How I gave Windows 8 a chance

As my Apple Mac recently gave up the ghost (a combination of some very heavy use on my part, and diminishing returns on hardware performance), have bought a new desktop. It's a very nice Acer, that I know I'm going to be happy with!!!

Interestingly enough, it came packaged with the latest version of windows - the much maligned Windows 8.

Now I'm a fair man. I'll give anyone a chance. I got annoyed with Windows XP due to virus and reliability issues, so I moved to Apple, and I was happy for a while. I then kicked out IOS Lion and replaced it with the Linux-based operating system called Ubuntu. Since XP, Microsoft has released Windows 7, which I currently use at work, and I'm quite happy with that. So I decided to give Windows 8 the benefit of the doubt.

So here are my observations:

The whole experience of running windows has been significantly simplified. To me, windows 8 is a reaction to Apple. They are trying to achieve the same level of gloss and slickness that the guys at Cupertino are so good at. And generally, they achieve it. But there is still quite a lag. It's smooth, but not fast.

The metro bar has clearly been designed for the new generation of tablet computers. But I'm afraid it's just not good enough for power users who want to be really slick between applications on a desktop. There are too many times where the UI just doesn't give you the opportunity to see how you can do something straight away. I became quickly frustrated with it, and within 45 minutes had decided to get the latest linux distro and wipe windows 8 altogether. 

I'm sure windows 8 is excellent for the up and coming generation of tablet computers, but I find it clumsy and resource hungry on a desktop computer. It made a brand new computer run slower than my 8 year old Apple Mac ever did. And that's just not good enough for an experienced user who wants a dense and powerful information experience.

So I'm back to Linux, which positively flies on this computer with plenty of power to spare. As the support for XP has been withdrawn, why not look into Linux as a replacement for XP? Get your requirements and head to the link below to see if you can find a distribution that is good for you. My suggestions are either Zorin, Ubuntu or Mint.

Find a list of all linux distributions here.