Swapped to Ubuntu

Over the past few weeks, I have noticed that my Windows 7 laptop was performing worse and worse.  Today, after having it lock up well after 3 separate reboots, I had had enough.  I went and grabbed 2 USB keys, and the 2TB drive I have kicking around.

1. Made a USB boot of 11.04 Ubuntu
2. Made a USB boot of Windows 7 Premium
3. Backed everything up that I had ....

I have to admit, the Ubuntu install was the fastest, cleanest and easiest of all the ones I've tried.  I have been a die hard Fedora fan for years.  The last version I installed was Fedora V12.  I believe 15 is out now.  

Of course ... having said that, there are some things that remind me why I continually drift back to Windows as my primary operating system after a few weeks / months of gradual frustration:

• I have a touch pad on my laptop.  I hate it.  It's a Lenovo ... I have a nice track ball.  I LOVE IT.  Problem is, disabling the touch pad isn't as simple as right clicking somewhere and doing something.  You have to install another application that does this and that ... or you can edit the X11.conf ... yeah, not today.  Thanks.
• I am extremely cautious to only install "stuff" from the Ubuntu Software Center.  I have absolutely no issues downloading crap, compiling it and installing it ... however, I want to see how long I can last without fundamentally making changes to what's going on underneath this pretty facade.  Which brings me to my next gripe.  The software I want, doesn't exist.  For 10 years, it has been this continuous battle I've had deep down about passion versus productivity ... seems you can have both ...?
• Exchange 2010 connectivity.  I have my Samsung Galaxy S (Android) configured to connect to my Exchange server and get emails and calendar and all that.  In a full blown operating system (Ubuntu 11.04) I cannot.  I have tried Evolution.  I have tried Zimbra.  It's sad really.  Sad and pathetic that a little phone can out function and out feature my all mightly laptop and operating system.  Guess what?  This is a reminder to future generations why iPods / iPads and smart phones are taking over ... they work.  they just work. 

What about some good?

• Multi-screen display, and HDMI are working beautifully.
• Performance is what I had expected ... Fantastic.  I now have a Windows 7 VM running while I have my development environment running in another CentOS VM.  At the same time, my Ubuntu experience is not slowing down and is not chewing away memory ... 
• Hardware support.  If you have experience with Linux, and Red Hat....going back over the years, getting the right level of support for your hardware was horrible.  It's only just recently I've forgotten what the chip-set was on the network card for my old computer ... the reason why it was etched into my brain?  very poor support ... compiling kernel modules, trying fancy things that didn't work ... it was a nightmare.  EVERYTHING on my Lenovo laptop works.  Bluetooth, wireless, camera, touchpad :(, trackball, HDMI ... That's super..

That's all for now.  Back to grinding out some more code and "stuff"