The Return of the Penguin

I apologize for my absence of almost 3 months. The truth is that very little has been happening IT-wise that I felt worth discussing. But today is different...

According to several rumors (some of them from very reliable sources, but please don't quote me on any of this since I'm not to be held responsible for any false information, I'm just telling it as I hear it), Microsoft isn't doing as well as expected. Some of these rumors state that there is a lack of confidence in Microsoft's current CEO, Steve Ballmer, even from within Microsoft's own staff. Even worse, some rumors say that Windows 7 isn't selling as well as Microsoft estimated, and even that they went so far as to lie about these sales figures to the public. Not exactly painting a pretty picture, is it?

But a cold hard fact is that Windows XP will officially be showing its age this year (it is, after all, 10 years old). You see, several new technologies will be emerging this year, including USB 3.0 and the ability to access hard drives over 3TB in capacity. These are major advances. And none of these technologies will be supported in Windows XP. Despite this fact, web statistics show that at November 2010, a whopping 47% of computer users were still running XP (compared to the second highest number, 28.5% of people running Windows 7).

People have two options - Either they have to upgrade to Windows 7, or they have to migrate to another OS. I personally support both options.

Firstly, let me make plain once again that I am a big fan of Windows 7. If you look at some of my previous posts you will see that I am quite impressed with many of the changes that Microsoft made to their software and business approaches in the last year and a half. And I stick by that - really, I'm all for buying a Windows 7 license.

But I also have to admit that the other option is starting to look better and better each day. When it comes to migrating to another OS, I wholeheartedly recommend going for Ubuntu.

I won't be going into detail now, since I already did a review of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS in a previous post. However, let me just mention that I'm running the above-mentioned version of Ubuntu alongside my Windows 7 installation, and I find myself booting into Ubuntu more and more often, and less and less into Windows. I'm basically only using Windows for gaming right now.

The reason why I recommend Ubuntu over other distributions of Linux? Thank you for asking. Well, there are various reasons, among others:

1. Ubuntu is probably the most popular Linux distribution.
2. Ubuntu is very user-friendly.
3. The learning curve for someone migrating from Windows isn't that complicated.
4. It's a very stable, fast, and well-supported operating system.

However, another Linux distribution has recently come to my attention. It's called Zorin OS.

Zorin OS is based on Ubuntu, so it has the same support and stability levels. But it is optimized for people migrating from other operating systems. It claims to have better Windows compatibility, even claiming to play many Windows games faster and better than Windows itself. And it includes a way to change its user interface so that it can look and function exactly like Windows XP, Windows 7, MacOS, and others. Sounds impressive indeed...

I will be looking into Zorin OS in the next few weeks, and I will post my findings as soon as I have them. I am also planning to explain the process of migrating from Windows to Linux in more detail soon, so for those of you who are interested, check back soon. But for those of you who are sticking with Windows, don't worry, I'm not planning on abandoning the system completely. This blog is, after all, not dedicated to Linux but to IT in general.

So until next time, be blessed.

Lourens, out.