Wednesday, August 10, 2011

3 Reasons Why I Switched Back From Linux to Windows

I switched back to Windows. And I quietly wept. (http://theoatmeal.com/blog/fix_computer) You win again Microsoft. Linux, I'm sure I'll come back. I always do.




Here are the 3 reasons why I decided to switch back to Windows

  1. graphics card won’t work
    1. No HDMI
    2. No gaming
  2. terrible battery life
  3. glitchy and unreliable

I mentioned before that not using the discrete graphics card didn’t bother me. However, as soon as I got addicted to minecraft, I really missed having the graphics card. The lack of HDMI bugged me too. I tried to give my family a slideshow from a trip we went on, but it would not work, and as far as I know drivers do not exist for hdmi on my laptop.

Terrible battery life was probably the critical deal breaker. I need to use this laptop for school. I was looking forward to showing off my sweet setup in class while I took notes and stuff, but what good will this laptop do me if it gets less than half of the time I get in Windows. My CPU’s were downclocked all the way down, the power to the discrete card was off, and yet I still couldn’t get more than about 2-2.5 hours. (I get 5-6 in Windows)

Linux is unreliable. At least on my laptop. I have a second laptop that is older and cheaper, and Linux LOVES that laptop. Everything always works perfectly.
In fact, whenever I try to reinstall Windows, this happens!

But on my nice laptop, everything is glitchy. Stuff disappears from the dock when I boot up, stuff freezes up from time to time, programs will randomly force close, etc. Most of the time everything runs smoothly, but these crazy things happen enough to be irritating.

Check out the trippy green pinstripes from unplugging a second monitor!

On the other hand, I must say that Ubuntu is WAY more reliable than it used to be, but it still has plenty of room for improvement. I am excited with how far Ubuntu has come in just the last few years. I expect to see these problems fixed as Ubuntu improves and as my hardware becomes more obsolete :P

2 comments:

  1. I had the same exact problem with laptops of 2 of my best friends and i am very sorry for the inability of ati to just put up a decent driver for the 5470 model.
    My brother has the 6470 instead and the driver worked in just 3 clicks!! That made me even more angry!!!

    I hope at least the open radeon drivers developers will make a working one for 5470!!

    Bun

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    1. Linux graphics drivers are very frustrating. However, it looks like things are starting to improve at a quicker pace with valve porting their Steam to linux and putting pressure on companies to make good graphics drivers...

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