On the clouds » windows7 http://blog.bergvin.com Life, Universe and Everything (and thanks for all the fish) Fri, 08 Apr 2011 05:53:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 A fresh start and a new look http://blog.bergvin.com/2010/02/24/a-fresh-start-and-a-new-look/ http://blog.bergvin.com/2010/02/24/a-fresh-start-and-a-new-look/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 21:05:53 +0000 Henrik Bergvin http://blog.bergvin.com/?p=29 Last week I made the decision to kick my old evaluation copy of Windows 7 out the door. Since it was going to begin with shutting down every two hours after the 1st of march, I felt that keeping it would be a hassle. At the moment, my budget won't allow me to purchase the license so therefore I left the Windows world behind for a while.

I've wanted to have a Linux desktop for quite some time, and I have been running a Kubuntu installation on my laptop since I got it - but due to sub-par hardware in the laptop it has not been performing very well. Glass effects and see-through windows just won't work on older CPUs and built in graphics!

When deciding on a distribution to use, that really wasn't a big choice for me. I like KDE from before, and the Ubuntu repositories are usually stable and with plenty of neat packages without having to hunt all over the place for them. So I hopped over to kubuntu.org to grab myself the install CD. A short download and one CD burned later, I rebooted my computer.

Installation went smoothly, though I did note that the partition tool in the installer was acting up a bit and being slow. Could be my hard drives, but once it got past that it didn't cause any problems at all. About half hour after rebooting my computer to start the installation, I had logged in to my brand new desktop and had it set up with dual monitor support.

The new KDE look is really slim, and the glass effects are sweet, and it's just a breeze working with it. Just little things like moving windows around with alt+click and drag, or ctrl+f10 to show all windows side by side - these things make it difficult returning to any Windows version.

I ran into some problems with my soundcard(s) and I still have problems with Skype not working for me. It detects my hardware, and plays back sound to my Logitech headset, but whenever I try to speak it either makes my voice into a chipmunk, or there is no sound at all. Ah well, problems are there to be solved. I'll find a way.

All in all, my experience with Kubuntu has been good so far. Some hiccups, but mostly a smooth road. I've nowhere as many problems as I used to have on my Windows install. That said, I will be missing some points of entertainment, but I intend on buying a Win7 license to have as dual boot in the future. I will include an SSD drive that I've been looking at too, so I should get relatively painless and smooth operation of my computer after that.

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