to use Ubuntu for the website while testing other distros in VirtualBox.  However, Slackware gave me problems when starting KDE.  This told me that I should be going bare metal, but I kept asking myself how.  By removing Windows from all machines, I would be able to better test multiple operating systems while still having Ubuntu as the main system.

Backup Solutions

I'm seriously considering a subscription to Ubuntu One, especially with their streaming service.  The price for one year isn't bad at all.  Plus, I would be supporting Canonical.  Before doing that, I better go with phone service that has a better high speed data plan.

I would also be utilizing Dropbox as well.  When more funding comes in, I'll even invest in an external hard drive.

Conclusion

Sometime after Memorial Day, I'll be working on this project.  Some rearranging of the computer lab would also be in order.