MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Seriousness Should I switch to Ubuntu, or stay with Windows XP?

Greg Anos · 05-09-2009, 08:53 AM

I guess I'm so old school, I'm pre-school. I first started playing with these beasties on a Conmmodore Pet in Dec. 1977. The current level of Microsoft software had reached the "good enough" stage with Windows 2000. But you aren't allowed to get off the upgrade treadmill.

I'd still be with Win 2000, except for some typical whacked-out, Microsoft money-grabbing reason, you can't format your boot pack greater that 137GB. Any other pack in the system is 2TB (the NTFS limit). And, oh yes, virus protection is starting to be dropped by vendors for 2000.

I run all my disk packs in removable cartridges, so I can swap an OS quicker that I can boot. I have packs for ME, 2000, XP Home and XP Pro. I also run Virtual PC 2004 emulator on 2000 and XP Pro, so I can run Win 3.1 and ME on those OSes. But it won't run on XP Home, so Microsoft could sell an upgrade...

I recently started adding up the cost, out of my pocket, to stay on the upgrade treadmill. $50 a year for Anti-virus upgrade, $150 every three years or so for a new OS (another $50 a year average), typically $99 dollars for a major package upgrade every 3 years (times how many major packages you have - say 3 = $300 or a $100 a year), plus the cost of new hardware, because the old hardware can't handle the new software. 2 Gig RAM? 10 years ago, you couldn't get a 2 gig hard drive! So add it up. $200 a year plus hardware.

That's why I'm looking at Ubuntu Linux. To stay on the Microsoft (and Apple is just as bad) upgrade treadmill costs me about a netbook computer a year, and I no longer feel I getting any value for my money. Word 97 works just as well for my uses, (I don't do massively complex documents) as Office 2007's Word, so why pay for the upgrade? And no more of this call-home-activation nonsense. I keep a sterile pack (no internet connection) for most of my packs, Why do I have to break sterility just to make my software work? AARGH!

Sorry to sound crabby, and I can see that for bleeding edge applications the latest and greatest software is necessary, but that's no longer me. So I'm going to try to install Ubuntu in a few days, and see if I can make it work. I need to get off this golden treadmill....

05-09-2009, 08:53 AM	#92
Greg Anos Grand Sorcerer Posts: 11,531 Karma: 37057604 Join Date: Jan 2008 Device: Pocketbook	I guess I'm so old school, I'm pre-school. I first started playing with these beasties on a Conmmodore Pet in Dec. 1977. The current level of Microsoft software had reached the "good enough" stage with Windows 2000. But you aren't allowed to get off the upgrade treadmill. I'd still be with Win 2000, except for some typical whacked-out, Microsoft money-grabbing reason, you can't format your boot pack greater that 137GB. Any other pack in the system is 2TB (the NTFS limit). And, oh yes, virus protection is starting to be dropped by vendors for 2000. I run all my disk packs in removable cartridges, so I can swap an OS quicker that I can boot. I have packs for ME, 2000, XP Home and XP Pro. I also run Virtual PC 2004 emulator on 2000 and XP Pro, so I can run Win 3.1 and ME on those OSes. But it won't run on XP Home, so Microsoft could sell an upgrade... I recently started adding up the cost, out of my pocket, to stay on the upgrade treadmill. $50 a year for Anti-virus upgrade, $150 every three years or so for a new OS (another $50 a year average), typically $99 dollars for a major package upgrade every 3 years (times how many major packages you have - say 3 = $300 or a $100 a year), plus the cost of new hardware, because the old hardware can't handle the new software. 2 Gig RAM? 10 years ago, you couldn't get a 2 gig hard drive! So add it up. $200 a year plus hardware. That's why I'm looking at Ubuntu Linux. To stay on the Microsoft (and Apple is just as bad) upgrade treadmill costs me about a netbook computer a year, and I no longer feel I getting any value for my money. Word 97 works just as well for my uses, (I don't do massively complex documents) as Office 2007's Word, so why pay for the upgrade? And no more of this call-home-activation nonsense. I keep a sterile pack (no internet connection) for most of my packs, Why do I have to break sterility just to make my software work? AARGH! Sorry to sound crabby, and I can see that for bleeding edge applications the latest and greatest software is necessary, but that's no longer me. So I'm going to try to install Ubuntu in a few days, and see if I can make it work. I need to get off this golden treadmill....